Protestando

I spent last night at the Casa Hogar, the last time I'll stay there until January! It was a pretty normal night, Omis taught me how to remove the components from circuit boards, which he then uses while fiddling with motors and lights and batteries. He studies at a school that is focused on that kind of stuff. I'm assuming he has the typical readin ritin and rithmatic classes as well, but he showed me his ID card and it says "escuela de electricidad". He likes it a lot, he always seems to be tinkering with one thing or another. He made a cd player out of an old computer tower..so that's cool.

The main excitement of the night was what was going on outside in the street. The Casa Hogar is located one building in from the corner of Avenida Dalla Costa, a very major street that goes all the way through San Felix, and a small street leading into Guiaparo on one side and Los Sabaneles on the other. Apparently there is an area nearby that has been without power since Saturday. And they aren't happy. So they decided to protest I guess? I don't understand exactly what the thinking is as far as how this will help, but I suppose it is to get the governments attention. It started with five car tires in the intersection. Then the tires had gasoline poured on them and were lit on fire. In the next half hour or so, 20-30 more tires were found, and the intersection effectively blocked. Hundreds of cars turned around in the street or hopped the divider to go back the way they came. I got some pictures early on, but it started raining and some of the boys wanted to watch videos from Alejandro's birthday party so I gave it to them. I was expecting the police or "La Guardia", the military, to show up at any minute. Huge fires, tons of smoke, blocked traffic on a very major street, of course they are going to show up and kick them out right? We were anticipating gun shots into the air, things to that effect. Nope. After about an hour a police motorcycle guy showed up with his lights on, slowly turned around and left. That was it. The people blocking the street eventually left,  yelling that they would be back at 5am to continue. This would cause so many problems. All of the buses use this route, I personally would have issues since I'm going to be going on the bus to Puerto Ordaz later today. It would majorly disrupt traffic. However, when I woke up this morning and looked out front, there was no one. The tires had burned out, the tree branches, car bumpers, and other junk they put in the street pushed to the side, and traffic was moving normally. So apparently they decided to sleep. Or maybe their power came back on.

El Día de Gracias

**Disclaimer. I wrote this yesterday, Friday, but due to internet problems I'm posting it today, Saturday. So when I say "yesterday" I'm referring to Thursday. 

Yesterday was, of course, Thanksgiving. I don't think I'll ever take the day for granted again. Outside of the United States the "día de gracias" is just another day. I always knew that of course, but I guess I never really thought about it or truly realized what that meant. For many of my friends, the week of Thanksgiving was full of travel home from college, anticipation and excitement about seeing family and friends, and the welcome change from dorm food to Thanksgiving feasts. I spent this week avoiding twitter, trying not to comment when people complained about only being home for a few days, and generally missing seeing my family and friends. My big Thanksgiving meal was two ham and cheese arepas, delicious but eaten alone. 

However, my Thanksgiving was not all lonely and sad! Re-reading that paragraph is a little depressing. Jeesh. Last night I went to a government-sponsored concert at the Plaza de Navidad in Puerto Ordaz. It was a celebration of the city being 50 years old. There was a full band, with a big drums and percussion section, along with singers and dancers. They played salsa, merengue, and other music typical to Venezuela and this area of Bolívar. It was the kind of music that makes you just want to dance, and many people did. It was really great, I liked it a lot. I was invited to go by one of my students, Jose Daniel. He's a nice guy, a couple years older than me, who really wants to learn English. It was fun to meet his family and do something different. Unfortunately I wasn't able to bring my camera, I would have loved to have some pictures and video, I kept thinking how much Ms. Novey would love it! (My high school band teacher). I was riding the bus alone and at night, and didn't want to risk losing the camera if the bus got held up. 

It was a strange Thanksgiving, but it made me realize how thankful I am for my family, and how excited I am to see them one week from today! A week from right this minute I will be in a plane over MN waiting to land. Can't wait!

