Thoughts on Coming Home

This is advice I was asked to write for WT volunteers who were ending their service:

When you return home from Ecuador, you may experience a common disease, Ecua-depravation. This disease is generally characterized by a mild depression regarding your current state and a nostalgia for everything Ecuador.

You are particularly susceptible to Ecua-depravation if you:
1. Have no concrete plans for your immediate future
2. Thought it would be a really good idea to use the last of your savings on a trip to Colombia and now have no money
3. Plan on moving back in with your parents

Common Symptoms of Ecua-depravation include:
1. Refusing to go out drinking with your friends because you can’t find a place that charges 75 cents for a beer
2. Turning on music in inappropriate places, like the library
3. Commenting to a friend how ugly the person standing next you is while forgetting that they, too, speak English.
4. Finding yourself making every sentence a question. (NOTE TO READER: Read #6 with the inflection going up on question.)
5. Throwing your toilet paper in the trash and, in severe cases, on the ground next to the toilet.
6. Salivating upon entering a pet store

Symptoms range from mild to severe, but most cases are curable within a matter of months. Extremely severe cases can never be treated and sufferers should apply to be the director of WorldTeach as soon as possible.

In all seriousness, coming home from Ecuador can be very difficult. Let’s face it. Life has gone on perfectly fine without you. The worst part is, honestly, no one cares about Ecuador. The only reason anyone you know ever cared about Ecuador is because you were there. Now that you are not there, they could care less. When you return home, you will inevitably find yourself wanting to talk about your adventures, the culture, or the food. But you just have to remember, no one really wants to hear about that stuff, so keep your yarns short and sweet. A lucky few of you will have a well-intentioned friend who will ask you the impossible question, “Tell me something funny that happened in Ecuador.” Your mind, of course, will immediately go blank, and you may even begin to question the value of your experience in Ecuador because you can’t think of a single story or joke that would make the other person laugh. Believe me, literally translating “siga no mas” into “continue no more” is NOT funny to your friends back home. My advice, avoid coffee shops like the plague. They set you up for too many awkward conversations and too few convenient escapes. If you do find yourself in an unavoidable one-on-one conversation, don’t panic. Start asking questions about the other person. Yeah, you might not want to hear what they have to say, but at least that way, they’re the annoying person, not you.

Don’t be surprised if you go home and don’t feel like hanging out with anybody. Family members will probably get concerned, but let them know that you will get better. You just need some time. You are going through a transition that most of them can’t and won’t understand. Be patient with them and be patient with yourself. Know that you’ve made it through difficult life changes before, and you’ll make it through this one, too. Take baby steps. Set a goal to at least once a week hang out with someone outside of your blood-line. I know it sounds silly, but you’ll be surprised how much of a homebody you might become.
The transition can be difficult, but I’ve come to believe that an important part of going abroad is going home. How do all your experiences and who you’ve become fit in with the person that you were when you left and with the person that you now want to be? Creating a cohesive story that ties together all of these different personas is a soul-searching task. But we as humans make sense of the world almost exclusively through storytelling, so if you are having difficulty finding yourself and finding your place when you go home, I would encourage you to tell your story. Since no one wants to listen, write it. Write your story. I can almost guarantee you this will help. And if it doesn’t, at least you’ll have something to say to interviewers who ask you how Ecuador fits into your long-term goals.

Take heart. Going home may be hard, but you’ll start remembering soon enough what makes home, home. In a few months, you may even be struggling to remember what was so great about Ecuador and how you were crazy enough to leave everything that was comfortable and sure back home for something uncomfortable and uncertain. You are about to leave the comfortable and certain once again, but all that really means is that another adventure awaits!

Politics

Today, I experienced Ecuadorian politics at its finest. There was a coup in my class, and I have been kicked out of my presidency. It all happened so swiftly. One moment, I’m talking with my professor about the some work I missed. The next moment, a student touches me on the shoulder and asks the professor if she can talk to me for a minute. In as nice a way as she could she said, “Kat, we the people, as a united front of disgruntled students, have decided to remove you from your post as president of this class. Would that be okay with you?” The question at the end was a nice touch, like I had some choice in the matter.

I can’t exactly say that I didn’t see this coming. The seeds of insurrection had been planted long ago, yet I did expect to finish my term as queen of the universe in my remaining five months here. Unfortunately, my class had another idea. Yesterday, I could feel the tensions mounting. In my favorite class, Professor X’s class, no grades have been taken this semester. Suddenly realizing that midterm grades are due next week, he decided to give us 45 minutes to do an assignment that counted as 20% of our final grade. That seemed pretty fair to me. After all, we’ve only been in classes two months. The assignment given to us was as follows: Take whatever research you found on the internet about the philosopher Kant, choose any subject about Kant you want, somehow relate this unrelated topic to education, and present it to the class. Now, I was a philosophy major, but I definitely had to do a little bit of a refresher about Kant, so I grabbed someone else’s internet research and started reading. Meanwhile, my group discussed what topic they should pick for the presentation. I suggested what I thought would be the easiest, Kant’s famous categorical imperative. My group stared at me with blank eyes. After a little bit more reading, I suggested to my group Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” of philosophy. Again, blank stares. However, after much insistence, my group said, “Okay, whatever you want to do as long as you are going to present it.” Bingo – more Spanish practice for me. Luckily, we didn’t have enough time to present that same day, and Mr. X told us we’d present first thing the following morning. I went home, did some research, and came to class ready with a good 15 minute presentation that started with a little history of philosophy before Kant, then moved to David Hume who woke Kant up from his “dogmatic slumber,” and finished with how Kant completely changed the history of philosophy, hence Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” of philosophy. Not forgetting the main point, I prepared some far-stretched implications of Kant’s ideas on present day curriculum and classroom instruction.

Like I have now grown accustomed to, when I arrived to class the following morning, the rules of the game had magically changed. Mr. X informed us that, just to be fair and unbiased, he would now select a student panel of four judges to grade our presentations. I mean, this all sounded fair to me. It’s only 20% of our entire grade. Let’s not even mention the fact that there were six total groups and that only four groups had someone acting as a judge. Then, Mr. X threw in another stipulation. Presentations can be no longer than five minutes. Now, if anyone can tell me how five minutes gives any philosophical thought justice, then I’ll shut up. Furthermore, how is it fair that you tell presenters that the day of the presentation what their time limit is?
I volunteered to present first knowing that my presentation was a great introductory speech to Kant. “No volunteers,” the professor said, “We’re going to make this fair. Let’s draw numbers.” Of course, I drew number 6. Dead last. The introduction goes dead last. Luckily, one of my classmates drew number 2, and switched with me. Okay, introduction coming second. I can deal with that.

A petite, shy girl approached the class. Apparently, she had drawn number one. Her topic was Kant on ethics. “This should be interesting,” I thought and settled back in my chair. Number one proceeded to enlighten the class on Kant’s ethical theory, none of which seemed very clear to me. After three minutes, she left the class in awkward silence with a look that said, “I’m done.” Some in the class responded with a look that said, “That’s all you got,” others with a blank stare that said, “What the hell did you just say?” I responded with a look that said, “How can you talk about Kantian ethics without talking about his most important idea, the categorical imperative?” Now, I realize that the categorical imperative is not common knowledge, but anyone who has remotely researched Kant’s ethical ideas would not fail to mention this basis for Kant’s entire moral system.

The teacher asked if anyone had any questions. Being quite familiar with Ecuadorian culture, I know that it’s much more cooperative and indirect than the United States. Students don’t ask each other questions that another student couldn’t answer. Rather, they ask the presenter questions that the presenter surely knows. I, however, did have a question, a rather simple one at that for the presenter. I knew that culturally I shouldn’t ask it. I knew I would get mean looks from the class. But I also knew that I would be betraying my own notions of education if I didn’t ask. I raised my hand and directed my question, “What does the categorical imperative have to do with Kant’s ethics?”

