Yesterday was my friend Laura’s birthday!How amazing is it that she got to spend her 23rd birthday in ECUADOR?!?Laura is actually my roommate as well as a close friend.We weren’t really sure what to expect because we had no idea how they celebrate birthdays here!It ended up being a great day and I thought that I’d share how it went.
Each morning we have to get up between 5:45 and 6:00 a.m.I made sure to sing to her throughout the day…which she thoroughly enjoyed!After teaching we come home and eat lunch with our host family.Ahhh it was so sweet of them…our host mom made lasagna and garlic bread for lunch and we even got to drink coke as our beverage.You have no idea…this was such a big change for us.Our host dad brought home a chocolate cake that was absolutely delicious!Of course all of the food didn’t taste like it would at home, but it was still really good!
~ Our delicious lunch that our host family made us~
~Chocolate cake for Laura's birthday!!!
On our walk to class all of us stopped to get ice cream…MMMM!!We found this place that’s super close to where we take our classes and they have 95 cent ice cream cones.How can you beat that?!Now, at this point we were absolutely stuffed because our bodies are not used to that type of food along with the amount of food that we had eaten. Then we get to class and five minutes later some of the staff members walk in singing happy birthday and they have more cake for us.I felt so bad, but I couldn’t get myself to eat it…I was SOOO full.It was super thoughtful of them though.
Our professor for our culture class (Bill), which took place yesterday, is a retired professor from UW-Whitewater and we adore him.We call him “pops” because he is kind of like our adopted dad during our stay in Ecuador.He’s just all around great and helps us with anything we need!We ended class early and he took us to put minutes on our cell phones.Each pair of roommates bought a phone so that we could communicate amongst one another.I think we all feel a lot better having a cell phone, especially in case of an emergency.We really didn’t get them for any other reason than to communicate with one another and in case of an emergency.Laura and I each payed about 18 dollars.In the end we will actually get most of that money back because the CEDEI School where we take our classes wants to buy the phones from us for the study abroad students next semester/year.
After the cell phone situation, he took us to a hippie market I guess you could call it.We only stayed for a little while, but we will definitely be going back there.I was soooo overwhelmed because they had a ton of pretty jewelry for cheap!Our last event for the night was a dinner to celebrate Laura’s birthday; even Pops ended up coming!We went to a pizza place that’s pretty close to our neighborhood.I actually thought that it was pretty good pizza for being in a different country!All of us ate a lot and were stuffed afterwards.I can’t believe how much “American” food I ate in one day.I had not felt that full in a long time!
~The small "hippie" market from a distance~
~One of the 3 pizzas that we ordered (Hawaiian style) YUMMY~
Lets just say that it’s only week two and we’re all craving different foods from back home.BUT we learned our lesson tonight; our bodies are going to have a lot of adjusting to do once we arrive back home.It was all worth it though…you have to splurge on food like this once in a while!What a great day it was!HaPpY bIrThDaY lAuRa!!
I thought that I would take the time to share how student teaching has been going throughout this week! It did not take me long to figure out that the education system in the United States and here in Cuenca, Ecuador are quite different. After three full days of observing different classrooms, during our first week, I took note of how much freedom the students have. There is much less structure within the classrooms at CEDEI School. As a result I have noticed how many of the students tend to be more independent.
Each grade at CEDEI School has one classroom and the students range from the early childhood age all the way up to seventh grade. This is a school that includes children with special education. The way our schedule works while student teaching at this school is a bit different from our all day, everyday student teaching in the United States. Last week we took the time to learn about the school and rotated as we observed each of the classrooms. We were all assigned a teaching schedule for weeks two through four. Then for the following weeks, five through eight, we have a completely new schedule. While student teaching here we are not busy every hour of the day. During the second week we are required to teach two lessons, the third week three lessons, etc. We do tend to have breaks throughout each day, but for me I have a few days that are super packed and others that are more lax. Also, even though this week I only had to teach two lessons I still had other activities/lessons that I had to attend to.
~The door to one of the younger aged classrooms~
~Inside the classroom~
~Some of our youngest kiddos~
~My little buddy...what a cutie~
Although our schedules vary from day to day and change halfway through our time that we spend at CEDEI School, there are a few various things that stay the same. Each student teacher has been assigned one to three students to tutor. I am tutoring two sixth grade students twice a week. They are both great kiddos, but just need a little extra one-on-one attention in order to complete their work. Each of us was also assigned to a student with special needs. We have the opportunity to tutor this specific child once a week. The child that I am working with has autism, but is high functioning. He was absent this week when I was supposed to tutor him, but we will see how it goes next week. I’m super excited to build a positive teacher to student relationship with him!
