Happy Holidays from all of us at WorldTeach!

And a special thought for our volunteers out in the field who are spending the holidays far from home...

Photo courtesy of Sarah Lipson, WorldTeach Marshall Islands

Photo courtesy of Haley Boone, WorldTeach Thailand

Photo courtesy of Haley Boone, WorldTeach Thailand

Please note that the Cambridge WorldTeach office will be closed until December 28th. Thanks for your patience!

Chess Champions in Guyana led to victory by a WorldTeach Volunteer

David Stevenson, one of our WorldTeach volunteers serving in Guyana, recently led the chess team he coaches at St. Stanislaus school in Georgetown to a national championship! "It was a surprise when we won out of 25 schools," David commented, "but during the first day it looked like we had a very good chance."

David and his winning team

Congratulations, David!

Read the full story in the Stabroek News here:
http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/sports/12/15/st-stanislaus-college-claim-national-schools-chess-cship/

Originally from the UK, David has had a long career in computer programming and embarked on his WorldTeach experience with a desire to share his love of math and his teaching ability abroad. The school where he teaches is one of the top schools in the country, he says, so the standard of math is higher than it would be elsewhere-- but still leaves a quite a lot of room for improvement. When asked about some excerpts from his day-to-day experiences, David shared this tidbit with us:

"The rainy season here is supposed to be from December- January, and we have had frequent though not continuous rain, so the season may be getting under way. I have to remember to shut the window when it rains else the bed gets soaked. Other frustrations which never got resolved are: the kitchen light we previously had to hold two wires together to get it to light now doesn’t work at all. So, since it gets dark at 6pm here, we usually cook in the dark. We have a security guard who talks to himself and has a habit of walking around the house closing our windows or peering in. And my door handle is broken so there is a danger of getting locked in my room.

I’ve been very busy the last two weeks with end of term marking which takes a long time. Most did badly in end-of-term tests so their marks are going to be very bad. Many are still handicapped (even in the 6th form) by failure to reliably get the signs right when simplifying expressions and eliminating brackets. Also, a lack of math sense: six minus one sixth equals negative thirty-seven over six!!"

Guyana in the rainy season

Meet Kate! Our Assistant Field Director in Ecuador

Kate Kurnick, now our wonderful Assistant Field Director in Ecuador, volunteered with WorldTeach several years ago and ruminates on the impact that the experience has had on her life and career as well as the differences she has experienced in her two roles as volunteers and field staff in a country that she loves!

Beautiful Ecuador [Photo courtesy of Anique Pegeron]

"My experience with WorldTeach profoundly impacted both my life and my professional choices. First, I fell in love with the country, and then I fell in love with a person from this country. I got married and had a couple of kids and I've never regretted that my life is permanently tied to exquisite Ecuador. I spent two years with WorldTeach in Cuenca, Ecuador because I decide to extend and stay for a second complete year. I suppose you can say that those two years were not enough for me, and I got an independent job as an ESL teaching and stayed in Cuenca, Ecuador for an additional two years. Then I moved to Santiago, Chile for another two years, where I continued to teach ESL. After living in Latin America for 6 years and teaching ESL, I spent four years in Los Angeles acquiring my teaching credentials in both English and Spanish, and teaching in a public high school in California. Now I am back in Quito, Ecuador with my family in tow and working for WorldTeach.

Being a member of the field staff is totally different than volunteering. I feel like I'm in touch with what is happening with our volunteers all over this country, rather than just focusing on one little corner of it. It's an amazing experience and I am continually reminded of what an exceptional place this is. A volunteer will call me and mention that he's sitting on the beach because it's a blistering hot day, while I am wearing my heaviest coat in Quito because a major rain storm has rolled in. The incredible thing is that we could get to one another on a 25 minute plane ride. Every one of our volunteers here will have a unique and individual experience, and being field staff allows me to be a part of everyone's experience. I love the connections that I make with people as a member of a small staff overseeing a large group of volunteers. It's very rewarding work.

