There´s a lone soldier on the hill watching fallin´ raindrops pour.

Back in Quito, a place with internet and bars and common conveniences, I`m back to blog, quickly. Exhausted, as it has already been a long day, coming this morning from Malingua Pamba.

At 3am, heavy knocks on the metal door of our makeshift lodging in part of Malingua Pamba`s schoolhouse. I start up from a not-so-heavy sleep, thinking we must have missed the bus, supposed to come at 4. Standing on the cold cement floor in my boxer briefs, I open the door to find the senile Quechua screaming grandma Sacatorro, four and half feet of energy and hurry in the middle of the night. She yells at me as if Ryan and I have been holding everyone up, but we were ready to get up at 3:30 to catch the bus. 5 minutes is a lot to ask of her, apparently, for a guy to put some clothes on and get ready in the freezing cold middle of the night. We head up to catch the "bus" to find that we are actually to ride with her son, 25-year old Paulino Sacatoro, in his pickup. The bus, we are told, isn´t coming tonight because the road into Latacunga is too muddy.

Sleepy-eyed, with my lower intestine playing accordion and Paulino honking the horn and screaming in my ear, we climb into the cab, Paulino, me, Ryan, and Paulinos father, Grandpa Sacatoro. 4 men across in the cab. I took jabs to the ribs as Paulino turned the wheel or reached between my legs to shift. (any way that could not be homoerotic?? I could have said I straddled the stick...) A line of tassles hung above the dash, sillouhetted in the headlights, swinging back and forth like the Rocketts at Christmas. The lead dancer, hanging wher the rearview mirror would have ben, was a plastic rosary that traced circles around my knee, often in time with the fuzzy música folklorica from FM 93.5, muffled out of a car speaker perched precariously on top of the dash. The cab was decorated with a variety of stickers; Bruce Lee, a busty blonde wearing nothing but a blue thong and a ton of hairspray (clearly I gave this one a good look), and several images of the Virgin Mary.

About ten minutes into the trip, necessitated by the muddy dangerous roads, Paulino took the opportunity to indicate where a man had died by driving off of the cliff. At about 4:30, we stopped and the rest of the passengers (there were several in the coverd back of the truck to begin with, and we picked up a lot more along the way) got out to walk up a hundred meters and put straw and sand in the muddy ruts that had trapped another truck for several hours (it only got out as we arrived). Ryan remarked that he would pay a decent sum of money to be in a warm bed with his girlfriend. Unfortunately, he was in the dark, freezing cabin of a ´77 Ford F350 with me, and I had gas.

A half hour later, we cruised through the tough spot and Paulino said "Now we are there", meaning it would be a bumpy but not entirely treacherous 2 1/2 hours to Latacunga. I plugged my left ear as Paulino and I discussed prices of trucks in the U.S. and skiing. Arriving in Latacunga, Ryan and I thought we´d check out the market, where our traveling companions were selling grains in bulk and buying up bulk produce. We decided to go with them to the lumberyard, as Ryan and I had suggested buying wood to construct tables and benches for the school "cafeteria". We thought this would take only a few minutes, as in the U.S., but after 2 hours of bargaining, buying wood, cutting it and squaring it, we were both pretty cranky. 8 hours into our day, and we wern´t even on the bus to Quito yet. We paid for the rest of the work (there was still more to be done at the lumberyard) and got Paulino to drop us at an intersection where we quickly caught a bus to Quito. And slept.

Quito, our destination, where we were to buy some games and books for the kids and some running shoes for Ryan, get our laundry done, do some internetting and some international caling, and have a good crazy night out. Hustling through the hail (thats right, hail. by 1 pm we`d been in the cold black of night, moist dawn of Latacunga, severe sunny heat of the Lumberyard, and half-inch diameter hail) to the laundromat, we found that it wasn´t open on saturdays. We were both a little sick and both quite tired, so a nap was certainly necessary. That meant no shoes or games or toys. Our room was on the fourth floor, farthest from the entrance to the hostal and directly underneath the tin roof, which sounded quite pleasant with hail bouncing off of it. Lightnight struck on or very near the building, which cut off the internet in the building, forcing us to wander around for a while to find the place where I now compose this sad song. Nothing has been easy today. Nothing. We may yet have a good night out, though we`ll have to fight through our swollen lymph nodes and rally.

