Education and Tid Bits

A quick recap of the last few weeks.

• The first retreat group of the year came down from Santa Clara University, California and they visited Mount Sinai on Saturday. I got to take a small group of them to a neighbor’s house (Jessica) to visit...by myself. One of the fluent retreatants did translate, which I am grateful for. HOWEVER, being there for an hour, I feel like I could have done fairly well translating for them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she was there, but it was comforting and exciting to feel like I’ve made progressive in that regard.

•  We had our first power outage while cooking. My headlamp has not been useless (see bullet #5).

• Jim—a volunteer in Duran—just got Settlers of Catan sent to him. If you do not know what that is, it is a board game that looks like THIS. If you are familiar with it, you know how thrilled I am.

• I got my first Ecuadorian haircut. $1 at a neighbor’s barbershop for the best buzz-cut I’ve had in ages.

• I learned how to change a tire Thursday night. Probably should have done that years ago.

• Clubber’s nails won’t fit in the dog nail clipper. A problem I am in the midst of solving.

• Friday night we all went to the airport to pick up Darcy, the new In-Country Director. She will have a month of orientation with Megan, and then it’s a year with us volunteers. Welcome and best of luck, Darcy!

• I just started giving English lessons to Damien—the 19 year old leader of the youth group and head of the music ministry at the church—and I’m excited to continue. He’s very eager to learn, and with meeting up once a week I’m looking forward to getting to know him better. But I will not allow him to become better at English than I am at Spanish. Kidding. But seriously.

This last piece is not much of a bullet point, becuase it´s been a huge part of my recent day to day life. So three Jesuit Novitiates came from Quito to Guayaquil and are working in our office for one month as part of their novitiate work. Freddy, Wilo, and Fran—who all have a fantastic sense of humor and are extremely patient when my Spanish is terrible—were assigned to work with Proyecto Mision and since last week have made huge changes in how I’ll be spending my days this month. The three of them thought it best to go around to all the sectors and ask the committees what they need most from a group of volunteers (instead of just putting together workshops of things they are knowledgeable in), and almost across the board was help with the children’s school work. The education system of Ecuador, in general, has many struggles, yet many of the children of Mount Sinai are far behind where a typical child their age should be. The Novitiates, Coli, and myself, decided to make a schedule of tutoring workshops for the various sectors, allowing any child who needs help in a subject to come. There are now two a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, which means we visit each sector twice a week, hoping that gives any child an opportunity to attend if they need it.

 The Novitiates and I

(Fran, Freddy, myself, and Wílo)

Last week was the first week, and for the most part it went really well. Attendance is anywhere from 2 to 10 kids, depending on the day, but I really believe this is a project worthwhile provided we have one kid. Most of these children have English homework (with directions in English) without knowing their English alphabet or numbers past 20. Wilo was helping a 10 year-old girl with ordering 3 digit numbers (between 100 and 999) from smallest to largest while I was working with a 7 year old on how to spell her name. With this project, which I hope to continue after the novitiates return to Quito, the face of my job has changed immensely. However, I strongly believe it is still ingrained in the vision and mission of the office. Children are among the most vulnerable here in Mount Sinai, and if my time here can advance the education of some kids just a bit, I think it’s a job worthwhile. These children have no base for so many subjects, and yet they are graded on quizzes every week and held back for performing poorly. If our office aims to accompany the people of Mount Sinai in development and improvement, I think providing support for the children in school can and should be an aspect of our work. It is different and not the work I expected, but I have had a wonderful time with it so far. I’ll check back in with that in a future blog.

Overall, things are speeding up and with every day I wonder where the time has gone. We’re almost at 2 months and I can’t believe it, but I am finding comfort in so much of what I am able to do here. The homesickness comes and goes, but having a supportive base of volunteers and neighborhood community makes all the difference.

Time to continue working on the Clubber Nail Problem.

