I can't believe that two months have almost passed. This week we are finishing up training and getting ready to head to our sites. Thursday we will all travel to San Sal, Friday we will meet our community counterparts, and then be sworn in at the U.S. Embassy and then Saturday we travel to our sites. I am technically in the department of San Miguel, but am also really close to the department of La Union. I will be about 25 minutes away from the city of San Miguel, which is the second largest city in El Salvador. It's nice that I will be close to a larger city where I can get lots of crazy food so that I can cook whatever I want! I will be the first volunteer in my site, which is exciting, but also a little nerve-racking. I will be working with a school of 500 kids, which is larger than my high school! Though hopefully that means that there will be more resources available to me in terms of energy and ideas from students and teachers alike.
This entire experience has still not settled in for me, I think because for me it doesn't feel like anything has started. I'm not in my site yet, I don't have my house set up - I'm still floating around in training land. I think once I meet my counterparts and move in, this whole two years dealy-bob will begin to sink in. I am so grateful for my wonderful homestay family in my training community and I can't wait to visit them again for holidays and family occasions. I only hope that I can have as good, or even better relationship with my homestay family, neighbors and counterparts in my site.
I am a little bummed because all of my friends from my training community are assigned sites on the other side of the country. The good thing is that I will be able to travel and get to their sites within one day if I want. It's also a good excuse to go and see more of El Salvador. Being close to San Miguel also means that people can get to me pretty easily as well, so maybe I will have vistors! (Peace Corps and otherwise.)
Even though I'm two months in, I really feel that this journey is just beginning. I will try and update again sometime soon, but I don't know how my internet will be in my new site. Wish me luck! Thinking of you all.
August 31, 2009
August 18, 2009
first class
I have officially taught my first class in El Salvador to Salvadoran kids. It was an English class that I gave to 6th graders. Almost the entire lesson was in Spanish though, with a few English words thrown in, so I’m counting it as my first class in Spanish! I’ve already learned a few things about teaching.
1) I stink at time management. I planned for the lesson to be 45 minutes long, but I was done after about 30! Part of it was not my fault, as the children knew more of the verbs than I thought they would, so we flew through some of the sections. I should have had more back up activities, or just done the ones that they liked a lot a few more times. I’ll remember that for next time.
2) Kids love to get up and learn. For my English class I was allowed to pick my own topic, so I asked some of the kids in the class beforehand what they wanted to learn. They said action verbs. I decided to do TPR (total physical recall) that we always used in Señora Kule’s Spanish class at FVS. We would recite the words in Spanish and do some action that would remind us of the word. I figured for action verbs that was a no-brainer! I picked 15 verbs because there are 30 kids in the class. The verbs ranged from swim, run, and eat, to hug, cross and lift. We also played “Simon Says” with the action verbs as well as a find-your-verb-partner. I had written all 15 verbs in English and Spanish on separate sheets of paper so I could hand them out to each student and then have them all get up and find their partner. I should have played that game 700 times they loved it so much. I especially liked it because the kids were really great about helping each other out to figure out what verb they had on their piece of paper, and then who their partner was.
3) The kids were really forgiving and made my first class a breeze. I know a handful of the kids in the class either from my host family or from the group of kids that we’ve been working with in the community. They were very excited to help out and show me what they know. Also, gringo TV—stare at the gringo ‘cause they might do something incredibly interesting—is fairly popular here so getting and holding their attention is not too much of a challenge!
So all and all I think my class was a success. I guess I could randomly poll the kids to see if they remember any of the verbs to know for sure, but I was pleased with their performance in class. I clearly have things I need to work on (time management!) but I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get better. I plan on teaching another English class before we go to our own sites. One last chance to mess up in front of a forgiving audience!
1) I stink at time management. I planned for the lesson to be 45 minutes long, but I was done after about 30! Part of it was not my fault, as the children knew more of the verbs than I thought they would, so we flew through some of the sections. I should have had more back up activities, or just done the ones that they liked a lot a few more times. I’ll remember that for next time.
2) Kids love to get up and learn. For my English class I was allowed to pick my own topic, so I asked some of the kids in the class beforehand what they wanted to learn. They said action verbs. I decided to do TPR (total physical recall) that we always used in Señora Kule’s Spanish class at FVS. We would recite the words in Spanish and do some action that would remind us of the word. I figured for action verbs that was a no-brainer! I picked 15 verbs because there are 30 kids in the class. The verbs ranged from swim, run, and eat, to hug, cross and lift. We also played “Simon Says” with the action verbs as well as a find-your-verb-partner. I had written all 15 verbs in English and Spanish on separate sheets of paper so I could hand them out to each student and then have them all get up and find their partner. I should have played that game 700 times they loved it so much. I especially liked it because the kids were really great about helping each other out to figure out what verb they had on their piece of paper, and then who their partner was.
