2019 Leah

Week Six

It’s strange to already be at the end of our 6 weeks in Quito. Though we’ve been here for only a little longer than a month, we’ve packed so much into our time here.

 

This past weekend was Inti Raymi, an indigenous holiday that celebrates the sun god and the summer solstice. There were huge celebrations and parades for this holiday throughout Quito. We went to the centro historico and tagged along with Yachay Wasi, the indigenous school some of us have been working with, in part of the parade. There was non-stop dancing, cheering, and playing music, and people were dressed in the beautiful skirts and two-faced masks that are traditionally worn for Inti Raymi.

 

Before and after going to the celebrations for Inti Raymi, our cohort tried to reflect more on indigenous culture in Ecuador, how it is treated, and how the indigenous cosmovision can be preserved. Though some bilingual indigenous schools like Yachay Wasi work to preserve indigenous culture, such schools are few and far between. Western education methods and standardized testing are taking precedence over indigenous education methods and the use of chakras for learning, and in the process indigenous knowledge is being lost.

 

When we were in our homestay in Cotacachi, our host mom explained to us that schools commonly used to cut off boys’ braids, the traditional male hair style for indigenous people, in order to conform with school dress codes. She assured us that this practice has since been made illegal. However, repression of indigenous culture in schools still continues, only through less overtly aggressive means. Inti Raymi and other indigenous festivals are not nationally recognized holidays, meaning that kids are still expected to attend school on these days. Indigenous history is glossed over in textbooks, and kichwa is dismissed as a language of study.

 

One thing I have learned over the course of the program in Ecuador is that holding pride and value in oneself is an extremely powerful tool of liberation and empowerment. This is relevant both to the situation at CENIT and to the struggle of indigenous people in Ecuador. At CENIT, we aimed to teach English, math, and other subjects to the students as best we could in order for them to learn as much as possible. But in the end, the goal of encouraging the kids to value and be proud of themselves was much more impactful. Academic success is of course important, but secondary to the goal of supporting the children no matter what and trying to foster self-esteem and confidence in themselves and their capacity to achieve great things.

 

Traveling to Cotachachi and discussing the work of Runa Tupari, we similarly learned about how meaningful it is for indigenous peoples in Ecuador to take pride in their heritage and culture. It is a tool of empowerment that the people of Cotacachi have used to bring cultural exchange to their community, both to share their culture with the world and to learn about the cultures of other places. When local people regain and spread pride in the indigenous cosmovision, kichwa language, and indigenous culture at large, members of indigenous communities empower themselves to take greater steps in the fight to preserve their culture not only within their communities but in all of Ecuadorian society.

 

It was inspiring to be able to learn about and work with organizations such as CENIT and Yachay Wasi and to witness their work in empowering marginalized groups in Ecuador. While the United States faces different challenges than Ecuador does, the value in empowering communities to fight for their justice is just as important and relevant to issues of injustice in the US. The fight will be different, but the ultimate goal remains the same.

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Week Five

At my homestay, our host mom turns on the news every night so we can watch it over dinner. There’s always a sports segment that is, of course, dominated by the latest in soccer news around the world. The past few weeks, however, have been very different. In addition to the brief overview of soccer game highlights, the news for the past several weeks has been playing the same clips over and over again on repeat.

 

The sports story that has been played on repeat every night is that of Richard Carapaz, the Ecuadorian cyclist who became the first Ecuadorian ever to win the Grand Tour in Italy. The Ecuadorian news has gushed about his record-setting triumph, proudly playing the clips of him crossing the finish line and receiving his massive gold trophy.

 

In addition to the clips of Carapaz in the moment of his victory, the news ran a multi-part special on Carapaz’s family. Starting in his childhood home high in the Andes, Carapaz’s mother gave the camera a tour of their small, extremely worn down house. There are few amenities, and it is clear that Carapaz did not come from a wealthy background. His mother walks the cameras to the garage and displays Carapaz’s first bike, a rusty machine without brakes or pedals that his father found in a dumpster. The subsequent episodes of the special focus on Carapaz’s mother traveling on a plane for the first time to see her son race in Italy, on them embracing after the race is won and returning to Ecuador welcomed by huge crowds.

 

Though the repeated clips of Carapaz on his bike grew tedious after being played every night, it did not take much searching to realize why a country whose favorite sport is indisputably soccer would spend so much time on a story about cycling. Carapaz is the first Ecuadorian in history to win the race, of course. But even more than that, Carapaz is a rags-to-riches story for Ecuadorians to aspire to. He is the symbol of an Ecuadorian dream: that in a country with a 21% poverty rate, a boy with a beat down bicycle can persevere and break out of the cycle of poverty.

 

In our reflection session this week we learned about the cycle of liberation. Of course, one person’s success won’t break the entire cycle of poverty, but it can bring countries a step forward in the cycle of liberation. In the wake of Carapaz’s win, the Ecuadorian government is already planning to give more support to Ecuadorian cyclists and to support opportunities for athletes in general. They’ve entered the ‘waking up’ phase of the cycle thanks to the new visibility on the issue.

 

At CENIT, our work is also on a more individual level, but can have larger impacts. The kids at CENIT will go out and do great things with the education that they’ve been given. We have to hope that their successes, in addition to continued advocacy, will show the country that more can and should be done for childhood education.

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Week Four

Since we’ve been working at CENIT for a few weeks now, we’ve had the chance to get to know some of the kids pretty well. All of the kids have different personalities and backgrounds, and want to interact with the volunteers in different ways. Some want lots of hugs and want to be picked up a lot, others just want someone to play games with them, and others are much more shy and reserved.

 

One of the children I’ve become close to at CEA is a girl named Jusciana. She is one of the sweetest kids at CEA, always willing to share with the other kids and always incredibly kind. Whenever we’re watching the kids play on the patio or participating in circle games, Jusciana immediately runs to me to hold my hand or sit on my lap. She loves to practice ballet with me, correcting all of my positions and poses when I get them wrong, and to test my limited French since she is almost fluent in the language. I’ve also noticed over the past few weeks that she wants hugs and physical attention more than most of the other children. Though she participates in games with the other kids and doesn’t fight with them, she doesn’t seem to have many close friends among them either. When they are mad, the other kids often resort to making fun of her for being black, and I have observed even well-intentioned teachers at the school accidentally call her Monica, the name of the other black girl at the school.

 

Another girl I’ve gotten to know better is Samantha, who comes to the market kindergarten. She’s one of the oldest kids at the kindergarten- she’s 9 while most of the kids are 3-6. Samantha is one of the girls who helps watch and take care of the littler kids at the kindergarten, and especially her little brother who goes with her. Samantha is very quiet and doesn’t talk much with the volunteers, but often, if she sees I’m free, she’ll come over to hug me or lean on me and ask if we can stay like that for a while. Most of the other kids, including the others who want hugs, also want the volunteers to actively play and talk with them. Samantha still wants physical attention, but prefers silence and calmness to playing.

 

After spending 3 weeks with these children, it’s inevitable to form strong attachments to them. When I see Jusciana and Samantha, I can’t help but wish to give them the love and attention they clearly need, even if I can’t give them enough of it. At the same time, it’s clear that I don’t really ‘know’ these kids at all. I can see that Jusciana is teased by the other kids and struggles to make friends, but I will never fully know her story of immigration to Ecuador and the struggles she and her family have gone through here. I can give Samantha all the hugs she asks for, but I will never fully know what her home life is like or understand the heavy responsibilities that she bears at such a young age.

 

It is incredibly important that young children receive care, love, and attention, and I am glad that I’m able to fill even a small part of that need while I’m here. However, although important, hugs and attention alone aren’t enough. The kids also need to talk through their emotions and experiences with people who can engage and support them, with people who can build healthy, long-lasting relationships with them. In my last weeks here, I hope I can begin to understand more about both the needs and strengths of these kids.

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Week Three

It’s now our third week here in Quito and our second full week of volunteering at CENIT. The nice thing about this week was being able to fall into a routine. Having a set schedule has allowed me to get to know a lot of the kids at the school and look forward to my time with them. I’m happy that I’ve reached the point where I know all of the kids’ names and personalities, and they feel comfortable being around me.

 

This week has brought a lot of frustrations. Most significantly, we were recently told that Martha, the woman who ran the CEA tutoring center, has quit and won’t be coming back. We were all pretty taken aback by this, as Martha did a lot of work at CENIT and was our direct supervisor for CEA. All of the volunteers had a long meeting with Gladys in the afternoon about what would be happening in CEA going forward. From now on, CEA will be solely run by the volunteers.

 

Gladys gave us several pieces of advice on how to run CEA well. In addition, she told us many of the problems in CEA that she wants us to fix. Firstly, we need to make sure that all of the kids actually do their homework before going out to play. Gladys told us that the school’s overall grades are unusually low this year, and it is extremely difficult to get kids to turn in their homework in class. Part of this is because kids will lie when we ask them if they have homework so that they can go play.

 

Gladys told us to go through the students’ school books to double check that they have homework. If we still don’t find any homework, we should review old homework with them or find a worksheet for them to do. Another piece of advice Gladys told us is that we should lead group games for the kids to play once they finish homework. This will give them something productive to do while including all of the students together.

 

This new responsibility on the volunteers is fairly overwhelming, as now we don’t have Martha to look to for help and support. Now the responsibility is ours to make sure that CEA is run well, and simultaneously it will be our responsibility if anything goes wrong.

 

This sudden change is frustrating for me personally because I am unable to fill the leadership gap that the CEA program sorely needs to be filled right now. Because my Spanish level is so low, I am unprepared to lead students in group activities that require any detailed explanations, and I am unable to lead any homework reviews for the same reason.

 

There are still other ways I will be able to make myself useful at CEA. I can still continue to help the kids with basic homework and play games with them when they finish their work. However, now that Martha has quit and CEA so desperately needs leadership and structure, this role seems insufficient compared to the role CEA needs to fill.

 

Another frustration has been in certain instances of students’ behavior. 99% of the time the kids are rambunctious, but always friendly and well-meaning to the volunteers and each other. However, a few days ago one boy was very blatantly aggressive and violent to the other students in a way that went beyond the usual rowdiness. Again because of my poor Spanish, there was little I could say other than to tell him to stop. When he didn’t listen and continued to hit and kick other students without provocation, I felt angry. My first instinct was to want to punish him for his actions- to put him in a time out, take away a toy, or something else that might deter his actions. I did nothing, knowing that punishment would likely have no effect, and we simply went on with the school day.

 

After our group reflection session, I thought more about what the assumptions that my instinct to punish the student for his aggression were based on. I made the assumption that punishment would be effective in deterring his behavior rather than exacerbating it. I also made the assumption that punishment would not remind the student of abuse or neglect he may have experienced at home.

 

On the other hand, by letting the boy get away with his actions, was I holding him to a lower standard than I would hold students in America? By allowing him to act aggressively without consequence, was I being sensitive to his traumatic experiences or was I subconsciously affirming stereotypes that poor street children will be inevitably aggressive? In all likelihood, the answer is not black and white, but a combination of all of these factors.

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Week Two

This past week was our first full week volunteering at CENIT! It really feels like it’s been a lot more than just one week, and our schedules have been very full. Each of the volunteers at CENIT has a slightly different schedule based on which programs they’re signed up for. I’m working with the market kindergarten, a kindergarten for young children whose parents work at the market. I go to the market in the morning three days a week. The rest of my time is spent working at CEA, the tutoring center, playing with the kids, and helping with fundraising.

 

I enjoy working at the kindergarten, but it’d also extremely draining. The kids’ ages range from about 3 to 6 years old, and there are about twenty of them. There aren’t too many volunteers, so you can imagine how running around trying to calm fights, keep the kids on task, and getting them all to behave is a big challenge. On our first day, one little girl who was probably 3 cried and screamed for her mom through the entire day. We each tried taking turns with her to calm her down, but nothing worked. The teachers explained that she was new at the kindergarten, and she was so upset because it was her first time separated from her mom.

 

The four of us who got to the market kindergarten have spoken about how chaotic it is despite the teachers’ best efforts. There isn’t much structure, but of course it’s so difficult to enforce structure because there are few teachers and many kids. CENIT isn’t able to expend too many resources to hire more teachers for the kindergarten because funding is already tight. In our reflection session, we brought this up and talked about our hopes of helping to add more structure since we have bolstered the teacher’s numbers and gave them a little more control in the classroom. At the same time however, we acknowledged that this isn’t a true solution to CENIT’s problem. Once we leave Ecuador, the same issue will resume, and the same systems that cause funding problems for CENIT will continue. We’ve started to discuss what these systems are that perpetuate the more deeply rooted problems in the first place. While it unavoidably feels gut-wrenching to admit that our work is just a short-term solution, we knew before beginning this work that our impact would mostly be short-term.

 

The role I’m most excited about at CENIT is helping them with fundraising. When the office is free, I work on the computer to search for possible grant and volunteer opportunities. Right now I’m hoping to fill out an application for CENIT on GlobalGiving, a website that facilitates donations to NGOs. I was nervous about communicating with the CENIT staff about the work, since I figured it would be difficult in Spanish. To my relief, we’ve managed to communicate just fine with a little help from google translate. Nothing’s in stone yet, but it would be amazing to help CENIT find more funding if possible.

 

We’ve done a lot this week! We went to Mindo together, going on an amazing hike to a waterfall and doing some super scary yet fun tubing. On Friday it was also Ecuador’s Independence day! Emem and I explored the centro historico for the day, taking in the beautiful area.

Emem and I in the Centro Historico

 

Centro Historico with the Panecillo in the background

Though we saw some incredible sites, the highlight of the week for me was definitely meeting up with some Ecuadorian family friends who live in Quito. I’d been talking with the youngest daughter of the family over Whatsapp after I found out I’d be going to Ecuador, but I’d never met any of them before. I was nervous going to meet them. Though they knew a relative of mine, they were basically strangers to me and I was afraid it would be awkward. My fears were completely unfounded. They immediately greeted me as if I was family and excitedly began to ask me about my time in Ecuador. We went out to dinner in Cumbaya, the area of Quito where they live, which is very beautiful and has great views of the city. They encouraged me to practice my Spanish at dinner and gave me a lot of advice about what to see and do in Ecuador. The youngest daughter showed me pictures she’d taken in Mindo when she heard I was going the next day, and told me what I should do while I was there. We also compared different family norms, in particular how Ecuadorian kids live with their parents until they are married while American kids typically move out much sooner. We had so much fun talking that the night seemed to end in a flash. I’m amazed at how welcoming and kind these family friends were after only knowing me for a day, and it was truly a wonderful peek into Ecuadorian culture and the value placed on family bonds here. I hope I’ll be able to see them again before I leave, and I can’t wait to discover more of Ecuadorian culture.

Chocolate Face Masks at the Chocolate Factory in Mindo

 

Relaxing in the river at the bottom of the waterfall in Mindo

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Week One

The first week in Quito has gone by fast!

For the first week, we took Spanish classes for 4 hours each day at the Simón Bolívar school. I’ve never taken Spanish before, so I was both excited and nervous for the classes. I was in the beginner level class, where we basically got a crash course in vocabulary and basic grammar. I was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too hard to pick up the language! A lot of the words and grammar points are extremely similar to French, which helped out a lot, and although I’m still far from the next level, I definitely feel like I’m on my way to being conversational.

The first week of Spanish lessons was also really great because I was able to talk with my host family right away! My grammar is still pretty bad, but I’m always able to communicate what I mean with my basic Spanish and my comprehension has drastically improved, so we’re able to have full conversations. My host family is amazing! The family is made up of three elderly ladies who are sisters and their mom. It’s kind of like having four sweet grandmas at once, which is honestly the best living arrangement possible. We have most of our meals together at the homestay and have started to get to know them better through our conversations. We’ve talked a lot about Vanderbilt and what we do at school and they’ve shared a lot of advice about what to do in Quito. I’m excited to get to know them better over the course of the next month!

So far we’ve had a lot of time to explore Quito and see some beautiful places. We all visited the Basilica del Voto Nacional, a beautiful church with great views at the top. The climb to the top was pretty harrowing, but we made it and got some gorgeous pictures of the view! Yesterday, we visited el Mitad del Mundo, the equator line located in Ecuador! At the museum about the equator, we got do a whole bunch of experiments showing how being at the center of the earth has some really cool effects. For instance, walking along the equator line messes with your balance, and it’s also possible to perfectly balance an egg there! Those of us who managed to balance the egg got to be the egg masters- unfortunately, I did not get to be an egg master but it was still a great site.

This past Thursday morning before classes, we all went to CENIT, which is the organization where a lot of us will be volunteering. It was really reassuring to visit the organization and learn more about it, since we didn’t know much about what kind of work we’d be doing beforehand. CENIT stands for Centro Integral de la Niñez y Adolescencia, or the Integrated Childhood and Adolescence Center. CENIT runs various services and programs dedicated to helping at-risk children and their families in South Quito with the goal of eradicating child labor. They run a school for vulnerable children who work in the markets which houses most of their programs and is where we visited. The school has a clinic with nurses and psychologists, a library and tutoring center, and provides free lunch to all the students. In addition to the services provided to the children, CENIT runs classes for the mothers of the children where they teach sewing and vocational skills. CENIT is doing really incredible work in the community and I’m super excited to begin working with them!