Now back to review (quickly. I am getting sick of internet already...) the week in Malingua Pamba.


Monday

After a hectic morning, we hopped a bus to Latacunga and caught another one to Malingua Pamba (one bus heads out per day, at 1:30pm. One returns, at 4am. I think this is to travel when it is not raining. The roads are bad.) Ryan sat next to a man who turned out to be the husband of the school teacher at Malingua Pamba, so he sent her a text message and they were expecting us when we got there. A group of guys two rows behind us got so blind drunk during the first 1 1/2 hours of the bumpy trip that they literally fell out of the bus when it was time for them to get off. An impressive showing, blurred speach, the works.

When we stopped at Malingua Pamba, a community of a couple of hundred indigenous people, all living off the land, a Malinguan girl who looked to be about our age, pretty, wearing shiny, bright yellow necklaces, said to us "Éste es Malingua" with a big smile. I felt at home already.

There is nothing much in Malingua Pamba proper, a couple of cement houses (one is actually two stories!) two structures for elementary school, a small church, two half-built structures that are to be a new high school and a new house for Paulino Sacatoro, the high school (also where we sleep), a small building housing the cafeteria, and another building for storing wood. All dirt, there are some posts set up in a big space in front of the church for playing soccer or volleyball. The city sits on the east side of a valley, and walking parallel along the hill in any direction away from Malingua Pamba proper, the world is big. Huge views of the river, and little farms and poor houses off into the distance.

We saw all of Malingua in the first five minutes off the bus, and took a couple of shots of a strong liquor from a little plastic cup, offered us by a smiling man we now know as Juan Camilo. Paulino and his brother José Sacatoro were replacing the tires on the old truck we were to bump around in this mornig/last night. We met José´s five children, Wilian, Patricio, Wilmer, Edison, and Hernán, and Wilian took us on the very brief walking tour, beginning at our place of residence.

Our Home: A couple of nights ago, Ryan described our lodging as "non-descript", but later revised this to say "square cement box". I think that is about as good a description as is possible. The room we share is one of two rooms (the other occupied by a paid Ecuadorian teacher, Marcelo) just off of the smaller of two classrooms in the highschool building. This smaller, entrance room, our "foyer", has two computers (the two we use for teaching computing to some hundred kids), a table, the occasional desk, and a sink that spurts water at about a gallon per hour.

Our room contains one uncomfortable bed, long enough to sleep on diagonally, a chest full of junk, and a shelving unit containing assorted and very dusty medical supplies, sold by 17-year old Pedro, who we met on day one. We put mats down on the cement floor, and switch off each night, sleeping on the mat or bed. The mats are a bit more comfortable, actually, but breathing cement dust and dirt all night makes it less than ideal. There is a light in the room, turned on an off by connecting or disconnecting two live wires that hang from the ceiling. There is nowhere to put anything where it will not get covered in dust, so we keep all of our stuff in our backpacks. Our bathroom is about 20 meters out the door, actually relatively comfortable. On one side, there is a garden, about 7"x3" I´d say. A big spider hangs from a petrified owl that hangs from the ceiling above the garden, in front of a huge window that loks out over the valley. On the other side, there are two holes in a wooden bench, supposedly used for pooping and peeing, respectively, but one hole has been deliberately closed up. We make due with just one hole. There is a plastic toilet seat to put over the hole for #2, and a bag of straw which is to be dropped down on the pile upon completion. It isn´t the Ritz, but it doesn´t smell too bad given all the organic matter in there, and the view can´t be beat. There is even a motion-sensing light, which works almost all of the time that the electricity is working. Quaint. Usable.

Nothing much happened our first night, a little soccer after the liquor was not exactly the right move, but a potato soup treated us ok for dinner. We had no idea what to expect with the food. Its been good, but the initiation with potato soup was appropriate. We´d have to get used to it. I´d say I eat about 15-20 potatos a day on average. Small potatoes, but plenty.


