| Week 8 | |
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10/11/01 I have had several requests for information about the kids that I am teaching. I'll start with Philip. Philip is six and a half and is called "Philipino" by most of the people here. It just means Little Philip. He is a pretty cool kid, and it is easy to forget that he is only six. When he occasionally acts like a turd, I have to tell myself, "This is perfectly normal behavior for a six-year-old." He is smart, extremely verbal, and he asks about a million questions a day. Most of them are pretty darn good questions. He cannot read yet, and he has a problem with the fact that he can't read. Because it isn't easy for him, he hates to read. I use up most of my daily ration of patients each morning while we work on reading. I think most of the problem is that he doesn't look at the words. He scans the pictures, sets up the story in his mind and then refuses to deviate from his mental image of what is happening in the story. He will read a whole page and never once even glance at the words on the page. We are making some progress. He has struggled through six stories about a chipmunk, a bird, a bear and a turtle. Reading aside, I very much enjoy working with Philip. I read him Stuart Little last week, and we have just started reading the first Harry Potter book. He is extremely excited about Harry Potter. Philipino has also had a very indulged life. He hasn't outgrown the stage where everything is "mine". This is also the first time that he has had a lot of friends that are his own age, so he is learning to be patient, and to share. I am working very hard to help him understand that not every kid has three houses, lives part of the year in a modern city and part of the year in the jungle, and that not every kid has a pet monkeys, tapirs, exotic birds, etc. Krishna (Kreesh nuh) is seven years old and she is a pistol! She is a natural born singer and actress. More like drama queen! She is pretty and smart, but if things don't go exactly as she has planned, watch out! Krishna can throw a pretty good fit. She is the pilot's step-daughter and her half-brother is Marcos. (He is the little boy the staff calls Demon). Since the fishermen have arrived, Marcos's mom has done a fine job of keeping him out of sight. Naira (Ny- roll the r- uh) is nine and she is beautiful. Her father is the gardener and her mother is the pastry chef. Her father is tall and strong by American standards, and therefore he is a giant by Brazilian standards. Her mother is average. Naira is much taller and healthier than the other kids and she gets teased quite a bit. They call her "Menina Grande" or "Big Girl". She lives on the fruits and vegetables that her dad grows, and her mom sees to it that she eats healthy meals every day. She is strong with beautiful hair, skin and teeth. She is quiet and shy, but she remembers everything you tell her. Anytime she can get me alone, she wants to learn new words in English. She is also a good sport with the other kids and seems to step in to defend other kids who are getting picked on. I like her very much. Three boys are brothers. Vando (Von doh) is 12, Fagner (Fog nuh) is 10 and Rafael (Ha fy el) is 9. Vando has completed the fourth grade and should be in the fifth grade this year. Fifth grade is middle school out here, and we do not have a certified teacher for fifth grade and we don't have any curriculum for the fifth grade. For now, we are only an elementary school. Vando comes to school every day and is darn glad to be there. He is the brightest of the brothers, and it appears that things come easily to him. He parents his younger brothers and is the one to make sure that they stay on track. He is eager to learn, and is picking up English very rapidly. I wish I had more time to work with him. Fagner…man I don't know what to make of Fagner. He's pleasant. He has a lisp. Some days he seems to really catch on, and other days I wonder what planet he is on! I think…I really don't know what to think! Rafael is the baby of the bunch and he is SILLY. He is a giggle box and I never understand what he is laughing about. He just literally cracks himself up! He has a large keloid scar on his chest and it appears that he has had open-heart surgery. Vando told me that his mother was afraid to send him to school and she didn't want to be at home alone without him because she would miss him too much. From what I can get from conversations with the kids, he has gone to school on and off for two years but has not completed the first grade. He is socially and developmentally behind the other kids. He may have ADD, and he may have a learning disability. I can't really tell. There is a huge language barrier to overcome before I would feel comfortable passing judgment. The boys live with their mom and dad in a 10 x 10 room with no running water. Their dad does construction work here and their mom is a dishwasher. Their dad seems to be okay, and he is the one you see with the kids, but there is something weird and wrong with their mom. I've never heard her speak, and she just looks like there is something wrong with her! The