Hello all,

Not much new here but I have a few photos to post.  I did learn recently that I have not "legally" cleared to be a PC volunteer ( I am assured it is just a "glitch") in the FBI's system...but..... Anyhow, I have until July 16 to clear, if I don't clear by then, I' ll be sent to my home of record ( Sue's ) for up to 60 days on Administrative leave  If I don't clear in that period of time, I'll be administratively separated from the PC by "interrupted service" which means I am separated through no fault of my own, rather due to an administrative " error.   I'm told there are a number of us serving all over the world in similar straits and that all of us are on hold.  We'll see what turns up.

Meantime, I made reservations to go over to the coast for a weekend to see the whales and take a boat out to a little island, aka the poor man's galapagos, for a day trip.

They had a showcase at school of things kids made out of recycled materials.  They were trying to put this tent up for what seemed like hours...finally, they figured out a system.  They were having a ball. 

 

 

 

 

Now, this skirt was really cute. Made of newspaper...ofcourse, she was really cute too

Where did this cat picture come from ?????

Some of their little recycling projects...cute.  They put so much enthusiasm into everything they do...its so cute, they go all out with their posters and presentations. 

There is an area of the city, San Inbordon, I think, that is just gated communities, one after the other....they call them "urbanizaciones."  aka urbanizations....town centers sort of.  The following pictures  are from one of them which  is set up more like a "restaurant row" around a lot of water features, palm trees ,etc.  It was lovely the night we were there but the folks I was with, Adela and Edith, said that for many months of the year it is too hot, even in the evening , to sit outside.  We had a beautiful evening, breeze, no mosquitos...really beautiful.  This particular urbanizacion is called Plaza de los lagos..lots of little lakes and ponds in the walking and shopping and eating area.  Had some deeeelicious chocolate ice cream.

On Father's Day, the family included me in their Father's day dinner.  This is one of the grandsons, Bruno, who speaks great English,  with the family boxer, Patsy.  They love her.

This is one daughter, Evelyn and her youngest, Dominica....who is almost 3 and so so cute. 

The family.....Amelia, 7/8 with Patsy, Adela who lives here where I live and is a school psychologist, brother Victor Hugo and father, Victor Hugo, youngest grandson, Marcello and wife of Victor Hugo, Mariana..who is wonderful..so generous and kind to me.  In the back is Evelyn with Dominica, her husband Alvaro, and Alexandra who is the mother of Marcello and Bruno.  A very very nice family.

Young Victor Hugo and Dominica....trying to figure it all out.

How did that cat picture get in there ?????

Mariana and her buddy, Edith, took me to the beach Playas with them for the day.  Had a good fish dinner in this little place...it was right on the beach.

I think I am getting better at this selfie thing...still have to find a way to do it without showing so much skin.  I guess I could wear a shirt.

After lunch, the tradition appears to be relaxing in a hammock before heading back out to the beach.  We indulged.

Red Crab....not red lobster. 

Hard Music Cafe.....not Hard Rock Cafe.  Incidentally, there are no copyright laws down here or at least they are not enforced...so everybody copies whatever the want , in terms of school materials and other things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I have had a lot of fun experiences in the classroom...the kids are really great.

For instance, I was explaining the meaning of some of our idioms..the one in question was , " Go for it"    Somehow, I told the story of how the Spanish speaking community,began using the phrase,Si,se puede" in Obama's campaign and how it caught on and how they were my first Spanish words....and it basically meant, "go for it, you can do it..."  They loved that.  I have also taught them the meaning of e.g.  They had seen it a lot and but did not know what it meant. They also did not know the word Spanglish...so we had a big discussion around that.  Lots of fun things....hopefully some serious grammar too. But, I am focusing on making it fun....for them and for me too.  

Thats it for now.
Thanks for paying your taxes.
If you have any connections at the FBI, try to get them to clear me.  I feel like I'm on the "no fly" list...
Love, me

I want to share this photo before I forget.  This girl had her birthday and I saw her walking out of class with this half eaten cake.   She allowed me to take this photo of her....on the little sticks are pictures of her with her friends and family.  How sweet.

Gringo won't let me use my laptop with out his assistance.

He just loves to be held

He also loves to sleep in my clothes hamper.    Too much fur in this little place already.

 

 

 

     Wren takes the best pictures of Rich and sends them to  me.... from their gig in Pagosa, Colorado.  Thank you, sweet Wren.. 

