First, Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers, uncles, and grandpas out there, but especially to my grandpa, uncle john and uncle time, and the best dad in the world =) Love you E&B.

Another big event recently happened as well. June 17th was the 1 year anniversary of omnibus 102 landing in Ecuador. It’s so weird thinking back to the process of packing, the night I spent crying and stressed right before leaving for Miami, the orientation in Miami and meeting my future trainees, arriving in Quito and not understanding 3 words the little Ecuadorians were saying to me, moving in with a random family an hour after meeting them, and the whole process of training and getting to know Ecuador and my fellow trainees. Things normalized a little during training, then after those 9 weeks ended, so ended that normalization. We were tossed to our propio sitios, alone, in a new and very different part of the country, lugging 3 bags through Guayaquil praying not to get robbed in this scary big city, then the process of learning the city and so far having good luck in said city (crosses fingers), getting to know my site, host family, and community members, and going through the ups and downs of daily life and work. But I’m still here. And I’m proud of myself and fellow 102ers for making it through 1 year. Congrats! And with the dawn of our 1 year anniversary, now enters a new group of trainees, so congrats and good luck to them as well!


So the thing is, I’ve really pissed off the weather gods somehow, maybe by constantly cursing the heat and random animals/bugs I’ve encountered in my time thusfar in Ecuador, or maybe because by simply joining up with Miley Cyrus’s foundation for the concert (seems more likely right?) but either way, it has almost been confirmed.
April 16, 2010 in the central park: Rain. Concert: Postponed until June, AFTER the rainy season “ends”.
End of April, all of May, first 2 weeks of June: No Rain. Rainy season has been declared “over”
June 18, 2010: As I prep the paint, brushes, snacks for the big mural starting at 8am the next morning what do I hear but splat splat splat on my roof. Well crap, someone is peeing on my roof again? “Haha! You think you’re PAINTING tomorrow” said the weather gods while unleashing a fury of rain, which then continued for 11 hrs. “That’ll show ya…”
June 19, 2010 9:00am big wall on the edge of town: Rain finally stopped and I see blue sky through the clouds! “Woohoo! Let’s paint!!” A couple hours later, the weather gods realized we hadn’t called off the mural. “Wait wait, you’re painting on a bamboo structure 15 feet off the ground? I give you more rain then! HAHA” The rest of the mural: postponed until…?
June 20, 2010 in the whole town: flooding downpours for 3 hours.
June 26, 2010 in the central park: Concert? What do you think?? Results TBA next time I have internet.

As far as work goes, I don’t have a “normal” work schedule, but I guess that means that non-normal is normal, so we’ll say for simplicity that work is normal (but remember that doesn’t really mean “normal”) uhh.. Well, I per usual have had a lot of changes in my work and life here. One of the biggest changes is that we’ve come to an understanding that the youth group “Liceo de Lideres” that I’ve been working with is dissolving. The youth involved have been with the group for 5 years and are all working, in the university in Guayaquil, and/or have wives/families at this point, as well as have lost interest in the group and doing activities. For a lot of my time here it has seemed like pulling teeth to get them to participate in the activities they choose and help plan, and I finally brought it up with a couple of them. They confirmed what I expected, which is that they just aren’t interested anymore and that there’s really no way to re-interest them at this point in their lives. Part of this revelation on my part was when I did a charla with a group of younger youth that are involved in another youth organization and some youth from the Liceo. I saw how active, participatory, and generally interested the younger kids were as opposed to the older ones, and started talking to my host brother about integrating some younger kids into the group. He agreed, and as they have been moving in, we’ve seen the older ones moving out. So So… we have a few activities that we’re finishing up as a “group” (the mural, the concert) then we will be proceeding working with them on an individual basis if they’re still interested. For example, a couple of them are interested in doing the HIV/AIDS education program that we are starting in 2 weeks, and I plan to invite some of the interested ones to help in other projects, but we will no longer be meeting and doing activities as a group. In some ways, this is pretty bad timing as we have a list of projects in place and/or coming up, but I’ve also established myself with other connections and been busy with work so it’s been a lot less stressful on me as far as worrying about keeping the group going. I do wish I had a chance to see the group in action a couple years ago – they’ve done some pretty impressive work and have built a good reputation in town.

