The Second Week

I spent this week volunteering in the school in the mornings and taking classes in the afternoon.  We have moved through all of the basics and are working on irregular past participles and the imperative.  It really is a lot to learn, especially since we don’t have too much free time until after dinner, which can last for an hour or more.  Recently, we have each been required to prepare a presentation for the dinner table to help us practice speaking.  We can talk about whatever we want, so I wrote about visiting Peru and working as a lifeguard in the summers.

On Tuesday, we had a meeting with Dr. Alvear, who is the coordinator for the local hospitals and clinics that we will be working in.  We are going to meet every Tuesday and each time, two of us are going to present on something about Ecuador.  Colleen talked about teenage pregnancy and Alyson gave a brief history of the country.  It was actually named for the Equator, which runs through the country.  We are actually planning to visit “the middle of the world” tomorrow, which should be pretty cool. 

During the meeting, we also talked about the government, because Ecuador is having their presidential election next month.  Dr. Alvear told us that the government controls everything, even though they say that the people are “free” and Ecuadorians have to file tax reports every month.  There are also restrictions on how many hours per week people can work, so if you need some extra money and want to work overtime, you can’t.  There is a huge division between upper class and lower class; the later accounts for 50% of the population.  She said that in poor families, the boys are sent to school and the girls stay home, which contributes to the lack of family planning and high teenage pregnancy rates.  Many of the people are Catholic, which also dissuades young girls from using contraception.  The society is also machismo, so girls and women have to ask their husbands/ boyfriends to go to the clinic to receive contraception, which is another major deterrent.  Abortions are illegal, but often a woman who does not want to be pregnant will get an almost-abortion and then go to the hospital and have a stillbirth.  Alyson and Erin have been at the maternidad hospital this week and they say that there is a large room full of women who have spontaneously lost their babies.

Dr. Alvear explained to us about how the government takes advantage of the  people in poverty to get reelected.  Every Saturday, the president comes on the radio and talks about all of the great things that he is doing.  For example, the government spent $1 million to build a school in one indigenous village.  It is complete with state-of-the-art computers and the latest technology.  So the people who hear that the president did this think “oh wow, that was so nice… the government must really care… etc etc.”  The problem, she said, was that the poor population is illiterate and lack critical thinking skills.   This propaganda is the onl information they receive because they can’t read a newspaper or anything else.  They also fail to realize that while that one school is helping that one area, there are more efficient ways of spending that money. 

It seems that one of the main goals of this government is health care for the poor population.  I think that if a teenage girl gets pregnant, she receives $30/ month from the government (I think it’s something like that).  There is also something similar to welfare for low-income families.  And Dr. Alvear said that it’s nice that they have something to live on but it also allows the cycle to continue.  She said that what the government really needs to do is create jobs for these people to work.  Sound familiar?

Today, we did not have class in the afternoon, but went on a short tour of Quito.  We drove to the top of a big hill to see the city from up high.  We took a few pictures and then drove over to El panecillo, which is a statue of the virgin Mary that overlooks the city.  Then, we went to see a church and while I was going to take a picture of it, I ended up talking to some guy from Italy who spoke Spanish.  And I had a whole conversation in Spanish!!  I felt so proud because when I came ehrej less than two weeks ago, my vocabulary consisted of hola, buenos diaz, and como esta.  Then today, I had about an hour long conversation!  It wasn’t fluent but we did talk about what I was doing in Quito and how having conversations with people is a better way to learn a language than in classroom.  He said that English is the number one language to know, and Spanish is number two.  He was there with his niece, who he wants to learn English.  I traded email addresses with her so that we can both practice our respective languages.

Tomorrow is my last day in the school and I am very sad to leave my children.  My teacher told them today that it would be last day tomorrow and they were all so sad, saying “noooo, Brooke, you should just live here!” 

Well, that’s a thought.