On a completely unrelated note, I mentioned a post or two ago that there was a new boy at the Casa Hogar named Sebastian. He is Guyanese, and speaks English. Kind of. The other night we were talking a little bit in English, but it was a struggle. He understood everything I was saying, but his responses were just not quite English. I understood some parts of what he was saying, and we were able to have a conversation in English, but it was tough. The Guyanese have almost their own language, and it seems that it can vary from family to family because Jenny, who cooks lunch here, is Guyanese and speaks the kind of English you and I are used to. Sebastian wasn't too happy to be there at the Casa Hogar. I don't really know why he was there or what his situation is. He mentioned his sister who he said is 18, he said he wanted to call her. The few times we hung out and talked I could tell he wasn't too happy about being there. Now I know for sure that he wasn't. Yesterday he and a few of the other boys went to the dentist with one of the women who works at the home. When she wasn't looking, he took off. They have no idea where he is, and probably won't find out. I hope he finds his sister. I told Jose about this tonight, and he said he hopes Sebastian finds his sister as well. "If not, that will be sad." By that he means a 10 year old wandering the streets doesn't have a very good chance of surviving. 

David brought the camera to school again yesterday, I'll put up some of the pictures he took.

Glamour shot of one of my arepas..sadly I somehow broke it while cutting it open

Sebastian

Yep, the girl in the blue pants is indeed flicking off the camera

Looks like Miguel is a chick-magnet

Miguel and David

Juego de Beisbol

Hello!

On Sunday I went to a baseball game with the Brito family + others. Here in Venezuela the  baseball teams are highly competitive, and I have been asked many times which team I cheer for. I think I may have explained this before, but I am officially a fan of Los Navegantes de Magallanes. (As official as I can be after living here for less than three months and deciding which team to cheer for on a whim). This worked out well when they came to town on Sunday. There were so many people at the game. I've always been bad at estimating numbers of people but I'll just say it was a big stadium and it was completely full. That's as precise as it's going to get, sorry. The stadium is here in San Felix, so when one of the pre-game announcer ladies said "How are we feelin' PUERTO ORDAZ?!?!?!?!" all of the people in our section (the general admission, probably all from San Felix section) did a lot of booing and yelling, "San Felix, no jodas!" I'm not sure what google translate will give you on that one, nevermind I just checked, it's pretty much right on. We got to the stadium at 330, the game started at 5:00, and in the mean time I nearly died of heat. Yusemaris was wearing a sweater for a while because she didn't want to get burned. That confused me because one, it was really hot and we were in the sun, and two, it probably should have been me who was worried about getting sunburnt. Since I'm white.

The actual game was a lot of fun to watch. Both teams were really good and there was an awesome home run that I later found out went into the stands just below where my buddy Luis from the Casa Hogar was sitting. Los Navegantes won, but Los something with a C I don't remember their name almost came back with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. But alas, no, and most of the stadium went home happy.

As I'm getting these pictures off of Claudia's facebook album I'm realizing how ridiculous the wig they gave me to wear was. When I took it off I got yelled at so on it stayed for most of the pre-game time. Crazy gringo.

A no-wig picture. The only one.

I wasn't going to put this one on here until I saw the people in the background.

Alejandro

Alejandro with Angelo, Andreina's brother.

Andreina, Yusemaris, Claudia, and me.

