Musings from the almost-year mark

It's Friday night here. Pretty typical night. The neighborhood boys are playing trucks down the steps outside of my house. A family who will sell fruit at the market tomorrow arrived, and a swaddle of children and babies are all watching their parents arrange the food for all the people who will swarm our street tomorrow morning. One of these days I need to take my camera out there and photograph the chaos of the market.



This last week, I went up to Quito to go see the Peace Corps dentist. Fourteen hours on a bus and I'm transported into a big city with traffic jams, men in suits, and volcanoes in the distance. It's so nice being amidst the whirring of a city. It's like being back in DC. Hearing cars honk and seeing restaurant after restaurant, and not knowing a soul that passes me by on the street thrill me. The kabobs, the bus line, the Ecovia (metro) whirring by, not giving a damn that I'm there, flying by to the ticking, impatient City Clock.


I met some Trainees from Omnibus 108 who were about to swear in, and it struck me that we really aren't the "new" volunteers anymore. It's been almost a full year since we swore in. We're the old, seasoned, veterans who somehow, somehow, are still in the field, chugging along.


At the (almost) year mark, it's hard for me to say that I've accomplished a lot. I don't feel like I'm this giant, important figure in the community. I think that many people still don't know who I am. Sometimes I even wonder if the isolation is getting to me too much, and that instead of reading Tolstoy, I spend my free time watching movies or on the Internet. That, when given the chance, I'll sleep all morning. I thought that by this point, I'd be more established, more known, and more happy.


It seems like some of my projects are just now starting to take off. Like the teacher workshops. I've managed to wrangle all of the together for a few workshops, and we are planning to do more next week, and throughout the school year. I like working with them. I like getting them all together and trying to muddle through the English language with them.

The teenagers have been really hard to teach. Because of their age, they are constantly moody, constantly on their Blackberries, texting in class. Sometimes they come in with huge smiles, and other times they put their heads on their desks sullenly and don't want to participate. Some of the teenage boys ask me what I'm doing after school and want to hang out- HA! It's such a dramatic age. My seventeen year olds are on the cusp of leaving home, of becoming adults, of figuring out who they are.

I've gotten frustrated with them and been impatient. I don't see their English getting better. I don't see them improving, or trying. It's made me want to switch classes. But my boss told me the other day that in education, you need to wait until the end of the year to see any results. I won't know anything until the end of February. Then, we'll see if they improved. And if they didnt, she said, you readjust for next year.

Teachers are some of the most patient people on the planet. I mean, you have to deal with everything. Family and relationship problems walk into the classroom with the student. You have to deal with the kid whose angry because his stepmother is cruel, the girl who gave birth to twins last year, and the boy who is always sad because his mother had to leave him to work in the US. Then, you have to get them interested in the language. Then you have to teach it. Day in, day out, even when they give you bullshit and act like hyper monkeys. Even when all they want to do is ask you questions about the US, like

"are there only white people in the US?" (yes....that's why we have a black president)

"do you let boys pay for you on dates?"

"in the US, does everyone smoke marijuana?"

"how many wives do jewish men have?"


I always want to see quick flashy results. I want to hear them speaking the lanugage. I want to be surrounded by laughing children who are all speaking in English and who get enthusiastic and clap during every class. I want all of my teachers speaking English, for the whole class. I want to see them planning outside of their standard book. I want all of this, and I want it NOW! Now, now, now. But now never is what I think it is going to be- and it's always changing.



So, at the year mark, I feel a great reverence for the god of Patience, who is at best a passing acquaintance of mine. Hopefully, this year, we can be more aquaintance. It's a long haul. Slow and steady, slow and steady.