i think that i have finally found my ecuadorian home…

warning: long entry, but i couldnt help it!
last thursday i traveled to cotacachi to begin my teaching of english classes and field research. taken from my daily handwritten journal… “holy crap, this is amazing. you know when you feel like you’re living a day that will change your life? i have found the “arteaga” of ecuador; i have found my ecuadorian home.”

after a series of difficulties, including not being able to get change for a $20 at any panaderia open at 6 am in the old town (which is such a common problem gringos have here), and therefore not being able to take a taxi when i was lost, running very late, and a mile from the bus station, then being confused about what bus to take, etc., we arrived in toruco, a rural community a half-hour’s walk outside of cotacachi.

the people of toruco (which means mud, in kichwa, i believe) and the surrounding area are a mix of mestizos and indigenous people, and all have land in which they farm corn and keep livestock, under the watchful care of the volcano cotacachi. in actuality, most people can’t make enough money in farming, so the men travel to quito during the week (2.5 hrs away) to do construction work, and return on weekends to maintain their land. and another common situation, apparently, was pointed out by raul, the guy we are staying with here; he showed us a taxi driver on the street that has a degree in economy but couldn’t find work so moved to spain for six years as an agricultural worker, made enough money to buy a taxi and a bus, and came back to do that work since he still couldn’t find work in what he has been trained in. que lastima!

everyone in toruco, unlike quito, is so friendly and generous, saying “buenos dias, como le va?” to everyone else on the dirt and cobblestone paths. they all participate together in “mingas”, the kichwa word for community work, to make improvements to the community. there is a beautiful, clear brook running through the community.
the schools here look like schools in rural mexico, and i was surprised at how well-funded the school we are working at appears. they have 4 teachers for 80 students, which isn’t such a terrible ratio, and the classroom that keeps grades 3-6 even has a computer in it.

i am going to be teaching english to 30 9-14 year olds, who so far seem to be well-behaved and eager to learn. i asked them to correct my spanish and to teach me kichwa, and they seemed excited to do that too. the school is in the community of chikapamba, a 30 min walk from toruco. the schools here are bilingual (spanish and kichwa), which is something that has been instituted within the past 20 years in order to help the indigenous people maintain their culture. but the students and their parents have expressed the desire for them to also learn english, since so many people from this area migrate to europe or the u.s. to look for work. i don’t feel quite right about helping to facilitate this “brain drain,” but the immigration problem is really economic and systemic, and i should be working to also change the bigger picture, and not feel guilty, i guess, for helping a few students perhaps be able to have a more economically-successful future.
annnyways…the first day, i asked the students if they already knew any english, and they all responded together, “good morning, teacher!” it was so cute. but outside of that phrase, they knew very little, so we began with the basics, and i tried to incorporate a few basic games. i hope i can find an english-teaching book to help guide me in this process. these schools have no p.e. or music classes either, so the director told us we were free to teach those classes too…which will be interesting.
it was really interesting to observe the cultural differences between the indigenous and mestizo students in my class. generally speaking, the indigenous kids were more shy, less willing to speak aloud, and more fearful of my individually asking them questions aloud before the class (and perhaps having a very different definition of comfortable space…when i would bend down toward them, they would back away from me, even though i wasn’t very close to them). also, only one or two of the indigenous kids knew the month of their birthday, but all of the mestizo kids did. very interesting.

raul, the man with whom we are staying is amazing. he is only 43 yrs old but has done sooo much with his life. he is indigenous, but married to a mestiza woman and they have the cutest three daughters. he is a former commie and studied for a couple yrs in russia (on a scholarship for 12 ecuadorians, funded by the russian gov to try to bring communism to ecuador) and has visited cuba and met fidel. his bookshelf is filled with lenin and marx and che, and he has large che and fidel posters in the living room, but he became disillusioned with communism, particularly after prostitutes offered to sell their bodies to him for a pair of jeans. how interesting and sad.
raul helped start the indigenous education movement here. he discovered that not many indigenous people cared to be school teachers, because being merchants is more part of the culture, so he helped start a school to train teachers, so that students could be instructed in their native language by people of their same culture, and the first class of indigenous teachers will graduate this dec. raul has learned 4 other indigenous languages, in addition to his native kichwa, so that he could travel all over the country and instruct the to-be teachers. he also has worked with normalizing kichwa (a simpler and newer language than the peruvian quechua) because it is verbally based and therefore written differently all over the country, which makes it hard to write textbooks in the language.

raul is also doing a ton of writing for different universities, etc. and when i told him i wanted to do research on liberation theology’s facilitation of the indigenous rights movement here and the recent social and economic changes in this community, he was more than eager to share his thesis, all the books he knows on the subjects, and offer interviews with his many friends and connections who have extensive knowledge about these things. and he promptly offered his house to me to come back again next summer to do research for my plan ii senior thesis. wow. i very much want to take him up on that, as i am already attached to the place (which is probably obvious by the novel-length entry i am currently writing). i can’t wait to go back again this thurs! (although it means i am going to be missing a lot of thurdays of class…eeek) stay well, friends!