Merengue Bailar!

Week 8

24th October- 29th October 2011

This week, working with the children in the school and compassion project has been the bigget highlight by far. It has also been a somewhat sweaty week as both Robin and myself have visited the gym (which is remarkable as I never attend the gym back home ...... even with a membership)! We have also attended a fiesta for Carlos´s son who has returned home from Spain and gone up to Quito for the monthly prayer meeting.

We are beginning to understand the complexity of the issues surrounding the children´s abilities and there attendence at school. As we have been observing the classes it is clear to see that one class in particular which has the largest number of students is struggling. This week has been exam week for the children and it has been fascinating to see the massive differentiation between some students. In this one particular class there is an incredibly bright intelligent 5 year old girl who sits there and finishes her exams within 15-20 minutes and gets all of the answers correct whereas other students in the class can not even read  or do addition or subtraction so can not answer any questions. Robin and I ended up teaching/ helping the ones who where struggling in their tests so that they could answer the questions. When I asked the teacher why there is such a wide range of abilties she informed me that some children's parents don´t think that education is important so won't send there children into school for weeks at a time leaving massive gaps in their education. No wonder there is such a difference of ability. It was also quite sad to see that those students who came from a poor background or whose parent's didn't support there education as much lacked the equipment necessary for school such as pens, pencils, exercise books etc. Sadly this meant that the students just had to sit in the class and do nothing which obviously caused massive distractions to the others who at the best of times are easily distractable. The children's backgrounds are mixed, some come from well adjusted homes whereas others come from homes with no parents, who live in the local barrio and are incredibly poor. This has meant that some students have alot of issues, attention seeking, anger, apathy and fighting. Although this hasn't stopped them from being very loving towards us. We have deffinitly made some new friends at the school. Robin in particualr has a new friend called David, a 3 year old boy, who spotted Robin leaning over the banister looking down at the play area/ courtyard and shrieked with delight pointing up at him and then came running up the stairs to greet him and get a hug!

We had a baptism of fire at the 'Compassion project' as we sat down and joined the kids to see what they would be doing on thursday afternoon only to discover that we were going to be giving an impromptu english lesson. We managed to wing it teaching them greetings and the alphabet mixed in with some fun and ever so slightly competitive games. The children at the compassion project are full of life, very loud and bubbly with lots of energy to boot. They are also some of the poorest children I have seen. There clothes are often incredibly dirty, wripped and falling apart. It is clear that without the compassion project to go along to, where the children get fed and have some space to do there work and to learn, they would just be hanging around the local barrio municipal with no supervision and possibly getting up to mischief.  Although the impromptu English lesson was scary it was also a great way to break the ice and get chatting to lots of different kids. We hope to build on our relationships with the kids in the next few months.

I know some of you may have been shocked to hear that I have actually attended a gym but I am sane and well and the expereience of attending a females only gym in Ecuador was well worth the small droplets of persperation. The female only gym which as soon as I walked through the door it was clear to see was not a females only gym had posters plastered all over the walls of disgusting overly muscular men doused in baby oil and wearing a tiny thong the women´s posters are not much better! Inspirational I think not! I attended the gym with Monica whose wedding is on the 10th December. We were going to the dance aerobics session which was merengue mixed with zumba. Easy thought I who had attended one english version of a zumba class ........ clearly not, after the instructor came over to me and told me that I danced like I needed the toilet! The instructor himself was somewhat of a character he gave no instructions but instead expected you to follow the leader and spent most of his time looking at himself in the mirror rubbing, thrusting and winking at his own reflection! If you would liek to picture the scene just imagine how the girls dance in the programme 'My big fat gypsy wedding' and you will have some idea.

On friday we headed up to Quito with Katy for the monthly meeting which was being held at Lizzi's apartment. It was great to see everyone and catch up on what had been going on.

The school and compassion project are on holiday this coming week so we are hoping to go to Puerto Lopez the poor man's galapagos for the week.

Please pray for stronger relationships with the children in  the school and compassion project and the staff members. Also for good communication with the english teacher so we know what to prepare for lessons and when they will be.

Other highlights this week:
- Somehow ordering chicken's stomach soup! Pretty gross with bits of intestine floating in the water.
- The wonderful 2 year old grandaughter of Carlos who enjoyed trying to ride the massive rockwheiler dog, pretending to cook seeds and showing me a furniture magazine and pointing out which things she liked. (She is very cute)
-Amy´s parents coming over to visit her and bringing some cadburys chocolate for us to eat!!!

The camera is still broken but I managed to get these pics of the very small 3 year old class LINK