My teaching experience has begun! For the past 3 weeks I've been going to Quininde to teach English in the projects. It's been a learning experience for me, and although I'm getting the hang of it I'm sure it's not a career I'd want full time! Generally I leave Tuesday afternoon and we arrive in Quininde around 7pm and head back to Quito around 3pm on Friday. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons I teach. Usually I try to get 3 classes of 12 children in each day. Discipline has been challenging for me, because of the language barrier, but the children are starting to learn the basics in English now and understand words like sit, be quiet, stop, etc. my tone of voice is also a pretty good indication of what I'm trying to say :)
This is the house of Dr. Jeny and her husband Ruperto. They occupy the second floor. The left side of the ground floor is where the family of the caretaker lives, and the right side is an office for the plantation.
View into the palms on the plantation.
This past week was an adventure. We arrived and the lights were out. This means living by candlelight (quite fun actually) and showering with a bucket of water (not so fun) thankfully the lights came back on about an hour after we arrived. The next day we came home after supper and I walked into my room to see a bat using my bed. I'm not an critter person, so I was just a little disgusted to walk in and see this. There is also a lizard that lives loose in my room. I'm told he's friendly, and that it's good he is there because he eats mosquitos, so I've tried to ignore the fact that he lives there, but as I was dusting on Thursday, he jumped right at me from behind the dresser. Can I just say I'm thankful I sleep under a mosquito net? Haha.
The donkeys that are used to pull the carts that pick up the palm nuts.
This little guy got stuck trying to get out of the enclosure.
These pictures show a typical day in the projects. The kids start showing up around 12:30 or 1 pm, when they get out of school.
Some of the older children are chosen to help serve the food.
They first have a bowl of soup. This soup has a chunk of meat on the bone, carrots, cabbage, a slice of corn on the cob, and a chunk of either banana or yucca all in a beef broth.
When they finish the soup they receive a plate of rice, lentils and some salad.
This is my makeshift classroom :) 12 kids at a time is as many as I can handle right now, or they get too crazy. The one day I had one little girl climb up on the table and start dancing as the song was playing!
Here they are learning 'this little light of mine'
They wanted to learn a song for the work teams that are coming, and this one is one of their favorites!
The Cesar Proaño project at dusk. I love how all the children are outside playing in the streets or just hanging out. I think technology has taken that away from a lot of the children in first world countries.
Fridays is the day where older children can come to the project. They have a short Bible study and learn applications for life from what they've read.
Hopefully this has given you a little bit of an idea as to what Quininde and my time there is like. Every day is a little different, but it's always an adventure!
Prayer points:
~ for me that I would continue to having patience as I'm teaching and to learn to enjoy it more.
~ for the children that they would continue to attend school and apply themselves to their learning. There are so many who do not have proper schooling, and many cannot read.
~ for all the parents, teachers and children at the projects that they would continue to learn more about God and His Word.
