1st "full" day at Elba Zamora = chaos

My morning began at 6:30 with a shower: cold and with absolutely no water pressure. Though the coolness of the water felt nice, I knew the moment I stepped out, I’d begin sweating... before it even hits 9am, the temperature usually reaches 85 degrees, and so you can imagine what it is like mid-day!  After showering and getting dressed, I ate a bowl of yogurt and fresh watermelon for breakfast. I left the house around 8:00, with one other volunteer too meet the ‘ayudante’ (a high school or university student who works at the school, mostly to assist volunteers, since they grew up in the area of these small schools and know the kids quite well) of Elba Zamora. At 8:45, we were still waiting for Vanessa (thought she’s not quite as lovely as my sister Vanessa). Welcome to Elba Zamora, the school that has absolutely no structure. From what I hear from other volunteers, this is something that will happen to us often; we will travel to the school every day (walking 45 min or talking a 15 min bus ride for about 25 cents), but will find that school has been canceled, or teachers did not show up, at least once a week. One volunteer had worked there for nearly two months and never had a full week of work... so this will definitely take some getting used to!

The walk there was long and dusty, and there is no room for daydreaming or letting your mind wander in any way... for you’re constantly jumping off the side of the road as cars come whizzing by. Since there are no sidewalks, it becomes a car-dodging game... pedestrians do not have the right of way. By the time I got to school, I already felt covered in a film of sweat and my white feet were covered in dirt. 

As soon as I stepped in to the school gate, the other volunteer (her name is Manon) and I were surrounded by little kids asking us for our names, giving us hugs and grabbing our hands to lead us to their classrooms. Though school starts at 7 am, we aren’t needed until 9ish. I thought that when we would arrive, the children would all be in their classrooms... but it was the complete opposite: it was as though the entire school ground was their playground and there was no such thing as a structured class. The kids ran around the school, played on the playground, went in and out of all the classrooms.. it was a free for all. And no, it was not recess.

I entered the 2nd and 3rd grade classroom, and immediately got thrown in to teaching math. This particular classroom held roughly 15 students, but if you were to have stood outside and listened in, you would have guessed there were twice as many students inside. The teacher stood in front of the classroom and spoke, but kids were in and out of their desks, they were hitting each other and mocking out the teacher... she had absolutely no authority and it was amazing how anything ever gets done. In all honesty though, not much does, and it’s incredibly sad. Math books were given to each of the kids, but they were given little direction before they were on their own to complete ‘lesson 4’. After a few minutes, I walked around and looked at each kid’s notebook- not one had a single answer written down. I quickly realized that they couldn’t read the questions and therefore couldn’t write any answers down... day after day they are given these work books, but all they do is copy the question down, they don’t learn a single thing. I took the 2nd graders under my wing and read each question aloud and walked them through the problems one at a time. Even that wasn’t as easy as it sounds; many of these kids, who are in 2nd and 3rd grade, can’t count to 100 and even simple addition or subtraction is beyond them... so completing the problem “what number is ten more than 500” was nearly impossible, as I had to start from square 1. So, after more than an hour, we completed six problems... and that was the day. The kids were sent home early, at 12 instead of 2 but I couldn’t tell you why.

For the next several weeks I have decided that instead of working inside the classrooms, I will be taking students out of the class for one-on-one help with reading, math, etc. Though all of the kids could use assistance, it would be nearly impossible for me to do that all on my own. The only way I will get any progress from any of the students, is if i take the ones who need it the most. For example, sweet, little Elsa could hardly even count to ten and when I pointed to the number 6, 8 or 9 she couldn’t tell me the difference, and thought that 500 was 1,000...  tomorrow, I’ll be taking her for a half hour to tutor her a bit so that I can get her up to speed with some of the other kids in her class.

Already, A huge eye-opener. I now realize how much patients this will take but how much they really need volunteers. Though we need to respect the teachers and not try and take over, I am hoping that we can make a bit of a difference with a few handfuls of kids in terms of tutoring them to get them to where they should be (or where the rest of the class is), actually taking the time to teach them. It was sad to see how little these kids learn in school, and I realized so quickly why only 30% of kids actually finish school through the 6th grade.

I am glad I am here. I am hoping to make a bit of a difference. I know that I can not change the school system or the way that Elba Zamora is run, but I have hope that if I can encourage these kids to want to learn, to make it fun and interesting, to praise them when they do well, that I may be part of the reason why even just 3 more kids from this small school continue their education...