Der zweiter Quartalsbericht ist nun fertiggestellt und gibt eine kleine Zusammenfassung der Monate November – Januar.
Report about the second quarter
I don’t know what to say…it’s just hard to believe that half of my time here in Ecuador is already over. It gives you a lot to think about, like: What did I accomplish in half a year? What have I learned so far? Did I manage to adapt to my new surrounding, my host family and the culture here in Ecuador? And my students? Did they actually learn something in my class? Will they be able to remember any of my classes and what I thought them when I’m gone?
Time just seems to fly by right now, but there is so much more that I want to teach my kids and learn myself, as well as exploring more of this fascinating country!!
NOVEMBER:
Holidays
November in Germany means coldness, trees without leaves and snow where I live – or in other words ‘winter’. In Ecuador it was a little bit different^^.
beautiful view from our hostal to the beach
The month started off with an unusual long weekend, and everybody got off for 5 days (the government put the holidays like that to boost the tourism since the people were more likely to travel with five days off than just with two or three). Like many others we traveled for seven hours by bus and reached early in the morning the beautiful beach of Canoa where we spend the next four days. Due to the holidays everything was pretty crowded and especially the situation at the bus stations was just crazy! To avoid that we might not get a bus back home, we left one day early and luckily didn’t have any problems getting back. Those days at the beach were just a good time to relax some and get new energy to start the month.
enjoying the beach of Canoa
But I must admit, that sometimes, it definitely feels a little bit weird, not to have any seasons. Even If I’m not at the beach but at home in Piganta, there is just no hint that it’s already November. The trees are green all year round and you will only find snow on the top of the high volcanoes. It might get a little bit colder sometimes, but depending if there is sun or not it always feels like a nice spring day or a windy and cold day in fall. And neither does the time change: it’s light outside around 6 a.m. and it gets dark about 6.30 p.m. – at least I don’t need an alarm in the morning, I just get up with the sun everyday 
Working on the weekends
selling cakes on the "feria" in Atahualpa
Like we often do with our coordinator Gladys, we also worked with her in November; this time on the “feria” (where all the products produced in this area are shown and sold) in Atahualpa. To raise some money for our environmental fund we (the volunteers) had as well our own little booth and sold the cakes that we all made the night before. At the end of the day we almost sold all of them and got the first few dollars for our fond (unfortunately it wasn’t a lot because the ingredients here are a lot more expensive – so next time we need to find cheaper cakes to get out more money at the end!).
raising money for our environmental fund
But also it was a good chance just to get to know the people around here and talk to them why we sell those cakes and what we want to do with that money – and who knows, the next time we already might be a little bit more famous and more people will buy our cakes^^.
Another project that we are doing right now, is putting up direction signs to the Fuya Fuya mountain for future tourists who want to hike up there and not get lost since there isn’t really a good trail to follow, yet. One day we tried to put the signs up, but it just wasn’t possible with only four people (those signs are really heavy, and there are about eight of them) so we decided to go into the forest to cut down some bamboo for the tree nursery in Atahualpa – there is always something to do around here in the environment!
My birthday
Another special event in November was my twentieth birthday. To celebrate I went with two friends to Baños, where they offer lots of activities like Canyoning, Rafting or a bicycle ride down to Puyo. But the actual day of my birthday we went back home early so that I could celebrate as well with my family in Piganta. They even bought a big cake with a lot of whipped cream and after they sang and I blew out the candles, my host dad took my face and put it into the cake – typical Ecuadorian birthday tradition! 
typical Ecuadorian birthday tradition!
Two days later my co-workers from school made a surprise party as well for me with a little cake, good food and even a bottle of wine – it just made my birthday perfect! 
The same day when we all watch the news together in the evening I found out that the volcano “Tungurahua”, a very active volcano just a few kilometers from Baños, broke out the day we left from there – we’ve been lucky!
celebrating my birthday in school
DECEMBER
Exams
The school year here is separated into three parts; each trimester is about three months long. At the end of December, just before Christmas break it was time to take the first trimester exams with all of my students in my English and Computer class. That means I had to prepare 14 different class tests, even for my youngest kids, who are only five years old and of course can’t read or write, and correct over 108 tests afterwards. With my first and second graders I took the exams with each of them alone in a separate room, so I could just talk to them and see how much they have learnt. Sometimes I was little bit disappointed when they couldn’t tell me a single color in English, neither one number, although that was all we learnt in three months. But luckily there were also others that could tell me all four colors and count to four like we’ve learnt it! My second graders were even better and really surprised me how much they have learned so that I didn’t give any bad grades.
