Dia de Los Niños

Today my school finally got around to celebrating "Dia de los Niños"--Day of the Children. The schools in the area generally take advantage of every "holiday"to suspend classes and have a presentation or celebration for at least an hour--mine's actually pretty good about this, in that we don't lose whole days once a week to such things, as some other volunteers' do.

The official day was actually last week but since we had the air conditioning fire, we had to move our celebration to this week. Which meant that our primary children got to come to school sans uniform while an entertainer--which literally translates here to a "recreationist"--yelled things into the microphone and encouraged the excited small girls to scream.  For approximately four hours straight

Keep in mind, these celebrations happen in the open area in my one-building school that is surrounded by classrooms. As in, the doors open up into the patio area.

Which meant that all other classes were useless because there was screaming and loud music drowning out every single teacher and student.

But it's a good thing they got all those screaming lessons. I hear it's a good skill to have around here, for the times when there are presentations and loud music drowning you out when you try and have class.

English: setting the school on fire!

...Actually.

I arrived at school today to hear/see that the English class prior to the one I work in experienced a giant electrical fire. The air conditioner exploded and there were flames and smoke, I was told, that filled the school and left out the top windows. I have my doubts about the flames being that high but there were definitely people treated for smoke inhalation. And there is smoke damage throughout the school.

One ironic thing, to me, is that I didn't even know the air conditioner in that classroom even turned on! It is the hottest room in the school, to the point that leaving it for fresh, albeit sultry, Barranquillan air literally feels like entering air conditioning...(outdoor temps currently hover in the lower 90's, with humidity wayyy above 50 percent...)

but that's beside the point!

Fortunately no one was hurt, but it was a sobering event in that there are no fire escape plans, and only one narrow, awkwardly constructed staircase from which hundreds of girls have to exit in the case of emergencies.

We have no class tomorrow because major cleanup is needed...and in order to celebrate survival a mass will be held after our Wed-Thurs standardized testing takes place.

There goes classes for the week?

International Women's Day

In case you weren't aware, the 8^th of March marked International Women’s Day for the world. Because here we don’t let anything pass us by without a party, here it was an occasion for which we held  celebration time in every school and place of work.

As soon as I sat down to the first school assembly, it became clear that this was not going to be a recognition of the sort we might offer the US. In the morning session, we simply had the male teachers stand and give 30 minutes of prayers thanking God and Senor Jesus for the existence of women.

In a burst of unsurprising irony, the male coteacher in my next class taught the “Infinitive Purpose” verb structure with the sentence: “I cook a meal to honor my husband who flies to Miami to meet with Barak Obama to settle world problems.”

I did my best to counteract with my own version of the lesson, which included teaching the translation of “Women’s Rights,” equality, and the quote “I celebrate Women’s Day to _______”, which happily after only a very little encouragement brought responses like “…to realize my dreams, to work, to be remind myself I’m as important as men, to learn the history of strong women.”

The Afternoon Jornada, however, went all out with an all-school participatory presentation. Though I was hoping for mention of some of Barranquilla’s famous women at the least (we even have a woman mayor right now!), instead we went a slightly different route… First we had prayers thanking god for women, more of the same. Then, about a hundred of the tenth grade girls dressed in scanty but beautiful dresses did a runway model show. And as icing on the cake, one of the male teachers spent twenty minutes giving piropos to the woman teachers, including myself.

A side note on piropos: these are one of the banes of walking around the city. If a woman wears anything even slightly revealing…we’re talking simply jeans rather than a work skirt…we are subject to the most public, dirty attention I’ve ever experienced. I’ve had things shouted in my face, whispered in my ear, or been stared at so intently by men passing on motorcycles they’ve literally come close to crashing. They say anything from “Pretty!” to “Come to my bed,” or the like. It’s like all men are suspended in permanent 13-year-old mindsets, and it’s disgusting.

That being said, we received piropos of the most cheesy sort, like, “An angel came down and asked if you needed protection, but I said no because another angel like you wouldn’t need it..” etc. Enjoyed immensely by all, it was then time to feast – they’d gotten food from a restaurant for all the teachers, although I declined as I was late to another meeting.

