Two days ago, Monday, October 17th was probably one of my more active days here in Azoques, Ecuador.

First off, I work up at 8am! Holy crap, that is like 1-2 hours earlier than normal! I nearly always stay awake past midnight, and have no reason not to sleep 8 hours, thus you get the point.

Well, you guys have already seen the corner store that I go to all the time. The owners of the store seem to be quite involved with a local preschool/1st grade school. After frequenting the store over the past 2 weeks, the older woman (I don’t know her name), asked me if I would like to go to the school in Monday morning, and visit the children, and speak English with them. I said, “Bueno, por supuesto!” (Great, for sure!)

And so, Monday morning, at 9am on the dot, I was showered and dressed and at the shop. The older lady was there, and presto, we got in a cab and took off for the school. Pretty soon thereafter, and we were there.



To the right of the picture above, you can see the door into the school yard. This place looks NICE. Much nicer than previous volunteer experiences I have taken part in. On the inside, these kids were learning and playing in style. They have a TRAMPOLINE.



Mickey Mouse says Welcome!



When I first entered the school, I was of course the center of attention, and the teachers/administrators all welcomed me. They were all women as well. The classroom of choice for me that morning was the Preschoolers. Along with them at the school is a small first grade class as well. In the first grade class of which I have no photo, there were about 8 students. In the preschool class, there were 14 or more.



When I arrived, they were all finger painting. After finger painting come a snack and RECESS. But before that, the teacher called the students 2-3 at a time to the bathroom, where regardless of sex, the kids dropped their pants, hiked up their skirts, and went pee. In front of each other, with little else to do but laugh and point at each other when they other couldn’t get his pants back up, or her skirt back down. What a riot!

When it is time to get up from finger painting, and head down the hall, down the stairs and outside for RECESS, these little kiddos knww the drill! They all sing a little song that ends each verse with “sshhhh”, and get ready to be quite all the way downstairs.



When the kids had all filed out of the classroom I snapped a photo of their “Digs”.



Backpacks lined up on the wall on the hooks, each of the kids with a hat was permitted to retrieve it before recess.



Before recess, each of these kids needs a bowl of rice and a glass of juice! FEED TIME!



And then, it was RECESS TIME! These kids bolted out of the door in under a few seconds, and were headed straight for their favorite toys. Be it the teeter-totter, the jungle gym, the sand box, slides, the swings, or the TRAMPOLINE!



Behind a fenced section of the playground, is a set of smaller toys, where the youngest of the children play. They are all about 3 or 4, and loved the swings the most from what I could see. The kids in the safety seats (child swings) couldn’t really swing themselves, and kept calling out “Vuelo! Vuelo!” (I fly, I fly). So, of course, I gave them a push.

The girl on the left kept calling out, “Dame tu mano!” (Give me your hand!) to her swing neighbor who willingly obliged, and I made them fly.



This little boy got his fair share of pushes, as he was my favorite. He never called out for help swinging, and always smiled and laughed when I gave him a good push.



See what I mean?



This kid was having a damn good time the whole time! The most relaxed kid in the entire school, hands down.



This girl liked to tell me all about her friends, and her dog, and her cat, and her mom, and her dad, and her…. You get it J



Right when you enter into the front gate of the school, and look to the left, you would see the set of safety swings. Behind the swings, are more swings, and a mini slide, and spring loaded chairs to bounce/rock on.



On the right side, after entering the gate, is a sand pit, walk a bit, and on your right is a large slide platform. Walk a little more, and the trampoline is now on your right side. Walk a little more, and you’ve made it to the teeter-totter and the Mickey Mouse sign, and entrance to the school on your left.

Beyond all that, and you have an expanse for some of the wild children to run free.



And then you have this kid; who, when I found him, was sitting DIRECTLY on top of a massive pile of mini little ants. They were swarming over this kid like he was part of the landscape, and he didn’t give a damn. He sat and played with them as they crawled over his legs, stomach, back, arms, and hands.

I made his stand up, so I could brush the ants off him. I asked him if he wanted to jump in the trampoline, “No.” Do you want to swing on the swing? “No.” Do you want to play in the sand? “No.” Do you like the ants? “Yes.” Do you want to play with the ants? “Yes.” Well. Shit. Ok.



Later, I found Ant Boy trying to steal a bunch of flower blossoms from another boy who had just proudly proclaimed that they were for his Mama. Ant Boy had a hand around group of stalks, and wasn’t letting go. I asked Mama’s Boy if we could share the flowers. “No.” So I took Ant Boy’s hand off the flowers, never let it go, and told him we could go pick more flowers for his Mama. Waaaaay more. And so he picked.



After that, for a while, my only job was to harass the children, in loud voices. “AAAAAAAHHHH! BOOOOO! BLABABABABA!” To which the children responded by running hell bent for cover, screaming, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!”

I got a few of the preschool boys, and tossed them in the air with my good right arm, and pushed them over, and kicked them around, and tickled them, and picked them back up off the ground to “RAAAAAAAWR!” at them, as they ran away “Eeeeeeeeeeeh” ‘ing.

