Part of the Duke in the Andes program requires each student to spend 10 weeks at some sort of community service on top of the classes we are taking. I have landed myself in the cutest school of all, helping teach English. There are kids from ages 5-12 at the school, which is a public/private institution (I still haven't figured that one out...). But it's a very low resource school, and the English teacher, Mariana, basically has to buy supplies out of her own pocket. It's really sad, actually. And a lot of the kids don't have adequate supplies or the correct uniform size or their uniform has huge holes in it because their families can't afford to buy new ones at the moment. It's rough, but the kids are adorable and so sweet.
This is the outer wall of the escueltia. The murals are actually pretty cool.
This is the English classroom. It's an old auditorium, and the kids sit on church pews. It's not very conducive to learning, but like I said, they don't have much choice because of the economic situation of the school.
Today we learned the colors, and got to go outside and play with a big tent-thing!
Not much learning happened.
So yes. This is where I spend 10 hours a week. And it's worth it.
This weekend the program is venturing into the Amazon Rainforest (yep.
that Amazon). Wish me luck. I don't do well with snakes.
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