Thursday, April 21, 2011
photo explanations
Trash- well its trash but I felt it showed a different part of el salvador. Usually its centralized in dry creek beds or along the side of the road.
2. Cooking Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for my family!
3. Helping Javie with some Math during the saturday school. He's Frans son and he is studying to be a industry manager I think right now.
4. All my bichas with me at the lake! they actually use that word for chicks and guys bichas and bichos. These are pretty much all my students on the block that I teach.
5 Playing a bit of soccer after the Saturday group in Apulo
6. Javie and Ever with me and their new soccer ball at the lake
7-10 different photos with Fran (tallest) and Carmen (white shirt and jeans) and Margot (shotest)
11. playing soccer
12. Head shoulders knees and toes
14. Mirtala and Margot at the lake!
2. Cooking Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for my family!
3. Helping Javie with some Math during the saturday school. He's Frans son and he is studying to be a industry manager I think right now.
4. All my bichas with me at the lake! they actually use that word for chicks and guys bichas and bichos. These are pretty much all my students on the block that I teach.
5 Playing a bit of soccer after the Saturday group in Apulo
6. Javie and Ever with me and their new soccer ball at the lake
7-10 different photos with Fran (tallest) and Carmen (white shirt and jeans) and Margot (shotest)
11. playing soccer
12. Head shoulders knees and toes
14. Mirtala and Margot at the lake!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Photos!
My interesting different days:
Apulo turned out to have many different surprises including: my first dog bite, getting sick, plaza mundo adventures, Suchitoto trip, and getting my new visa.
One day I was supposed to go to the Pancino there in the morning I had gotten bit by a dog on the leg the night before so my family was really worried and we went on an adventure to the hospital that day which was really quite fun to see what the hospital was like. Like normal though it was the extremely long waiting process like all emergency rooms and we got sent around different places and they mostly said the same thing and asked the same questions. I learned new vocabulary though but I don't know if its spelled with a u or an o Mordar is how I think its spelled though.
The Hospital was very cool because it had kinda an outdoor feeling. I'm not sure that mix of air would be great for the patients but I liked the feeling of being inside the hospital with the forest right next to me. It was a very big emergency room that was crowded with people all the time. They had a good system though which seemed to work pretty fairly. The most interesting part is that its not like the US is now with computerization so it was interesting to see all the charting and writing that went on and how long that extended the process. During the whole time that I was there I did a lot of talking, listening to my ipod, and oh yeah they cleaned my cut with water and nothing else. I wasn't surprised they didn't need to do anything but I was a bit agitated when they asked me the same question for the 4th time. All was not lost that day though because as we were leaving I met a doctor who asked me how my visit was and we got to talking some and I said I was going to university to study biology and then later go onto studying medicine and we exchanged contact info and hopefully I can go back and volunteer there for a few days so we'll see how that works out. I also just found out recently that Manelio has a pediatrician friend so I might go visit his work for a day or so when I have the time.
Getting sick was basically just a quick two day thing but it was no fun. I still ended up teaching and doing fine I wasn't forced to stay in my bed but still... no fun. Oh and they gave me a mountain of medicines which once I googled what they were for and since I had already been taking an antibiotic I didn't use most of them so we have some extra medicine for the trip haha.
