Courtesy of Angel Ramos @ http://angeldramos.tumblr.com/
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All the male teachers at the beginning
When I got there in August I came a day early and I spent the day with my new director and her sister, they took me around and showed me the sights, at the time, I was way too excited, over joyed at having found a new job and feeling as if there was a lot of adventure to be had. Now adventure is a funny thing, you never know what type you are going to get and a lot of times the adventure you get is way different than the adventure you expect. In retrospect, naive? Yes, no doubt about that but it was no ones fault but my own. My director had warned me before showing up of the things I should expect and looking back on the year, she was the most truthful and straightforward person I met. It’s funny because at the end of the first night I should have immediately become wise to what to expect when the last thing my director said to me was, “Make sure you check your shoes in the morning for spiders and scorpions.” Door shut, and I was left in shock and silence.
Theres no pictures related to this because, I don't take time to take pictures of spiders and scorpions.
To give a quick overview, the year started off great, meeting coworkers, going out together, sharing times together but as the year went on something shifted in the group, where as before we had one group that loved passing the time together this quickly changed into 4-5 smaller groups that could only intermingle on special occasions. Anyone who knows me knows this is not how I get down in social situations, frankly, it was frustrating and I tried my hardest to hang out with everyone but even at the end I stopped hanging out with a few people because they had begun to embody what I have always worked against. If it sounds like I’m angry or bitter don’t worry I left that in Venezuela but what was, was and I learned very quickly that living in such a small community can bring out the worst in people, and that includes me. I don’t want to go into specifics of who said what, how this happened, all that nonsense that seems so small now but looking back most of the problems I encountered, and especially the problems that caused us all, as teachers, to move away from each other, were caused by one or two individuals who for whatever reason always caused drama among teachers, this was coupled with the lack of things to do and places to be. I mean when you can’t find toilet paper or leave your compound due to safety, you know you’re all in this together, right?
Not positive where this is from, it is not mine. (Silver Sprocket Store?)
As far as teaching went this year was a huge struggle for me. I was only teaching one class I had taught before, Algebra 2, that class went great, sure it had it’s moments towards the end where my all senior class was like “Dude, we’re graduating in a week, give it up.” but besides that everything was great. I had middle school math, which to be completely honest I was scared about, that age group is not my ideal but they turned out to be awesome. I had that same class for Life Science. And then I had another Biology class mostly of sophomores and juniors. I can confidently say I loved all my students, they were hilarious, they had character, none of them were boring and they were all incredible in a lot of ways. Teaching science classes was a real struggle for me because it’s not my specialty and questions would come up and I’d just have to say “I don’t know.” and the questions get so obscure. Very real example: “Do hemophiliac woman die when they have their first period?” the answer is “No” but that came after some research on my part and working with this particular student. I struggled with the flow and style of the class because we didn’t have many resources so the second half of the year went to a very project based curriculum with students study topics within the unit and presenting to the class, this was new for me but seemed to keep kids motivated and working up until the end.
My media class
It’s my hope that they got a lot out of the classes and I’m always one to change my class around to better suit the situation, I was lucky that my schedule worked with the lab being open and my students knew what they wanted to do. Plus they needed help with public speaking and I think as a class we got a lot better in the end. I think I’m a better teacher for this year but I would never want to teach those classes again, way too much prep time for those.
No comment
The school overall was very chaotic, things were thrown at us at the last moment, things didn’t work half the time ( I can’t count the number of failed science experiments ), and there was just a general feeling of hectic-ness. Despite everything though, I think most of my favorite moments in Venezuela were in the school. I liked my boss, she liked how I taught, I got to be close with my students due to small class sizes and I got to share life with people and I felt appreciated even with the craziness. Our big problem throughout the year was a discipline system that didn’t work too well but I was hard pressed to come up with something better due to the political unrest in the country and the need to keep our students safe. Towards the end of the year there were problems with qualities of lessons taught, as with any school, some teachers pack it up a little early but that just makes everyone else’s job a little harder. Regardless though, I will miss the school and the students that, I have no doubt.
I never felt unsafe in Ojeda but thats because I had a very scripted life, I would go to work, come home, go to sleep. Everyday, we had a few weeks of protests and while I had heard many stories of violence and carjackings I was never affected probably because I spent so little time outside the compound. I would go running at a local run down stadium/track but besides that I was in my room, practicing spanish on my own and randomly stopping by other teacher’s houses. I even took up free tutoring to pass the time and meet people.
Some Random Notes:
Internet was terrible all year round.
There was nothing to do, ever.
We heard of a paintball course and karaoke but we never found it despite people swearing we just turned down the one wrong road.
Everything was so so so cheap, I’m not saying I used the black market but filling up a tank of gas was 4-7 cents. CENTS!
Best Memories: Carnival in Trinidad, the mountain city of Merida
We had a dog for a week, it died of heartworm
We had a turtle and a tortoise named biggie and smalls
Aruba didn't really have any culture, just a resort spot
Best Memories: Carnival in Trinidad, the mountain city of Merida
We had a dog for a week, it died of heartworm
We had a turtle and a tortoise named biggie and smalls
Aruba didn't really have any culture, just a resort spot
Carnival
As far as woman went, they were beautiful and the ones I met were incredibly kind. Initially I had gone on a few dates with local woman and I must of had bad luck because, while they were both beautiful and nice, it seemed one was only concerned with money and the other would go on multiple dates in a night and while I am fine with other peoples styles of life but if you are on a date for me, don’t lie to me about where I’m dropping you off just to be picked up by a coworker for a second dinner. Weird, right? The second half of the year I started dating a coworker and she made the rest of the year great. She helped me with my spanish and her family basically adopted me. The second half of the year would have been very depressing if we had not gotten together.
Arlen and I
Food, was rough for me, people loved Arepas there which is basically a cornmeal pancake, I tried to like them I tried really hard and I think I did, once, but it was not my thing. In Ojeda they love fried food, friend something stuffed with something, a ton of meals are just derivatives of this. Tequenos, fried breading stuffed with cheese, empanada, fried breading stuff with meat and cheese, patacones, fried plantains, postelito, fried breading with potatoes in it, patacones with stuff, fried plantains with tons of meat layered son top. And I’m sure, 100% that you are reading this and being like, umm yah that sounds incredible, it’s not it’s just not, after a week your sick of it, and the quality of the meats never really feel good to eat, the street food was really cheap but it wasn’t something I really liked eating. This could just be personal taste, and hindered by my culture but I was just happy to get some cheesesteaks when I got home.
That was a 'normal' burger
What I’m trying to say in all this is that the year, for the most part, got harder the second half of the year but in the second half some great things happened. This year was hard for me, a lot of time was spent a lone and bored. To my expat co-workers I wish you all the best, I hope the versions of ourselves that existed in Ojeda never meet again. To my boss, thanks for giving me a shot and I appreciated your guidance through out the year. In retrospective, the people of Venezuela were nothing but incredibly nice and kind, passionate and welcoming and for that I will always be grateful.
If anyone wants to know my thoughts on the whole political aspects of living in Venezuela, and the cultural problems I had you can e-mail me or ask me in person but those kind of views I don’t really want to broadcast on the internet because I only lived in a small portion of Venezuela which I was told is not nearly a summary of the whole. For now though, I'm off to Bogota, Colombia for a new adventure.
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