The presenter blankly stared, clearly not even really understanding my question. The rest of the class bored their eyes into me like the revolutionaries must have bored into Benedict Arnold. I could tell I’d crossed into dangerous territory. Students tried to intervene and rescue the floundering speaker, “But that question doesn’t really go with ethics. It’s our topic. We are presenting on the categorical imperative.” Great. Two groups that know what they are doing.
Presenter One sat down, and the judges voted the group a 1.5.
It was my turn to present. Knowing that I would take longer than 5 minutes, I asked the professor if I could have a longer time if what I said was worth using more than five minutes. The professor gave me permission for extra time. My speech lasted a good 10 minutes, the class seemed interested, and my information was solid. I even managed to relate Kant’s revolution to a new way of looking at how we educate students. Questions followed. The professor had questions. All in all, I’d say it was good.

Until the judges came back with my grade. 1.5

1.5?!? I just shook my head. 1.5? Rather than being upset with a low score, I was upset that my work was seen on the same level as the previously presented. Mostly, I was insulted. Some of my classmates were also clearly upset. I think more because they were thinking, “If that got a 1.5, what am I going to get?” The teacher looked at the judges and asked them why I had gotten that score. One particular judge, we’ll call him Carlos, responded, “Well, it’s because it wasn’t really related with the theme. It didn’t have anything to do with education. Furthermore, she went for 15 minutes, and the time limit was only five minutes.”

There are certain moments when you are living in another culture when you can’t decide whether to get upset or just laugh. I decided to just sit in my seat, put a smile on my face, and consol myself with the fact that none of what Carlos was saying was true. The insurrection had begun.

After several students spoke for me and defended me against all of Carlos’s accusations, the teacher overruled the judging panel and gave me a 2 out of 2. While happy with the raised grade, I then became upset about the teacher undermining the judging panel, basically, nullifying its opinion. However, this experience made me well aware that certain people in the class hated me.

Today, I was sitting in class, minding my own business, when the insurrection happened. It started with one voice, then two, and then, before I even knew it, the whole class was up in arms about “directiva” of the class. People started to list their complaints against me. One voice saying, “We just elected her because she was the foreigner, and a teacher, but she can’t do her job.” Another voice, “Where was she yesterday afternoon when we had to elect the beauty queen of the faculty? There were only 15 students there supporting our class queen. It’s her fault there weren’t more.” The complaints continued about things that I didn’t do, most of which I had no idea I was supposed to do. For being an indirect culture, everyone was beginning to talk very directly.

I rose to defend myself, or at least speak my peace of mind. Gathering myself, I said, “First of all, I agree with this discussion, and have no problem with it. However, I would like you to know that I wasn’t at the election of the queen yesterday because I couldn’t be there. I teach in the afternoons as you all know. Secondly, I have asked you all to tell me what I’m supposed to do because I don’t exactly know. Thirdly, it’s not right to be talking about overthrowing a student from their office when they are not here to defend themselves (referring to the vice-president who was absent from the class that day).”

Thankfully, the students listened to me and immediately called up the vicepresident on his cell phone to ask him if it was okay if they voted him out of office. Here promptly agreed. What else are you to do when the people speak?

Five minutes later another nomination for class officers was held, and my name did not appear on the open ballot. If it comes as any shock, the class elected Carlos as their new president. For the rest of the class, the Carlos continued to use the phrase, the new directive is suggesting we do this or the new directive suggests we do that. The class ended with, “The new directive is going to buy every single one of you a beer. Let’s go to the bar!”

As I sat in the bar drinking my free beer, I began to reminisce on my time in power. I thought, “Well, maybe this new regime isn’t so bad after all. If I knew that I was going to get free drinks, I would have resigned long ago.” As I reflect on my short term in office, I must admit I didn’t take full advantage of my time ruling my underlings. I never laundered money or gave important posts to my friends. But my biggest regret was that I wasn’t in office quite long enough to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Education in Ecuador

In a last ditch effort to learn as much Spanish as possible during my last five months in Ecuador, I’ve begun auditing classes at the university where I teach. I searched for classes in humanities like history or Latin American literature, but couldn’t find any department that offered these subjects. Instead, I wandered into the Education Department and walked out enrolled in first semester education courses. Although I was not thrilled about the content of the classes, the idea of immersing myself in a Spanish environment provided enough motivation for me to commit to getting up at 6 am every morning.

I got up bright and early on the first day of school, took a shower and headed off to class. In order to get to the university, I have to walk 15 minutes to catch a 5 minute bus ride to the campus where I am auditing classes. Depending on the teacher, the classes will start anywhere between 7 am and 7:15 am and last anywhere from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm. At this university, classes are taught in clusters, and the teachers move from class to class, not the students. In my cluster, there are 43 students studying to be elementary and junior high teachers. Not unlike the States, there are a disproportionately larger number of females studying to be teachers, and the major doesn’t hold the reputation for being extremely challenging. I had planned on just sitting in on classes and doing the homework when I could, but knowing that I probably wouldn’t get too involved in the day to day activities. This, however, proved to be quite a naïve thought.
On the first day of classes, all the teachers went around, and we had to introduce ourselves to our classmates. As soon as I opened my mouth, I gave away that I was not from Ecuador, and that I was a professor at the university. Not soon after, the course had class officer elections. I did my best to avoid the inevitable, but of course, someone nominated me for president. In true Ecuadorian fashion of hospitality toward foreigners, popular vote elected me as president of the course. Believe me, this is not really an honor that I particularly wanted because it involves a lot of work. The professors here really rely on the president to organize the class and make all sorts of announcements. For instance, some of my responsibilities have been getting the syllabi from the professors and copying them, and collecting money from the students for the copies. In health class, I had to assign everyone a disease for which they would make a class presentation. Responsibilities outside the classroom have included pouring everyone’s beer and making a speech at a social, and participating in a “student council” meeting. I have managed to avoid participating and representing our class in the two student strikes against the new education laws because it is illegal for a non-Ecuadorian citizen to meddle in political activity. I will say that two strikes in the first month of classes seems a bit excessive. I find that most students use the strike as an excuse not to go to class rather than a passionate fight against an injustice. Although, maybe the Ecuadorian students should fight a little harder against this new law as it will change university gradation from a degree to only a certificate. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure about all of the implications of the new law, but there have been many strikes recently, including from professors. President Correa passed a law requiring teachers to take a standardized test to see how much they knew. If a teacher did not do well, they would be required to take remedial courses. This caused many teachers to be upset, especially in Guayaquil, where strikes became quite heated. Also, all English teachers will now be required to have a minimum score on the TOFEL in order to teach at the university level. I fear several of my colleagues will not pass.

