So we realized fairly quickly that if any of us were going to make major progress on our Spanish, the kids would need to attend school. Plus, they were both craving major kid time. We looked around at several schools and landed confidently on Las Lomas, a small K-12 school about 10 minutes walk from home with views of Volcano Cotacachi on one side, and Volcano Imbabura on the other. School starts at 8 AM and they get out at 1 PM, including a 45 minute recess and snack period. Both have commented that the day feels shorter than in the U.S., and we all enjoy having lunch together afterwards. Despite initial angst, they are trying so hard to use their Spanish with the support of helpful teachers and classmates. We're really proud of them both. And we can't say enough good things about school uniforms! Every child, from about 3 years old and up, in Ecuador wears a school uniform, regardless of the type of school. It sure makes mornings simple, and of course just makes things fair in a country with high poverty and larger income distributions. We can't believe it, but Kaia gets her thicker stockings on and Niko even wears a tie on Mondays with minimal complaining. Twice a week is sports day, which helps break things up too. It's always entertaining to behold the state of apparel at the end of each day after everyone starts out so crisp: shirts untucked, ties over collars, skirts tucked into stockings...you get the idea. Packs of children racing around in varying states of complete disrepair.
Las Lomas is a private school with a tuition of $57/month/child, which is about double the cost of the typical local elementary school allowing for smaller class sizes (e.g., about 22 instead of 35-40), and more specialist classes like extra English, music, art, gym, and computers. Teachers and the administration also seemed more comfortable integrating little gringos into their classrooms.
As a reference point, the average salary of a construction worker is apparently about $250. I read on another blog that only about 35% of the Kichwa elementary children in the area continue on to high school due to their inability to afford tuition ($300/year). So a high school scholarship program was started by a regional non profit asking for $200 donations which parents match with $100. If you're interested in donating, you can learn more on the following website:
http://blog.pro-ecuador.com/?p=2176
http://unorcac.nativeweb.org/objectives.html
What a great program for supporting the indigenous community. Are all of the schools (public/private) part of it? Can parents make choices? Maybe you could comment in your blog as others might be interested in more detail, too....
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