Yesterday I had orientation for my volunteer program in the morning. I met one of the other volunteers, Alicia, who is staying in the same house as me. Alicia is from Canada and is really sweet. Irma took us on the 20 minute hike to the office where the orientation was held (I´ve never seen a 70 year old lady walk so fast in my life) Irma actually reminds me a lot of my grandma... she is a bundle of energy always caring for everyone else and making sure they have what they need. The orientation was pretty basic. We got a schedule for when we would be working, they went over the rules for the program, etc. There were about 10 other volunteers there and I´m pretty sure I was the oldest one there but the only one who can speak spanish so ha!
After orientation, I went with Alicia and some of the other volunteers to the old town or the "centro historico" We had some lunch and I had my first ecuadorian cerveza... they really only have one beer called "pilsner" creative huh? The centro historico is absolutely beautiful! There are tons of old churches, shops and restaurants... it has a very old school European feel to it. We took a taxi up to "el panecillo" which translates to little piece of bread. It is a giant statue of an angel built by a local artist, sitting on the top of a giant hill overlooking the entire city. El visto fue spectatular! The story with the angel is that it´s back is facing the south where all the poor people in Quito live and the front is facing the north where the rich people live so the angel is literally turning it´s back on the poor people of Quito.
I learned to navigate the public transportation system a little bit too. They have buses and trolleys. I guess the trolleys are supposed to be like a metro but they don´t go below the ground. However, I have to say that the trolleys are pretty efficient. Navigating the streets is super confusing because everything pretty much looks exactly the same but hopefully I´ll get the hang of it in the next few days!
Today was my first day of work. What a long confusing day it was! I thought that I was going to be taking spanish classes in the morning and teaching english in the afternoon. However, it turned out that they wanted to me to go to the street children program in the morning so that in the afternoon there would be someone to show me the way to the place that I would be teaching english. The street children program takes place in one of the mercados in Quito. The children of the people who work in the market come to this area that they set up with tents to play games and learn basic skills to help prepare them for school. The children are really adorable but also really needy! They love any attention that you give them because I´m sure they don´t get much from their parents because they are working all of the time. I had one little girls attached to my hip the entire time... she was probably around 3 years old and would start crying if I left her. However, strangely enough she didn´t really seem to care that much when I left for the day.
After I went to the street children program, I went to the place where I would be teaching English, which was at another market about 40 minutes away. Right next to the market there was a big room where the classes were held. It was super disorganized today! There were children from all different age groups and they seemed to be coming and going as they pleased. There was basically no emphasis on teaching them english except when the head teacher told me to teach them a lesson on colors so I did a quick vocabulary lesson and game with them. I had to teach a lot of it in spanish at least to give the directions because they didn´t know a lick of English. I told her at the end of the day that I would be preparing an English lesson each day for the rest of the week and she was thrilled. The kids at the school are also really cute and some of them are so eager to learn. There was one little girl who was trying to tear up the place but I wasn´t having that... needless to say she didn´t like me very much but I made a lot of other little friends so I´m good.
So the first day was a long and a bit confusing... however I´m just gonna keep going with the flow and see what tomorrow brings!
