Jipijapa

I am currently in Jipijapa, a small town near the coast. It was a hellish bus ride to Jipijapa. It was originally supposed to be 9 hours, which I thought was bad enough. But the 10am bus on Sunday decided that it wasn't running, and there was no other direct bus until 8pm (which would've been too late) so we had to get a bus to a nearby town called Portoviejo, and from there get another bus to Jipijapa. The descent from Quito was very long and winding (much much more so than to Chiriboga). The bus driver was driving really fast, I was sitting in the first row next to the door, and the door was left open for the entire trip. It was so dangerous! Not to mention the bus driver kept overtaking trucks, even though the road was winding most of the way and there were lots of blind spots. At one stage, a car was coming round the corner on the other side and we were overtaking, and the car had to veer off the road a bit to avoid hitting the bus which was driving in its lane! But everyone seems to be doing this sort of thing over here (as I said before, safety has a completely different meaning here), so I suppose it's normal. And they got us here in one piece, so it's ok. Yes, it was during this highly dangerous bus ride that I think my camera was taken. I left my bag in the bus at one point cos I had to go to the toilet, but Carmen was watching it. I think it was then, but I don't know. Carmen insisted that she was watching it the whole time, I'm not blaming her or anything, but I don't know when else it could've happened. And I only realised when we got off at Portoviejo, by which time it was too late, as it was about 6 hours later. Sigh. Anyway, when we got to Portoviejo at 10pm, it turns out there was no bus to Jipijapa until 12.40am. So Carmen went off to find alternative transportation, and returns with an unlicensed taxi (ie a guy with a van). It was actually really funny, because there was a policeman there asking the driver questions, and he was telling us not to trust this guy etc. But we went with him anyway. We were crammed into the van like sardines in a can. We eventually arrived in Jipijapa at midnight, only to start teaching the next morning (or rather the same morning).

We are officially teaching english here, but my school is sooo tiny, I don't know if it can be really called a school. It's just a bamboo shack with little benches, and there are only 10 students (who don't all come to school) of varying ages. The students all live on the same road as the school. It's a dirt road, and the houses around are so absolutely ramshackle. They're all bamboo houses on stilts, with thatch roofs. It looks so incredibly poor and rural, and yet it's only about 7 minutes from the 'city' centre on a scooter. Yes, we have to go by scooter. The kids have a regular teacher, who ferries us there and back. I'm there with another volunteer, and I teach the older kids (there are 3 or 4, depending on who turns up), Johanna teaches the middle kids, and the regular teacher takes the smallest kids.

My kids are about 9 or 10 years old. They know how to count to 10 in english and also a few random words, but that's about it. Honestly, I don't know how knowing english is really going to help them that much. I also tried to teach them maths yesterday, but all 4 of my kids were at different maths levels. One of them didn't know how to multiply or divide, while the others already knew the multiplication tables, despite them all being of similar age. It's an interesting experience. By the way, it's rather difficult trying to teach maths in spanish, but I think I am doing ok so far, even though it's only been 2 days.

Yesterday, I taught them the english alphabet, and also the days of the week in english. It is so difficult to get them to concentrate and write down things in their book. It took the entire morning (about one and a half hours) just to do the 7 days of the week. And that was just to get all of them to copy it down (yes, all 4 kids), I doubt they've remembered it.

Well, it's really ok. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. The kids are fun, and kids are the same everywhere, whether it's a rural town or city, so I think it's easier to handle 4 kids rather than a class of 30 or 50. The other volunteers here are teaching in proper schools in town (walking distance from the house), only Johanna and I are in the poor rural area with a ramshackle school. But I don't mind that much. It's a good experience to see such different lifestyles (wow, I sound like such a damn tourist). It really makes you appreciate what you have. But then I think about how useful knowing english actually is for the children (not very, especially only 2 weeks of english). What would actually help them? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.