As far as other work, as I mentioned I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve made contact with the biggest public colegio in town and started that afterschool English program I’ve been blogging about for the last few months. It isn’t exactly what I envisioned, it’s actually more like a class than a tutoring program. And by that I mean, it’s a class. Tuesdays and Wednesdays from last week until the end of the school year in December, I have class with 2 groups of 20 students that were selected based on low English knowledge/skills from the first 4 years of colegio (aka middle school and freshman year, 12-15 yrs old). We’ve only had one class per group so far, and they went pretty well, but I’m trying to learn quickly since I’ve never had training as a teacher. For example, Thursdays I have a group that is about 50% boys as opposed to the other class that’s about 30% boys. Guess what that means? Assigned seating on Thursday. The first class, the boys that know each other were talking, poking each other, giggling, etc. for the whole class. We’ll see how they like that when I put them on opposite sides of the room. Ha. Also, because it’s a mixed-level class (students from 4 different grades, and within that problem I have kids that know a lot and some that have never paid attention in a single English class), I’m going to have some challenges in normalizing the material so it’s not too hard but still interesting. So I have the 2 classes Tues and Thurs, and I’ve also decided to start an advanced class Wed afternoons for interested students in their last year of colegio to prep them for their college English classes. I’m thinking that class will be much easier and more relaxed. Though their English may not be much better, they’re older and a little more mature, right? I’m also offering a 30 min tutoring session after class with a couple of the students that have never paid attention in an English class as a way to get them up to speed with the group. It’s definitely been a lot of work, but I kinda like getting all prepared for class :) The class is very different from anything their used to here, as I’m doing it more like a liberal-arts college course. We have 4 built-in movie days (which you betcha will be movies with an educational theme!), music, a guest day (aka the week my mom visits in August, surprise mom!), two days of presentations (they’ll be responsible for researching and presenting with groups at the end of the term), and the last day is a fiesta where I’ll make some sort of American goodies to bring so we keep it within the “English class” theme. I also plan to integrate educational topics via mini charlas during class session once I feel the group has enough trust and friendship. Right now, most of the kids don’t really know each other as they’ve been selected from different classes and grades, so it’ll take awhile to develop trust within the group. I’m also having them doing a mandatory private journal at the end of each class so they have 5 mins set aside to reflect on what we’ve learned, what’s going on in life, etc. The idea is that they’ll learn a little about themselves and hopefully at the end of the term they can look back and see what they’re learned and how they’re changed during the course of the next 6 months. They think it’s pretty lame right now, and they may continue thinking that, but I’ll never know if I don’t try right?

Aside from the English classes, as I mentioned before, we’re finishing up the GYSD concert this weekend. Rain or shine, I don’t think we’ll be postponing it again. We’re also starting the Cuanto Sabe? HIV/AIDS youth education program on July 4th (happy birthday USA!) which will continue for 8 weeks. I’ll be pretty much on my own planning that as my host brother (who is running it with me) is gone all day every day except Thurs/Fri/Sat evenings and Sundays. But I’m not too stressed about the charlas themselves, so once we get the manual printed and all that stuff I’ll be golden. Also, as you may remember, we applied for the GetURGoodOn grant (for the concert and world map project) on a whim, and as a backup we went ahead and applied for a Peace Corps Partnership Program grant to do a world map project as well, but we got both. So now, after doing the one world map, we are committed to doing another before Aug 31. As I mentioned, the Liceo has all but disintegrated, leaving me with funds and no youth (first time a PC volunteer has had that problem I bet!). So now that I’ve made contact in the colegio, I’m hoping that we can paint it there with the students. Tomorrow morning I go to talk to the director of the colegio to see what he thinks about the whole idea, but I’m hoping they’ll be game. Otherwise, one of the other colegios or escuelas will surely want to, it’s just a matter of making new contacts to do so (less easy on me).

One final note. I was never very interested in futbol (“soccer” for you North Americans) but here it’s as much a part of life as water and rice. And right now we’re in the midst of the most exciting 31 days in South America – mundial. The mundial or World Cup is the reason for the power shortages in Ecuador. The games start at 6am and go until the afternoon, and when Brazil, Argentina, or Paraguay play, people feign dengue fever to get to stay home from work and school. My host family has 3 tvs in their house, and I kid you not, all three tvs run the soccer games. On a personal note, I’m rooting for the U.S. and Germany heart and soul. And if/when they’re out of the championship, I’ll be switching to a South American country – guess that makes me a follower. And don’t even get me started on the Emelec/Barcelona soccer teams rivalry… but who is #1 in Ecuador? That’s right. And if you don’t know, google it. =)