Dear frinds and students,
Sorry for not writng for so long and sorry for some spelling mistakes in part one. It shows how tired we are, I think.
So many things are happening to us and around us! We continue teaching, which is our basic activity here, our young students make us work really hard and we have to do our very best to attract their attention for more than 10-15 minutes. But we are satisfied and they ARE learning. Older students do not cause so many problems with discipline, their concentration is much better and they enjoy our Magic English films much more than the little ones. The sisters as well. This is one of our basic tasks here, but not the only one. We also intend to learn as much as possible about the sisters and their ninas and ninos at school and in the internat (dormitory), so that we can continue helping them when we get back home. The biggest problem is language and there is too little time to change this situation, but we try and learn more and more every day. The sisters on their part take care of us and try to show as much of Ecuador to us as possible. We have already been to el Quinche, the most important national place as concerns the indigenous cult of Mary (dating back to the first years after conquista), el Mitad del Mundo, a place on the equator with some fantastic exhibits of local jungle culture and some experiments to show what is special about being at the middle point of Earth. We have also been to Esmeraldas for two memorable nights (28 degrees in our bedroom, enormous humidity plus merciless mosquitos) and 2 memorable days: on-going carnival fiestas, incredible, beautiful beaches and local fishermen's huts, the Pacific, extraordinery padre Marcelo (just turned 71) from Italy and his boys, staying with him because of the situation in their families. After that we experienced torrential rain (the heaviest in some twenty years they say) which cut us off from the world, but luckily we were saved and were able to return on the day we planned.
Another situation we were stranded and needed help of sister Lenka was when we had spent all our small banknotes and were left with just a 100- dollar note. Nobody was ready to accept it from us, even in the bank! They told us to go to Banco Central, but it was too late for that, they were closing. Something that our guidebook (LOnely Planet) never mentioned.
Sister Lenka is still planning to take us to Tulcan on the Colombian border to Polish priests living there and to a sanctuary in Colombia. In the afternoons we have attended a few masses in the neighbourhood, which has been quite an experience as well, there are some differences, people are warm and friendly, music is very important. Wojtek is very happy being with the girls and helping them, he has changed a lot, is more out-going and not so ashamed, Tomek is quite happy, very brave in Esmeraldas, trying to help as much as he can. We are well and happy, feeling that people here offer us much more than we are able to offer to them. Still, we see the poverty and the needs, there is a lot to do when we get back home.
Will write more when we return from Tulcan on Sunday.
Love,
Darek
Darekov blog
Post je objavljen 19.02.2010. u 19:49 sati.