School

is in my yard.

No kidding. I got back to my site and they had built a big aluminum building right next to my house. It houses 5th grade in the morning and 8th in the afternoon. Kindergarten and 4th grade are on my host family's porch. I have to wait for them to go on break to take my bucket bath, and the air is constantly filled with the screams of kids who play and throw trash on my front porch. Photos of this coming soon.

I actually don't mind too much because it's fun to talk to them sometimes and they're being moved for a good cause -- with money from the mayor and a Spanish NGO, four big new classrooms are being built in the actual school, which is way overcrowded. These kids are displaced while the construction goes on. They're putting the first stone down Monday in a ceremony which will involve the Japanese ambassador.

In other news, I'm being thrown into school whether I like it or not. I was supposed to spend these next few weeks observing and planning classes, but the teachers and director won't hear of it. They want me to start teaching and start a tree nursery immediately. We'll see what happens.

I have been observing classes, though, and what I've seen makes me really sad. Classes start late and end early and are canceled for hours for small, unimportant meetings. Each grade only goes to school for half a day anyway, and there is no law requiring kids to go to school so people just don't show up a lot of the time. They'll spend an hour during class talking about announcements and not learning anything. They are given half-hour recesses and snack breaks about three times in the course of one afternoon. It's no wonder the actual classes are incredibly basic for their grade levels. I suspect the only real learning is done in high school and college here, but you have to be able to afford those. With an educational situation like this, how can a country develop at all? I never thought I would say this, but I actually feel lucky to have attended Prince George's County public schools (shudder.)

I am still heartened by the teachers' dedication and their ability to keep their large excitable classes under control. And the kids deserve some props, because a lot of them do come to school every day willing to learn and they're well-behaved compared to kids at other Salvadoran schools I've seen.

So even though it might be stressful, I'm excited to start working. Paz y amor.