~The sixth grade classroom where I taught my language lesson~
Both of these pictures are of the older students. I never thought that I would enjoy teaching the upper grades!!
All of the classrooms have a national teacher. When it comes to speaking English, each of their abilities varies. There are also English speaking international teachers. These are the teachers that we are collaborating with for our lessons. The international teachers teach specific lessons and they are taught in English. When either the national or international teacher is teaching the other is usually working on planning for the following day or week.
This week I taught two language lessons. I taught one lesson to the sixth graders and one lesson to the first graders. Before teaching I was definitely more nervous to teach the sixth graders because I’m not used to working with the older students. After I had finished teaching the lessons I felt the complete opposite. I absolutely love the sixth grade class! These students are older so they have a much easier time speaking in English than the younger ones do. Both of the lessons went very well, but I was just surprised that I enjoyed working with the sixth graders!
There are two other projects that we have to complete in addition to teaching lessons. All of the student teachers were assigned a grade and theme for a project. I was assigned to fourth grade and the project has to be related to gardening. As a cohort we also have to do a beautification project for the school. This is something that we had to come up with on our own. After taking the time to brainstorm and look at the needs of the school we are thinking that we are going to redo their school library. We would love to do paintings on the walls to make it look more lively along with adding bean bag chairs and some fun things like that. The cohort that is a year behind us at UW-Whitewater had a bake sale to raise money for us. The money that they raised will be used to buy supplies for the beautification project! Towards the end of my trip, I will be sure to post pictures of before and after the beautification project!
~Stairs leading up to some of the classrooms~
Are you wondering about the visual appearance of CEDEI School?! Everything at CEDEI School is pretty much outside except for the classrooms. A normal hallway in between classrooms does not exist here. The students do have art, music, and dance class. Dance is an important part of the culture here and a lot of the students can dance a lot better than any of us teachers! The students LOVE to play soccer during lunch time! I’ve been tempted to go and play with them…haha I would probably make a fool out of myself! Anyways, here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse of what the school looks like.
~On each side of the stairs there are cement slides...sooo FAST~
~At the top of the stairs, where classrooms begin~
~More classrooms~
~View from the top of the stairs~
~Some of the students playing soccer during lunch recess~
~A few of the fourth grade boys during music class~
One last thing that I forgot to mention was how throughout the week we all brought our suitcases to the school. All of us had a second luggage bag that was checked that had been filled with all sorts of school supplies. Here are some pictures of everything that we brought! The school supplies and resources are very limited for the teachers here. You should have seen the teacher’s faces glow when they walked into the art room where we had unloaded all of the supplies!
~All of our school supply donations~
~Excited International Teachers~
Every week will become busier with teaching lessons. Right now I am focusing on memorizing all of the student’s names and let me tell ya…it’s not easy! On a daily basis I get quizzed and I will have students come up to me saying “Tia Aimee, what is my name?.” Sooner or later I will remember them all! By the way, all of the students call the teachers "tia" which means aunt in Spanish. It’s unbelievable how much and the various ways that two people from different cultures can communicate. As much as I miss everyone back home, I can already tell that it’s going to be tough for me to leave when the time comes.
Thanks for taking the time to read about CEDEI School. I hope you learned something new about CEDEI School and the experience that I’ve been having so far!
Each Friday is when we have our dance class that we are required to take. All of us girls were really looking forward to it because it had been a long week and we were ready to have some fun. There are 3 things that I learned after finishing the first dance class. Number one, this class is not a joke,…number 2, you WILL sweat & your hips will be soar afterwards… and number 3, I have never concentrated so hard for an hour straight. The class was still a lot of fun, but it’s so hard for me to keep it together and not laugh. I don’t watch myself dance on a daily basis in the mirror…this is just one aspect of the class that makes it funny. Don’t worry I will be sure to come home and teach you all how to salsa. It should give you a good laugh!
Our whole hiking/camping team!!
Ahhh I’m so excited to tell you all about the hiking and camping that we did this weekend. Other than teaching and taking classes here in Ecuador, we also have a few weekends where “excursions” are planned for us. Our first weekend here we went hiking and camping in Las Cajas National Park! There are 7 teaching majors that I came here with and then CEDEI school in Cuenca, Ecuador also has a fall semester study abroad program available. The study abroad program has around 10 students and for this excursion we had the opportunity to combine both our teaching program and the study abroad students. All together there were around 17 of us that went. It was so much fun going with the other students; it was a great bonding experience!!
