Back to School

I know, I know. It's a little late for a back to school post (although before the Ecuadorian School Curriculum Reform, schools would have been starting this week), but I have been so busy and haven't had any time to post at all. Also, it isn't technically a back to school post, since this is actually Agustin's first year in school (preschool). I still feel pretty strongly about the fact that he is only three until end of November, and thus, in my opinion, not ready for the vigor of Ecuadorian preschool, which is more like a kindergarten/1st grade mix, but what can a lowly parent do? Every teacher and administrator knows more than I (and me being a teacher myself!) and so, we can do nothing more than abide by the system, perhaps gritting our teeth a little along the way.

But more on how Agustin's doing later. The real question is: how are the parents taking it?
I must admit, it is exciting to see my little baby boy in shiny new shoes and uniform, marching off to school with a backpack slung across his shoulders. It is also heart-wrenching. He is so BIG! When I look at him with the eyes of a stranger I see an older boy, not a little recently-potty-trained and even more-recently-taken-off-the-bottle three-year-old boy.

It is fun to see and hear about all the different things he learned in school, and sad, also, knowing that his horizons are broadening and we (his parents) are no longer the only source of information he has. While it is a relief, at times, to know that someone else needs to take responsibility for things like teaching him numbers and letters and how they work, it is also disconcerting, especially when he corrects me (my Spanish, my knowledge of the difference between rip and tear, the way I taught him how to hold the pencil - wrong, of course). And the nerve of the teacher, which is cultural but also hard for me to stomach - sending home notes telling me that he needs his nails cut (and for pete's sake, they weren't really that long, either! We've had much longer!), or admonishing me for not getting him to complete his homework assignment ("He works so well in class and is so motivated, I wonder what his problem could be at home?"). (On a side note he does complete his assignments, but tires easily, which I happened to mention to the teacher, suggesting that perhaps they were a bit too long?)

Anyhoo, back to the beginning. We got his school supply list the first day of school, and was I ever in for a shocker! It seems that school supply lists in Ecuador are quite the science, since mine looked like a calculus formula or another language. Here, for example, is an excerpt (and following in parentheses a loose translation):

• 1 caja de pinturas 12 colores PAX CROMO MEGA 5.5 mm lápiz gigante
• 2 frascos de témpera grande: 473 ml. 16 oz. Azul-amarillo
• 2 lápices triplux delgados, 1 borrador de queso
• 1 tabla pegada fomix de 30x20 cm y 1 punzón punta metálica
• 1 marcador de tiza líquida PAPER MATE EXPO (rojo)
• 1 sacapuntas de caja doble orificio para normal y triangular
• 1 diario escolar
• 1 pliego de cartón corrugated (morado)
• 1 cuaderno parvulario grande de 50 hojas anillado
• 1 juego didáctico para 5 años, bloques lógicos 48-50 figuras
• 20 cartulinas muresco o iris de colores tamaño INEN

• (1 box of paints, 12 colors, PAX CROMO MEGA 5.5 mm gigantic pencil)
• (2 bottles of big tempera paints 473 ml 16 oz blue-yellow)
• (2 thin triplux pencils, 1 "cheese" eraser)
• (1 30x20 cm table glued fomix and 1 metal-tipped "stabber")
• (1 PAPER MATE EXPO liquid chalk marker - red)
• (1 double-holed box pencil sharpener for normal and triangular pencils)
• (1 school diary)
• (1 large posterboard of corrugated cardboard, purple)
• (1 large preschool notebook, spiral-bound, 50 pages)
• (1 didactic game for 5-year-olds, "Logical Blocks, 48-50 pieces")
• (20 cardstock A4 papers (Muresco or iris), various colors)

Well, things would have been easier if I had know that "paints" can also mean "colored pencils", a "cheese" eraser is a soft white one, PAX CROMO MEGA and Muresco/Iris are brand names, and there are certain kinds of pencils that are considered normal and others that are considered triangular (although honestly they both look the same to me). But these are the things I will learn, I guess. The list, by the way, goes on and on for a page more, including, among other things, 12 rolls of toilet paper, a towel (no size specification, although the original was sent back two weeks later with a note that we needed one slightly larger), baby soap, band-aids, cotton balls, colored Popsicle sticks, masking tape, glitter and regular glue, a 20-piece puzzle, various types and qualities of colored paper, fine markers, modeling clay, 2 used magazines for cutting up pictures, scissors, a bag of confetti, a hard-covered two-ringed folder... I could go on but you get the picture. (Notice that I'm not even counting the textbooks for class.)

Exciting! Imagine - those of you who know me can easily: I get to go on a shopping spree buying all kinds of stationery items - papers, markers, pens, pencils, glitter, glue, etc. I was thrilled, and not at all daunted by the size of the list...

UNTIL...

I get to the store. Now, remember, it is the first day of class. All 6 million Ecuadorian students have entered class on the same day, receiving lists of various pages of supplies that need to be bought, not by next week but by tomorrow. Hence the mad dash to the stores.

I saw the line of cars, stopping traffic, outside of the store. But still I persisted on. I mean, really, when do I ever have "permission" to go crazy buying tons of things I wouldn't normally need? I needed this excuse to shop, so I took Agustin's hand and went in with him (he was also very excited too, by the way).

No carts. We waited at the cash registers for the first available and only waited a few minutes. Not bad so far.

Well, imagine a store the size of your local gas station, a store in which close to 300 people and their kids have walked into, a store that has in reserve probably 50 shopping carts of which every single one is used... it was CROWDED. To make it worse, as I didn't know what the bleep I was looking for exactly, I would inch my way to an aisle, and after 10 minutes make it there, painstakingly read the itsy-bitsy fine print on the mylars, only to realize that no, no mention of a triangular pencil. We spent about 1 1/2 hours doing this. Occasionally a worker would whiz by and be able to help for a fleeting second, but they were being bombarded by every other parent in the store and also clearly stretched to the limits.

All the while, Andres and the baby were out in the car. He finally decided to make an appearance, to my relief, and help out with some of the language barrier situations I mentioned above. It still took us another half an hour to determine that we had gotten most of what we could (some things were already out of stock) and then I got in line.

The line of the century.

This line stretched to the back of the store, weaving in and out of desperate shoppers and crying children. This line moved one cart-length approximately every 10-15 minutes. This line took us almost 2 hours to get through. Utterly exhausting.

Agustin was so good during the whole thing. He barely complained and remained in good spirits. I was a little more than irked, as you can imagine, but the closer we got to the register, the better I felt, knowing that soon we'd be going home. It got dark, Andres and the baby were sent outside to peer in through a large window at our progress as the store employees, tired and wondering when the stream of people may stop, decided to close the store 2 hours early.

We got home around 7:30 pm. I thought that my four-hour ordeal was nearing its close, but I was soooooo wrong. Next came the part that was really labor-intensive: putting Agustin's name on every notebook, bag, marker, pencil, piece of chalk, etc. And if you think I'm exaggerating...

Let's just say I'm not.

I was up until half past midnight, labelling all of his things in the Ecuadorian way. We had three plastic bags full of his supplies, all labelled (hopefully) correctly and organized for the teacher. We still had some things to get (every school-aged child in the country must be asked to bring cotton balls, because we couldn't find any in any of the pharmacies we went to), but for the most part we were finished. And I was exhausted.















It was going to be a long year...