kids sometimes talk about their dad, but they never say anything about their mom. They can eat in the employee kitchen, but they rarely do. Basically, meals are served at 5:30, 11:00, and 5:00. If you miss the meal, then you miss the meal. I don't think that their parents make a real effort to get the boys to the kitchen for meals. As a result, we feed the kids breakfast, a snack, and lunch every weekday. They usually go home with Philipino after school because there is always another snack there. For the most part, all of the kids will eat what ever you put in front of them, and they will eat until you would think a normal kid would explode. They are eating the most nutritious meals of their lives. Normal meals for natives out here are almost always river fish, rice, and farina (a cornmeal type stuff). That is a normal breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Food in the employee kitchen is somewhat better than that with pasta, chicken, and food from the garden. Ruth has been giving the kids medicine for worms. If they have worms, it will kill them, and it protects them for six months. It would be nice if we had kids vitamins to give them. I will talk to Dr. Gibson about ordering some. There is also one new boy named Pedro. He is 5 ˝ and his mother was just hired on to handle personnel. She is pretty high on the pecking order around here. She is staying in Phil and Ruth's cabin, and she takes her meals in the dining room, not in the employee kitchen. Pedro can't possibly weigh more than 25-30 pounds. I have never seen such a skinny child in all my life. He doesn't particularly care to eat, and he is HYPER so he runs off every calorie he consumes. He is extremely immature and likes to hit and kick. But he is very, very smart. He knows quite a bit of English and can read and write in Portuguese. He doesn't like it when he doesn't know an answer, and he bangs himself on the head with his hands or anything else he can get a hold of. I am about done with Pedro's mom. She drops Pedro off about 15 to 20 minutes after the other kids come to breakfast every morning and expects me to serve him. She fixes her own plate, but doesn't fix his. She tells me what he will eat and waits for me to fix it. Even though I have already served the other kids and I am usually eating breakfast myself. Then she jumps my ass when he doesn't eat enough and gets pissed when I excuse the other kids from breakfast before he is finished. (Well, the other kids have already been sitting at the table for 30 or 40 minutes). She has also told me that I need to teach two extra adult English classes because not everyone can come to the classes that I have set up. I told her that I am with the kids from 7:00 in the morning until 3:00 I teach one adult class from 4:00-5:00 and the guides from 6:30-7:30. I asked her "How many hours a day would you like me to work?" I suppose that she thinks that since she is over personnel that she can re-arrange my schedule, as she likes. I'm not entirely thrilled with the pushy nature of Pedro's mom. I'm the one who is supposed to be pushy…not the other way around! We have moved into our little apartment. I don't know how much I have described our little apartment but here I go again. It has a beautiful wood ceiling, a nice air conditioner that will freeze your toes off, and we now have a TV with satellite. We are living out of suitcases with stuff all over the floor, but tomorrow we should have an armoire. We have our own bathroom, but a trip to the john can easily turn into an adventure. It is under a big roof, so it doesn't rain in, but it is does not have a ceiling and is open to the outside air. You always have to look in the toilet before you sit down because you never know what might be on the seat or swimming in the bowl. The toilet is also prone to clogs. So you have to mercy flush when you have a large deposit or when you use more than just a bit of toilet paper. The shower has a great showerhead and good water pressure. It also has all the cold water you can stand to bathe in. I always let Scott shower first. I mean what is he going to do? Use up all the hot water? We laugh about bathing one limb in the water at a time, and about the dreaded moment when you have to step all the way in to rinse! It is equivalent to getting socked in the stomach. Hoo-yah! The fishermen that are here this week are mostly from Texas and have been a very pleasant group of guys. They seem to be genuinely enjoying each other's company and enjoying the fishing. They will be leaving Saturday and the next group will come in about two hours after they leave. There have been quite a few cancellations during the month of October, so the guys that were scheduled to be on the Amazon Queen this week will be brought in to the Lodge. It doesn't make sense to run two expensive operations without enough people to completely fill one or the other. I think there will be about 16 people here. We don't seem to have any trouble receiving any mail, and the fishermen who are returning back to the states seem more than willing to drop a letter in the mail for us. So, feel free to write as often as you wish! |