El Seminario

I spent the past week at the seminary, in another city called Ciudad Bolivar. It is the capital of the state of Bolivar, in which San Felix is located. It is about an hour or so away from here. I went to visit Jose Antonio, and to pretty much just hang out at the seminary. I wasn't really sure what to expect but it turned out to be a good time. I got there on Sunday, arriving in a mid-sized SUV with 13 people and suitcases/backpacks jammed in. It was more than a little rediculous. The seminarians go to various cities and work at parishes on the weekends, so I was coming back with some of them. I had met a few of them when they came to Ciudad Guayana, but not many. So I was a little uncomfortable at first. The first evening, Jose asked if I wanted to go to mass since I hadn't gone that morning, so I said yeah sounds good. Our plan was to go to a local church just a few blocks away, but as we were leaving the bishop stopped us and asked where we were going. When we explained he invited us to just come with him to the cathedral, as he was about to leave to go say mass there. So, we hopped in the bishops private car and went to the cathedral. The cathedral is very pretty, from the outside it reminds me of what my mental picture of Spain is. It was built in 1760 or so but has been restored since then. It's located across a plaza from the capital building, it's a really pretty area I liked it a lot. Flags, statues, benches with nice old ladies enjoying the day, etc. I was able to return another day with my camera so these pictures are from that day. After mass, we got back in the car to go back to the seminary. However, the bishop has only been the bishop there for a week, and his driver, another priest, has also only been there for a week. So we got lost. We spent the better part of an hour wandering Ciudad Bolivar. A priest, a bishop, two seminarians, and a random American. It was a good time, and we eventually found our way back.

The rest of the week was pretty relaxing. I went to my first college class! I thought that was kind of funny. I went to Jose's psychology class with him. I was actually able to understand most of it and participated in an interesting activity that involved blindfolds and wandering around the room. The seminarians were very welcoming and, for lack of a better word, nice to me. Multiple times I was asked if I wanted to come along to go to the store or on an errand. It wasn't just Jose's friends that invited me out with them either, he said that a few of the guys who I talked to don't particularly like him for whatever reason. So it was nice that in a new place where I didn't have a clear purpose, the seminarians invited me to hang out and talk and do things with them. We played volleyball a few times which was awesome. A lot of the guys are really athletic and the games were pretty intense. I'm a little embarrassed to say that Jose blocked one of my spikes. He's not tall. It was going to be a good one too but he got a hand in the way and let's just say he's not going to let me forget it.

One of the priests at the seminary is a Father Willie, Willem, something along the lines of Will. (Names are hard, I'm sorry, and everyone just calls priests Padre). He is from The Congo, so his first language is French. He also speaks Italian and Spanish. He learned Spanish in Spain, so he speaks with a pretty heavy Spanish accent which is interesting. The first time we met, he asked what kind of theology I'm studying, assuming that I am a seminarian. When I told him that I am not, he asked, "why not?". Since then he's become determined that I'm going to be a priest. Meh. Not for me. We talked for over an hour one day, it was really interesting. Our lives are clearly extremely different, but the small similarities in that we are both in a country that is not our own, speaking a language that is not our own, was kind of cool.

Yesterday morning, Thursday, Manuel, who is one of the seminarians, asked me if I wanted to go to the "centro" with him. I assumed that meant he needed to go shopping or something and he was asking me if I wanted to come along for something to do. So I said yeah, definitely. Turns out he didn't need to go shopping, he invited me purely to show me some of the city. So we took a bus down to downtown Ciudad Bolivar, located on the river. The same river, by the way, that goes past Ciudad Guayana. (There are two here in Ciudad Guayana, the Caroní and Orinoco, this was the Orinoco). We took a boat, for 3 BsF each way (equal to just about nothing in dollars) across the river. When we got off he informed me that we were now in a different state. So that's cool, I went to a different state. There is a town across the river of about 20,000 people that largely commutes across the river every day for school and work. A little further up the river there is a large bridge. It reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge, it was big and pretty impressive. Manuel kept asking to use my camera and took a bunch of pictures of me with various things in the background hah way more than necessary. He's a really nice guy, I was pleasantly surprised that he spent his morning showing me around when he probably had studying to do.