Returning to the subject at hand, the classes I’m taking make me so appreciative of the education I got in the US. I don’t know if I can even describe to you how grateful I am. There are a lot of complaints about our education system, but from my experience here, I think that some of these complaints may be unfounded. Here is a typical class. First, class doesn’t start until 15 minutes after it should. Then, it takes 10 minutes to call the roll for the whole class. Then, the teacher gets a student to read out of a book of short stories with morals which have nothing to do with the day’s topic (if there is a topic for the day). Then, the teacher calls on a student to give some sort of comment about the reading. These comments range anywhere from a complete summary of what was just read to someone’s opinion of the story’s moral. The story is then beat into the ground because after two commentaries, the story has been completely picked apart, yet the teacher insists on calling upon a minimum of three more people to talk. After this, we divide into groups and are assigned part of a reading assignment. Each group gets a maximum of two pages double spaced in type fourteen font. Then, in class, we read the pages and write a summary of what we’ve read. Now, for someone like me, this takes a maximum of seven minutes, even in another language. However, in every group I’ve been in, this has never taken less than thirty minutes. Why? Here, it’s not about finishing first. It’s not about being the smartest. It’s not about competition. It’s about everyone helping everyone else out and talking about God knows what until the last minute when it’s the group’s turn to beg for more time to finish the assignment they should have been working on. This aspect of the Ecuadorian classroom often makes me want to get up and leave in frustration. It once took our group forty-five minutes to write a summary of one paragraph. First of all, I don’t know how we ended up writing a summary longer than the original paragraph, and second of all, why in the world is the teacher assigning this as classwork? I’ll give you the answer – so they don’t have to teach.

I’m taking three classes, Intro to Computing, Intro to Pedagogy, Study Skills, and Language and Communication. Only one of these teachers, the one from computing, actually teaches. The rest of the teachers just assign a group topic, and then each day a student who has no idea how to give a proper or interesting presentation reads off of a poster that they wrote five minutes before class. I often find myself wondering, “Am I really in a university?”

My favorite teacher has to the teacher from Pedagogy. We’ll call him Mr. X. He’s been teaching at the university for over 20 years, and, according to the class title, he should be teaching us how to teach. He and I have an affinity for each other that stems from one of the very first classes. In the middle of class, Mr. X needed to write something on the board, but, of course, did not bring his own whiteboard markers or eraser. Instead of coming to class prepared, he decides that it is okay to yell at the class for not having markers for him, and then accuse the class of not being prepared. I sat there, mouth open. I thought, “Are you kidding me? You are the teacher. You bring what you need to teach to class, and do not expect your students to provide you with supplies.” My anger was only heightened by two facts my classmates did not know; at the beginning of each semester the school gives every teacher markers and an eraser, and for tenured professors, of which he is one, the university gives $200 each year to buy miscellaneous supplies. Yet Mr. X was demanding that we go out and buy markers and an eraser for him so that he could teach class.

The marker incident was only the beginning. I soon discovered that Mr. X had no lesson plans. He would come to class and start talking about character and how we need to have morals to be good teachers. Okay, I can understand a comment or two about this, but two hours? Seriously, I teach, and I know that you are just pulling all of this out of nowhere right now because you have no lesson plan. One of my favorite moral lessons was an email forward. This guy decided to show us a powerpoint presentation on happiness that, I kid you not, ended with “Forward this on to 5 people for good luck.”

After about a week of this teacher doing nothing, I decided to subtly call him out on not having a plan for the class. I went up to him after class and asked if I could see the semester plan that all professors have to turn into the university. I told him, “I want to get a vision for the course, a context, so I know how to each day in class into the bigger picture of the course.” He told me that the plan was down in the secretary’s office and that he would pick it up and get me a copy the next day. The next day he calls me out into the hall and gives me the 26-page plan that is in a plastic presentation folder. He hands the folder to me and says, “You can copy this. Also, I don’t have a copy, so could you please make me a copy as well? And could you please put my copy into a presentation folder like this one? And could you have that done in 30 minutes because this is the secretary’s copy, and she needs it back.” I just stared blankly back at him. Is he really asking me to make him a copy, too? Is he really asking me to buy him a presentation folder? I waited around a few seconds to confirm to myself that he was not going to offer me any money, and then ran across the street to make copies. I bitterly made two copies and rushed up to his classroom to return the original copy. I knocked on the door, and one of his students opened it for me. Mr. X was sitting at his desk taking roll. I walked over to him, put the original copy on his desk, thanked him, and turned to walk out of the room. He called out to me, “Where’s my copy?” I responded, “Oops, I forgot. Here you go.” I bitterly put a copy on his desk. He looked at it, and then looked up at me, “The folder?” “Folder? What folder? I guess I didn’t understand. My Spanish is not that good,” I responded, and walked out of the room.
About a week later, a third incident occurred with Mr. X that was the last straw for me. Mr. X comes into class, sets up his laptop and fancy projector (which I deduct was bought with whiteboard marker money), and tells the class that we need to go over the slides ourselves. He has to leave the university because he has a family emergency. He says he’ll be back in 30 minutes. The slides he’s left for us to look over, not surprisingly, are more powerpoint email forwards with cute puppies, .gif graphics, and waterfalls.

An hour and a half later, Mr. X rolls back into class, apologizing profusely, “I’m so sorry for having to leave. I wouldn’t normally do something like that, but it’s just that there was this really big family emergency I had to take care of. My daughter’s dog died, and she was really upset.” Are you kidding me? Please let me know next time your wife breaks a nail, so we can send flowers.

Mr. X might have gotten away with what he did had he not asked the class to hold on for five more minutes while he went downstairs to sign in and out of the computer. When he said that, I got livid. Signing in and out on the computer at my university implies that you were at the university teaching, and means that you get paid. Mr. X was not at the university teaching and therefore, does not deserve to get paid (although one could also argue that if he was at the university “teaching” he should also not deserve to get paid either). So at the end of class when Mr. X asks if there are any questions, comments, or concerns, I raise my hand and say, “Yeah, I don’t think that it’s fair for you to sign in and get paid when you weren’t here teaching class.” Mr. X quickly tells me that he’ll speak with me after class and dismisses the rest of the students. He approaches me and asks me what I’m concerned about. I tell him again, “I’m a teacher here, and it’s against the rules to sign in and out and get paid for a class that you didn’t teach.” Mr. X asks for sympathy because of the family emergency, but with one look at my face quickly adds, “But I also asked my director, and he gave me permission to go.” I know this is a lie, but what else am I going to do, go to the director and ask him myself? We talk for a little bit, and then he asks me if I have any other concerns. In my head, I’m saying to myself, “Yes, your class is so boring. In fact, I think it might be the worst and most boring class I’ve ever taken in my life. Kat, don’t say that. Say there is nothing wrong and be on your merry way.” The professor looks at me, “Anymore concerns?” Before I can stop myself, I’ve said it, “Your class is really boring.” Doh! Luckily, the professor didn’t take immediate offense, but was willing to discuss the subject with me a little bit. Mr. X decided to hide behind cultural differences as to why it was boring, and I, trying to back peddle, blamed it on the fact that I’ve already graduated from college. At some point during our discussion, I open my big fat mouth again and say that I could teach some of these subjects. At which point, Mr. X agrees that that is a great idea. I can only imagine what he is thinking, “This girl can teach, and I can get paid. What a great idea!”

The next week, I taught for an hour in Spanish on the education system in America. It took me somewhere around 14 hours of research and preparation to get my slides and talk ready, but it was a huge success. One, it was a huge success for me because it was a huge confidence builder. I know that I messed up a lot on the Spanish grammar and lacked some vocabulary words, but to be able to communicate with and engage students for an hour is a big accomplishment. After the presentation, one of my classmates said, “That was a very good example of quality over quantity.” I only hope that some of my classmates realize that education can be so much more than what they are seeing and have seen. I don’t know any better way of conveying this than doing high quality work, and begging Mr. X to let me teach again.

Mr. X and I are better now, if only because there is an open dialogue between us. There are plenty more stories from this Ecuadorian classroom experience, but for now, I’ll just say that ultimately, while it may not be the ideal way to learn about a subject, it’s a great way to learn Spanish. I make presentations in class for at least five minutes every week, and there is a lot of group work, which means I’m practicing Spanish all the time. So while I may be frustrated, I can’t complain for too long. All I can really do is be so thankful for the education I got growing up.