3) The kids were really forgiving and made my first class a breeze. I know a handful of the kids in the class either from my host family or from the group of kids that we’ve been working with in the community. They were very excited to help out and show me what they know. Also, gringo TV—stare at the gringo ‘cause they might do something incredibly interesting—is fairly popular here so getting and holding their attention is not too much of a challenge!
So all and all I think my class was a success. I guess I could randomly poll the kids to see if they remember any of the verbs to know for sure, but I was pleased with their performance in class. I clearly have things I need to work on (time management!) but I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get better. I plan on teaching another English class before we go to our own sites. One last chance to mess up in front of a forgiving audience!
August 7, 2009
happiness on a bus
Just about every single morning I’m up at 5 or 5:30. Some mornings it’s because of the cows (vacas), roosters (gallos), buses (buses), or venders (vendedores); other mornings it’s because I’m going to “hacer ejercicio” (to make exercise) with my fellow Molineros trainees. Sometimes that means running straight up a hill for 30-40 minutes, depending when we want to turn around, or doing yoga on my patio, surrounded by curious dogs, chickens, ducks and host relatives. We always invite them to join in, but no luck! “Maybe later”, they say.
If we don’t have class here in Molineros, we travel to San Vicente. The bus schedules don’t seem to be organized in any way that I have figured out yet, but luckily our host parents know exactly which bus is passing at what time to get us where we need to go. The public transportation system is privatized here like it is in Argentina and India. Anyone can create a bus route, you just need to register with the Department of Transportation. So this means that you get bus routes like 178A that go from Verapaz to San Vicente, (which is the only bus that we can take that takes us directly to and from where we need to go). The 500 goes from Guadalupe to San Vicente, but only in the mornings, in the afternoons it turns around before our stop. Waaaaay before our stop. We only made that mistake once! The 501 however goes from Guadalupe to San Salvador, completely in the opposite direction that we need to go. The 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 and 306 all travel between San Miguel and San Salvador and come by about every 10 minutes. Other buses come only twice a day. Etc. etc. etc. all around the country.
I love public transportation (as long as I get a seat!). There is something about sharing a ride with other people, seeing the country and experiencing it all together that literally puts a smile on my face when I travel. Coming back from immersion days, I had a big goofy grin. It’s a good thing I was up near the front, because I’m sure if anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was even crazier than they already think the gringa traveler is. The bus that I was on had the front door more towards the middle of the bus so there are seats right up next to the driver, essentially sitting in the passenger seat of the bus. That’s where I was sitting. So I got an almost 180 degree view of El Salvador coming back from immersion days (more about immersion days later). Most of the buses here are old school buses. Someone said that a bunch of them are donated by school systems in the States. I’m not sure, but it seems like it. You can sometimes see the old lettering on the side that says “Montgomery County Public Schools” of “Ridgewood Elementary School”. All the buses are painted fabulous colors on the outside, with lots of decorations on the inside. There is normally music on the buses, and it’s normally loud and cheesy 80s pop. I’ve gotten off the bus to Lady in Red more than once.
The volunteer that I was visiting this weekend, Emily, said that if you are an impulse buyer, you might have trouble in El Salvador because the venders come on to the bus to sell you things. Anything. Everything. I’ve witnessed the sale of chiclet, newspapers, pre-made sandwiches, meat on a stick, coconut water in bags, little notebooks, anatomy textbooks, English workbooks, salvation and chips. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but I might get some roasted peanuts or toasted coconut the next time one of those venders gets on the bus.
The immersion days experience was a four day, three night immersion in the site of a current volunteer. We did a home stay in their community, in the hopes that we would be completely immersed in Spanish and Salvadoran culture for at least 24 hours without any of our fellow gringos to fall back on. It kind of worked, except that the volunteer I was visiting lived right across the street from my host family. My family was waving goodnight and chatting across the street, but it still worked! After the home stay, I got to follow around Emily and do what she does on a daily basis. I helped her give an environmental charla (chat) which is probably what I will be doing a lot of. On Saturday I got to go with her environmental club to one of their reward excursions. We went to the Barra de Santiago, a 2.5 hour ride in the back of a truck to a beach/bay/mangrove forest area. It was beautiful and so nice to see how a volunteer is making progress with her kids. After touring the mangrove area in a boat, we took the kids to the beach. Emily had told the kids that they could tell their parents they would be extra safe on this trip because they were traveling with a lifeguard (me!). First of all, my certification expired two years ago, I was trained for swimming pools, not surf, and generally most of the people I was guarding had some modest amount of swimming lessons. It was just me, 25 salvadoran children and the Pacific ocean. The waves here are pretty serious, and there is a fairly mean undercurrent, not to mention that the tide was going out anyway. Luckily, there were some other volunteers that joined us on the beach that day, with their trainees that were shadowing them, so we just made a gringo wall and had the children play in the waves between us and the beach. It worked out well enough, but we all probably got knocked over a couple of times.