The first time I went to plaza mundo I was impressed but it was also extremely hilarious because I was thinking what were the construction workers thinking when they put up the words in English. One of the interesting things about plaza mundo is they have about half of the stores with English words in their signs like Mister Doughnut and then instead of putting “Pastel!” they put “Cakes” pretty much the same amount of letters but I guess they wanted to confuse El Salvador by putting English letters on all of the stores. I tried to not laugh but it was just too funny to see all of the stores I knew here in a spanish speaking country. Its like the least they could do is translate a few words so people can understand and the words can be useful to the public. My other favorite part about Plaza Mundo is the food court. First of all its beautiful and amazing with a waterfall that wasn't working but they are close to putting it in I think. Also they had subway and many other different kinds of foods which I tried China Wok, and Subway my two times eating there. I love it because everyone pronounces the shops with Spanish pronunciation. I guess that's kinda obvious but I never thought that other people in the world know the same restaurants but think of them in a different way. It was quite baffling as well because most of the shops have a reason why they are named that but they don't understand why one shop like KFC has that name KFC or why Subway is named Subway. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to say that salvadorans are stupid because they are anything but. It was just hard to understand the thinking behind putting stores in English in a Spanish speaking country (the least they could do is put a translation underneath for a few words)
Apulo was fun because in all my adventures I usually had my “caravan” tagging along with me. At least I always had one person with me which was actually nice for company but sometimes I felt bad that I was forcing them to come along but actually they were really happy to come along and wanted to so instead we just joked about having my caravan with me all the time. My caravan consisted of three tortugas (Fran, Margot and Mirtala) and their kids or sometimes grand kids. The biggest Caravan I had was on my trip to Suchitoto... We had a total of 9 people including me. We had a good time though resting on the bus playing in the plaza in Suchi and having lunch an breakfast in the market. I got everything I needed there like money, stuff for my new visa and saying hi to a few of my good friends. After we got back to the Apulo area we went to Plaza Mundo for ICE CREAM which I treated my caravan too and it was a great experience. My community in Apulo LOVES to take pictures haha so I'll post some of those pictures today as well. On our way back to Apulo from Plaza mundo I even helped out some as a Cobrador ( the guy who yells where the bus is going when it pulls up to the stops and shakes his hand to see if people want to come on the bus. Overall a great time was had by all.
Apulo Trying to Summarize?
Well my days in Apulo always seemed to end up extremely busy and it may have been a factor too that I didn't really want to write much when it was uber hot too. My days tended to focus more on the close school and the after school classes I was having. I didn't go to the Pancino much just because it was far and out of the way and the days I said I would go there tended to get dramatically changed. I was either I went into San Salvador or more of the city or I had stayed up really late and just needed an extra two hours of sleep.
The afternoons usually consisted of me going to the school close by and helping teach. It was interesting because I actually received a surprising amount of resistance there by the teachers about volunteering there. The teachers were nice to my face but I could tell they were a bit aggrivated at my style of teaching and learning because I wouldn't take any of the copying that went on. I tried to change some of it but its hard to change something when they've been copying papers instead of doing their own work for most of their school years. There were times where I was really disappointed with my students and times that I was really disappointed and somewhat depressed about the school system but I believe that I started to make an impact on the teachers and the students while I was there. There were those few that really wanted to get better and practice and I could see that they were starting to understand the concepts. One of the hardest things to teach was studying habits, and ways of learning with such limited materials. They were so used to copying because they only had a few books for a subject so they all copied materials out of that book for homework and such.
I had an eye opening experience that I thought was very interesting in the sense of understanding a different culture. I know it seems simple to say but its hard to realized until it hits you in the face everyday but many people just couldn't learn the ways I did. They just had the hardest time understanding the concept that English is a different language with different words and a different way of communicating. When a phrase didn't translate word for word I could just see their brains being confused. The other thing was how much they thought in Spanish. I know it seems obvious to think that they speak in spanish but I would ask questions during English class like whats this and I would point to a color and they would pause and then say the color in Spanish when they knew the color in English. Especially the lower grades were hard because I could see a few kids got the concept but the majority just couldn't grasp a new language concept.
The other interesting and disappointing experience I had was how many students had a negative attitude toward school and learning. When I talked with individual students after school or while everyone was working they would go to the “no puedo ingles” reponse in like 5 seconds if they didn't get it. Or even if they knew how to say it they wouldn't want to try because they had pena or just because they had been saying to themselves that they can't speak english they actually couldn't. Its like if you say to yourself something over and over again it will eventually be true because every time you try your brain just goes to the automatic response of I can't.
