Thursday, September 07, 2006

La Escuela Primaria

Success! I was finally able to find the Escuela Primaria Manual Aguilar Juarez!!

Rafa and I left school at 1:45pm and stopped at my apartment to get Ana Cecilia who was waiting patiently on my stairs. We attempted to find the school on three different occasions to no avail, so we finally arranged for Ana to take us.


She took us on a strange route,
involving a bit of baha-ing over rough roads, passing donkeys and crossing a bridge that appeared to be more for a donkey's use than a car, but we made it!

Ana's mom was waiting outside the locked g
ate of the school and said she was worried because she expected us earlier. I was happy to see that she was concerned for her daughter's safely.

Ana yelled to her brother Julio to unlock the gate and he and Pablo came running, Pablo with his glowing smile on his face. They unlocked the gate and Pablo gave me a big hug. He's really a sweet kid and he seems so genuinely happy to see us all the time.

I was surprised to see that the school grounds are much simpler than I had imagined. There are two buildings, but only one appeared to be in use, each only one story with two classrooms. All of the students of the school are crammed into two classrooms and there is a husband and wife team who appears to do all the teaching, as well as run the school. There is no office, a basketball court and two bathrooms that were being cleaned by students when I arrived.

Everybody seemed very excited to see me. All of the students were staring as if they had an alien in their midsts. This is pretty common in Chiapas, as there aren't too many gringos living here.

I was surprised that Patricia Torres was both the woman "encargada" (in charge) and their teacher. It seems she has to constantly yell at the kids, but I suppose that's what happens when you have 45 students of various ages in one classroom.

She explained that each student has to pay a one time fee of 50 pesos per year - less than $5 US. This fee pays for the utilities and classroom materials.

I told her that I was interested in paying for the Morales children's fee for the year and I also wanted to give money to the school for necessary items. I explained there are several people in the United States that would like to help and in the near future I'd like to get together to discuss ways we could do so.

I had thought the fee was 50 pesos a month for each student, so I brought along 500 pesos that I thought would take the kids through November - it turns out that was more than enough. I gave the pesos to Patricia and when she said she'd get me change I told her to keep it and use it for the school. She was very gracious and thanked me several times.

I felt comfortable speaking with her and felt I could trust her. She didn't seem to be interested in taking advantage of me or the situation and I felt much better about everything afterwards.

As I was leaving, Patricia asked the students to thank me for coming and the whole class broke into applause. I held back tears and gave Pablo one last hug before heading out with Ana who gave me a brief tour of the basketball court and introduced me to the kids cleaning the bathroom. Everybody was so cute and sweet; I felt very proud that my friends and family were getting involved.

I'm hoping that with the fund that has been generously created and contributed to by many of you, we'll be able to provide necessary items for the school, as well as physical education equipment and other things that come up along the way.

My plan is to pay for the Morales students to continue their education through high school ("preparatoria" in Mexico). I'd like to find other students who need assistance and do the same for them.

My next step is to meet with Patricia to talk about things that I could buy and possibly volunteer activities at the school. My friend and colleague from school, Glenn, doesn't know yet, but I'm hoping he'll be interested in doing one of his famous science shows for the kids (www.outsidetheboxeducation.com) some afternoon.

I spoke with my director at school, Ms. Aurora, and she said we may be able to have a drive at the American School Foundation of Chiapas and donate items to the Escuela Primaria Manual Aguilar Juarez. I've also thought about have a 10k race with the students at ASFC and having them get sponsored for a certain amount of pesos per kilometer.

I believe we'll be able to make a difference in the lives of these kids.

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