Overall my time at the seminary was enjoyable. Lots of nice guys, interesting talks with priests, volleyball, finding books in English in the library, hanging out with Jose Antonio. I took a bus back here yesterday. It was raining so hard when I got to San Felix, one of the hardest rains I've ever been in. I was able to jump off the big bus and quickly hop on a local bus. It felt good to be able to know where I was going, which bus to get on, when to get off. I got off right in front of the Casa de Hogar and ran in there to wait out the rain rather than get soaked walking the two blocks home. They were all excited to see me which was fun, I missed them. There's a new boy who's name I think is Stefian, who the boys excitedly informed me speaks English. He is from Guyana, where the official language is English. The country was British colony until the 1960's. The people there generally speak both English and Spanish. He was pretty quiet and shy for the short amount of time I was there yesterday, but it will be interesting to be able to speak English a bit with him.

Time to go get a haircut, plan tomorrow's English class, and then meet up with Andreina to buy our tickets for Sunday's baseball game!

The cathedral is the tallest building in the city

Manuel and me. And dude with sunglasses.

Jose Antonio and me in front of the seminary

La Casa de Hogar

Last week I spent a lot of time at the Casa de Hogar with the boys. I went in the mornings to help with homework and whatnot like usual, but I also went a few times in the evenings to hang out which was a lot more fun. Without having to work on homework and everything we got to just goof off. I slept over there on Tuesday night which was great. I hadn't realized how much responsibility they each had. Every night one of them is assigned to making dinner for the rest of the house. The night I was there I helped make arepas, but they are very independent and responsible. Until about 730 there wasn't really a supervisor or anyone there other than the two oldest boys Luis and Jesus. I found out that they did in fact grow up there, they don't just work there. Luis told me he's been there since he was little. It was a fun night with lots of loud music, having a penalty kick shoot out in the house using a flip flop as a ball, etc. I was in bed by 9, asleep by probably 930. It was definitely the best nights sleep I've had since I've been here. I woke up at 630. The boys that go to school in the mornings get up at 5, but I didn't hear them. I once again just gave my camera to the boys so they could document the night rather than me. The result of that is a couple hilarious videos of some of them dancing, and some good pictures as well.

Yesterday was Alejandro's birthday. He turned 11 years old on 11/11/11. Pretty sweet. I'm not really clear on who they were, but a group of adults came to throw a party for him and just for the kids in general. They brought balloons, cake, a piñata, it was nice. We played musical chairs, hot potato, games like that. The night was full of loud music and laughing kids, I liked it a lot. I almost won hot potato! I was in the round of 3 but lost. Whenever someone was eliminated they had to do some sort of embarrassing "penance" as they called it. The person who was eliminated before me got to choose. So when I got out I did a pretty quality chicken dance/walk/noise. Overall just a really fun night hanging out with the boys.

Alejandro (birthday boy) and Miguel

While spinning Jhon around before getting a crack at the piñata, they moved him far away from it. Cruel but so funny

Universidad

The past week or so has been full of applying to college. While I was able to differ admission to the University of Washington-Seattle, I am not completely sure that I want to go there. To keep my options open for making a decision in the spring, I am applying to a few other schools as well.

I had an interesting conversation with my friend Javier last week. He is 25, has graduated from university, and lives in his parents home with his girlfriend of four years. He told me that the university he studied at is a two minute walk from his home. While studying, he didn't leave his family, his girlfriend, his friends. He was studying and getting a degree, but that was the only thing in his life that changed. I explained how in the United States we typically go away for school, and that I am planning on going pretty far away (Seattle). He looked at me funny and just asked, "why?". And I didn't have a great answer for him. Now I'm not thinking of doing anything as extreme as living at home and commuting to the University of St. Thomas every day, but I am looking into schools a bit closer to home. Being able to take a mega-bus home for a weekend if I wanted to might be nice. Who knows. I may still end up going to Seattle. But for now I'm going to keep my options open.

