15 de mayo de 2010

Struggling students

Hey everyone! I've been out of touch for a while. I've been sick and abandoned and left for dead in the middle of the rainforest. But it's all getting better. Here's a short recap of where we are so far and a review of what needs to be done here and why.

Okay, just in case you don't have a good idea where I am, I am about 20 kilometers south of the Nicaraguan border, in a small settlement on the outposts of the Aguas Claras district in the Upala region. There is a long dirt road leading out of Aguas Claras that eventually ends just near the Nicaraguan border, and the fourth colony on that road is called Colonia Libertad. I am teaching English to students from Aguas Claras, Colonia Blanca, Valle Verde and Colonia Libertad.

I have been organizing the English lessons since I arrived here. When I arrived, there was confusion in the community about when I would be arriving and where I would be staying. At first, people thought that I was from the Peace Corps and that I was there to do infrastructure projects. It took me almost two weeks to nail down a solid place to stay, which ended up being at the exact house that I was told I would be staying in--but only thanks to a strange turn of events that replaced one teacher with another who lives close by, thus freeing up a space at la casa de los maestros (the teachers' house). After that, I tried to establish an afternoon schedule with Mayra, the schoolmaster, only to eventually find out that the majority of the students aren't at school in the afternoons. School ends after "lunch;" lunch is at 10 or 11 am, depending on the day. This means that the students have an average of 3 hours 20 minutes of actual instruction each day. My English lessons usually last about an hour, which means that the students must take that hour out of their other studies. Subjects that the students study in school are not reinforced in their homes due to a lack of general education in the community. I have established a new tentative schedule with the schoolmaster. More about this in a minute.

I have also traveled to Aguas Claras to talk with the director and the head English teacher there about the problem that the students are having with graduating from high school. Both of them agree that there is a problem, but they have been exceedingly bureaucratic about letting me teach there. The two times that I have taught there, it has been to conversational English students who don't really (in my humble opinion) need additional help. I have come to the conclusion that maybe I can solve the Aguas Claras graduation problem closer to home by holding English workshops here in Colonia Libertad.

In addition, I am now teaching two days a week at the high school in Colonia Blanca. In this case, when I say "high school" I am talking about a single-room building where students sit in different groups to learn subjects. The high school collaborates with the Ministry of the Environment and Energy so that they can have extra space in which to show videos and teach classes outside of the Common Room. I am there Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday I lead a practice discussion with students from three grades. When I came there, the students were paying attention to everything but the discussion; now, they seem much more animated to learn.

I have encountered the same basic argument every step of the way here: It would be nice to do more, but we can't. We can't have more than three hours of school. We can't hold students after school, even if they are in sixth grade and don't know their multiplication tables. We don't have money to fix the chalkboards. The students can't learn how to use the computers because the parents complain that certain students are being treated with preference. I have seen children being written off as having "learning disorders" who can understand and reproduce basic grade-level ideas perfectly well. I have been called a "tourist" instead of a volunteer by the regional director of the Ministry of Public education. And honestly, I am infuriated. I am infuriated because I see that these children are being robbed of their future, and nobody seems very much disposed to doing anything about it.

I have talked with the owners of Finca La Anita about this and they say that they struggled for a long time with the bureaucracy here before finally deciding to send their children to school in Liberia, 2 hours away. I can see why. I don't know that I have all of the solutions to the problems here, except I must admit that I am constantly forced to acknowledge how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to attend and work in schools with much better infrastructure and with much greater focus on high achievement for all students. Every day here, I have no choice but to look at myself as privileged; privileged economically and privileged in terms of education. Privileged because I come from the United States. People here equate my abilities with my nationality; those of you who know anything about my political leanings must know how infuriating that is. But I can't deny it here. I can't deny that I had a better chance, and knowing that is precisely what keeps me here. Because if my beliefs in solidarity and egalitarianism mean anything at all, it is that I have an obligation to stay here and share what I know with the students and those who are in charge of their futures.

At least we have internet now; I will be able to download some resources for the students and I will try to post again soon. When I get around a better connection I'll try to put some pictures up too! The valiant students who are braving these rough seas deserve to be known. :)

From Colonia Libertad,

Chaim Eliyah

3 de mayo de 2010

They don't teach campesino Spanish in college

So I continue settling in here. I haven't traveled further than the nearest town in several weeks now. I am working at two high schools, an elementary school and doing a number of private classes as well. The locals are beginning to recognize me. They still snicker because I don't understand the local speech. This is a subject that brings out the language fascist in me; can't we all just use established norms of communication with one another? Of course, the answer is no, unless you're a fan of strict hegemony and/or academic elitism (which I'm not). So, I've been doing my best to learn a new dialect.

So, last week I had internet through my iPhone and then the iPhone encountered a mysterious "error" and wouldn't boot. To restore it, I had to (according to Apple) upgrade to a new software package, and that software package destroyed my ability to use my phone in Costa Rica. C'est la vie. I'm working on another method of getting internet out to the boonies, but I'm only in the planning stages. Basically it involves a 3G USB modem. And when I get it set up, I am going to use my iPhone to make all the Skype calls I can just to spite Apple and AT&T.