Tuesday

A breakfast of bread and a little cafecito (can refer to any hot or warm drink) and we were introduced to the kids, kindergarden through 7th grade. We made up a quick class schedule, in which I would teach English and Ryan Computing. I take the little ones, 2-4 graders for a while while he has the older ones, then we switch. We have the kindergardeners after lunch. I wasn´t entirely sure what to do up there - I´m still not - but we´ve I think more than held our own with the teaching. I´m not sure that we´re being used in an entirely appropriate way, as we essentially give one of the teachers (paid to be there) a break in the morning, but I think the kids are learning. I think it might be best to work in smaller groups, especially with the computers, but we´ll see how things work out. Ryan and I are a good team, I think, bouncing ideas off each other about teaching and how to improve the experience. wow, I´m actually being productive.

I was pleased to se we got a healthy banana drink for our morning break, along with fortified vanilla wafers provided by the Ecuadorian Provisional Government. That and the teacher´s salaries, I think, are about the only thing provided by the Gov. Ryan and I both snacked hungrily along with the kids in our cafeteria. We sit in the only chairs in the small cement room, while the kids sit on the dirty floor and shovel food into their faces. Its sad, and I hope the tables we build will make it a little brighter in there. Lunch tuesday was lentils and rice, a huge plate that the little kids ate with soup. Ryan and I were full without soup, but most ate all of their meals. I suspect they get very little to eat at home.

Being short on time here, and ansy to leave the internet cafe, I´ll paste what I´ve written for Friday and hit on a couple interesting parts of the week...

Wednesday

First day with the high schoolers, who were all shuffled into our small computer room. We were somehow supposed to show 50 kids who had never used a computer how to do so in a small room with only 2 computers. A daunting task. We did an introduction and showed them some pictures with a projector... next day to actually try and teach.

We took a walk into the poorer section of the community, called Pucará. Enlightening. All the students that were at home were happy to see us and say hello, along with their parents.

We walked with Wilan Sacatoro, our guide, who told us about the plants - a variety of cactuses with various medicinal uses, one cactus used to protect other crops against wind, several bushes used to protect against erosion - a huge problem in the community, tomato trees (yes, they grow on trees! taste kind of like a strawberry...), corn, potatos, grains, other tubers... Wilian was a great guide, a short 12 year old beginning high school, he explained part of the next day´s exam: there are two diseases facing the world today, AIDS and abortion. I gave Ryan a glance. I´m not sure that I´ve time to discuss what I think about abortion being taught as a "disease" in public schools, I´ll just say I was taken aback.

We visited Wilan´s crazy grandma, the one that woke us up at 3am this morning, at her house. A straw roof, the ceiling stained black with smoke, which poured out of the room. Dogs, chickens, and guinea pigs crawled around on the dirt floor, and Wilian grabbed a rabbit out from the corner of the room by the ears. Corn hung on a string from the ceilng, drying. And.. A TV in the corner. somehow. luxury.

Thursday

Ryan and I have become experts in "winging it". We had no idea what we would be doing once we got up to Malingua Pamba, though I remarked to Ryan last night that even if we had known, we still wouldn´t have prepared ourselves. He thought that an "astute" observation, and I complemented his use of an advanced English vocab word, as we are both beginning to speak like ESL-ers. Anyhow, we discussed what we would do to teach the high schoolers computing for a few minutes before we were to do so, and ultimately we decided that I´d give a lesson to the greater class with one computer and a projector while he took small groups into the next room for hands-on experience. I winged it, and everyone paid attention as I explained what the desktop was, the start menu, how to use a mouse, etc. I dropped a file named "Jackie Chan" into the recycle bin, like a tough guy, making a joke. nobody really got it. ouch. I rescued him later, though, and put him back into "Mis Documentos" where he came from. Things were fine until the power went out - the third time that day, I think. It is difficult to teach computer literacy without a computer. Class dismissed!

We met some of the parents after school, who had come in for their once-a-month meeting. This time to discuss the 30 cent per day contribution for their children´s food. They felt as if the contribution was too much. They didn´t want to pay it. $1.50 a week. Crazy, you might think, but these people have absolutely no money. Most live off of what they grow. They feel the government should cover the food costs. So do I.

