This morning it was raining pretty hard so I unfortunately did not go running. I’ll just have to make up for it tomorrow I guess. Katie, Kelsey, and I took a cab to school this morning because we were babies about walking in the rain. We however did proceed to walk home to school and then back so we did get some exercise today. This morning we talked about migration and how many men are leaving their families in order to support them by working in other countries. We also learned how women then create this cooperation’s of sorts like weaving, embroidery etc… so they can have some sort of disposable income while waiting for the money to be sent. It was very interesting to hear how families stay or don’t stay connected while being away from each other. Also sad that it is mainly for money that they feel as though they don’t have a good enough opportunity here in Ecuador so they are forced to leave.
After class we visited a private CEDEI school for grades 1st to 9th. The school was much nicer than I imagined it would be. I am so curious to see how a public school would compare with the private. Our guide kept telling us how problem free and updated their school is in comparison with public schools. This school is a trilingual school with Spanish, English and French. They primarily focus on the English and Spanish but do offer French. All the kids will be bilingual in English and Spanish by the time they complete 9th grade. The kids learn science, math, social studies, and I can’t remember exactly what other subjects, but they learn both subjects in English and Spanish. Not only is this good for their language skills, but they are learning most of the material twice. This school also has been special needs students which also makes sense because it is a smaller, private school therefore they have the resources to provide those students with therapist to help them with their education. I also taught it was interesting that when we got there the students didn’t get all hyper and crazy like “oh my gosh Americans.” The lady then said how many of the students are from the states and that they also are getting Americans in and out of the school for tours. It was a very good experience and definitely a worthwhile visit.
We then returned home for a HUGE lunch that consisted of delicious potato soup, rice, chicken with peppers, veggies, and a wonderful slice of strawberry cake. I’m definitely going to miss Elena’s cooking when I return home. She always loves seeing what we like and what we don’t like. I think she has caught on that we like the chicken and will eat it because it’s starting to appear more and more in our meals.
We went back to school for a lecture on medicine and cleansing. They brought in a natural healer and he was going to heal three people in our group. It was very hard for me to keep an open mind and believe that this could actually heal people. However, I applied what I have been learning in class that I cannot put this into a category I know but instead I needed to create a whole new schema. The healer rubbed an egg all over the persons body, put it in water, then waited to see what part of the egg formed differently and that was what was wrong with them. He then gave each of them some sort of greens that were used to make tea to help with their problems. Lastly he hit them all over the body with herbs and I’m not exactly sure for what reason. I about lost it and started laughing I tried to contain myself, but I had never seen something like that before. We then did some ceremonial things with the fire, and breathing, and hugging, and throwing things in the fire. Kind of an unusual, but interesting ceremony to be a part of. Tomorrow we finally get to go to el cajas. I’m so excited and I’m sure I will have some beautiful pictures!