Let's see. So it was the 26th that my phone broke. That was about the same day I got over the cold that my new friend Frenzel gave me. On the 28th there was a big to-do at the school and I was part of the entertainment. I got to play guitar for about 30 visitors from the Ministry of Public Education. They asked for an encore. It was pretty sweet. Everyone in Colonia Libertad is pretty intrigued by my guitar playing. People listen to me play for hours on end. This is because they don't mind country music. In Seattle I'm usually seen as a good guitar player but I seldom play for people for hours and hours because most of the songs I know are country songs. This is a little known fact about me that has now been published. What's to become of my reputation? Maybe I can apply for amnesty in Nashville?

Nobody showed up for the high school/adult evening English classes last week. There is this attitude in the community that has been explained to me as "if someone's neighbors don't do something (like get up in the morning) then they probably won't either." This sort of lack of individual initiative has proven to be a barrier to organizing a coherent schedule for English classes. With the kids, for example, I was going to teach English to them on Thursdays and Fridays so that I could free up the rest of the week for providing help where it's most needed (to the high-schoolers). But, I saw pretty quickly that Thursday and Friday are considered goof-off days and that the majority of the kids are allowed to leave by 11 a.m. or so. I have had a number of talks with community members about the importance of taking advantage of the free English classes.

Yeah, I know. Learning English should not be a prerequisite to survival in a globalized economy. In fact, people shouldn't have to depend on a globalized economy for their survival. What's more, subsistence farmers don't need some gringo to come and tell then about rugged individualism and the values of anglo society. OK. While I am a proponent of these concepts, I have to admit that this trip is definitely testing the strength of my conviction. Yes, Colonia Libertad is full of subsistence farmers. Yes, if all 8 of the bridges leading to their homes broke tomorrow and were never fixed, they would be able to survive just fine. But Colonia Libertad has a major problem, and that is that the non-campesino world is coming to them via satellite and cable, and they are often more interested in that world than they are in their own world. This is a situation similar to that of the Shuar youth who I met and talked with on my visits to Ecuador. The youth here are very interested in the Honda Evo 6, they are very interested in SUVs, they are very interested in PlayStation and Wii and portable computers, they are very interested in American rock & roll and hip hop (especially of the gangster rap variety), and they are not very interested in subsistence farming.

The kids here are playing Metallica and Guns N' Roses on their guitars just like I did a decade ago in high school. They are wearing American clothes. Their parents pay a high price for this, a price that I would venture to say they can't really afford ("afford" in capitalist, protestant-ethic terms). This is an interesting representation of identity given that these same teenagers live in shacks. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with living in a shack, but the aspirations of these young people exceed their means, and at some point I feel like they are going to become very disappointed with their lot and disillusioned with life in general if they cannot find a way to procure the things that they want for themselves.

I know. It's just as well that they become disillusioned with the capitalist system, because that disillusionment will fuel the fire of the multitude and eventually the multitude will band together and create another more equitable empire. And that's pretty easy for me to say coming from a privileged perspective. I make the choice to not have a steady income. I make the choice to be a neo-hippie. I make the choice to be a Marxist. And yet here I am in a motel room that most of my students' families can't afford writing a blog (what's a blog?) on my MacBook (what's a MacBook?) and what hits me more than just the injustice of the situation is the hypocrisy of the Marxist perspective in certain situations.

What I mean is, the majority of the kids I am teaching are perfectly capable of becoming university associates. They are perfectly capable of finding the kinds of jobs here that will allow them to fulfill their material desires. Not all of those jobs require English (some do), but they all require a willingness to conform to the work ethic. We can debate that notion until we're blue in the face; I happen to hate the term "work ethic" because it pertains to a set of ideas that tend to imply that "someone" can make a millionaire out of themselves no matter what class they were born into. This is a sociological falsehood, even if it remains a remote economic possibility. Nevertheless, it seems shameful to deny someone the choice between becoming part of the capitalist rat-race (if that's what they really want) or becoming an individual force of anti-capitalism (if, by their own initiative, they decide that capitalism must end) or, as I do, taking from capitalism only the things that they want while helping to organize communities so that they can demand a greater measure of social justice.

This is not meant to be an apologia pro insignare angleis. It's meant to be a rambling discussion that brings the socioeconomic and educational situation of people who are considered "marginal" or "peripheral" by "first world" economic fascists to the center. These are ideas that I will most likely be struggling with for the remainder of my stay here. Anyone who reads this is welcome to chime in.



Che Gringo

In other news, once I was pretty sure I would be able to sell it and recoup some of my loss at the end of my stay, I went ahead and bought a motorcycle so that I could fulfill my teaching appointments without having to depend on the bus and getting stuck overnight. Of course, it's only sensible to use the motorcycle when it's not raining, which provides another set of challenges, but I am much more mobile now.

The motorcycle is an off-brand "que ni se sabe" (that nobody knows) called ChanLin. It has a Suzuki drivetrain, 125cc. The day I bought it was definitely one of the best days of my life. Riding my new motorcycle was liberating, to say the least. It only took me an hour to learn, and when I was riding back home on the dirt road at 40 km/h with the sun shining and the wind in my hair, with the silhouettes of the mountains around me, I felt unstoppable.

Of course, the next day I found out that motorcycles are anything but unstoppable. My chain broke on a rock and I had to push the darn thing to a local handyman to get help. But since then I have been tearing up the local highway. I can't go very far yet because I don't have the plates and registration stickers. But I do plan to post some pictures of my adventures with it.

I might even be able now to haul out some of the plastic that will otherwise be burned. We'll have to save the discussion on the environment of Colonia Libertad for another time. I gotta go teach!

From Guayabo,

Chaim