Almost Christmas

The last weeks have been busy, but I am finding I have a bit more free time.  The last two wseeks, I took one day off of school and attended 6 hours of Spanish classes which has been very helpful.  Instead of getting a glass of rum when I ordered a coca cola zero, this week I got 4 sandwhiches instead of the 3 I thought I ordered...hmm, is that really improvement?

Last weekend Janine, Laura and I took a our around to some of the villages right outside of Otavalo and vistied craftspeople:  a number of different types of weavers and hat makers.  Since it was just the three of us with the guide, we were able to ask tons of questions and really got a good feel for the economy, history of the crafts, and the people of the area. 

This week with school, the teachers had 3 of the 5 days off: 2 for meetings and 1 for a party.  Of course the days weren't all in a row.  So Monday, we went to our schools as usual as the teachers were there.  On Tuesday, since there were no teachers, we had a fun day with the other school where Laura and Janine are.  We dropped Janine and Laura off at their usual drop off point, and then continued up to my school.  We grabed the dishes, spoons and cups, and all the kids piled into the van (20 of the them) and we drove back down to the other school - about a 40 minute drive.  We did a tug of war, soccer, 3-legged race, and sack hop outside and then inside we also had BINGO, pin the tail on the donkey, musical chairs, and coloring.  For a special treat at the end of the day, instead of just serving a piece or slice of fruit, we made a fruit salad. (The shopping, the cutting of the fruit and our Spanish classes kept us busy until 7:30 the night before.)  Unfortunately, my school lost at both the tug-of-war (even with me helping) and the soccer.  (The other school has 32 kids to my school has 20.) We had a fun time though and the kids loved going to the other school.

Wednesday I had Spanish, and Tracey, the project coordinator went to my school for me and handled the whole group since the teacher was out again.  The kids made a number of different Christmas things in preparation for the party on Monday.

On Thursday, I was at school again, and the teacher was there. There wasn't much school work done as we prepared songs and more art for the big event.  On Friday, no teacher again, and Tracey came up with me to help and to meet with some of the parents about ideas for future projects. 

A government health team came to the school on Friday also to give immunizations to the 2nd and 7th graders.  Unfortunately, since the teacher wasn't there, the 2nd graders couldn't be immunized as there was a bit of discussion about which of my kids were in 1st or 2nd grade.  (Their school system here is different than in the US, so these kids are 5 and 6 years old.)  As usual, the community had some fresh cheese and boiled potatoes for the visitors.  Unlike the other visitors that have come while I have been there, one man (the driver) spent most of his time taking pictures, another worker asked if she could take a Quichwa language book, and they took with them all the cheese and potatoes that they didn't eat!

Although last week was a bit crazy for me, it was more so for Laura and Janine, as they had to handle 30 kids by themselves one day, and on the other day with one other community member.  And, on the day that I stayed in Otavalo, the van got stuck on the road where they are doing road construction, and they all had to get out an push!

We've had a bit of rain this week which is desperately needed.  We continue to have regular power outages, and now Tracey has heard they are going to start turning off the water for periods of time as well.  There are places on the "road" where the rain has already done a lot of damage and I can't imagine what will happen to the road if we get more rain like we should.

On Friday night, we got together for our Christmas exchange.  Since there are just the 4 of us, we decided to draw 2 names each and set the gift limit to $5.00.  We went out to dinner, had quite a bit to drink and exchanged gifts.  We had a good time, andit was much needed after our crazy busy week.  I got a nice pair of earrings and gloves with the finger tips open - perfect for when I am teaching at the school.

Last night we were invited to play BINGO by Jaime, our driver, at a school fundraiser.  We did our part to help the fundraising and two of the four of us each won one game!  I won a very nice table cloth and Tracey won a car vacuum....I have a sneaking suspicion that Jaime will end up with it!

Today, Janine and I helped Tracey sort the books for gifts for the kids and then did the shopping for the chickens and chicken parts (heads, feet, livers, hearts and stomachs) for the big lunches we will have in each school.  The lady in the market that we buy our chicken from studied English at University so we all practice our languages when we visit her.  She gave both of us a little bag of candy when we left!  Walking down through the market with the little bag, a policeoffice/guard, stopped me and asked for a piece!!  I let him pick out his own piece and didn't say anything to him about the woman not washing her hands between handling the raw chicken and putting they candy  in the bags!

We've got school Monday and Tuesday and then I head to Quito for two nights before I fly out to the Galapagos.  I will be on a boat for 7 nights, and return to Quito in time for New Years eve.  I will then have time tovisit Cuenca briefly, before needing to be back in Otavalo for school on January 4th.  New volunteers will be coming in January and I think we are all looking forward to having more people here and spreading the work out a bit!

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Margie