New Pics

Album of the strange things I´ve seen in Ecuador recently

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2809446&id=8301939&l=d8b20b0557

Album of fun time with the family

Album of Field Trips with students

New Videos

A 3 minute look into a party with my family:

A trip to the Ambato Natural Science Museum. We are so spoiled in the States!

Getting Rid of a Fake $5 Bill

Counterfeit money is quite common here in Ecuador. If you’re smart, every time someone hands you a bill, you’ll rub it between your fingers and hold it up to the light to verify the watermark. If you’re overcautious or not confident in your ability to play a US Treasury officer, you can buy a special marker from your local shouting street vendor that, when used on a bill, indicates its validity. I should have bought one of those. If you assume that growing up in the United States helps develop an infallible skill for identifying fake money, you assume wrong. In fact, growing up in the States actually makes you more gullible in accepting false bills. You trust that a shop owner will give you the correct change, and you trust that the ATM will spit out real money. Unfortunately, these are assumptions you should not make. In fact, getting fake money can end up costing you much more than just the loss of the original value of the bill. Let me help you understand the emotional process.

You walk into a store and pick out a pack of gum. Do you need the gum? No. What you need is the change. You just went to the ATM to get some cash and, of course, the machine spit out all your money in $20 bills. What are $20 bills in Ecuador? Useless. Your primary expenditures in Ecuador are $1 taxi rides, 20¢ bus rides, and 50¢ ice cream cones. None of these essentials can be purchased with your $20 bills. People here like change, and only after a ten-minute haggling process can you possibly get a taxi driver to break your $20. So after going to the ATM, you are forced to go out of your way to your local chain grocery store and buy a pack of gum for the mere purpose of buying something small that will break up your twenty into usable units in Ecuador. You know that the grocery store cashier won’t be happy, but they’ll break your twenty because they are large enough to find some change lying around.

You walk into the store and quickly grab a pack of gum. While walking up to the checkout counter, you smile to yourself, thinking, “Haha. Sucker. I’m about to hand this guy $20 to pay for a pack of gum, and he’s going to have to take it. I’m so clever.” As you smirk and hand your $20 over to the cashier, you fail to notice the cashier is also smirking. The cashier, to your surprise, gladly accepts your $20 bill and quickly counts out your change. Too bad you can’t read minds because he’s thinking, “Yes, a stupid gringa! This is my lucky day.”

Ready to get on your way, you stuff the change the cashier handed you into your pocket in a joyful mood. Not only have you managed to break your $20 bill, but you’ve managed to do it in a hassle-free way. “It’s only 10am, but this has already been a pretty successful day,” you think to yourself as you pop a piece of Trident in your mouth.
Stepping off the bus on your way back home, still in a good mood, you decided to treat yourself to an ice cream cone. You walk to your local corner store and select your favorite Pinguino flavor. Then, you walk up to the register and, to push your luck, pay with the largest acceptable bill you can, $5 left over from the grocery store. The teen picks up your bill, feels it, and tells you that you’ll have to pay with something else because your $5 is fake. What? Fake? Then is suddenly dawns on you why the cashier at the grocery store was so happy. He had a fake $5 that he needed to get rid of and you, the trusting American, provided a perfect opportunity.

You dig up change to pay for your ice cream and huff out of the store. You reexamine your $5 bill. Sure enough, plain as day, it’s a fake. It’s thinner than normal. It’s also too smooth. And when you hold it up to the Equatorial sun, you see no watermark. You curse yourself for having been duped.
Now at this point, most people would kick the dirt, curse their bad luck, and save the $5 as a souvenir to show people back home. But oh, no. Not you. You’re smarter than that. You’ve been in Ecuador a while. A long time ago you accepted that what goes around comes around. No one is going to get the best of this gringa. You’re going to find a way to pawn this bogus bill off on some other unsuspecting victim.

For the next week, you try your best to get rid of your phony money. First, you try to buy several packs of gum from random corner stores with your $5. Not one of the cashiers accepts your money. You decide to try a different strategy, buy more expensive items and hide the five in between other dollar bills so the cashier won’t notice. No, you don’t need a 2-pound bag of Snickers, but at $8, buying it will allow you to try your new strategy and put your $5 in between a few one-dollar bills. You check out. Caught. Maybe you need to modify your stragegy and try to hide your $5 in bigger bills. Every time you go to the mall you’ve looked at the $40 game of Taboo in the toy store. You know you don’t need it. Hell, at one tenth of your salary you can’t even really afford it. But, you know it would give you a chance to try out your new theory of hiding the money inside bigger bill denominations. You try. Failure. You now have a game of Taboo you didn’t need, and you still have your fake $5.
Now at this point, a lot of people might throw in the towel and say, “Okay, no one is going to take my $5. I should count my losses and move on.” But not you. One of your best personality traits is that you are perseverant, even when the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against you.

The next day, you are hanging out in the park, and a little boy comes up and asks to polish your shoes. Normally, you say no to this service, especially when you are wearing your Converse Chuck Taylors, but today, you accept his offer. The boy finishes discoloring your shoes, and you hand him your $5 and ask for change. Part of you feels bad about trying to give this boy a fake, but then again, life’s not fair. This boy needs to learn that, and today, you’ve been given the opportunity to teach him. After all, you are down here volunteering as a teacher. Who says that needs to be limited to the classroom?
The boy takes your bill, feels it for a minute, looks at you, says something in Quichua, and shakes his head while handing the money back to you. He holds his hand out demanding real money. You mumble something under your breath like, “I swear they teach kids what a fake $5 bill feels like before they even teach them how to count.”

Later that week you find yourself in front of a hot dog stand. You don’t particularly want a hot dog, especially given its likelihood of making you sick, but you are going to buy one anyway. Why are you going to buy one? Because the owner of the hot dog stand is an old, half-blind woman. The pads of her hands, which were specially cultivated since childhood to detect counterfeit money, have long been calloused, and you suspect they are now likely to fail her. You feel bad for what you’re about to do and have trouble justifying this as some sort of lesson for this old woman, but at this point, you’ve run out of all other options. You order a hot dog and hand the woman your $5. Two seconds later she’s giving you your fake five back and asking you to pay with real money. What is it with this country? You’re beginning to wonder why they even sell markers that detect fake bills when everyone already has magical sensors built into their hands and special imitation implants built into their eyes.

You decide, finally, that it’s time to give up. Trying to get rid of this $5 has indirectly made you spend over $60 buying merchandise you didn’t really need. You finish your hot dog, and as you pass a beggar on the sidewalk, you drop your $5 into his hat. As you walk away, you can see out of the corner of your eye that the beggar has reached into his hat and is frowning. You feel his disgusted eyes on your back as you turn the corner and board your bus toward home. You sigh at the thought of your defeat. But then, as you sit there, you can’t help but smile a little as you think of what’s waiting for you at home, a 2-pound bag of Snickers.

I really am posting again, promise…

I know. I know. It has been ages since I have posted. Sorry! I guess the longer I live here, the more accustomed I get to the crazy cultural occurrences, and the less prone I am to realize that they would make quite entertaining blog posts.

First things first. I have decided to stay down here in Ecuador until at least August. There is a chance that I will stay down here until January, but either way, when I come home, it will be for good. The decision about how long I stay will rest on how I feel about teaching and living here through April and May. If I’m not completely content with everything about life down here, then you can expect me on a plane in August. Part of me is very anxious to move on to the next phase of my life, and part of me realizes that as soon as I do, I’ll look back and wish I was in Ecuador again. But I guess those feelings are a part of any stage in one’s life. One of life’s biggest challenges is learning to balance the looking back and looking forward with finding happiness in the present.