It was in Apulo that I realized I don't want to be a teacher for middle school students. Especially with just being a volunteer, it was rather difficult keeping the class at bay. I was good with disipline but the hard part was that I had to earn my respect from the beginning which I think I started to accomplish but a few realized that I really couldn't give grades and a few really didn't care about school so I had to babysit those kids while at the same time trying to teach and help the kids that wanted to learn.
Its also quite interesting and quite odd but the kids make a different sound for when they are making fun of someone and they don't stop. Its really frustrating when I'm teaching because everyone is distracted by that and then the one kid who was doing something wrong gets all the attention and usually feels embarrassed. They make this whistling sound and high pitched laughing which honestly sounds like a pack of hyenas. I'm not sure how to explain it but its like when someone makes a mistake everyone starts making that noise and it makes you feel even worse. I'm rather frustrated that the noise exists here and the problem is that everyone joins in even when its their friends who did it. Its kinda like an immature way of joking with your friends.
Songs seemed to work the best for learning vocabulary like Head Shoulders Knees and Toes. They absolutely loved it and I'll post the video when I get a chance. I also did Tony Chestnut with a few of my more advanced classes. Songs made it fun and educational but unfortunately I didn't have lots of songs I could use for grammer. What I realized with grammer is that the real problem with learning another language was that their grammer in Spanish wasn't very strong in the first place. It turned out that I ended up helping individual students with English, Spanish, and Math while I was there. I taught the 9's and 10s multiplication trick to them for math (thanks mom!).
So yes I guess the ultimate lesson I learned in school was how important it is to know the basic stuff before you can move onto the hard stuff. In all the subjects many of the students had just thrown in the towel because they didn't put enough attention into the basics before hand or they hadn't had that little push from their parents about what they learned in school. This is actually where I got my idea to start up parenting classes for students and adults. I haven't actually put it into action or know how I will one day but I feel that parenting classes would be one of the best ways to change the poverty and to have their kids have success. I know that usually the parents are working all the time but I think they would take the time to have a class. The motivation is definitely there because everyone wants their baby to be the best and be better than they were and with young mothers here sometimes if they had the class available I think they would want to take it.
Monday, April 18, 2011
One of my long overdue posts
Yesterday I had two amazing adventures (I'll leave you hanging for a little bit and then tell you) So anyways, just so you guys feel more connected to Salvadorans both groups of guys like to make inappropriate jokes every now and then. Sorry girls I don't know if its true for you but I'm gonna guess that you are pretty similar to them too. The one thing I also have yet to mention about El Salvador is the television. I've actually been following the NCAA basketball tournament here so its been fun to listen to the sports announcers pronounce the names with a Spanish accent. They have ESPN too here and I've heard they have their office in Argentina. Its totally different than ESPN in the US because they usually only show soccer and big events like the basketball tournament haha. The other thing thats totally different is for commercials and tv shows they have so much less restrictions for what they can show. For example, when I was in Morezan a tv show that was on at about 3 in the afternoon was about finding three guys a girl they liked from all the different horoscopes. During this show where they asked some questions one of the challenges was to dance around a chair and then sit down and pour water on themselves. I'm not going to go into more detail and I think for Dominguez I might have already crossed the line so sorry Oscar but I didn't cus!
So my first adventure yesterday was traveling to Soyapango for the afternoon to help with a service project... Digging Holes! I actually enjoyed it all though who knows why we decided to have our service project at 1 pm in the middle of a super hot day. I got a few blisters but they'll heal soon enough. I had fun using the iron poles they use to break up the dirt. We were digging holes for fence posts that they are going to put in. Part of the adventure was we got to ride in the back of a pick up there and back. I got to listen to music, joke with the other people in the pick up and yell buenas tardes to a few random people. It actually quite interesting here because somehow word has gotten around that I can sing and so a few people here ask me if its true that I can sing.
