Camilo Ortega

Whew! I'm finally done with my first week of teaching school and I'm exhausted! I work at a school in a neighborhood called Camilo Ortega, which is a section of Managua. According to our group leaders, this neighborhood is one of the poorest parts of the city and up until 6 years ago when the school was founded, the neighborhood didn't even have a school. Instead of going to a school, most of the kids had jobs selling things on the streets, were apart of gangs, worked as housekeepers, ect. When ATRAVES wanted to set up a school, they actually had a lot of resistance from the community members who felt that the kids would benifit more and be a bigger help to the community if they brought in an income. After some time of negotiation, the school was set up where the neighborhood dump used to be and about 225 kids go to school there. Still, most kids in the community don't go to school. The education here is a lot different because it seems as if some families see it as a nuisance since their kids could be more helpful if they financially supported their family. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. Coming from a place where education seems so obvious, I should be outraged by the fact that people don't want their kids learning. At the same time, if the family cannot even afford to feed itself and the child, who normally makes a decent contribution to the income, goes to school to learn geography and algebra, I can understand how that would be frustrating for the family. I'm not sure if that type of education would really help the kids in a long run. I'm not arguing for zero education, because that leads to ignorance and oppression, but I'm not convinced that they need a US model of education. I don't have any experience in education or development, so I probably don't have any idea what I'm talking about, but those are just some of my observations.

I teach 5th grade and 6th grade and help with an afterschool club, which allows about 50 kids to come and play/learn (more emphasis on the playing part) after school so they don't have to go to work. Basically, it's set up so kids can be kids. For most of the week, I played outside with some of the girls and taught them jumping rope games, clapping games, the Macarana and the limbo. The Macarana was a hit, and they are apparently going up to other volunteers at the school and force them to dance with them. They are also in love with Miss Mary Mack. I will seriously have a line of 5 kids lined up waiting to do that game. Unfortunatly, none of them no the words past the two lines, so I end up singing the words for about 25 games. I've also played that game so much that I actually popped blood vessels on my legs =O

I had a really exciting weekend and I wish I had time to type more about it, so I'll write about that on my next blog! And, tomorrow is my half-way point of this trip. I cannot believe how quickly it has flown by!

Tiffany