Moais Out The Wazoo

I woke up bright and early this morning to the sound of gusting winds, crowing roosters and the beep of the emergency light turning on (the electric plant on Rapa Nui runs by diesel generator and often doesn´t have enough power to meet the demand so the power cuts out a lot). At breakfast this morning they were playing some music from the island and I was sort of half listening. It was pretty cool sounding, very Polynesian. Imagine my surprise when I listened more closely to the words and hears ¨my bonny lies over the mountains, my bonny lies over the sea!¨ I suppose it´s a fitting song for the geography but it´s not exactly a song I would associate with this part of the world.

It was a rainy and windy day killing any hope that I might be vacationing on a tropical island. Actually I did know coming in that the island is outside the tropics and it is winter in the southern hemisphere so I was expecting rain, unlike some people I met in my travels who had been in Argentina and got quite the shock when they got there because they had no idea it was going to be cold! Sometimes I have no idea how people manage to travel without knowing basic information! I still did some touring in the rain cutting it short when I got caught in a gale halfway up a volcano. I visited one of only two sandy beaches on the island but I had to make a run for it to get to the beach in this weather. See, there are very few dangers on the island. There´s no crime - where would the criminals go? There are very few weapons - it´s hard to import one from Chile. People don´t speed - most of the roads are dirt so if you value your internal organs you drive slowly. There is however one danger on the island that could be deadly and that I needed to avoid today. That danger is...death by falling coconut! Apparently it´s a real problem and with the wind today and the trail to the beach lined with trees it could have been ugly!

I also got to see the quarry where they carved the moai. Yesterday I saw the one where they carved their red hats. It´s amazing because it´s like they just shut the door one day and stopped making the moai. Some are finished and were never moved. Some are only outlines in the mountain side that were never finished. It´s pretty cool to look at even if I was about to get blown off the side of the mountain. After that we gave up and headed to the artisans market where for a price you can get a moai put on anything. Since everything is imported from the mainland it´s pretty pricey and I kept thinking that I saw the same stuff in the Santiago airport for half the price. I should have bought it there!

Tomorrow´s my last day on the island before a long day flying back on Thursday (totally not looking forward to that!) I´ve got a lot to still see, a Polynesian show and dinner and some shopping to do before the ultimate game of Tetris - figuring out how to get all of my stuff into my suitcase for the trip home.

Where in the world is Kerri O´Shea???

Sorry in advance for any spelling mistakes, this is a bizarre keyboard that has all these keys that I´ve never seen before like ç, ñ, º and ª and none of the other keys are in the right spot! I just had to ask someone how to make the @ symbol which is pretty embarrassing! I guess I should have paid more attention in Spanish class!
I spent all day Saturday flying from Salvador to Sao Paolo and then Sao Paolo to Santiago. Sunday morning was spent touring Santiago Chile which was amazing and I would love to go back. It was awesome to turn a corner and see the Andes mountains. It was a bit chilly in Chile but I guess since it´s winter that´s to be expected. The airport was freezing cause it had no ceiling. Chile had an 8.8 earthquake about 6 months ago and while it´s amazing how little damage there is, the drop ceiling in the airport fell down making and they are still working on putting it back up. It was not totally reassuring that my driver gave me instructions on what to do in case of an earthquake on the way to my hotel, especially since his instructions were, if you´re in bed you may as well sit there and enjoy it cause there´s nothing else to do.
Yesterday afternoon it was back to the airport for another long flight. Basically we turned west at Santiago and flew about 2000 miles from anywhere. At the moment I am in the most isolated inhabited place on earth. Some people call it Rapa Nui. Others call it Te Pito O Te Henua (The Navel of the World). The Chileans call it Isla de Pascua. About 3000 people call it home. Most Americans who have heard of it call it Easter Island. Technically Easter Island is part of Chile although the people are of Polynesian descent (and speak both Spanish and their native language) and many of them don´t want to be a part of Chile. Actually, right now there is a protest going on where many of the native families have been camping out on government owned land which was taken from their families without compensation. Apparently the Chilean government sent more police here this weekend and were threatening to remove the people by force this afternoon but fortunately that did not happen.
Anyway, Easter Island is most famous for the Moai, the rock statues with the big heads that are all over the island. They are amazing to see in person (I will post pictures when I get back) If you´ve never seen one, they look like Squidward´s house on Spongebob! After being woken up very early by a crowing rooster (who knew they crow all day and all night) I spent the day touring some of the moai and the surrounding area. Tomorrow I head out for a day tour to see the most famous moai on the beach on the other side of the island and the quarry that they got the stone from to make them. It should be a fun day. Now I´m off to watch the sunset over the moai on the beach outside my hotel room!