After a while, I settled down and hit up the sand box. One of the smarter 4 year old preschoolers requested my help to dig a big hole. “Why,” I asked him. “To get to the wet sand. To build a castle.” He said. Damn kid, yea, I’ll help you.



After that, it was round up time, and the kids all piled into single file line to go back inside. In no time at all, we were back in the class room, and I was watching little kids draw lines on paper, mimicking a spiders’ string, hanging below its web.



Then it was time to brush their teeth! Two at a time, the kids brushed their teeth, while the rest of the class, having just got back from recess, half sat, half ran around the room waiting.



After the communal brushing of the teeth, I was informed that the bus that would take me home had arrived. I was permitted the front seat next to the driver while 6 or 8 of the little children were in the back with a teacher. On the way out of the gated school, I snagged one last photo of the play ground.



To give you an example of the types of families that send their children to this school, I took this photo of the home of the first student we dropped off. His maid collected him at the door.



And after dropping off all the children in similar styled homes, it was time to drop me off. And upon parting ways, I captured the yellow school bus!



I was dropped directly at the corner of the street where my favorite corner store is, and walked over to meet the nice older woman. She had invited me to lunch with her sister and her mother. I was hungry, having only eaten a banana and apple that morning, and was more than happy to accept.

I made the right decision. It was the best lunch I have had the entire time I have been in this city!

A bowl of AWESOME bean soup, a platter of choclo (think oversized corn), an avocado, a plate of rice, a slice of pineapple, and a plate with mixed veggies, and pan fried Pork. SO GOOD!



And that my friends, was Monday morning.

For the rest of the afternoon I did a lot of reading. I read a lot lately. However, before all the shops closed down, I hit up the streets for my nightly meal of chicken/rice/fries/beans. Also, I needed to make an ATM run as I had run out of money finally, and hadn’t paid for the past 4 nights at the hotel. On the way back from the ATM/bank, I saw one of the 50 or so “panaderias” (bread store) in town. This one however had slices of cake for sale for $1. YES! And so I bought one.

Around the block was my new favorite fruit stand, and this time they had peaches, and strawberries. Oh damn… I take 3 of those peaches, and 3 of those plums, and 2 of those apples, and 2 of those bananas, and oh yes, a bag of those strawberries. Right… $3.

Off to the Polleria (chicken restaurant) pick up my meal, hit the corner store that’s open late, buy chips, Gatorade, Coke. Total up amount, less than $10 for everything listed above.

Back to the hotel, veg out, eat food, Skype call Kristi, go to bed.

Tuesday was the same as any other normal day. Wake up late. Eat fruit and rolls left over from Monday night grocery run, go out late for food, come back and veg out. Remember at 12:30am local time, while Skype calling Kristi that it is my sister Lorraine’s 27th birthday. Hang up on Kristi and call Lorraine. Blither blather for a while, tell her I love her. Call Kristi again. Go to bed.

And that brings us to today, Wednesday, October 19th. Much more of the same happened until about 3:30. I got off my ass, determined to go to a lawyers’ office, and get my bike paperwork completed so I could remove it from the Police Lot. No big deal, I had the card of a Lawyer that solicited his services to me when I was at the Police Station over 2 weeks ago.

On the way there, I brought my bike paperwork, my passport, extra money, and my bike keys. First stop, a farmacia (pharmacy) on the way there. No sour gummy worms to be found, so I settled on a 250ml coke. Back out the door, and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?!?

Seriously, WHAT am I looking at? What is that I hear?

Low and behold, two WHITE European girls, speaking French are walking down the street. I don’t waste a second thought, and step in behind them. The taller girl (turns out she’s Swiss) looks at me like I’m God on earth, while the shorter girl (turns out she’s French) looks at Swiss girl in complete bewilderment.

It turns out that the Swiss girl (Charlotte) has been in Azoques for 5 weeks volunteering at an Orphanage, while French girl arrived last night. French girl (Lison) doesn’t realize (As the Swiss girl and I do) that there are NO OTHER white skinned people (for lack of better terminology) in all of Azoques, hence her bewildered look at Swiss girl who is currently looking at me like I am God on earth.

After the moments of shock, it is decided that I would follow them for a , as they were headed to a bar/restaurant. I’m left speechless at this point. I haven’t spoken English except for on the phone with my parents, Kristi, and friends.

I now have new friends in Azoques! Charlotte is in between studying psychology and 23yrs/old, and Lison is fresh of high school and 18yrs/old. Charlotte is here till December’ish, and Lison is here till March. I’m here for 7-10 more days. So, it’ll be BEER:30 sometime in the next few days, and I’ll take the customary “MEET THESE PEOPLE” shots when I have the chance. I left my camera at the hotel prior to meeting them.

Needless to say, I never made it to the Lawyer, or the Police parking. I’ll do that in the morning. And then, I’ll see if I can help out at the Orphanage these girls are helping at. The kids are 3 months to 11yrs/old. I’m sure I can help somewhere!

It’s time for bed now, so take it easy everyone! Keep it real!

Until next time!


--Alex

__________________
NJ, NR, NBTTN