First of all, have to say something about the horror in Orlando...I can't say anything that has not been said better by others.  Just how very sad for those families, young people, and the world in general....wonder where it will all end. We have a young volunteer whose parents are first generation Afghanistani  and Muslim.  She wrote a beautiful piece on our Whats App chat about how sad she is for the people who have suffered from the Orlando and other horrors of this type and how this type of tragedy should help us all to be more sympathetic toward the refugees who are fleeing their countries to escape from that same type of oppression and violence.  I have asked her for permission to republish her comments so maybe I'll be able to do that later.

I have been making some arrangements to come back East for my 53rd high school reunion...Surrattsville High School. Its scheduled for the end of August.  We'll have two weeks of training in Quito prior to my reunion so I'll miss school for about 3 weeks.  Seems pretty awful but I guess they will do just fine without me....they have gotten along just fine all these years without me so it puts my value into perspective.  :)


Gonna post some more photos from my unimportant life.  This past weekend, another volunteer, Becky, and I were planning to go over to a nearby beach, Playas, just for the day, on the bus, very low profile.  When I asked my host family sister, Adela, for some ideas for the day, she told me she was going to drive over herself and would be happy to take us and furthermore, she was staying overnight in a family property and that there was plenty of room for us if we wanted to stay.  So.....we accepted her offer and I have posted some photos below.  It was a very pleasant surprise.

I'll start with this one because it was taken by Becky and posted on Facebook and is pretty good of me, if I do say so myself.  I guess I look pretty white !!!!  Adela is young and very pretty so it is easy for her to look good in pics.  This was taken on the beach in Playas.  

A view of the beach...its pretty undeveloped...those are the only two condo type structures along the whole beach.  You can see the fishing boats pulled up - they are commercial boats that go out during the week. 

This is Becky and Adela paying for our lunch.  This little place is called a "waco" which is Spanish for hole, comparable to our  "hole in the wall."  And the food was delicious. 

Becky and Adela headed for the water.....until Becky saw all the "medusas" aka jellyfish.

This is a view of the property where we stayed.  Its a family compound, several houses owned  by different members of the family with full time caretakers with this pool area in the center.   It was really lovely and the beach was great. 

Another view of the pool area

I am not sure what they do with these craft...sort of look like windsurfers but the logs look so heavy.  We did not see any in the water.  They were housed with the fishing boats that were pulled up on shore so maybe they fish off of these.  We were there on Sunday so no one was out fishing..just lots of families in the water.

Another little place ( a waco) where we had a coffee after dinner Saturday night.

Another view of the compound... we stayed in the little house to the right.

 I spend the week in school and enjoy that part of the assignment a lot.  The students are so thrilled to hear me speak English..its so funny.  One girl held up her phone the other day with the camera pointed at me and said , "Habla en ingles"....so I did a little talking for her...hammed it up a little, and she just squealed with delight and ran off.

There is one teacher  I will not be able to work with.  She is almost always late, or does not show up at all and Friday she actually bullied a little kid to tears...it was awful, so awful, I had to leave.  I was going to talk to her today but I got the flu and stayed home.  I'll let her know how i feel tomorrow...and I am going to try to say something to the little boy......he was so sad and it was so mean spirited.

I learned a couple new Spanish words over the weekend.  To supplement her income, Adela sells Colombian underwear.  We started talking about the different styles....and the word "mata pasiones"  came up.  That is what they call the granny briefs, mata pasiones.    Mata means kill so you can easily figure out the rest.  They have some fun words.

We have a small group of students in our IB program, International Baccalaureate.  They wear these Harry Potter style dusters as they move about the campus.  Also, I think all their classrooms are air conditioned.    Don't really have a feel for the program yet, have not worked with them at all...will do so later.  I think there is some jealously among the other students.

These kids were assembled on the concrete slab for a program the other day and this cop shows up...he rode his motorcycle down the steps and just parked there for a minute or two and watched the program   Other than me, No one seemed to notice..can you imagine that happening in one of our schools ?  The police have a huge presence.....no privately owned weapons allowed in the country.  Not sure how I feel about that............

Going to just go with photos this time.  I've been working at school and by far the best part of this assignment is the school day.  The kids are very interesting....and interested.   Hoping for some good results. 

These are the students sitting outside ....earthquake evacuation drill.  Notice the uniforms.  The girls wear saddle oxfords...so cute.

Just another photo of the students at the earthquake drill.

They assemble every Monday morning on this big space for announcements, flag ceremony, school song etc. Its a large concrete area in the middle with classrooms all around .  This is also where they have their PE classes....and displays of posters celebrating 24 of October, the Battle of Pichincha...when they finally drove out the Spaniards.  Lots of their schools and roads are named after important historical dates....its a good thing.  Our school is Colegio ( high school) 28 de octubre and for a long time I thought that was the date of the battle of Pichincha but I learned today that the battle was on the 24th of May of some year and the 28th of octubre wasa totally different important day...it was some big protest against the catholic church running the country but no one in the teacher's work room could remember any details.  I think I'll google that. 

