After a great few days in the jungle, I've been back to the routine (if you can call it that; things are always changing here!). This week has been a tiring one, but a good one nonetheless. Monday's activities at field involved listening to another intern give a workshop about Ecuador's borders, another pretty detailed workshop about HIV and its prevention, saying goodbye to a girl who is moving on, and me giving another English lesson. Let me tell you, teaching English to 23 adolescent girls is hard! I try to go very slowly, and I make sure they've all taken notes and we've practiced the pronunciation several times. After we learn a phrase I ask for questions, and often there are none. And yet, by the end of our lesson, I ask some girls if they understand and they say they don't know a single thing! They have taken notes--with Spanish translations--on everything, and somehow it doesn't sink in--and we've only gone over greetings and saying "How are you?". I would love to sit down with each one and make sure they understand, but with 23 teenagers there is just no way to do that effectively. I try to be firm and make sure they're practicing when they're supposed to, but it's not easy. Thank goodness I didn't go into education!
On Tuesday, they really put me to work. There is an abandoned building on the land owned by my agency that is really in disrepair--holes in the roof, broken windows, crazy amounts of dust, and mountains of dusty, mildew-y donated clothes. I found out that we were to spend the whole day cleaning out the building until the job was done. Whew! I wasn't dressed to get super dirty, so I stayed outside sorting and folding dusty, moldy clothes all day. By lunch time I was almost as red as a lobster. Due to the high altitude, the sun is super strong here, and it was a very sunny day. So I'm a bit sunburned, which fascinated the girls, who all have dark skin! Due to the sun, I spent the afternoon inside the building talking with one of the girls, who had a headache. They are slowly opening up to me and telling me about their lives, which is such an honor for me.
Today I was in the office all day, so nothing too fascinating to report there. I do enjoy reading the case notes of the clients as I review them, though. So that's fun. I also get to sleep in later (til 6:30!) on Wednesdays because I can walk to the office, whereas every other day I'm up at 5:45 to catch my buses.
At six I'll leave this coffee shop and head back to my homestay, where I'll have a traditional Ecuadorian dinner of bread, jam, instant coffee, and perhaps a little cheese.
So, that's my week so far! Chao!
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