This is one of my essays that I just submitted. (and yes it is already submitted, so if you see a glaring grammatical error please don't tell me)

Prompt: "The University values an educational environment that provides all members of the campus community with opportunities to grow and develop intellectually, personally, culturally and socially. In order to give us a more complete picture of you as an individual, please tell us about the particular life experiences, perspectives, talents, commitments and/or interests you will bring to our campus. In other words, how will your presence enrich our community?"

Over the past two months, my perspective of the world has been continually challenged and reshaped. I graduated from high school in June, but decided to take a break from the normal routine by waiting a year to attend college. I am spending my gap year in Venezuela, in a city of roughly one million people called Ciudad Guayana. While here, I am teaching English classes at two parishes. One is in a poor area of this impoverished city; the other is even more destitute.

Becoming a teacher has been a struggle. As an eighteen-year-old recent high school graduate, I have absolutely no qualifications to be an English teacher aside from the fact that I speak English. However, almost universally, the English teachers at the schools here are not native English speakers, or really even English speakers at all. They teach their students out of a book by having them copy phrases over and over again. As a result, many Venezuelans are constantly yearning for the opportunity to learn and receive quality instruction from native speakers like myself. One of my classes meets on Saturday mornings at 6:00 AM. On the first day of the class, I did not have high hopes for many attendees due to the hour. I was surprised and a little shocked upon my arrival ten minutes early to find twenty wide-eyed teenagers waiting for me that first morning. Every Saturday since, attendance has been unwavering. These young people, almost all between the ages of sixteen and twenty, both impress and shame me. I cannot help but recall the mornings when I did not have the willpower to get up a half hour early for a review session before school, or the energy to participate in my first class of the day. The complaints of many of my friends about their 8:00 AM college courses also come to mind. My students here understand the value of education, and are willing to make sacrifices to obtain it.

Only a quarter of my planned stay has elapsed, yet I already have garnered experience and fresh perspective that will remain with me throughout my lifetime. Education is incredibly undervalued in the United States. Whether it is a lack of appropriate resources for good teachers, or unmotivated students skipping class, the value of education is under appreciated. We, and I speak now for my generation of Americans, are accustomed to education being a given. What if it was not? This year, as a teacher, I am learning to value education and seeing the importance of taking advantage of every opportunity to learn. Next year, as a student, I plan to carry these lessons with me. The lens through which I see the world is changing, and I look forward to sharing my experiences with my future classmates.

Davíd

I spent Wednesday morning at the Casa Hogar like I do most mornings. I'm always being asked to help with one homework assignment or another. That morning, Davíd asked me to help him with his presentation that he was going to be giving that afternoon at school. This is the kid who at 13 had his first week of school ever last week. So I said of course. All morning he repeated his mini-speech over and over again to memorize it. It was slow going with lots of mistakes, but eventually he pretty much had it. I still have it memorized just from listening to him say it so many times. I pretended to be the other students in the class and let him present to me about the skeletal system while using the visual aid he made. I was getting pretty pumped for him because he had it down. Then as he was getting changed into his school uniform, he asked if he could borrow my camera so he could have his teacher take a picture of him doing the presentation. Giving my camera to a 13 year old and having him bring it to school sounds like a bad idea no matter what country you're in. He was so genuinely excited about finally going to school, finally learning something rather than living on the streets, and for the first time ever giving a presentation that he now felt confident in due to our work all morning, that I could not say no. I told him to be careful, and not to let other kids use it. All smiles, he agreed and said of course.

I got the camera back today. Which in itself is a blessing. The battery was dead, so I plugged it into my computer when I got home before lunch. The 67 pictures that were taken the two days that he had my camera are easily some of my favorite pictures from my time here. They're taken from Davíd's perspective rather than mine. If I was in his school taking pictures it would just be awkward and weird, or just the typical pictures of a group of hispanic kids gathered around the American. Instead, the pictures show him goofing off with friends, kids not being ready for a picture, a creeper shot of a cute girl that I suspect he likes, 13 year olds showing off their muscles. Here are some of them:

I'm so proud.