So the next question is, “Okay, so you are staying in Ecuador longer. What happens after WT?” I’ve been thinking a lot about career goals and kicking around many ideas. However, I think one of my first goals will be to find practical experience in public interest law. I’ve been seriously considering law school as a means of balancing my desire for meaningful work with my desire for a flexible graduate professional degree. However, without some sort of real exposure to this type of law, I feel I would be naïve to undertake a $100K debt and spend three years of hard work slaving toward an unsure goal with only hopes that I will like the work afterwards. To gain experience, I’m currently looking into an 11-month Americorps program in Massachusetts which provides hands on exposure from interviewing clients to providing legal support. However, the prospect of trying to survive in the Boston area on the Americorps salary of $17K a year seems near impossible. Many people who have done Americorps have resorted to living on food stamps. I know this would make mom and dad so proud, their college educated daughter living on food stamps! Maybe I’ll look for something in the Houston area… If anyone has any ideas, please share.

Definitely one of the things that I’m most thankful for about my time in Ecuador is that it has given me the opportunity to reflect on the type of work that I want to do with my life. I’m not necessarily talking about teaching, but about characteristics that I want in a career. I feel like there is so much pressure in the US to immediately step into a job and start climbing a latter without reflection on if that’s the latter you want to be climbing. For me, I think it would be so tragic to wake up one morning at 35 and realize that I was on the wrong path, that I’d achieved “success” but not in the areas that were really important to me. Ecuador has given me more confidence and insight into my ideal job.

Mini-Reflections on a Year in Ecuador

I’ve been through more in this year than I could have imagined, had time for reflection about the world and about my own life and personal goals. I have a better understanding of the complexity of the problems in a developing country, and a better appreciation for our own American way of life. I have a profoundly deeper appreciation for my family and friends back home, and a daily thankfulness for life. Ecuador generously gave me these things.

I came to Ecuador in a very hopeful world climate with little fear besides justifying my year abroad to employers. A year latter, I can’t turn on CNN without hearing about the economic crisis and some other major company laying off a huge majority of its employees. So far, no trickle down economic effect has visibly altered Ecuadorian life. However, unlike the US, the attitude here is one of resilience and passive acceptance of the inevitable. It’s not because the effects and changes in the economic climate aren’t real. It’s because the terrors in this country are the sleeping volcanoes, not the stock market crashes. The fears in this country are the earthquakes, not the shaking up of the housing market. The worries in this country are about poorly constructed bridges collapsing, not the collapse of easy luxury. When I ask most Ecuadorians about the economic crisis, they seem only slightly worried. When their banking system has failed several times before, and the government has reached into their coffers on many occasion, and they’ve managed to survive, economic woes are just one more part of is a part of daily life. They’ve made it through worse before. They’ll make it through again.

Reflections on Teaching

Teaching proved itself a rewarding use of my time and efforts, not only in regards to my students, but also in my own personal fulfillment. One of my own personal drugs is performing for people and making them laugh. What an incredible high to be able to this skill on a weekly, if not daily basis. Several times this year I have walked out of my classroom with the biggest smile on my face because I know that everything in the class just clicked. Working with groups of people and leading them through activities comes so naturally to me, and teaching allowed me ample opportunity to use these skills I enjoy.

For example, there was one particular lesson where my students had to read Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” We had finished our class discussion and still had thirty minutes left in class. As usual, I did not plan class well and found myself having to improvise an activity. In “To Build a Fire” the main character, dying of hypothermia in the Yukon, tries to kill his dog as a means of warming himself up. Thinking of my feet, I asked my students to make up skits of what the man was thinking during this moment of the story and then, what the dog was thinking. Fifteen minutes later my students presented their skits in broken English. After they were done, they said, “Teacher, you do one. You do one.” I easily obliged their request and became the bitter, cigarette smoking Husky who thought his master was the biggest idiot in the world. My students were rolling on the floor. It was such an incredible high.

There is something unique that happens in a classroom, as any teacher can tell you. You can create a unique community of trust between students and teacher that is hard to imagine existing in a different setting. In my own class, I found the best way to create this community rested on my admitting my own mistakes and making a fool out of myself. My students, in turn, found themselves more freely making mistakes, but also stepping outside their comfort zone. I had the joy of watching several of my students come out of their shells in English and become so much more confident in their skills.

Quite possibly the biggest reward I got all semester was feedback from one of the parents of my students. She told me that her daughter absolutely hated English before she came into my class. By the end of a year with me, she loved English. She was now watching TV in English and listening to English music all the time. She got her other sister excited about English too, and they had both begun teaching their youngest sister how to speak in English. The mom said that she didn’t know what I had done, but that I was one of the best teachers that her daughters had ever had. Different students also gave me similar feedback. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is knowing that I’ve made a direct impact on my students’ lives. If students can be inspired to like a subject and want to learn it on their own, then the teacher has succeeded. I am reminded of the William Butler Yeats quote, “Teaching is not filling a bucket. It’s lighting a fire.”

Now, before you all send me congratulation cards on being the “English Teacher of the Year,” you have to realize that the Ecuadorian education system leaves much to be desired. I don’t think that it would be extremely difficult for anyone who had great teachers as examples to be a good teacher in Ecuador. In one of my host brother’s English classes growing up, the teacher made the students take a book in Spanish and copy the Spanish page out of the book. Then, the students had to translate the Spanish into English. That was their daily English class. Given that knowledge, you can understand how it wouldn’t be too hard to be a really good teacher here. Anything classroom would be better than that!

Life Lately

Sorry that it has been four months since I have updated my blog.  It’s not been that there has been nothing going on in my life.  It’s just that I haven’t sat down and written about everything.

POST ACCIDENT

I stole this update from part of an e-mail I sent to a friend in September:

Life around here in Ambato has returned to some normalcy.  Of course, after the accident, life changed a bit.  I think I told you that I went home for three weeks to visit my family and friends.  That was the best trip that I could have taken.  Thankfully, my parents are awesome and paid for a flight home for me.  Three weeks in Texas can renew a girl’s soul, and I was back here in Ecuador in a flash.

Coming back was a bit strange.  I wanted to yell at everyone and tell them to be careful, to be thankful for life.  But the reality is that no one can live like that.  If we are too careful about our life, we won’t really live it, eh?  Regardless of that fact, I still felt like I was walking around speaking to everyone in my head, “You don’t know that you could go at any minute.  You are happy right now, but what if it is all taken away.”  This type of mentality lasted for weeks.

And the buses, well, they are another story.  I got back on them.  How can you live in Ecuador and not? But it sure wasn’t that easy.  If I was talking in my head to everyone in the street about being careful with their lives, I was yelling at everyone on the bus in my head saying, “You don’t know that this bus could just fall off this cliff right now.  And then what?”  I would imagine the bus falling and imagine how all the people would fare.  The girl walking down the isle wouldn’t make it.  The old woman probably wouldn’t either.  That guy who is sleeping, he’d probably be alright.  And I would look around at what in the bus could hurt me.  If you recall, most seats, even on many city buses, have a metal plate on their backs.  I kept thinking, if we stop really fast, I’ll faceplant into this metal sheet and ruin my face or crack my skull.  I know all of this sounds kind of morbid, but it was my mental state.  Sometimes the bus would make a screeching noise or lean a certain way (like it was about to flip) and then I would lose it.  All I could do was put my head down, breath, and try to relax.  After all, I always remember that I was spared a lot of injury in the accident because I was in a relaxed, sleep-like state when we fell off the cliff.