A street scene in Ecuador [Photo courtesy of Anique Pegeron]

To illustrate, this is a small story that recently happened to me, but I think it shows that beauty of the Ecuadorian spirit:

The first day of orientation is always a bit nuts for the field staff. Thirty-six freshly arrived volunteers were looking to my boss and myself to help them get through Day One in a foreign country. We took them to a restaurant for lunch, and with such a huge group, the chefs were swamped and fell behind on the orders. The long story short is that my food didn't ever get to me. I was hungry and running on nervous energy by the time I left the restaurant, and decided to swing by a sandwich shop to pick up something pre-made and portable. As I was rushing down the street to get to the the next session with the volunteers, I was not-so-subtly stuffing a sandwich in my face and most likely looking like a crazy gringa. When I passed by a lone man on the street, he stopped in his tracks and gave me a look. I was a little irked at this and therefore totally unprepared when he broke into a friendly smile and sang out "Buen provecho!" (Bon appetit!). Remarkable! A total stranger on the street took a moment that day to wish me well, even though we are nothing to one another and will never see one another again. I think this is a fantastic example of how warm Ecuadorians can be, even when there's no specific reason to be, and certainly nothing for them to gain from acting kindly. It just comes naturally to them. It's one of the reasons I love here living here among these wonderful people."

Kate (on extreme left) with some of her volunteers! [Photo courtesy of Peter Daniels]

Thanks, Kate, for your insights and for all your hard work out in the field!

A New Learning Center in Namibia

Chloe Faught, a year-long Namibia volunteer finishing up her service, reports on the successful creation of a Learning Centre at the secondary school where she teaches, put together thanks to funds that she raised through donations from friends and family back home. Originally from Canada, Chloe has spent the past year serving with her husband and teaching at Omugwelume Junior Secondary School.

Chloe and her students

"It wasn’t until late August that I learned that there was a small room, with lights & electricity, that was being used solely as a storage place for broken items. So in September I tentatively asked my principal and he agreed that if I could raise money I could transform the room.

The funds flew in during October and once I was sure that this was going to happen, we started cleaning out the room. I found the electricity in working order, but the room ugly, with a large termite hole in one corner. So drywall patching equipment was bought, and paint & termite killer to start us off.

Next was a journey to the local big city of Oshakati with my principal and Mr. Haindobo, who fortunately happens to be a part-time builder in addition to his teaching job. We bought many items for the infrastructure of the centre: boards & cement supports for shelves, a large metal security door, benches, etc. Once those were installed, we brought in spare metal tables & we were ready to begin with the audio equipment.

Some of the learning materials Chloe was able to gather for the Center

Now we have 4 CD players, some which play MP3s and some with Cassette players. We added security cables to keep them from being stolen, a lockbox to store all the items. I added a few beauty items like curtains (also for security) and tablecloths. Now in our cupboard we have more than 100 CD’s and cassettes and capacity for 13 headsets & splitters to be used. The kids have been in it and have listened to short stories, novels & music for hours at a time. I am so happy, and glad that John & Eve (Chris’ family) could bring over so much of your donations when they came to visit us.

I ended the year with a teacher training for all teachers interested and had a fun scavenger hunt of the room to learn about it. They had a fun time even though they originally thought they were too busy with marking. And I’ve created a schedule & system and put some teachers and learners in charge of it so that it will run next year."

Some of Chloe's students, including one in particular who inspired her to start up the Learning Center project. "Johannes (front left), is child #13 in his family (the "last born") but listens to everything I say and just absorbs it. I often find him secretly cleaning the library when I'm not around."

Johannes in the new learning center

This is just one instance of the meaningful community projects that our volunteers are able to implement while serving abroad in addition to their teaching assignments. More information regarding these opportunities as well as additional past examples can be found on our website, here.

"Home" for the Holidays

In the States, holiday season reaches a crescendo during these first weeks of December, sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Starbucks greets us with peppermint lattes even before we’ve stopped eating recycled Thanksgiving dinners, and the local CVS loses no time in pumping “White Christmas” through the overhead speakers. Here, holiday festivities are happily impossible to avoid.

For most WorldTeach volunteers, however, this year’s Thanksgiving wasn’t the usual American production characterized by turkeys and family assemblages. On this family-centric holiday, they were continents apart from their loved ones, in countries where Thanksgiving was unheard of and cranberry sauce was an unknown entity. As a testimony to the spunk and creativity of our volunteers, some WorldTeachers created a modified version of Thanksgiving dinner with their teammates, reproducing a little bit of American tradition with their surrogate “families.” The Thailand team managed to produce a full Thanksgiving dinner – complete with a hard-to-find turkey – which they ate on floor-mats, in traditional Thai style!



