I’ve been teaching English at the Centro Artisanal ever since I got here, and all in all it’s been interesting, for better or worse. For one thing, it’s frustrating. The students in the class are products of the crappy education system here, so they have no idea how to learn. Also, from the administrative side, teaching sucks here, but I assume it’s not too much worse that a terrible intercity school in the states. Anyway, teaching English class here in a formal setting is basically just an annoying pain in the ass. So why do I do it? It provides me with a group of 45 women who know me and like me. I can use this to establish all kinds of groups. I’ve recently started a women’s running group, and in the future I want to start a women’s cooking class.
But let’s talk about the running group. I wanted to start this group because there are no opportunities for women to exercise here. The majority of the men spend the day doing manual labor, then the afternoons playing sports, so most are in really good shape. In contrast, women get up to cook, clean, and sit around the house all day. So I wanted to do something about that. The idea was received extremely well. Probably half of the 45 person class was really for going running with me. The only time they all could do it was 5am, so that’s what we agreed one. I began waking up at 4:30, but no one showed up. The next day I reminded everyone, no one showed up again. The third day, I said something, and reminded the women that if they wanted to run, they could the next morning. Finally, on the fourth day, 6 people showed up. I said 5am sharp, so naturally they rolled up at 5:30. And as it turns out, it was impossible to run because only 6 women were there. That makes sense. So they said to reschedule it for the next week, and they would remind their friends. Next week rolled around, no one showed.
Turns out, you can’t just establish a friendly, voluntary group. Ecuador just loves pomp and circumstance, so when you do anything (absolutely anything!) you need to sign your name and give your personal ID number. For example, the schools don’t actually teach the kids anything, but they have a bunch of papers with signatures and ID numbers saying they do, so everything’s legit.
Anyway, if I want women to start running, I’m going to have to get some kind of list with all their names, id numbers, copies of the equivalent of their social security card, a notary, and Barack Obama to give a speech (in Spanish) at the inception. I’ll let you know how things turn out.