I’m so excited to finally be getting ideas about what I can do in my site. I’m having a blast seeing this country and learning more about the people and the language. I love spending time with the other trainees and my host family. I’m enjoying training for the most part but can’t wait to get to my site, wherever it may be. I’m thrilled to be here, and can’t wait to share it with whoever wants to come down and visit me!
If we don’t have class here in Molineros, we travel to San Vicente. The bus schedules don’t seem to be organized in any way that I have figured out yet, but luckily our host parents know exactly which bus is passing at what time to get us where we need to go. The public transportation system is privatized here like it is in Argentina and India. Anyone can create a bus route, you just need to register with the Department of Transportation. So this means that you get bus routes like 178A that go from Verapaz to San Vicente, (which is the only bus that we can take that takes us directly to and from where we need to go). The 500 goes from Guadalupe to San Vicente, but only in the mornings, in the afternoons it turns around before our stop. Waaaaay before our stop. We only made that mistake once! The 501 however goes from Guadalupe to San Salvador, completely in the opposite direction that we need to go. The 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 and 306 all travel between San Miguel and San Salvador and come by about every 10 minutes. Other buses come only twice a day. Etc. etc. etc. all around the country.
I love public transportation (as long as I get a seat!). There is something about sharing a ride with other people, seeing the country and experiencing it all together that literally puts a smile on my face when I travel. Coming back from immersion days, I had a big goofy grin. It’s a good thing I was up near the front, because I’m sure if anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was even crazier than they already think the gringa traveler is. The bus that I was on had the front door more towards the middle of the bus so there are seats right up next to the driver, essentially sitting in the passenger seat of the bus. That’s where I was sitting. So I got an almost 180 degree view of El Salvador coming back from immersion days (more about immersion days later). Most of the buses here are old school buses. Someone said that a bunch of them are donated by school systems in the States. I’m not sure, but it seems like it. You can sometimes see the old lettering on the side that says “Montgomery County Public Schools” of “Ridgewood Elementary School”. All the buses are painted fabulous colors on the outside, with lots of decorations on the inside. There is normally music on the buses, and it’s normally loud and cheesy 80s pop. I’ve gotten off the bus to Lady in Red more than once.
The volunteer that I was visiting this weekend, Emily, said that if you are an impulse buyer, you might have trouble in El Salvador because the venders come on to the bus to sell you things. Anything. Everything. I’ve witnessed the sale of chiclet, newspapers, pre-made sandwiches, meat on a stick, coconut water in bags, little notebooks, anatomy textbooks, English workbooks, salvation and chips. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but I might get some roasted peanuts or toasted coconut the next time one of those venders gets on the bus.
The immersion days experience was a four day, three night immersion in the site of a current volunteer. We did a home stay in their community, in the hopes that we would be completely immersed in Spanish and Salvadoran culture for at least 24 hours without any of our fellow gringos to fall back on. It kind of worked, except that the volunteer I was visiting lived right across the street from my host family. My family was waving goodnight and chatting across the street, but it still worked! After the home stay, I got to follow around Emily and do what she does on a daily basis. I helped her give an environmental charla (chat) which is probably what I will be doing a lot of. On Saturday I got to go with her environmental club to one of their reward excursions. We went to the Barra de Santiago, a 2.5 hour ride in the back of a truck to a beach/bay/mangrove forest area. It was beautiful and so nice to see how a volunteer is making progress with her kids. After touring the mangrove area in a boat, we took the kids to the beach. Emily had told the kids that they could tell their parents they would be extra safe on this trip because they were traveling with a lifeguard (me!). First of all, my certification expired two years ago, I was trained for swimming pools, not surf, and generally most of the people I was guarding had some modest amount of swimming lessons. It was just me, 25 salvadoran children and the Pacific ocean. The waves here are pretty serious, and there is a fairly mean undercurrent, not to mention that the tide was going out anyway. Luckily, there were some other volunteers that joined us on the beach that day, with their trainees that were shadowing them, so we just made a gringo wall and had the children play in the waves between us and the beach. It worked out well enough, but we all probably got knocked over a couple of times.
I’m so excited to finally be getting ideas about what I can do in my site. I’m having a blast seeing this country and learning more about the people and the language. I love spending time with the other trainees and my host family. I’m enjoying training for the most part but can’t wait to get to my site, wherever it may be. I’m thrilled to be here, and can’t wait to share it with whoever wants to come down and visit me!
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