The End – Who are we?

I dare be presumptuous and believe that some of you might be wondering what ever happened to the SEI saga…

Well, after having written a report to our employer (EIL Ecuador) back in December, detailing all the things that were wrong in school and they decided not to take any action, the school’s director in turn did, informing me after the first week back, that I was dismissed, as she did not want having people who do not care for the school and are speaking against it in her employment.
As my friend Jaja said, “you were asking for it” 🙂 … Maybe so…

The question is, have I done the right thing? From the administration’s point of view, no, from my point of view, yes. It was all meant to be informative and to give people a glimpse into the Ecuadorian working culture and mentality. Especially since it seems, us foreigners kind of look out for each other and nobody wishes another person to go through the same negative experience(s) they went through themselves.
Therefore, can I recommend this place as a place to work? Definitely not. Can I recommend our institute, (whose apparently sole purpose after we were placed was to collect the money they were being paid for our placement), no.

Also, since the comment came up that a person’s actions defines them and who they are, I believe we are all familiar with the saying “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”…
The administration’s “friends” are people who cannot be bothered and find it too tedious to open their mouth to say ‘hello’, little 007-wannabees who report anything to administration (true or not) in order to gain favours, people who sabotage others (the purpose of this probably being a mystery even to themselves), people who change their stories whenever it suits them, just to make others look bad and so on..
My friends are people who have helped and supported me in ways I never expected (moral and financial support, offered accommodation etc.), people who sent me gifts, at the risk of them not arriving at the other end of the world, people who care about me and my wellbeing, dear dear people…
So, I think I know who I am …

Saturday Night Fever, aka Show Me The Money!

With all the Christmas and New Year´s fever going around, naturally school is also organising dinners, parties, parties for kids, parties for teachers etc.

Our coordinator in the language institute had the very good idea to get teachers together, at her place, for nice dinner and celebration outside of school. We were all quite happy and after she suggested we collect 10 USD per person to cover for the cost of food, we suggested everyone could cook a little something and we could all share. The idea went down well, however, the 10 dollars were still to be paid as the “cuota” (fee, down payment)… The quota for what, I wonder, and again, where is this money going? If everyone brings something to the party what is the 10 dollars for?
So people kinda started backing out, making up all sorts of excuses and the solution was the party will be postponed until the 6th of December, of course, cuota still standing.

Something similar happened with the college kids´party: they were “invited” for a pizza-party, each of them needing to pay a contribution of 15 dollars for the evening… For 15 dollars one can get an entire pizza and drinks and I doubt a 13-year old would eat a 12-inch pizza on their own…

We have been talking to another American friend here in Loja and it seems this is a trend in other schools as well, collection fever, an opportunity for schools to make some extra money…

School in Loja – The printers aren´t working, but we are!

When we were given the school´s calendar, it showed that we were off as of the 23rd December. Last week we were informed that Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th are normal working days, as we need to have meetings discussing the students´ trimester results. Now it has to be said that most schools in Loja finished up this week.

It is all mind-boggling and makes no sense: the trimester exams are already finished, we are not starting teaching the new units until January, so technically there would be no need for the students to come in. I can understand teachers need to hand in the exam results etc. and that might require a few extra days of work. But the 26th and 27th as well?!!

And what to printers have to do with it?
Well, there is one available printer in school, needed for printing reports, memos, lesson plans etc. In the last month it has been mostly not working, leading to delays in printing, wasted time, wasted energy etc. Why? Well, either because there was some technical difficulty or because the ink had run out, there was no ink, it had to be bought, someone had to bring it from downtown and God know what else…
The one thing everyone knows, no matter what kind of business it is you are running, is never be stingy on supplies needed to do your work!

So, the printers are not working, but we are! (well, whoever will be a sucker and goes in for the two days…).

School in Loja – as Harry Potter would put it, “Ridiculus”!

Well, it seems we ain´t seen nothing yet.
This week we were presented with a “punctuality” report and asked to sign it. The report was detailing “late minutes” for the trimester.
Miraculously, I somehow I accumulated over 50 minutes of “late time”, i.e late arrivals.
It has to be said that neither Ryan nor I have ever been late to a class ever since we started working here. Afternoon classes (which the report was referring to) start at 3.30pm, which is as of when we are getting paid. We always arrive at least 5 minutes early.
However, late arrivals are calculated on our free time, as, according to administration, we need to be at school at 3.20pm the latest.
It beats me, how one can be late outside of working hours; maybe time perception and the definition of “working hours” has changed since I left Europe. All I can say is, RIDICULUS!!!!!

It seems to be one in the line of several attempts by school administration to pinch money out of teachers´ pockets.
The financial director had made a promise to a group of students who had failed to pass their exams last year, that this year´s exam fees would be covered by the school. This was the reason why we had to organise the Bingo action a few weeks ago.
This week there was also a meeting in which we were told that the administration is no longer responsible for raising the relevant amount for these fees (500 USD) and it was now up to the teachers to come up with ideas to get this money. Otherwise, we would all be charged from our salaries.

At this point we have lost all faith and motivation to be here. We will inform our employer (we are actually contracted out to the school by an institute in Quito) and hopefully they will take a stance.

Too many things have happened in the last few weeks, which only make me think of sabotage and illegal ways of getting money that probably goes into someone pockets (charging fines for not completing extra-curricular activities, charging students “contribution fees” for the Thanksgiving celebration without them getting anything in return and a lot of other things).

At some point, what goes up must come down and I am sure we won´t be here to witness it…