Above: Caitlyn Pisarski from the Thailand team shares some photos of her team's Thanksgiving dinner - successfully made with Thai ingredients!

For WorldTeach volunteers, Christmas is also unlikely to be the classic ensemble of caroling and mistletoe. For most, the only truly familiar elements of the holidays will be the ones they carry with them – family traditions that survived the continent swap, and favorite recipes that can be recreated with local ingredients. They face an unusual challenge: how to summon the “holiday spirit” without the aid of outside sources. (In fact, most volunteers will go the whole month of December without hearing Elvis’ soulful voice the radio, reminding them to be “merry and bright.”) And by far the greatest challenge facing WorldTeach volunteers will be staying optimistic during a season when the absence of family and friends is impossible to ignore.

Fortunately, most WorldTeach volunteers have embraced their new homes and communities with both arms. One volunteer from Ecuador, after a Thanksgiving dinner with her team members and host family, wrote: “It felt like home…the only thing missing was my real family.” While our spirited volunteers can find local substitutes for almost all the components of Christmas, there's no foreign replacement for family and friends!

Tranquilo! :: A Gringa's Perspective

WorldTeach volunteer Emily Koester is based in Riobamba, Ecuador, located in the Chambo River Valley of the Andes. Having departed in September and completed her orientation, she is now teaching at a university located in the outskirts of town. Here, she shares her reflections about her first weeks at her placement and the contrasting mindsets she has faced as she settles in to a new culture.

A view of Quito, where the WorldTeach orientation is held [photo courtesy of Katie Calvert]

"It’s hard to believe that I’ve been teaching at ESPOCH university for over five weeks now. It seems like only a moment ago that I was facing my students for the first time, smiling with feigned confidence at a classroom of strange Ecuadorians. It turned out there was nothing to be afraid of – my students, a mixture of teenagers and 20-somethings, are all enrolled in the class as an extracurricular activity, and consequently they genuinely want to learn English. They amazingly complete homework on time, seem excited about games, and all wave a friendly goodbye to me before they leave.

Enthusiastic as my students are, convincing them to speak English at all times is a constant battle. I bought a pair of sheep ears at a Halloween shop, and have tried plopping them on the head of any student who dares utter a Spanish word. The method is surprisingly effective as well as entertaining for the other students, but I also can’t run around with sheep ears all hour.

Despite having completed “five weeks” of class, however, none of those has been a full week. Every week there has been some unforeseen obstacle for classes, and hence I have had several unforeseen vacations. The second day of teaching, for example, an Ecuadorian English teacher at ESPOCH stopped by my classroom to say good night. “Oh, and by the way, I told your students not to come tomorrow,” he told me off-handedly as he left. “Wait, what?” I asked him. “Well, there’s the soccer game tomorrow,” he told me, as if the next day were Christmas itself. “They’re missing class for a soccer game?” I asked doubtfully. Apparently, I was playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. “Your students wouldn’t come anyway,” he told me matter-of-factly.

A common phrase in Ecuador is “Tranquilo!” which basically means, “Relax!” So whenever class is canceled, or the lights flicker out in one of Ecuador’s ubiquitous power outages, or when people show up an hour late, or when striking students block the roads with flaming tires, you shrug and say, “Tranquilo!” The utter lack of predictability is pretty antithetical to Americans’ unshakable devotion to punctuality and progress. And things are often a little dysfunctional from so much “tranquilo” – garbage never gets cleaned up and buildings stand unfinished for years. At the same time, people can skip work for an afternoon to get ice cream with a friend, and no one breaks a sweat over running a few minutes late. As an American taking a break from the frenzied pace of life in the States, I can’t say I mind."

Chimborazo volcano, which overlooks Riobamba [photo courtesy of Peter Daniels]

Welcome to Boruca!!

Dan Perkins, a WorldTeach volunteer in Costa Rica, shares a video project he made with his second graders as a way to show everyone, including the volunteer who will replace him in 2010, around town.