Saying Goodbye to Brazil

So I'm leaving Brazil today. For those of you who are counting, yes - it is one week earlier than I originally planned. I had a great time while I was here, but for a variety of reasons the time is now right for me to leave. I suppose one reason is that I am not particularly enamored with the Brazilian people and the Brazilian culture. That's not to say that I haven't met some wonderful people, but I have not found the country itself to be particularly welcoming to visitors. In every other place I have ever been (with the exception of North Korea) I have found the people to be open and welcoming and freiendly. This has not been my experience with Brazil. I don't know, some of it may be attributed to that machismo culture which as a woman makes me crazy. Some of it may also be attributed to the less than stellar relationship that currently exists between the U.S. and Brazil. Either way, it has not proven to be a particularly welcoming country.

That being said, I would not typically give up a weeks worth of volunteer work just because I didn't like the culture. I have lived and worked in much more difficult places and stayed for the amount of time I committed to. This is different though. I show my students a video when we study Brazil of how the wealthy people live in neighborhoods called "Alphavilles" in gated and secure communities and avoid any contact with those in poverty. Some do so to the extent that they commute via helicopter to work to avoid driving through some of the favela neighborhoods. I have always been horrified by that section of the video which is why I wanted to come to Brazil and volunteer. I didn't expect to be living in a similar situation (without the helicopters). We live in a house in an upper middle class neighborhood. It has a gate out front that you can only get in by being buzzed in. There is electrified fencing surrounding the property. There are bars on every window, including my third floor bedroom. When they take us to go volunteer, they put us in a van and drive us there, dropping us outside the gate where it is quickly unlocked to let us in before locking us into the school. I am much more used to living among the people that I am serving and getting to know them on a personal level. While I understand their need to protect our safety, there were times with this living situation that I felt more like a part of the problem than a part of the solution.

Finally, the biggest reason I am choosing to leave is that I have realized that I just can't watch the treatment of the children in the classroom anymore. It's still very hard to figure out this teacher. She is the only one of them who lives in the same favela as the students and she plays an integral role in getting the students into the school and yet she treats them in ways that I just can't live with or watch on a daily basis.

So, to make a long story short (it's too late for that I know!) I'm heading out to the airport in about 45 minutes to go on a vacation to the ends of the earth. Or perhaps more aptly, to the belly button of the earth. I'm not sure what my internet situation will be there but I will post some pictures when I get back.

Reflections on Teaching in Salvador

I wrote this post last night and it disappeared despite saving it several times so I'm trying to reconstruct it again which is a little bit frustrating. I've been teaching in Santa Teresa for a week and a half now and it's been an interesting, if sometimes difficult experience. There are twenty students on the roster for my class but there are only about 15 or 16 there on any given day. If the parents don't have access to transportation, the kid is not in school that day. If the parent needs the kid to stay home and help with something, the kid is not in school that day. I met one student for the first time yesterday, she had missed school for the previous week and a half.

I find myself constantly amazed and humbled by the attitude and resilience of these kids. They are living in a situation that most of us can never imagine and yet they are always smiling and laughing. They come in to class in the mornings in their threadbare and illfitting school uniforms carrying backpacks that have seen better days and run over to give me a hug and say "bom dia tia" . My nephew has more toys in his bedroom than they have in the whole center. During indoor play time the teacher dumps out a box of well loved toys and the kids play happily with the dinosaur with no leg, the toy phone with no base, the blocks with the pictures rubbed off and the books with some of the pages missing. Their playground area consists of a concrete floor, concrete walls with rust metal gates and grates on the windows and a tin roof. When the kids fall and cut themselves (which they do on a regular basis) they cry for a minute or two and then get right up and rejoin the other kids, and some of us grownups, in chasing each other around.

