Well, that's progress

It seems strange how hard it is to keep up with events in a place as quiet as Tolte. There is always something happening. Yesterday, it was road widening. This seems to be a kind of local obsession. Everyone wants wider roads, but there is so little traffic that it is hard to understand why this seems so important. But, because I respect the opinions of those who clearly know better than I do what they want and need, I happily went out to watch and participate in road widening when I had given my last English class of the day. I have to say that, so far, my work day is not as long as the full school day. I expect this to change as I am working with a larger vocabulary and more concepts. By the end of the year, I expect the class that I think is half an hour (but is probably 45 minutes) will last an hour.

So there we were, 50 or more of the 400 residents of Tolte, watching a bulldozer and a grader widen the secondary road. The first notable achievement that I saw was the uprooting of Jose Manuel’s avocado tree, which was greeted with some colorful language by his wife in which the [hrase “hijo de puta” was prominently featured. I think she had a point. The entire additional width came from the land around their house, which reached the road as a seven foot high wall of unreinforced earth. Across the street was a home made of cement surrounded by a concrete and brick wall. Naturally, the earth wall seemed to invite the bulldozer’s blade. And so it went throughout the process, with those who have adobe and earth ceding more than those who have brick and cement. The last phase that I participated in involved the removal of a stone wall that must have taken an enormous effort to build. I’m not sure that taking it down produced more than a couple of meters of additional width. The wall owners did not look as though they felt that their contribution to the community goals was truly appreciated.

At that point, they were almost done for the day. I went to “the other Narcisa,” not the one whose house I live in, for lunch. This is a semi-established arrangement, that outsiders who are living in Tolte can get a hot meal (or more, if they like) at Narcisa’s house for about a buck and a half. Lunch typically includes soup and a plate of rice with vegetables and either an egg or some kind of meat (not guinea pig, thankfully.) It’s also a good place to get some idea of a semi-outsider’s point of view of events in Tolte. Narcisa lived in the States for 12 years, which is not unusual here, but personal issues have detached her a bit from the rest of the community, upon which she now casts a mildly jaundiced eye. So we talked about the road building, and about the behavior of children in school, and I felt slightly more informed, but not in a way that would contribute much to the blogosphere.

For me, the biggest event of the day was attending the first school parents’ meeting of the school year. This meeting was relatively short, as I understand it, at three hours. Much of the time was spent on deciding how much each family should pay for school maintenance supplies (brooms, detergent, whatnot), and whether it should be on a per family or per child basis. There was also the sense that the requested  8 brooms for four classrooms and the bathroom area was an excessive number, and would raise costs unnecessarily. In the end, every family paid 3 dollars, and that was that. Eventually they were kind enough to give me a few moments to report on my perceptions of how school was going. I tried to be gentle, but who knows if my Spanish was adequate to the task. I asked them to give their children a fruit or vegetable to eat during recess, instead of giving them money for candy, both for nutritional and disciplinary reasons. I asked them not to allow their children to bring toys to school. And I asked them to explain to their children that they considered education important, and that the requests of the teachers should be considered a request from the parent. I know I was understood, at least, as the PTA president then reiterated all I had said in very accurate terms. Will Monday be different? One can only hope. But I will certainly be at all of these meetings, especially because the other teachers don’t actually live in Tolte, but return to their own families in Riobamba on Friday afternoons. Still, the prospect of a three hours meeting every Friday is something I will have to be a grown-up about.

A final school related item: I am writing this Saturday morning. I went over to the computer room with the specific goal of making Rosetta Stone 3: English work on the four computers that are still functioning. After much tweaking of controls and testing of headsets, all four are in fact working, an achievement that is certainly near the outer limits of my computer skills. The computer room will now be a more inviting place for adults and high school students, which is good because I am starting English for Adults classes on Monday, Sept. 26. The classes will start at 7:30, last for an hour, and be given every Monday and Thursday for now. If there is a need for more time, I’ll add days and hours. We’ll see how that goes. I confess that I might enjoy teaching adults more than children, or at least in a different, less stressed way. So far, I’m counting on word of mouth to carry the news,  but I hope to gear up more on Monday when the community office is open again.

I am sorry that I cannot write more often. I usually have access to the internet only at midday Monday through Friday, and not every one of those days. By the time I get through my e-mail, I need to open the computer room. But I am told that the office has been closed more than usual lately, and the hours have not extended as late into the evening as usual, either, so things may improve.