But it has gotten better.  Now I can ride city buses sometimes and not think of the accident.  I have yet to go on a long trek without inevitably recalling our fall, but it hasn’t stopped me from traveling.  I’m still getting around as much as ever, enjoying Ecua-life.  But I don’t necessarily think the memory should go away immediately or even ever.  Rather than seeing this as a bad thing, I see it as a really good thing.  It is good to be conscious of life’s fragility.  Life has a little more color, a stronger scent, and even deeper emotions when you are cognizant that someday you may not taste it.  Even the scars are a nice reminder of not only of how lucky I am to have life, but to live life fully. 

Now, I’ll update you on my post-accident emotional state as of November 23.

I am dealing very, very well.  When I was in Quito teaching a session for the incoming September volunteers’ orientation, I was even able to tell my story.  I’m not sure how, but I somehow managed to tell the story in such a way that by the time I was done with the story people’s sides were hurting because they had been laughing too much.  After the talk, a few people came up to me and told me what an amazing person I am, and one of them even called me their hero.  I found that all a bit strange.  I never thought that any story from my life would elicit that kind of reaction.  I guess people were pretty amazed that I was back in Ecuador and that I could be laughing about something so awful.  But really, I don’t know of any other way to deal with what life throws you than to cry and laugh your way through it.

Recently, I did get one of the coolest compliments that I’ve had in recent memory.  My friend said, “You know, Kat, for most people, falling off a cliff in Ecuador would be one of the most interesting things about them.  Falling off a cliff is one of the least interesting things about you.”

Some days, I don’t even think about the accident anymore, even when I am riding a city bus.  Other days, I am floored by the fact that I am still alive.  Another, similar bus accident happened recently here in Ecuador and something like thirty people died.  That very easily could have been me.

Riding on interprovincial buses (longer distances) is still scary to me, especially if I can see any kind of cliff.  Luckily, now I usually have friends that I am travelling with, which help calm my nerves when I occasionally do freak out.  They’ve also been nice enough to listen when I need to talk about what happened. 

I’m very glad that I decided to return to Ecuador after the accident.  If I hadn’t, I don’t know that I would have been able to face some of my fears and get on with living as I have been since.  Plus, if I hadn’t returned, I think the most vivid thing about Ecuador would have been the accident, not all the other ways I’ve grown and experiences I’ve had here.  I think it has something to do with finishing what I started.  And I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet all of the new Ambato volunteers.  Three fairly recent college grads, Louisa, Emily, and Smaki (Sarah) have joined Robert and me here.  They are all great and have added a lot of fun to my life recently.  I am still happy to be down here, and can’t believe that I only have two more months committed to teaching here.  I have no idea where this year has gone.  My next blog update will be probably have the “What’s Next?” question, so stay tuned.

 Here are pics from the accident: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2630662&l=318dc&id=8301939

 

MY BIRTHDAY AND ¨STICK THE PEN IN THE BOTTLE¨

This year I took the grand opportunity to celebrate my birthday on three separate occasions.  First, my parents threw a huge party to celebrate my mom’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, my brother’s birthday, my birthday, and the homecoming of my younger brother from England.  All of the neighbors came over and all my fellow Ambato volunteers came over.  It was an interesting night, filled with sending off a flaming balloon into the sky, dancing with old men, and new games.

The Ecuadorians have this really interesting game which I’ll call “Stick the Pen in the Bottle” a.k.a “Squat and Make a Fool out of Yourself.”  This is a simple game that you, too, can play at your next party.  All you need is an empty beer bottle, a pen, and a string.  Tie the pen to the string, and then, tie the string around your waist.  Make sure the pen dangles behind you.  Now, get the pen in the bottle.  Usually, this takes anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes.  I succeeded easily the first time I tried.  However, as the night progressed, and I was again called upon to look like a fool for all my Ecuadorian neighbors, my aunt decided to make the game a bit more challenging.  As I got close to getting the pen into the bottle, she would push me, severely hindering my chances of maneuvering the pen into the bottle.  Then, my aunt decided even that was not enough of a challenge, so she just pushed me over completely.  At this point, someone decided that my punishment for not successfully sticking the pen in the bottle should be that I have to drink whiskey and water.  No one seemed to care about the fact that there was no possible way that I could have succeeded.

I think I got one of the funniest birthday gifts that I have ever gotten at this party.  At MegaMaxi (Ecuador’s version of Walmart), one of the new vols, Emily, had found the best combination ever, champagne hand shrink wrapped with a free bag of Milky Way Minis.  I would have liked to be inside of the boardroom when they came up with that promotion.  “Okay, we’ve got this champagne.  Now, what could we add to it to make it move faster.  A wine glass.  No.  Hum…maybe some extra wine, like two for one.  No.  Wait…wait, guys.  I got it!  MILKY WAY MINIS!”  I’m pretty sure that right after they came up with that idea they went to the household supply section, grabbed some cling wrap and made their combo of the week.

My next birthday celebration, on my real birthday, consisted of friends, cake, and alcohol.  Can you ask for a better birthday?  However, as usual, I did learn a lesson.  Don’t ask the bartender to make you a strong, special drink for your birthday.  Of course, I did this and almost puked when I tasted my drink.  Not about to have to chug something awful on my birthday, I proceeded to find the bartender and ask him to add some more Coke to my drink.  He said, “Do you want more wine?”  I said, “No, I want more Coke.”  He replied, “But there is no Coke in that.  It is only whiskey, tequila, and wine.”  Who in their right mind would ever think that combination of alcohols would make a good drink?   I think this guy must have worked at MegaMaxi during the day.  In the end, I did end up getting more wine added to the drink.  And you know, after a few sips it didn’t taste that bad anymore.

My final birthday celebration was thrown the day after my birthday by my one Ecuadorian friend, Sarita and her husband, Wilbur.  This party was pizza, beer, and a sing-a-long.  Great times!

You can check out pictures of all the birthday stuff here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2630670&l=8d879&id=8301939

 

POTTY TRAINING IN THE STREET

The other night I was walking down the main and also busiest street in Ambato, Cevallos Avenue when I noticed a very young looking girl come out to the street, squat down, and pee.  I was taken aback because this girl looked to be somewhere around two years old.  She seemed really young to already be potty trained.  I spent the next few blocks walking and thinking about how she had been potty trained at such a young age.  Then it hit me.  I had just seen a two year-old girl walk out into the busiest street in Ambato where cars whiz by at alarming speeds, squat down in that poorly-lit street, and spend the next twenty seconds peeing alone in that dangerous street.  It amazes me how accustomed I am to life here that I didn’t notice the first thing that any American would have noticed, a little girl alone peeing in a very unsafe place.  Instead, my mind fixated only how someone so young could be potty trained.  It’s funny how easily we can lose our cultural perspective and see the world through another culture’s eyes.

 

 THANKSGIVING

Robert decided to host a WorldTeach March ’08 Thanksgiving celebration in Ambato.  After a week of baking, cleaning, and many stories, we were ready for turkey celebration.  As usual, it was a great time, but I have to admit that it made me miss home a bit.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays back home, and I really missed family catch up, rolling on the floor laughing, and the annual football game.  I am hoping this will be the last Thanksgiving I’ll have to miss.

Pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2630684&l=c6f6e&id=8301939

IBARRA AND THE RETURN OF ZORRO

Ibarra is a city about three hours north of Quito, and they hold a Zorro festival every year.  Of course, if there is the word party, the Ambatenas are there.  The festival included parades with horses that came entirely too close to kicking innocent by-standers (me).  Then, the festival culminated in a horse race.  Zorro gets a little headstart and the rest of the contestants try to catch Zorro and grab a fake tail off of the horse.  Whoever gets the tail gets to be the Zorro the following year.  There were Zorros races from every age and gender, lasting a total of about two hours.  What I remember the most about this was trying to convince someone to let me ride their horse.  I failed at this, but I did manage to get the MC of the event to announce that WorldTeach was at the parade.