The second adventure was going down to the lake and having a fun day playing and swimming with all my friends and students and families. First we played mini soccer with teams switching in and out once we scored a goal and the girls organized a game of baseball. Both were fun and I went over to take a hit in between soccer games. I broke my toenail in the soccer game (not sure how). We then went to swim and I showed off my diving skills from this nice dock they have. My favorite is just a regualar dive but I also did a backflip and a front flip off the dock. I was also introduced to Mika ball at the lake as well. Its basically when you have the ball you have to peg someone and then you aren't it but its fun to play with a biggish group of people. I invented my own version of mika ball because it was getting boring where I make friends with the person who has the ball and get him to pass it to me and then I chase down the people close to me cause it already touched my hand. I also thought of playing it with two person teams so they could pass it and that seems more fun to me. Overall my beach and lake experiences were amazing we swam in a nice relatively clean lake (compared to Lakeport or Suchitoto) and I was met with great company.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Stop.... Its Hammock Time!
So I've been meaning to put up pictures of the hammocks for a very long time and I'm finally getting around to it. The sizes very but for now I think its just to see if anyone is interested in this type of hammock. Below I put the different colors they have that they can make them with. In the first pictures there are red and blue but they have used all of those up and still have a lot of the others. They still have all the basic colors just a slightly different shade. The point of this is to see what they look like and decide if you would like one and if you want specific colors. The Price range is anywhere from about 45 -100 for these types. Below is another cheaper form of hammock that has bigger holes that is an option as well. The price difference is basically how big you want your hammock to be. I can't say exact prices now because I don't know them. But the general idea is that its about 45 for a small 1 maybe two person hammock about 6 feet long. the bigger 3 person hammocks like this one in the picture below are around 100 I think but I'm not sure on that price exactly.
The point is if you are interested we can start to discuss exact prices and lengths when we know how many people on the trip want them. If you can please try to get back to me this week or the next because I'll be visiting Morezan and its much easier to ask questions when I'm visiting instead of on the phone.
I believe this type is around 25 dollars and only for one person but I'll check on it next week when I'm in Morezan again.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Apulo: Ideas needed
Okay well here goes my outreach to you guys about what I've heard and experienced. I need your help! The project I'm working with here in Apulo isn't actually related with the Palo Alto Projects but they still do amazing work. I'm looking for ideas and support (physical and or financial).
So the organization I work for is a group called ADEKOI. Their projects very broad but one of the things they do is host a Saturday class for there 80 students where they keep the teacher student ratio to 5-1 in order to have a space where the kids feel comfortable asking questions. The three families that I'm staying with here all volunteer for ADEKOI. The problems they are facing is that they would like to help more students but they don't have the space or the money to fund more students. Each student in the ADEKOI organization recieves school supplies twice a year. I know it seems like given thing to have school supplies like notebooks, pencils, pens, markers and a ruler but here that kind of extra money in some families really is a stress on the family. During the Saturday class they have started making different art projects with the kids to help recycle newspaper or old bottles (theres a lot of trash here that needs to be recycled or just plain cleaned up) They then have been selling the Art projects to make a little more money to buy all the notebooks and other supplies the kids need every year. For 80+ kids school supplies turns out to be quite a lot.
Anyways so what ADEKOI needs is any sort of help. I see this organization as just starting to take off and with a little help like ideas of art projects to make, donations of extra school supplies, donations of materials for art projects, and possibly grants (no ideas how that works down here but maybe) or other donations I think ADEKOI could really start to be much more productive and sustainable. It has the volunteers to make it work it just needs a little help to get onto its feet. I'm planning on making a donation when I return in June also but what I think ADEKOI is looking for is something that would sell really well that they could be taught how to make just like the phrase you can give a hungry man a fish or you teach him to how to fish and feed him for a lifetime. (or something like that). My point is any and all things will help and I think with a little help ADEKOI could really blossom. They have ideas just not enough income to do it with.
The other ADEKOI projects include building houses for people that were flood victims here in Apulo. Raising money for school supplies for their students and hosting the Saturday class every week to try to give these kids a fighting chance in school where class sizes are sometimes around 40 kids. If you have any ideas of how to teach studying skills that would be great cause they come to the class but a lot of them haven't been trained how to learn well and try they kinda just sit there and copy the board.
Secrest Out!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
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