In the paper tree forest!
Las Cajas is located within a high altitude of 10,000 feet. Thankfully none of us got sick from the change in altitude, but most of us could feel it as we hiked throughout the day. Our tour guide was definitely walking super fast on the hike and it was vital that we all kept up with him so that we didn’t get lost. The whole time that I was hiking, I was in complete awe of the beauty that surrounded me. We carried backpacks with extra clothes, water, etc. The rest of our overnight stuff was left on the bus. The weather during the day was average. We were pretty bundled up, but I added and removed layers of clothing several times.
These are just a few pictures from the hike we went on! The first 2 pictures are of Las Cajas National Park that we hiked through. In the third picture I was at the beginning of a cave that we had to walk through during the hike!!
Throughout the hike our tour guide pointed out many different flowers and plants! We came across a specific edible plant that we could choose to try. Our reasoning behind everything is “we’ll only get to do this once.” Probably not the best way of thinking, but in many cases it’s just fine. I can’t remember the specific name of the plant, but the majority of our group decided to try it. After watching others reactions I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to, but I did anyways. One of the CEDEI staff members took pictures of us trying it…I thought that they might give you a good laugh…but please remember that these facial expressions are no joke! UCKKK, it was sooo bitter!
After hiking for most of the day, we set up camp in the middle of the mountains!This was such an amazing experience, but quite exhausting at the same time.Once we set our backpacks down, we walked about 20 minutes to our bus…which seemed like 40 minutes because we were all so wiped out.I could definitely feel the altitude as we hiked…a lot of us lost our breath a lot quicker than normal.From the bus we carried back tents, sleeping bags, mats, food, water and all of our extra clothes.It was a very tiring walk, but once we set up camp it was all worth it!The rest of the night was devoted to relaxing and enjoying the beauty that surrounded us while staying warm by a campfire! Oh yeah, and I can’t even tell you how many layers we wore at night and to bed…the temperature dropped to 40 degrees!!!!!
We didn’t end up getting much sleep this weekend, but it was all worth it in the end.I am ready for another week of teaching and classes…well as ready as I can get!I’m just hoping for some more sleep this week, but we’ll see what happens.Have a great Monday!Talk to you soon!
Greetings from Cuenca, Ecuador! I am so sorry that this is the first time that I am posting on here. I have been meaning to keep you all updated, but life has been very busy right from the time that our flight landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
On Sunday (10-10-10) our flight landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador around 11:00 p.m. The director of the CEDEI education program in Ecuador (Esteban) and one of our professors (Bill) picked us up from the airport. Its took us over an hour to get all of our luggage and get through security. It was absolutely insane trying to roll all of our luggage in a mass of people that speak Spanish…not to mention the airport was pretty much organized chaoes. Esteban and Bill made us feel very welcome as we came off of the plane. From the airport we headed straight for our hotel in the downtown area of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
The following day (Monday, 10-11-10) we went on a tour of Guayaquil. I felt like I was in a dream. It was an absolutely beautiful city and our tour guide did a great job of explaining everything to us in clear English. The rest of the day was spent in a van driving 5 hours to reach Uzhupud where we would spend our last night in a hotel. I was super nervous that I was going to get sick in the van with all of the motion and whatnot, but I took dramamine and did just fine. The ride was AMAZING because it was through the mountains. At one point we were so high that we were above the cloud line…no words can describe this beauty. The hotel that we stayed as was phenominal. I took a ton of pictures, but they just don’t do justice. They had a fancy “welcome” dinner for us at the hotel…which was very warming for all us girls.
Ahhh, this was the day (Tuesday, 10-12-10) that we arrived in Cuenca, Ecuador. The actual city where we will be teaching and taking classes. As I woke up in the morning, I had a nervous feeling in my stomach because we were going to meet our families later in the day. After awhile I became distracted by our other activities and was able to calm myself down. Before arriving in Cuenca we went to a market in a nearby city called Gualeceo. It was very intersting to see how the market in another country works. I had to kindly look away when we passed through the meat market. I thought that I was going to puke because there was raw meat hanging everywhere!! I held it together though and made it through. Other parts of the market were incredible. There were mass amounts of fruits and vegetables along with other sorts of materials such as woven sweaters, gloves, etc. Esteban is originally from Cuenca so he is very familiar with the nearby cities. The last stop that we made on our way to Cuenca was in a different town that was well known for their jewelry. This was a dangerous town for me because of my love for earrings and rings. It was neat to look at all of the unique styles of jewelry that were available. CUENCA here we come!!!
