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Cutting sugar cane is
a difficult job, but collecting it all and ahuling it up the
hill to the mill makes it even more strenuous. Sometimes we
start at 3 a.m., and quit at
1 p.m. Photo provided.
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San Luis has a K-9 school with maybe 180 students. The school supplies
teachers with chalk and chalkboards, desks, and, occasionally, some
books. But that's it.
Each teacher gets an annual budget, for 10 months of school, of about
$100. That pays for any copies or materials they might want, repairs
or improvements on their classrooms, etc. Most of the students are able
to afford some pens and pencils, a ruler, and one or two notebooks.
That is the full extent of supplies and materials available.
It really puts our U.S. educational system in perspective. However
many flaws it may have, it is an amazing blessing for children in the
United States. The education we have available is something that many,
perhaps most, children and parents in developing countries will never
experience.
I am teaching English to the eighth-grade English teacher and her friend,
the kindergarten teacher. I have never taught English before, but I
find myself falling back, with some success, on the very good teaching
in Spanish I had from Bill Cummings at Kingsford (Mich.) High School.
An interesting side development is that because I walk through the
community several days a week with the kindergarten teacher, everyone
is convinced she is my girlfriend. We are a very popular topic of conversation.
Small town gossip thrives in El Salvador.
By the way, she is NOT my girlfriend.
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