La Herencia de Los Vulnerados

“A nation`s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

- Mahatma Gandhi -

It feels as though I have not written in a very long time, probably because so much has happened in these past two weeks. However, I’d like to devote some space to what has been happening with my job and Mount Sinai. I’ll give you a rundown of the other new things in the next blog.

At work, things have been pretty crazy. Two weeks ago Coli and I attended a presentation by two Hogar de Cristo volunteers. Over the past 2 years, in their time here in Ecuador, they have been gathering information about Mount Sinai through surveys and investigation. Julian (from Spain) and Javiera (from Chile) devoted their time as volunteers to compiling what is easily the most comprehensive information about the population of Mount Sinai to date.

The presentation, entitled “Monte Sinaí: La herencia de los vulnerados” (The inheritance of the vulnerable), covered areas such as the Economic Dimension, Social Dimension, Education, Health, and Environmental Risks. Prior to this research, the poverty and problems this community face every day had not been quantified. Mount Sinai is estimated to have over 270,000 inhabitants—a population equivalent to Cuenca, Ecuador’s 3rd largest city—and over 50% of the people are impoverished. Over half of the people have only completed primary schooling and around 75% of the families make less than $340 a month. 65% of the patients at the Hogar de Cristo medical centers suffer from respiratory problems, and anemia affects the majority of newborns in Mount Sinai.

Data like this has never been compiled and released for the people of Mount Sinai and Guayaquil as a whole, and in the past couple weeks it has meant a lot for the community. Word of the presentation spread quickly and two days later an article was published in El Universo about the vulnerable in Sinai. Prior to this piece the only real news that existed about Mount Sinai was related to crime; for news to hit the internet about the people and the basic needs of an incredibly large community was an enormous step.

The next day I got into work and was told we would be following a national news channel around Mount Sinai. EcuaVisa was going to be filming interviews with committee leaders and footage of the community for a program specifically on the vulnerability of Mount Sinai. That morning I got to follow an anchor and cameraman around the neighborhoods as they interviewed the people I’ve been working with the past month about their lives and the lives of their friends and families. Unfortunately I did not get to watch the program, as we do not have a functioning TV in the house, but I hope to see it soon.

All of this commotion in a community that has been overlooked and passed by for years caught others’ attention, and last Wednesday myself, Coli, and many members of the community took a bus to the (very nice) campus of the Catholic University of Guayaquil. That morning Julian and Javiera re-gave their presentation on Sinai, this time to a packed presentation room with professors, students, and the president of the university alongside the people of Mount Sinai. The director of Hogar de Cristo spoke, 3 different news stations were there, and they even had catered treats.

That week I saw men and women from this community stand up amongst a crowd to ask questions of the men in suits up front. I saw committee leaders stand in front of a giant camera with an anchor’s microphone in their face and spoke about the flooding of their houses and their access to medical care. It was a surreal and exciting experience, and I pray it was a glimpse of hope for those living here and those working towards development. However, it was also sad, to realize how many people who live so close to here have no idea about this community, these people, and the reality of their struggles.

The weeks leading up to these had been difficult at work, primarily because I was still struggling to figure out how exactly I would fit in or best use my talents. Some days were slower than others, and there were days where I’d think about how much having me as a volunteer really helps the office. These two weeks definitely gave me a rejuvenation of hope, excitement, and gratitude for the job I’ve been assigned. To be able to work in an office whose sole purpose is to accompany a community in their struggle to improve the conditions of the people…that is something I am so grateful for being a part of. Sure, it is much easier to get excited when I can be a part of something like these last two weeks: when I tangibly see progress and things seem to be moving forward. What I need to remember is how much a blessing it is to be on that team when those things are absent; when accompanying the people means continuing your work despite the recent progress or lack thereof, with more hope than the day before. Whether or not these last two weeks lead to a drastic change, we can show them, through our actions—as volunteers, as a community organizing office, as neighbors, and as friends—that people still care.

Please keep in mind the people of Mount Sinai.

With Love,
Miguel