But at least I know that women are loved here…at least enough to have a party for them. Next step: next year, inject just a lil bit of history/women’s rights into this day..!

Enter the Students

During the first six days of work at the schools, we did teacher-ly things. We chose textbooks from the traveling textbook salesman (we went with Pearson’s PostCard series, for better or for worse), made goals, talked a lot in meetings, and spent a lot of time waiting around for said meetings.  On numerous occasions, we “Hacer-ed la vaca“ or “made the cow,” (aka collected money for group snacks), and I was told to take advantage of my “gringa” status to help inspire the other teachers to get things done.

Then, it was Tuesday: And on the seventh day, the students arrived.  

One would think that, once the students got there, it was time to start classes. One would think that, since the students are in school, we would have, at the least, a class schedule. One would think that, since the students are in school and we have two rooms of computers, someone would have found out why all the computer hard drives have gone missing and/or the computers don’t turn on. One would think that, since the students are coming every day, the school would have made the decision whether or not we have so many students that we will have to make Saturday classes mandatory, to fit them all.

One might make these assumptions; in Barranquillan public schools, things go a little differently.

Brief summaries of school responses to the above: 

*note, all entreaties made by me were said politely and with a great big smile. :D

On starting classes:

Emily: “So the students are here. Will we have classes this week?”

Co teachers: “No no, we don’t start classes yet this week. This time is for presentations and such.”

Emily: “Oh. So when do we start classes?”

Co teachers: “Oh you know. Later.” *shrug*

On having a class schedule:

Emily: “So do we know when we’ll receive a class schedule?”

Co teachers: “Well, these things are complicated.”

Emily: “Of course. Is there an estimate when we usually get schedules?”

Co teachers: “Oh you know. Later.” *shrug*

On why the computers don’t work:

Emily: “Can we talk about why the computers don’t work?"

Person in charge of computers: “Of course. I’ll take a look. We’ll have a meeting.”

*after several reminders, meeting time arrives”

Emily: “So, can you tell me more about the computer situation?”

Person in charge of computers: “Well, I haven’t walked into the room yet.”

Emily: “Can we look at them now?”

Person in charge of the computers: “Of course.” *Person in charge of computers walks into another room. PICOC starts talking to another person there. PICOC shuts door in Emily’s face*

On whether or not we will have classes on Saturday:

Emily: “Will we have classes on Saturday?”

Co teachers: “Probably.”

Emily: “When might we find out?”

Co teachers: “Oh you know. Later.”

Suffice it to say, my prediction about having no idea what’s going on for weeks is not simply a state of being that I, as a volunteer in a strange land, am going through—instead, it seems to be the commonly accepted state of reality here in Colombia. Or at least it is at my school. The biggest difference between what I know and what my co-teachers know is that they know not to mind that they don’t know. "It's okay," they say. "We understand you're not used to this. Things will pick up. In a few weeks."

In the meantime, I have visited the homeroom classes of all the students. There has been a wide mix of reactions to my presence, but the amazing thing is that in almost every class, at least one girl has shocked me by asking me questions in fairly fluent English. These girls are hungry for the language, love it, and want to know more. Their shy pride and surprising ability surfaces quietly in rooms full of excited, just-back-from-holidays schoolgirls. I try to make note—these are the girls for whom I will be starting conversation clubs, for whom I will be choosing extra-curricular songs and activities, the girls who may shape a huge part of my existence at the school and whom I will count on to lead the bilingual charge in the student population. 

As for the rest, well, I’m still in honeymoon phase with them. Their eyes light up at the “gringa” presence—I’m a novelty, an ornament, a diversion who they don’t realize plans to make them work hard! I will have to toughen up and make sure to foster that bridge from “gringa” to “teacher” and hope nothing sours too much along the way.

And in the meantime, I’m certainly working on that flexibility thing…

Presentation in my school--as you can see, our school is only one building. All but three classrooms are upstairs. They open into the courtyard, where things like marching band practice and gym take place, all during the academic school day:

Break time!: