Monday, June 21, 2010

Finished Up

I'm sure most people who were reading my blog have given up on me posting but I'm going to wrap this up anyway. I've been back in the states awhile now, although I still haven't found any work. So there's really no excuse for my negligence. Here's some thoughts that I wrote up for my church newsletter.

1. Do not try to find any rhyme or reason in Latin time. At first I tried to divine an overarching schedule, for instance that most people arrived an hour late to parties but only 30 minutes late to meetings. However whenever I thought I had things figured out things would switch around on me. And inevitably the few times I arrived late to a meeting, those would be the times when the meeting would start on time.
2. Accept that you will be viewed as odd and make it work for you. At first I was very worried about how people saw me but then I realized they would find me funny regardless of what I did. It’s a rather liberating feeling when you stop caring about being embarrassed.
3. Along the same lines, there’s no need to worry about speaking perfectly. I learned Spanish a lot better when I stopped trying to speak perfectly (which generally meant I didn’t speak much at all) and just enjoyed talking to people regardless of the mistakes I made. The people in my town were very understanding about my bad accent and long pauses as I tried to remember the word I needed.
4.Reading is way more important then even I thought it was. There’s no real history of reading in Ecuador and as a result the kids don’t have much of an imagination. I was surprised to have to explain Disney movies to the kids because they were too difficult for the kids to follow. When teaching English my students didn’t have the ability to invent their own sentences or dialogues. It seems to all steam from never being read to growing up
5. To finish up, the way to peoples’ heart in Ecuador as elsewhere as through baked goods. One of my favorite things to do was bake cookies with the kids something I’ll think about whenever I’m baking.

Well this is my final post. My life is pretty boring now so I won't be keeping a blog anymore. Hope those of you reading this enjoyed hearing my anecdotes on life in Peace Corps Ecuador.