Had a spectacular run after the rain finally stopped (it rains every day, never failing. Cold rain.) A high schooler named Edwin joined me on his bike, which helped to fend off the dogs which were protecting corrals of sheep along the road. The view was amazing, farms spread out along the hill like a patchwork quilt all folded up. Colorful, lines up and down the hills. Everyone said hello to me along the road - some knew who I was - and they all looked at me like I was crazy.


Friday

Finally beginning to wake up before the alarm goes off, Ryan and I woke up Friday in different beds in different rooms for the first time in as long as I can remember. (I´m a little sad, waking up without him…) A little after 7, José Sacatorro knocked on our door to let us know our hot water was ready: our first shower in the four days we´d been in Malingua Pamba. Jose´s wife had warmed us each up a big bucket of water over the stove; in the broken shower stall of our schoolhouse/living area, we used a tin cup to scoop the warm water over our heads. Ryan went first, and noted that the “ducha” (shower) was a lot more effective than he had thought – and it truly was remarkable how clean I could get using a two gallon bucket of water. After a breakfast of cafecito with machaca, fried plantains, and bread, I felt almost ready for the day. Ready as I´d ever be.

We were the only teachers in town Friday, as Marcelo had gone to Latagunga for a class and Rosa had to give a presentation, so it was up to us to entertain 30-some 2nd thru 7th graders. We continued with our morning class schedule, so that I took the Primer Curso (grades 2-4) from about 8:15 until around 9:30, when we broke for our morning cafecito snack. By Friday, the kids were really starting to warm up to me (not that they were especially shy on Tuesday or Wednesday), and when I asked each of them “what is your name” at the beginning of class, even the girls told me “My name is…” loud enough for all to hear. We worked with greetings like “hello” and “good morning” and learned the English names for a variety of animals. I accompanied each Spanish/English translation with a very poor drawing of the animal, and ultimately was unsure whether my little guinea pigs and sheep were helpful visual teaching aids or simply proof of my sub-par blackboard drawing abilities. Either way, I had fun with it, and the kids were into asking me the names of more animals. One of the more talkative students, named Guido, asked me how to say “bicycle” in the middle of our animal lesson – I humored him, mostly because I was fairly confident in my ability to draw a good likeness of a bicycle. I read Simbad el Marinero after our English lesson, a horribly anticlimactic story of the same series as Pinocho and Aladino, and despite having had Ryan read them the story the day prior, the kids wanted me to finish the story even after we were told that cafecito was ready. A good feeling knowing they´d rather stick around with me than run off to get banana drink and vanilla wafers.

After our snack, ever nutritious, we switched classes as is custom, and the 5-7th graders walked over from the small school room/computer room into the larger one for their English lesson at 10am. I welcomed them with “good morning”, and some mercifully answered back. We went over “My name is” again briefly, mostly for my benefit, as I still am unable to remember the names of the less-participatory alumnus, and I started off with a song. I´d chosen an old Cat Stevens favorite entitled “I love my dog”, a song with simple lyrics that I could teach after I caught their attention. Everyone was fairly good with I/You/He, She/We/Them, so I only had to teach “dog” (perro) and “love” (querer) in order for them to get the gist. The lyrics are:
I love my dog as much as
I love you
You may fade
My dog will always come through.*

I think I got the point across, teaching “dog” and “love” and explaining the meaning of “as much as”(tanto como), knowing that that was a much more advanced term. I´m not sure that they understood the irony of the song; I´m not sure I would have at that age.

Next, I broke out a little of the Quechua I´ve been learning, and everyone got a real kick out of my sorry pronunciations of Quechua words for goat and sheep. I worked with it, and soon had every kid nearly jumping out of his or her seat to come up to the board and write a Quechua word, to show me how much they knew. They were teaching me, and it sure seemed that they loved it. A kid would write the Quechua term for an animal, (generally with spelling help shouted from the peanut gallery) and maybe the Spanish word also, and then I´d write the English word. We were working in three languages, Spanish the one we shared, and the kids and I were all happy to share our other language. We weren´t having so much fun that they didn´t remind me when it was time to go to recess, but even after that, we reviewed all of our Quechua-Spanish-English translations and they wanted a song before recess. I went with Neil Young´s “Sugar Mountain”, and had their attention long enough to tell them not to loose their youth before they stampeded out to the soccer field or into the church to chat.