As I talked about in an earlier post, there are some things that this program does very well. There are however, some parts to it that are very different from what I am used to and parts that I am struggling with. I have always gone into volunteer travel with the understanding that I am not going in to tell people how to do their jobs "better" but rather I am there to serve in whatever way I am needed. I am used to their being cultural differences in the way things are done and I am usually comfortable with accepting those differences and with the fact that although things aren't usually done the way I would do them in my own classroom - that's ok. One area in which I have always struggled to accept these differences is in the use of corporal punishment in the schools. I have worked in several places where it was common to give a misbehaving child a slap on the hand or on the butt. In those places I was able to approach this use of physical punishment with the understanding that I can absolutely hate it and refuse to participate in any way in punishing children in this way but that it's a construct of the culture and I need to live with it.

What I am finding in this school is that the treatment of the kids sometimes goes beyond what I can accept as cultural difference, leaving me in a position of powerlessness. Here corporal punishment is not just a slap on the hand or on the butt, kids who misbehave are often shoved across the room, grabbed and lifted by an arm and pulled across the room or pushed down into the chair. In my classroom in particular, the teacher is downright mean to the kids. She screams on a regular basis (at least 8 -10 times during the 4 hour morning session) and is constantly belittling the kids. Although I don't speak Portuguese, I can understand enough of her words and her tone to know that she is very mean to the kids when they get an answer wrong.

Despite it all the kids seem happy but I can't help but wonder what damage is being done to them long term. It seems as if it's the type of damage that we talk about in the Warner School, that "damage at the level of the soul". As both a teacher and a student I am well aware of the damage that schools can do to children. I also wonder what damage is being done to me as a teacher and as a human being who has to watch this treatment and is powerless to stop it. As one of my colleagues here said, "once you've seen something like that, you can't unsee it". The consensus of any of the English speaking Brazilians that I have spoken to is "oh isn't it funny that she's so loud" - no one seems to think that this behavior is problematic but in my book it crosses a line of decency that for me is immovable, despite the cultural context. All I am able to do is give the kids a quick hug or a pat on the back when she isn't looking - and I'm not sure that's enough.

A Weekend in Salvador

It' 9:30 on Sunday night here in Salvador and I'm relaxing after the weekend, sitting on the couch listening to the soothing sounds of the city: the cars going by, the incessent barking of dogs, the whistle that someone keeps blowing, the occasional "bang" that I hope (but truly doubt) is fireworks and the sound of the man on the street hacking what I can only assume must be by now, a world record size wad of phlegm!

We did some interesting things this weekend. On Friday night we were lucky enough to visit a candomble house for a party for their 100th anniversery. Candomble is the second most popular religion in Brazil (after Catholicism) and it's actually pretty cool. It's an Afro-Brazilian religion that originated in Salvador and the surrounding areas by the africans who were brought to this area as slaves. In this religion, people are possessed by Orisha's, or spirits and these spirits all represent different qualities or ideas. For a long time this religion was criminalized in Brazil but since those who practiced it saw many similarities between their Orisha's and the saints of the Roman Catholic Church they were able to practice their beliefs secretly while pretending to follow Catholicism. The language that it used for many of the candomble rituals even today is Yoruba, a language that is spoken in many parts of Nigeria. After a long ride, we arrived just as the party was getting started. None of us got the memo that we were supposed to dress all in white (we were actually told we should wear bright colors) so we really didn't blend in at all. We went into a room that was filled with people dressed all in white. Many of the women wore the traditional white outfits with the large petticoats and the white headscarfs. There were white stramers hanging from the ceiling blowing in the breeze and the room looked beautiful. We grabbed seats on the side of the room and watited (and waited and waited) for something to happen. Finally after about an hour some people got up and made some speeches. They seemed to be leaders from the candomble community and from the local government but since nothing was in English we really had no idea. I wasn't to worried though because none of the people who could understand seemed to be particularly impressed either. Once the speeches were over everyone moved outside to where there were tables and chairs and a stage set up. Soon they started to set up tables of food (excellent chocolate!) and wine and champaigne were poured. The performers came on and they were amazing. Their musical and dancing styles seemed very African but then they had trumpet players joining in as well. It was very much a combination of African and South American culture and it was a pretty awesome night.