the whole school before christmas when we did a cleaning day
With my other classes it was a little bit easier to take the tests because they all know how to read and write so I just had to prepare the test and give them to them. The first trimester we just learnt things like numbers, colors, animals or my oldest ones (6th and 7th grade) even the verb “to be” and adjectives like happy, sad, tall, short, etc. to make whole sentences. All in all I was pretty satisfied with most of my students (of course there are always some exceptions) and I could tell that they’ve actually learned something! For my computer class I just asked things like the different parts of the computer, how to open Microsoft Word, write some sentences, save documents, open Paint or asked for example where “Enter” is on the keyboard. Often the exams took us longer than just one hour of class (40 minutes) so I couldn’t even finish with all my tests that week and we had to take some more after Christmas in January.
Christmas(break)
practicing for our christmas program
Christmas isn’t really a big deal here (in the small villages where we live) because the families just don’t have the money to buy presents, a Christmas tree or special food. It actually seems like every other day and there’s not a lot that reminds you of that day. But to celebrate it at least a little bit for the children, every year the owner of the “Hacienda” (like a farm) here in Piganta buys presents for every child (unfortunately only for those whose parents work on that hacienda) and gives it to them as well as a hot chocolate and bread for everybody else who lives in Piganta. To thank him, we teachers prepared with our students a program consisting of different dances and I practiced with the older ones a song in English.
dressed up like Maria with a baby in my arms and Joseph on my side
The Saturday before Christmas we all met us at the school, where I dressed up as Maria, with a real baby in my arms, and from there we (“Maria and Joseph”), the whole school and the folklore band from Piganta walked in slow pace down to the hacienda to attend the Christmas mass. Afterwards it was raining so hard that we couldn’t start our program (because we were outside) and we had to wait like an hour until it stopped a little bit. After our show it was finally time for the children to get their presents and everybody was just happy, having a good time and it actually felt a little bit like Christmas!
trekking tour through the Cotopaxi National park - sleeping in a tent with view to the Cotopaxi
After that weekend, we had one more week of school – the week of the exams- and after that we all got off for Christmas break (one week). Since I already spend the holidays in November on the beach, I decided to do something completely different this time. Together with a friend we got our big backpacks ready, rented a tent and sleeping bags and started a trekking tour in the Cotopaxi national park. It was a great experience just walking through the nature all day long and at night sleeping in a tent so close to the big snow covered mountains like Cotopaxi or Sincholagua.
people dressed up on New Years Eve, trying to make some money
After five days and lots of kilometers we decided to head back to Quito to be there by New Years Eve. Unfortunately we didn’t make the last bus back to our villages so that we had to stay in Quito, which was as well a lot of fun. At 12.00 o’clock they started to make big fires, burning all the puppets they had made out of old clothes and some people even jumped through the fire (but I don’t know if that’s actually an Ecuadorian thing because mostly all the tourists did that^^). The next day we headed back to our villages to celebrate a little bit more with our families.
January
Second Trimester
The beginning of January the second trimester started in my school; a new chance for everybody and also time to begin with new topics. With 4th and 7th grade I still had to take exams before we could start off the new trimester. At the end I had to give the final grade to all off the teachers so they could give them to the parents. Unfortunately my seven graders were pretty low and didn’t get good grades so that I decided to talk to their parents. I offered to give extra classes in the afternoon, so they could learn more and would be better prepared to leave for college the next year because those 40 minutes off class, two times a week, are just not enough for them. All parents were really thankful and so I started giving afternoon classes just a few days later after my headmaster gave me the keys to the school and my classroom. I was really surprised that everybody came to our first class in the afternoon and they even were motivated and worked harder than ever before. So I am optimistic that this trimester will be better and they will hopefully learn a little bit more!
My Family
Jasmin's 12th birthday
About my family I can just say that I am still very lucky to live with them. In the afternoons there is often a lot to work where I can help and meanwhile we can talk about everything.
Right now there aren’t many zambos and seeds to peel like at the beginning when I came, but instead there are other things to do like harvesting potatoes, beans and corn as well. We also started keeping a lot of chickens and it’s my job to feed them and give them water.
If there is a day where we don’t have to do a lot, I like to bake a cake for all of us which they like a lot and after one day it’s normally already gone. Or sometimes for dinner I try to cook something German with lots of vegetables, a fresh salad and no rice since we have that almost every day^^.
But I definitely enjoy living with my family and especially with my host siblings it’s often a lot of fun and I will surely miss them when I have to leave this beautiful country.
So all in all everything here in Ecuador is just going pretty good and I hope that it will continue like that!
Melanie Buck, ADECSA in Piganta, 2011-2012