Here are the pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2628956&l=ce8b5&id=8301939

 MACAS

Here are some pictures from my two visits out to Macas to see Marcie, my good friend in the Peace Corps.  I went once right after I got back to Ecuador from my visit to the states.  Then I returned later with some of my new friends.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2624568&l=4350d&id=8301939

 MYSTERY SHOPPER

The most random things happen to me in Ecuador.  While teaching one day, I hear a knock on my door.  I open it to find a student that I had taught for only two weeks during a review session.  She asks me if I want work.  I tell her I can’t do anything because our visa only allows us to work for a certain amount of hours each week.

After class, the girl came back and begged me to help her with this translation for a video.  Purely to satisfy my own curiosity about how well I could translate, I hopped into a car with her and was off to translate the video.  I had no idea about the amount of work I was getting myself into.  The five minute video ended up taking four hours to put on English subtitles and that was with the help of my brother who had just returned from England.  Somewhere in the process of translating this video, one of the men who we were working with asked my brother and me if we wanted to be mystery shoppers at a car dealership.  Of course our answer was YES!

The following day, my brother, Nes, and I went to go buy a car for a “non-profit” organization that is just establishing itself in Ecuador.  The catch was, we had to do the whole thing in English and record it all on our hidden cameras.   At one car lot, the salesman did a pretty good job of trying to sell us the car, except for the fact that every car was exactly what we needed.  At another lot, the lady just got frustrated and did her best, but it got to the point where I was ready to go because communication was so difficult.  The hard part was that I understood most of her Spanish, but had to pretend like I couldn’t understand anything.  Anyway, random Ecuadorian experience. 

 

VACATION TO CUENCA

Here are some pics from my vacation with my family to Cuenca and the Devil’s Caldron. 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2630674&l=8df91&id=8301939

Life

My apologies if this entry is not particularly well-written. My objective was to update friends and family with speed rather than utmost clarity. Thankfully my hands have recovered enough from my glass wounds that I can type.

T.S. Eliot once wrote, “April is the cruelest month,” but I think that he was wrong. July is the cruelest month. At the beginning of this month I suffered from a bad bought of dysentery that more or less put me out of commission, and then came the accident. I must have spent more time in bed this month than ever in my life.

I’ll start with the reason for my travels. Our entire March WT group went out to the coast for our mid-service conference in a pueblo called Puerto Rico. We stayed at a really nice eco-lodge, complete with beachside bonfires. After a great couple of days, the group headed down the coast to hang out with a volunteer in Montinita. The next day, not wanting to miss a once in a lifetime chance, I got up early and travelled up the coast to join our WT field directors who were going whale watching. This whaling excursion was awesome but put me really late in traveling back to Ambato, and it put me on a solo ride back to Ambato because my traveling partner on the way to the coast had decided not to go see the whales. I arrived at the Guayaquil terminal around 7:30pm, just missing all the 7:30 buses headed in the direction of Ambato. Guayaquil is a six hour bus ride from Ambato. The earliest bus I found my direction was an 8:15pm Transandinia. Having taken that bus line several times before, I felt super comfortable with it. Furthermore, when I actually got to the bus, and they handed us tickets for our bags I was impressed. My reassurance only doubled when a security guard used a metal detector on everyone before they entered the bus. I was super excited about being able to relax on this night bus not having to worry about anyone hijacking it or about my bag getting stolen from underneath the bus. Plus, I was in seat number one, which is by the window right behind the driver’s seat and has the most leg room. Later, I would be super grateful that there is a plastic wall between the driver’s compartment and the passenger section which probably prevented me from flying out the front window. The one fact I paid no attention to at the time but in hindsight wish I would have realized is that there was only one driver. Normally on buses there is a driver and an assistant who collects fares. This bus was lacking the later. I think it would contribute to our driver falling asleep at the wheel.

Feeling completely exhausted from the weekend, I quickly fell asleep on the bus and slept until about 11:30pm. When I awoke, I enjoyed my iPod and reflected on my life. Bus rides, mountain scenery, music, and Kat’s mind are especially conducive to a reevaluation of life. I won’t share what those thoughts were here, but I will say that they regarded the goals of my life and what I want to be about. Around 12:30am I started to go into the dreamy sleep state, somewhere between awake and asleep. I would fall asleep and then wake up again, then fall asleep and awaken. Around 1:15am in a very dreamy state, I felt the bus hit what I thought was a really big pot hole. The bus dipped hard to the left, the side I was sitting on, and then the bus came back up again. I later deduced that this “pot hole” had really been the small drainage ditch on the side of the road. Then next thing I feel is the bus starting to turn over. There are no shoulders on Ecuadorian roads, and we were traveling in the Andes Mountains. We were falling off a cliff. My first thought was, “No way. This can’t really be happening to me. We really aren’t falling off a cliff.” But as the bus continued to roll, the reality of the situation sunk in.

The next thought I remember is, “Are you serious? This is how I die? But I really like life right now. And I’m 22 years old. This is really young to die.” Now, I find this last thought pretty funny because I three months away from turning 24. I guess I really only feel 22. At this point, I don’t remember being particularly scared of death. Rather I just had a calm acceptance of the obvious fact that I was going to die here. At one point, I do remember flying from one side of the bus to the other and trying to put my arms up to my head.

After about four or five rolls, the bus slowed down, and I felt it teetering from one side to the other. This was the moment when I finally got scared. In my mind, we had rolled down part of the cliff, but now the bus was on the edge of a huge drop-off into a ravine. My thought was that I had to get out a window and find a tree to hang onto like in the movies. Before I could act on this thought, the bus rolled over one more time and landed right-side up on solid ground. However, I was still very unaware of how stable or unstable the bus was where we were, so I knew I needed to get out as quickly as possible. Amazingly, when I tried to stand up, I was able to, and when I started to try to walk, I actually could. Some other people had made it to the front of the bus and were trying to open the door. They were yelling open the door, and I joined them. I can only assume that they were yelling at the bus driver, but I don’t recall seeing him. The door was jammed into the side of the mountain and was not going to open. I am going to guess that the bus driver then climbed out his side window, and then the guy in front of me who had been trying to get the door open followed. I remember thinking that the broken glass in the window was going to hurt my hands, but my desire to get out of the bus superseded my concern for my hands. I pulled myself out of this driver’s window and walked around to the other side of the bus. I think there were people on the ground in front of the bus as they had been dropped there on the last roll of the bus. However, I only have a hazy image of this. Not only was it very dark outside, but I am pretty sure that my mind blacked out the image of those people. I don’t know if this is when I started to hear the screaming or if it was before. Again, my head has erased much of this noise, but there is one distinct scream that stays with me. I remember hearing a grown man screaming, “Mama! Mama!”

I noticed that there were two guys starting to climb back up the mountain. Realizing that we were out in the middle of nowhere and that no help was probably going to come for a long time, I decided to stick with those people who were also able to walk. I began my ascent up the mountain. The side of the cliff, thankfully, was not very rocky, but was grassy and muddy. It was raining outside. I remember having to use my hands to make it back up to the road. When I got to the top and looked down at where the bus was relative to the road, I thought, “How did I walk away from that?” At this point, there were about four of us who had climbed back up to the road. I reached into my pocket and realized how lucky I was. Zipped inside my jacket pocket was my cell phone, my camera, and my wallet, the three things that I would have grabbed if someone had given me a choice of what to take. I pulled out my cell. There was no signal. My companions asked me if I was alright. This is when I start to notice the pain on my head and the blood on my hands. A guy held his cell phone up to my head to see what kind of damage there was. He told me that it was some word in Spanish that I didn’t understand. However, I did understand that he said it was not broken. I asked where we were. People said that we were near a city whose name I didn’t not recognize, but later would find out was Cajabama. We were about 20 minutes from Cajabama and then another 20 minutes to Riobama, the next major city with a hospital. Suddenly we see headlights coming around the corner. The four of us wave furiously trying to get the bus’s attention. Like a smart Ecuadorian bus, they rush on by. You must know that there is no such thing as a good Samaritan law in Ecuador. I don’t fully understand Ecuadorian law, but I do know that WT has told us not to offer help to anyone who is hurt because you can actually be held legally and financially responsible for that person even if you had nothing to do with getting them hurt. About five minutes later a bus going in the direction of Guayaquil comes around the corner. We flag it down. This time, the bus stops. One of the guys explains the situation, and the bus attendant says that they will tell the police in the next town about the accident. This is positive because you must remember that there is no such thing as a nationwide 911 number. There is a different number for the police in every city, so we would probably get the message delivered faster via bus than trying to figure out what the local police phone number was.

One of my companions has been walking around looking for cell signal, and he yells over to me that he found a spot where there is signal. I head over there. Bingo – signal! By this point, it is probably 1:30am, time to wake up my WT Ecuador field director. I call Katie and explain what just happened. She goes to work being an objective voice by asking me about my injuries and offering to call my host family to explain the situation. We have a brief conversation, and she says that she will call me every 15 minutes to keep tabs on the situation as it develops. I rejoin the group on the side of the hill. At this point, there are about 7 or 8 of us at the top. About 10 minutes later another bus comes around the corner. This bus also stops and some of the injured people start to get on. I head toward the bus, but the guy I have been talking to the whole time asks me if I want to try to get my bag from the bus. I go to the side of the road, look down, and think about it. Then another guy is says to forget about my bag and get on the bus. Reason kicks in, I forget about my bag and get on the bus. This bus is completely full with people all in the isle from front to back. People have packed to the back of the bus to make room for the injured. Most of the other injured people are sitting down in the front seats. They are all holding parts of their bodies and moaning. I slide into a place standing in the isle. I had no choice but to get right back on a bus after haven fallen off a cliff in one.

About five minutes after the bus gets going, I finally see some guy’s girlfriend shove him and tell him to give me his seat. I gladly accept this offer. The next hour and a half consisted of me sporadically talking to Katie and my host family about my status and where I was in my bus. Everyone else from the accident got off in Riobamaba. Not feeling any major pains, I decided to take the bus all the way to my hometown, Ambato, where I could be with my family. We finally made it to the first stop in Ambato where the majority of the bus got off, and I could hear everyone gasp as they walked by me. I knew that I must look like I was in a state. For sure my hands were completely covered in blood, and I could feel blood run down my face from my head every once and a while. The bus took me to the terminal in Ambato where my parents were waiting. I stepped off the bus and saw my parent’s car. My mom rushed out to give me a hug, and I could hear her gasp at the sight of me. This was about 3am.

My parents immediately took me to the hospital. Half of me wanted to go on to Quito where there is an American standard hospital. The other half of me realized that Quito was three hours away, and I did have to have my injuries looked at soon, particularly my head injury. We pulled up to the nicest hospital in Ambato, which is fairly new and looked very clean. I am super glad that I didn’t get off the bus in Riobamaba with everyone else because I was the only patient in the Ambato hospital. The way the emergency room works is more or less on a first come, first serve basis. For a time, I had the doctor’s full attention.

The cleaning process began. The doctor removed all the glass from my body, cleaned my cuts, gave me stitches and injections, and checked for signs of major injuries. The worst part about all of this was that I could not relax and just say that the doctors will take care of me, and I will get better. In Ecuador, your medical attention is up to you. I asked about every injection and every stitch. Everyone kept telling me to calm down and relax. One of the nurses even asked if I had even been in a hospital before because I was so concerned about everything. As an example of how your health is up to you, after I was all cleaned up, the doctor and nurses kept telling me to rest. Knowing that my head had just been through some major trauma, I said that I refused to rest until I had it looked at. I feared a concussion. Another example is that while I was in the hospital another accident victim came in. They took him to get x-rays. Later, when I went to get x-rays, there was blood on the x-ray table. I told the nurses that I refused to get on the table until they cleaned up the blood. The nurses replied that it was nothing and not to worry about it. We argued. Finally, one of the nurses went and got some water and a paper towel and cleaned it up. I still refused to get on the table until they used some sort of disinfectant. After enough insistence, they finally complied, and I got on the table.

During all of this, my family had gone home. I don’t think I realized until much later that I was alone. One of the male nurses who was with me asked me if I was in the hospital alone. Apparently my mom had left without me knowing it. I was constantly crying. The nurse held my hand and told me how beautiful and brave I was. Normally, I would not like an Ecuadorian male’s flattery, but I must say that it was quite comforting while I was laying their in pain.

After I found out that everything looked okay on my x-rays and my CAT Scan, the doctor told me that he wanted to keep me for a few more hours for observation. This would have been the perfect time for a little rest, but I was completely alone in the hospital and couldn’t calm down. The only thought that was going through my mind was, “Why am I still here?” At this point, I thought that the few of us who had made it up the mountain were the only survivors. How did I walk away? These thoughts kept circling through my head, and I kept crying. And here is where an interesting cultural note comes in. The cultural perspectives on this accident seem to differ. Every nurse or doctor who came by to check on me for the next couple of hours kept asking me where I hurting and why I was crying. The truth was that I nothing really hurt on my body, but the mental anguish was entirely more painful. Being absolutely sure that you were dead and then realizing that you are still alive does a huge number on your head. For some reason I have found that here in Ecuador that it is assumed that if the physical body is healthy, then you are okay. It is a big deal, but it is not the biggest deal to fall off a cliff in a bus here in Ecuador. Stuff like this happens. People expect you to be able to deal.

To further elaborate on this topic, my family, rather than asking me how I feel, keeps asking me if I am better yet. I don’t know how to answer that. They keep telling me that in a few days I will be normal again. Physically, I think this may be more or less true. Five days after the crash, and I am up, moving, and show few physical signs of the crash. However, the mental and spiritual healing process seems to be on a much slower timescale. Trying to do this outside your own cultural context, without family and old friends is proving to be a challenge. I am sure that I will have more thoughts on this in the future.

I must send thanks to family and friends who have known about the accident and sent their love and support. A special thanks is in order for my friend, Marcie, who took off from her Peace Corps post to come spend a few days with me after the accident. There are only certain people that can call you Frankenstein after an accident and have it be funny. Marcie is one of them. I know that if many of you could have you would have been to my bedside in a heartbeat, reassuring me that the bald spot on my head will indeed grow hair again. I thank you for your continued prayers and support.

According to the news, one person was killed in the crash, and 17 people were injured. They released the names of the dead and injured, and I was not on the list. I assume that the 17 people reported as injured were so severely injured that they could not make it back up the mountain on their own to catch a ride to the hospital like I did.

In other news, I did end up getting my bag back from the bus company. Everything was intact, which was like Christmas. I don’t have that many clothes here in Ecuador, and half of them were in that bag.

I still am not sure how I walked away from that crash with such little physical injury and why I have been given a second chance at life. I know that not everyone gets that opportunity. I am grateful that it wasn’t my time to go yet. I’ve got a lot more people to love on this earth before I go.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, and He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; Thou didst hear my voice. For Thou hadst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Thy breakers and billows passed over me. So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Thy sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Thy holy temple.’ Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me. Weeds wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but Thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to Thee, into Thy holy temple. Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to Thee with a voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.” Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

A Clip of My Class