On Saturday I figured that since we are on the coast I should check out the beach that Salvador is famous for so I walked down to it. Now "walking down to the beach" is not a figure of speech, I literally walked down - as in straight down a very steep hill to get to there. (Note to self: find a flatter country to visit next year!) When I arrived at the beach it was packed, I guess everyone in Brazil had the same idea, it was wall to wall people on the sand. (Even though it is winter in Brazil, Salvador is pretty close to the Equator so the temperature is in the mid -70s every day and we are near the end of the rainy season.) I walked down a little further toward the lighthouse and found a less crowded spot to spread out my towel for a day of people watching and reading on the beach. I spent the day just relaxing switching between my Sandra Brown book for the beach bum in me and my Freire book for the scholar in me (I'm such a geek I've been doing some cool academic type writing while I'm here so my brain doesn't atrophy!). It gets dark so early here that before I
knew it, it was time to pack up for the dreaded (though much less painful than expected) walk back up the hill.

Today was supposed to be our day to take a boat ride to some of the islands in the bay but since the pounding rain kept waking me up all night I figured we would be looking for a plan B. A bunch of us decided to spend the day at the Pelourinho - the historic city center of Salvador. The name Pelourinho means pillory or whipping post and was the spot in the center of the city where slaves were disciplined but the name has now come to mean the whole upper city center. There are a lot of shops and alley ways to explore in the Pelourinho but we were warned to only stay on the main streets around the square where there is a heavy police presence. I was able to take a look in a church which was decorated in 500 kgs of gold (yes it's as tacky as it sounds!) and was able to find some good bargins along the way. We also got a chance to ride the elevator between the upper and lower cities. I guess that's one way to deal with these hills - now if I can just get them to build me an elevator to the beach life would be good!

The first couple of days

Things I've learned so far in Brazil
1. If it's raining wear sunscreen it'll be sunny again soon. If it's bright and sunny bring an umbrella, more than likely it's going to start raining.
2. Bananas, rice, ground beef and cheese do not make a good casserole (although some people seem to like it)
3. ""Nya, nah, nah, naan, nah" is the same in any language (learned while playing tag with a bunch of four year olds - I think I was "it"!)

I've spent three days working in the school and so far it's been a fun, if exhausting experience! I'm working in the four year old classroom at a community center school where most of the children live in poverty. The morning starts with a prayer service (which fortunately happens before we get there in the morning). When we arrive the kids are taking a bathroom break before heading upstairs to the classroom to start the day. The day starts with "circle time" where the kids sit in a circle and review the day and date and sing some songs. At least I think that's what they do, it's all in Portuguese so they could all be discussing "who is this crazy lady sitting here with us?" The teacher and I sit in those little mini chairs (which make me glad that I don't teach kindergarten - how do they do that all the time, my knees are practically up my nose in those chairs!) Then we move into academic work where the teachers goes over letters and numbers with the kids - I can now count to 8 in Portuguese! I go around and help those who are struggling as they work on worksheets and then help entertain the ones who finish early. Being a Warner School geek I am reading Freire in Brazil - just cause I think that's so cool - and I think he might be rolling over in his grave at the type of education being offered here. That being said, there are a lot of good aspects of this school. The kids get a snack, a lunch and a shower while we are there in the mornings - something they don't always have access to at home. The parents get the opportunity to go out and provide for their families knowing that their kids are safe.
After the academic time comes my favorite, play time! Sometimes we are inside and today we got to go outside and run around with the kids which was fun. Then comes shower time, the four year olds can do it by themselves and I help them get dressed afterwards. Finally it's off to lunch where we help serve the kids (and yes 65 2-4 year olds eating spaghetti looks exactly how you would expect it to look!) Then it's down for a nap for the kids and back to the homebase for us - not bad for a days work - although I'm not quitting my day job, I think I'll keep my high school kids!

Welcome to Salvador!

I arrived here in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil last night at around 6:30 and after waiting forever for my luggage (I think they had one guy unloading 4 planes one piece of luggage at a time!) I made my way to the homebase in time for dinner. There are going to be about 26 of us in the house volunteering in different parts of the city. Some of the people have been here for week already while 14 of us came in yesterday (or rather 12 of us did, 2 people are still stuck in the U.S because of bad weather!)
What I've learned so far about Salvador is that it was the first capital of Brazil and that it's heavily influenced by Portuguese colonization and the history of slavery that came with the establishment of sugarcane plantations. This Afro-Brazilian heritage is seen in the music, the dancing, the artwork and on the faces of the people. On a more practical note, the beautiful geography of Salvador, the steep hillsides plunging down to the coast line, makes it very difficult to get water to homes so water conservation is an important factor in day to day life. This makes for very short showers! A related plumbing fact - the sewage system here is such that toilet paper cannot be flushed. Ahh the joys of international plumbing - oh well, it's not the first time I've had to deal with that and it won't be the last! At least there's no Asian squat toilets here.
We start work bright and early tomorrow morning and four of us will be off to Santa Teresa to play with the kids - It's going to be fun.