Funny story.   We have a work room with air conditioning.  There are two units and they are both going full blast when I go in but everyone is complaining about how cold it is.  So, I asked a couple teachers if we could change the temperature setting and they just nodded, smiling vacantly that they did not know where the remote control was.  So, I suggested we just unplug one of them...They were scared to death but I did it.   I checked the room later , no one had replugged it in and the temperature in there was just right.  So weird, how they just accept stuff.    In my travels, I have decided that is what makes we Americans so envied by so many, we just do what seems right...without out worrying about who might not like it.  I had a similar experience in Bulgaria with an umbrella on a table in an outdoor restaurant.  People were sitting in the sun, just baking, and waiting for someone else to raise the umbrella....I said, Lets just do it, so we did and my counter part , Tsveta, said, " That was so American !"  Funny. 

Another shot of the Monday morning assembly.....classroom buildings up in the back.  Its actually a pretty nice campus.

My cat...Gringo.  He is so so sweet and knows how to cool off.  More pictures later. I am told he arrived here the same day I did so they decided he was mine and named him Gringo.  We had him castrated as he was fighting with the other two castrated male cats who live here.  He is still fighting them...hope they make friends

This is Gringo sleeping in my suitcase.  I have not totally unpacked....but will, eventually, I guess.

This is our youngest group.  They are called the Octavos...8th graders but they are really the age of 7th graders...their numbering system is different from what I am used to.  They were having a party celebrating the Dia del Nino..day of the child...any excuse to have a party and cancel class !!!!  Sad....the class cancelling part.

Gringo looking for something under my bed.  He loves this laid out position....cools his stomach, I guess.

Obviously, I am still learning how to take a selfie without looking like I am taking a selfie.   I was going to delete this, hating myself in it, but its good of the other three and shows the pedestrian and bicycle bridge to Isla Santay.  This island is in the river Daule which runs thru Guayaquil and  has been designated as a protected area so only the families who were living there in the 50s are allowed to live on the island.  No cars are allowed so everyone has to walk or ride bikes across this bridge from the city of Guayaquil.  The gal in the orange is Adela from the family I am renting from, very nice and takes us lots of places, Leslie and Tim are other volunteers in my group.  They are also based in another school in Guayaquil.

The young kids from the 50 families have an elementary school but the older kids go into town.

The cocodrilos are a big draw...and there are lots of them.  notice the English translation...."ride"

Tim and Leslie on one of the paths, some of the paths are on land but most are over swampy areas.  Its a mangrove swamp, by and large.

Time and Leslie on the path.  Its really very beautiful.  We walked for about 5 hours but it was at a very leisurely pace. 

Gringo

an old saab  i found parked along the road...interesting, at least to the Gilsons

This is Becky, the other volunteer who is over 40...tho she is just over 40, unlike me who is.....over much more.  She and I went for a stroll on this Malecon along the river.  It must have been a huge construction project.  I am told that prior to this malecon being built in 2000, it was just an ugly, smelly river shore line.  On the opposite side from the river is the main financial district and commercial district so this was a big big improvement and it is well used by the people. 

more of the malecon....lots of young families

They have these on the malecon....I want to try it.  looked like a lot of fun.  Gotta find out the weight limit.

This is the malecon and shows the office buildings and condos that overlook the malecon now but 16 years ago I guess they overlooked some horrible river shores.  

One of the more beautiful buildings in the city.

This is another pedestrian mall walkway among some government buildings.  Quito is the capital city but Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and the main port on the Pacific.

A fountain on the pedestrian mall among the government buildings.

This is the atrium of the school of arts building which is right on the malecon overlooking the river.  They must have been so pleased when the ciity   cleaned up the river side and put in the malecon in 2000.

This is just to show the price of turkey breast.....$16 a pound and its not organic even......

Another part of the malecon.....in the distance, you can see the lighthouse where we visited last weekend...climbed 500 steps to get there but beautiful views and all along the stairs are bars and stores...very charming.  Don't have any photos of it but will go again and get some.

And finally, the girls in their saddle oxfords.   Isn't that just so cute !!!!  The blue things are molded plastic desks..not bad but the fat kids have an issue.  Actually, I have not seen a kid too fat to sit in one...don't know what they would do....hmmmmm, I may have some work to do :)No one is allowed to put anything on the walls.....crazy.  They don't want to have to paint.