Getting Schooled

Today we visited the Santa Maria de Los Lojas School, which is around 20 minutes outside of the city of Guayaquil and has been adopted by the La Puntilla Rotary Club. The background story is that the women’s committee of the Club (only men are members) was active in trying to improve the school. As part of their project, they wanted to build a second story so the school could be expanded. When their husbands saw how much they wanted to accomplish, they made it a project of the Club to build an entirely new school!

By Ecuador public school standards, it is really first-class. The first thing we saw upon arrival was the Ophthalmology Clinic. It is right at the front of the school and consists of three rooms: one each for examination, surgery and recovery. The doctor there (Isabel Valdivieso) not only sees the children of the school but also their families and other members of the community. Aside from regular eye examinations she treats cataracts and another common eye problem that is caused by too much equatorial sun (don’t know the name, sorry!).

The school has one classroom each for Kinder through 7th grade. The classrooms are in a building that lies parallel to the school’s long patio which houses a little outdoor chapel, a garden area and the children’s playground. The classrooms are small, and fit no more than 25 students in each. We have heard that in other parts of Ecuador we will see classes of more than 40 students, so it was nice to see that the Los Lojas School was able to maintain smaller class sizes. Each classroom had a half-wall facing the patio, so the classrooms were very open to passers-by. Los Lojas also has a computer lab with 15 Dell computers, purchased with a Rotary matching grant. It was fun to see that they, too, have a computer lab schedule. When a classroom goes into the computer lab, the teacher gets some preparation time. The last two areas of the campus are a cement court area that is used for basketball and soccer, and the ‘comedor’, which is the kitchen/cafeteria.

Because we spent the whole day at the school, we got to accompany the kids to lunch. Some kids brought their own lunches, but the majority ate a bowl of chicken and rice soup called “aguado de pollo”. They each got one bowl and it was a little heartbreaking to see how quickly some of the kids gulped it down. They were obviously pretty hungry! Another bowl might have been good… Their ‘comedor’ has maybe 4 or 5 lunch tables, so of course they eat lunch in shifts. The kitchen was open and the counter held a huge bunch of bananas and a bag of soybeans. The comedor is also home to the mechanical cow, a device that processes the soybeans into soymilk. The day we visited it wasn’t operating because the person who knows how to use it wasn’t there ☺. One thing we really liked was the bulletin board reminding kids to chew and eat slowly, not to eat with their mouths full, not to put their elbows on the table, sit up and thank God for each day’s food. We should probably copy that in California!!

Each of the GSE teachers got to sit in on various grade levels, and we saw a variety of instruction styles, from active participation to memorization. The students all wore uniforms: blue and white plus a plaid skirt for the girls. The teachers wore uniforms, too, which we liked. The principal, Meche Vera, was a force of nature; she ran the school like a tight ship. There was also a staff social worker, Virginia Ortiz, who does home visits with families and also teaches a Saturday afternoon parenting class one Saturday a month. It was interesting to see how many similarities exist between schools in both countries.

After the school day was over we ate seafood by the Daule River, one of the two rivers that meet to form the river Guayas, from which the city of Guayaquil gets its name.
In the evening we were the guests of the Rotary Club La Puntilla for their regular Monday night dinner meeting. We were not the only guests; 30 Canadians also attended. The Canadians are from several different Rotary Clubs in Ontario and they are in Ecuador to help distribute 500 wheelchairs. They had spent the day assembling 300 of the wheelchairs, and are set to distribute them in various areas of Ecuador throughout the week. We enjoyed wine with a delicious dinner and afterwards were treated to a slideshow of Canada. We also shared our slideshow of San Diego and exchanged banners. We spent a very special day talking with students and teachers and then enjoyed a wonderful tri-cultural exchange at dinner. Thank you!!

Remember to check out our pictures on PICASA.