November 13, 2008

I am writing this letter from the library in my site. The Municipal finally followed through with their promise and installed internet. Now I have free internet. YAY!!!!

Life is going well. On Tuesday I met with this painter who works for the Municipal of Machala and he agreed to paint the library if I paid for the materials. I requested that he paint it blue with a few murals. The librarian and I (ok… mostly, the librarian… I didn´t know) forgot to run it by the right people and I ended up pissing off the librarian´s boss´s boss. Fortunately, I ran into him and the grocery store and was able (I think) to smooth it over. He agreed to come by the library Wednesday morning (interrupting my English tutoring schedule) to see what the painter had in mind.

Wednesday morning was spent tutoring children in English and sucking up to the librarian´s bosses to make up for my earlier faux pas. Barely any of them brought their English books or homework (why am I not surprised) so I spent the time going over numbers, letters, and the ever important verb: to be. One girl asked me to help her with her long division homework and, to me horror, I find myself trying to teach a girl long division who didn´t even know what 6-5 was. Seriously! Why do teachers let some children get so far behind? It was impossible to do because she didn´t even understand the concept of division. I asked her to divide six pencils into 2 groups and even that was a challenge. Sigh…

Today was spent washing my clothes, tutoring more children, shopping for my new house, and hanging out at the library. The library is currently in chaos. Everyone is getting ready for Saturday. The Municipal is throwing a big celebration to officially present the computers and pianos to my town. The painting is going well. My original vision of a light blue library has gone down the drain. The artist´s creative vision, has taken him over and now it is only murals. Everyone seems happy, though, so I´m letting him go at it. The librarian is ecstatic and won´t stop hitting people—her way of expressing joy… I’m beginning to get bruises. My only request is that there is at least one mural of computers and one of pianos. The artist seems to understand this (although the murals are yet to appear).

Tomorrow I hope to start painting my future home. My host dad and the artist painting the library have agreed to help me. I hope it turns out!!!! Right now about three children are learning over my shoulders and trying to understand this letter (I´m not worried). They are amazed that I can type without looking. Must go now because it is getting kind of distracting.