At recess, we were recruited for a game of football, in which Ryan and I were captains forced to choose sides, each youngster having paired with an equally-skilled partner in order to be split up fairly. A nice way to do things, I thought, but I still didn´t like having to choose. Ryan´s team won, but I still say it was mostly due to our goalkeeper´s preference for his popsicle over our team´s pride.

Lunch was rice, beats, and plantains, more banana vitamin drink, and a bowl of soup which, as per custom, was dished out in a proportion roughly five times the size we were after. Ryan and I made a valiant effort, but ultimately were unable to conquer such a mountain of food, leaving only the rice (the least nutritious food component). I´m fairly sure an elderly gentleman who happened by as we were finishing up was glad to polish off our portions, though Ryan and I always feel pressure to clean our plates given that so many around us go without.

We went over our afternoon class session for a few minutes at lunch, as we still refuse to plan lessons more than 10 minutes before they are to be given. As the kids are at drastically different levels in most areas, we decided on a South American geography lesson, something that almost nobody knew anything about. When I was 7, I could probably tell you the capitol of Mongolia and point out the location of Mt. Kilamanjaro, mostly due to my undying interest in trivia, but thanks in part to the Geosafari game in Mrs. Clark´s room. These kids – like their parents - have been exposed to very little outside of Malingua Pamba. We made an effort: Ryan drew a decent likeness of this here continent (though I´ll say Peru and Brasil got short shrift in favor of Bolivia and Venezuela) and we had the kids call out names of countries. Many called out cities in Ecuador, but we were able to come up with a little more than half of the countries, I´d say. We went over the languages spoken and had them copy what we deemed the most important countries and capitols to learn. I had a nice chat with Byron from my Primer Curso, who was excited to show me he´d finished copying and really happy when I told him we´d be here for another couple of weeks. Felt nice. As the afternoon rain had again begun, and we had a little time left, I went ahead and read a story from the American South, called Los Huevos Parlantes (“The Talking Eggs”), about a mistreated little girl who is very good and obeys her elders and is ultimately rewarded with riches. Her mean mother and sister are greedy and don´t do as they are told, and end up sad and lonely. Strangely, all the stories I read end up with the main character very rich. I´m not sure this is the right message to send.

After class, Ryan headed straight to bed while I watched the hang-arounders play ball inside. Nothing to break, so I though It´d be ok. I sat with Sonia, one of the younger ones, and played some upbeat Dylan stuff on the guitar – “My Back Pages”, “All Along the Watchtower” – while the kids did something of a dance while knocking the ball around. Me and a bunch of kids rockin out in the schoolhouse. I taught English for another hour and a half to Edwin, the high schooler who had biked with me while I ran the previous day, and finally to a well-deserved nap.

Awaking, the sun was actually out and Ryan was up playing fútbol. I took advantage of my warm hands to play some more guitar and type out a little pre-blog until I was interrupted by more kids wanting to practice typing or watch movies on the computer. It never ends. Locked in my bedroom next door, I did some Yoga while Ryan picked out a tune and we kicked the kiddies out around 7:30 to head up to dinner. Spectacular, hearty, mostly potatoes again with a warm chunky milky drink made with Machoche, a ground corn grain, and sugar. An avocado was a nice accompaniment. I made the mistake of asking for a bit more and found myself in the familiar position of trying to finish off a huge bowl of soup that I really didn´t want. Me, grandma, Patricio, Edison, the two Sacatorro spouses, and five guinea pigs or so together in the smoke. A rollicking good time.




* The verse goes “all he asks of me is the food to give him strength/ all he ever needs is love / and that he knows he´ll get… so I Love my dog, etc. If every lady was as easy to please as my perro. My my… Sam? You out there? Te Quiero.