Lessons Learned

                I’ve learned a few things over the last 3 weeks.  The first is that even if you plan six months in advance to teach English on the Galapagos, a stern Ecuadorian nun/principal can make you a PE teacher by decree.  Having spent almost a decade in a Catholic education system I knew better than to try to protest this and, after all, I am here to help the school first and if that is where they need me, so be it.

                Also I have learned that afternoons on San Cristobal Island are stiflingly hot, in the truest sense.  Thus for my first week in the afternoons when my classes ended I would usually take a nice siesta.  After a week of this I decided to seek out something else to do with my time.  This led me to volunteering from 2 to 5 in the tourist office, where I tell help tourists find things to do on the island. 

A stern Ecuadorian nun/principal can make you a PE teacher by decree.

I am not yet very qualified for this, as I haven’t had time to do some of the things on the island.  For this reason I tend to take my weekends rather seriously… at least until the sun goes down.

                I learned a few things about the school culture of the Galapagos.  Most surprising is that a PE teacher can sport a t-shirt that has a pot leaf and a bikini clad cartoon woman on it.  And he can do it seemingly without consequences, except for a few comments from the older students. 

                Finally when we are outside and a student feels the need to relieve himself by going to the bathroom it is quite possible that one, two or eleven students may join in, forming a most unhygienic circle.