teaching

more on the saga of teaching...
the bane of my existence. Today went very well. It helps a lot to prepare lessons i have decided. But can be somewhat hindered when i am not given a book untill five minutes before class. But i had brought in a poem from Paul Lawrence Dunbar. We wear the mask... its one of my favorites. analyzed vocab, then pronunciation excercise. Say it faster and faster! get a rhythm going. I did it for two classes. It is good practice to do it twice. Then discuss its meaning. Then in my second class a game: i wash my ass ... in order that.... i am in paradise. kids are so creative. Games are fun. And a good help. Sometimes i forget learning a language can also be fun.
Saturday, went volunteering in Galan again. and once again the building was occupied by police. They were using our classroom so we didn`t have a white board, or markers, or ... nada. At least all the police were locked up in the room rather than wandering around brandishing their weapons like last time. I was supposed to give an english lessons, but for lack of materials and too large a class just sat with different groups to present the basics.
Elections were yesterday. Samuel Moreno won for mayor of Bogota. (partido del Polo) This was a great success for polo party. (some view polo as communist) with more people voting than ever before and a landslide victory even though the other candidate had support and money from the president.
Problems encountered. In this "democracy" usually not even half the eligible voters vote. Threats from the government, paramilitaries, Farc, are a large factor. Disinterest is probably the biggest. Corruption, lack of real visible changes, etc. create a disallusionment very widespread. But if democracy is winning 23% of the populations consent that you are not quite as bad as the other rich,(white) male... then hey, join the world. Some changes are positive. The mayor of Bogota previously was also part of the Polo party. Bogota spends a lot of money on its public schools now, has been adopting measures to disarm, more freedom of the press, soup kitchens, etc. But at the same time - allocating a few million dollars to improve public schools by the mayor is displaced by congress taking away 35 million dollars from education to go to the military. (these stats are not exact. ballpark are guess - it is actually a larger percentage that has been taken from education to fund the war, but i`ll have to look it up later)
Conclusion: the mayor of bogota is doing good things for the city. relatively powerful compared to a mayor in the estados unidos. Its a long road though for "the oldest democracy in latin america" to be truly representative of its people.