corruption deep and widespread

One evening as I was watching the news, three stories caught my attention:

The first was about a project the government set up to provide a glass of milk a day for the poorest children in Paraguay. It was discovered that some of the milk the children were being given was practically devoid of any nutrients, having been made up from milk derivatives instead of being pure milk.

The second story was about an investigation into academic certificates that have been given out to people who have not gained the qualification stated on their certificate. The people found with false certificates include government ministers and doctors.

The third story related the discovery of many tonnes of cotton seeds stored away. The government subsidised the seeds last year to help farmers earn a living. The companies that should have distributed them took the cash from the government but the seeds never reached the farmers.

These kinds of stories are all too common here. Corruption is absolutely endemic. A taxi driver the other day was explaining how, when he goes to the car mechanic, he buys the part he needs himself, takes it to the workshop and then watches as the mechanic replaces it. He uses up half a day in order to be sure that he’s not being swindled. He said everyone knows that otherwise, the mechanic would either tell him he’d fixed it when he hadn’t or he’d replace the part with one from an old car, which would last only a very short time. “That’s what Paraguayans do,” he said.

In a report published last week by Transparency International, Paraguay came joint bottom in a table of the countries with the most corrupt judicial systems.

college life continues...

“We want to have fun!” said the 3rd year girls when I asked them what their expectations were for the course I’m teaching them on how to teach English to very young children. It was the beginning of the first lesson of the module and it was really not the kind of response I was expecting at all!! They obviously remember the workshops I did with them on the same topic last September and were expecting a similar teaching style for this module. I was very sorry to have to disappoint them because this course has to be more academic than the workshops; they were a taste of the different activities you can do, but this module has to include theory and the development of lesson plans and schemes of work. I am including some fun activities in all the lessons but there are inevitable moments of dullness!

I am more involved with the teaching practices team this year, going on visits to an orphanage to supervise the students doing stimulation activities with the babies.

This year we have been taking the mobile play scheme to a wider range of places, including church pre-schools in very poor areas. It is a welcome break for the teachers and the children are over the moon at the chance to play freely for an hour or so.

Fame at last!!

"Ah, you're Fiona Cooper, I've heard about you!" So said Nelson Aguilera, a university bigwig and author, when he read my name badge as the conference speakers were having lunch on Friday. It was the Paraguayan conference of the Association of Christian Schools International and I was there to do two workshops on teaching English in a fun way to 3-11 year olds. I'd heard a lot about him, he's quite famous in education circles here, so I felt it was quite something for him to have heard about little old me!



I had great fun doing the workshops, though it was a challenge for me because I really feel my expertise is in the pre-school age group, so I didn't feel quite as confident about everything as I had when I did the workshop to the pre-school teachers in March. Two of the teachers who'd come in March were also there on Friday, and one of them told me she was using a lot of what she'd learnt at the previous workshop in her teaching. It was really encouraging to have that feedback.




I was surprised in the morning on Friday when, as the first participants trickled in to the room for my workshop, they were speaking English to eachother and to us (Sam came with me as my moral support and techie!) so I asked them whether they'd prefer to have the workshop in English or Spanish. To my surprise they all wanted it in English, so I did it all in English, even though my powerpoint and all my notes were in Spanish. More and more people came into the room after I'd started and I felt a little for the latecomers since they didn't get the choice of having it in Spanish! We played games and sang songs and there was much fun and laughter. I love teaching when it's like that! There were about 40 teachers at the morning workshop and when I repeated it after lunch, 12 people came. ("siesta time;" a similar thing happened to us last year when we did the play scheme workshop at the conference).




At the start of the afternoon session, I asked which language they wanted it in and they chose Spanish, so I got to do the same workshop in two different languages, which made me feel very versatile indeed!! One of the morning teachers returned in the afternoon with someone else from his school. It was better to have fewer participants because everyone could get involved in the games, whereas in the morning, some people had to sit and watch and then, when I gave them the opportunity to participate, were too comfortable in their chairs to come and sit on the floor with me!!




So, there I was doing exactly what I hoped I'd be doing when I said to God after our play scheme workshop at ACSI last year that I'd like to do one on teaching English. The teachers who came to the workshops on Friday all seemed very interested in what I was sharing with them and my prayer is that every one of them will have gone away with new ideas that they can implement to add something new to their teaching.