It was finally time to meet our host families. Our van took us to the part of CEDEI school where we would be taking our 3 classes (Spanish, Culture & Dance). We sat in a small room as one of the staff members called us into meet our host mom and dad. The way you greet people in Ecuador is much different than in the United States. Each person is greeted with a hug/handshake along with a “kiss” on the cheek. It really isn’t a kiss…you just rub cheeks while making the kissing noise. Yes, I know very different from the United States…but I am adjusted to that cultural difference by this point. Our host mom and dad are super nice!!! I was so thankful for this. We really aren’t supposed to speak any English to them, unless necessary. My friend Laura, who I am living with, is able to carry on conversations in Spanish. I am so thankful for her because she can translate for me and I’m learning a lot more Spanish from being emersed in a culture that speaks it everyday. Hopefully by the end of the trip I will be able to speak a little bit more fluently. It’s kind of funny because right now I find myself speaking “Spanglish” a lot of the time, but I will randomly speak Spanish when it’s not necessary.
The house we are staying in is BEAUTIFUL and actually quite big. Our house is high up on a hill which is awesome because the view of the city is amazing from our bedroom window. Laura and I are sharing a room, which we were both happy about because it gives us a chance to debrief and reflect each night from the activites from the day. Their meal schedule is a bit different here…kind of a shock for myself and most of the other American students that I am with. The breakfast consists of tea/coffee and a piece of bread. Lunch is served around 2:00 p.m. and this is their big meal of the day…so I would compare it to our dinner in the United States. Dinner for people in the Ecuador culture is a small meal that is served around 8:00 p.m. A lot of the meals consist of a meat and rice. All of our stomachs have been adjusting to these differences!
Cuenca is a city that is located within very high altitude. The altitude hasn’t affected me that much yet and hopefully it doesn’t in the future. We do a ton of walking on a daily basis. Yesterday was our first day of teaching along with taking classess. I would love to give you an idea of what our day looks like. In the morning we have to walk down to the bus stop by 7:00 a.m. The bus/taxi then takes us to CEDEI primary school where we will be teaching. We teach until 1:30 p.m. each day and then we have a taxi that takes us back to the bus stop and from there we walk back to our homes to eat lunch with our families. After lunch we have a short amount of time before classes. Each day we have a class from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m., but it takes about 45 minutes to walk to the CEDEI education building. I am guessing that we will be walking there everyday and taking the bus home because by the time we get out of class it’s already dusk. BUT the good thing is that the bus is only 25 cents…yes, I know SO CHEAP!! As you can see we’re pretty busy each day, but it’s been a great experience so far and hopefully I’ll grow from it in the end.
Yesterday was our first day at the school we will be teaching at and I just wanted to mention a few things about this. The school that we’re teaching at is really neat, but there are a lot of differencs between the education here in Ecuador and the education back home. The students here are much more independent and each classroom seems to be much more relaxed. They have more freedom to move around and choose what they want to do…it’s just not as structured as the education within the United States. This week we are rotating among the classrooms and taking the time to observe. I’m super glad that we’re doing this because there are so many cultural differences. One being time…Ecuadorian 5 minutes can turn into 20 to 30 minutes. They are just much more layed back about the timing of things. Next week is when we actually start to teach and I will be sure to update you on that when the time comes. One other quick thing...I had a little girl come up to me today and say “Tu pelo es muy bonita y grande.” In English she said “your hair is very pretty and big.” Hahaha I thought this was so cute because I had worn my hair curly and down and with the weather it does tend to “fro” out. I’m sure I’ll have many other funny/cute stories that have to do with the kiddos.
Last but not least the weather is nice here. Super cold at night and usually in the 60’s or 70’s during the day. Ecuador is definitely a country that you want to layer your clothing because when the sun is out it’s hot, but when it goes away the temperature dramatically drops!! As Americans we definitely stick out in Cuenca, but in general the Ecuadorians are very kind and welcoming to us!!
Thanks for taking the time to read my EXTREMELY long blog post. It has been difficult for me to post anything because we do not have wireless internet at my families house (therefore I can only be on the internet after classes within the school building or at an internet café)…but I did want to catch you all up on the past few days. From here on out, they shouldn’t be as long…I promise. I hope that you all are doing well back home! Sending each and every one of you love all the way from Ecuador!! Talk to you soon! Xoxo