Getting Ready to Leave

I'm finally just about ready to leave for Brazil. This is the latest in the summer I've ever done a trip so I've been waiting anxiously to get going. My visa and my brand spanking new passport came through so I can officially enter the country (my nice beat up hugely thick passport which made me look like a "real" traveler expired this winter so I'm starting over!) I fly out of New York City on Friday night and it will be one long night of flying. I keep thinking, "Oh it's South America, that's nothing after all of those summers of flying to China" but really, it will be just as long. I fly from NYC to Miami and then it's an 8 1/2 hour flight to Rio and then I have a 2 hour domestic flight to get to Salvador.
Once I get there the long hours on the airplane will all be worth it. I got the details of my volunteer assignment today and I'm very excited. Of course, as with anything, this assignment can change but for now I will be working at the Centro De Educacao Infantil Santa Teresa De Lisieux (St. Therese of Lisieux Education Center). This is a school and a day care center that was set up by a nonprofit organization to provide education and support for people living in the favelas around Salvador. As of now my job will be assisting the teachers in the 2-3 year old classroom. I get to teach the kids English games and songs, play with them and help feed and take care of them. How cool is that? It certainly is a big change from teaching high school! Good thing I got to spend time playing with my nephew this summer - he got me ready for this assignment. I am definitely open to any suggestions of good activities that I can plan for kids this age cause I don't have a clue. This will be a huge learning experience for me.
Once I get there my goal is to be just one link in the chain of volunteers who come through this program. My students know that I love the term "cultural diffusion" and a program like this one allows me to play a small role in this cultural exchange - I can't wait to see what I'll learn!

Volunteer Vacations

As a social studies teacher who loves to wander the world in the summers I struggle between wanting to bring back and make real for my students the experiences of those in other places and the feeling that I don't want to be a tourist taking advantage of the experiences of others. I made a decision a long time ago that I did not want to see the world through the windows of a tour bus. I didn't want my only experiences of a place to be a souvenier shop and a photo op, my only interactions with the local people buying bottles of water and watching staged "culture shows". I wanted to meet and talk with people and leave a place feeling as if I had made friends and maybe left a little something of myself behind. I wanted to be more than a tourist consuming resources and leaving with nothing more than some cheap trinkets and a nice photo album. In short, I wanted to help. Thanks to Mr. Sentman, my high school English teacher who wandered around tagging turtles and cleaning up beaches in his free time, I discovered the idea of volunteer vacations.

Now I'm not going to change the world in three weeks, nor do I plan to walk in and save the world or tell people how they can fix things (or even pretend to have any idea what needs to be done) intead I'm there to help, in whatever ways that are needed. Because of this belief I have always been sure to volunteer with organizations that believe in going only where we are asked to go and doing only what we are asked to do, working alongside community members on what they want to do.

I've been to India but have never been among the masses posing in front of the Taj Mahal. Instead I spent three weeks working at the Dazzling Stone Children's Home in Chennai. During that time I taught English to Kindegarten, first and third graders (using the required Indian national curriculum and working for a 17 year old principal!) During our afternoon break we mixed cement by hand and worked to build the second story of the school. This second story was designed to allow each grade level to have a classroom space with half walls dividing them. Before this space, the school was one room and classes were held simultaneously all around the room.

I've been to China but it was years before I visited the Great Wall. Instead I spent my time working with teachers, sharing our experiences as they worked to learn English and I ineffectually tried to learn some Chinese. I now have wonderful friends in China who welcome me back every time I go.

This summer I am off to Brazil to volunteer with Cross Cultural Solutions (www.crossculturalsolutions.org). I don't know what I'm doing, I will do what they ask. I can't wait to leave and will be posting about my experiences while I am there...Stay Tuned!