Literacy Adventures in Bolivia

In April, I volunteered in the Amazon jungle in Bolivia where I taught a small group of tour guides ESL. The indigionous community, San Miguel, runs a co-operative eco-lodge offfering tours of their community and the jungle. Both the eco-lodge and San Miguel are a forty to forty-five minute boat ride from the nearest town. The next few blogs will descibe some of my adventures teaching English in the jungle to eight learners with interupted formal education. Today's blog descibes the setting I found myself in.

First, I was the sole teacher in the jungle community; there were three other volunteer teachers in the town forty-five minutes downstream whom I visited on weekends.

My supplies were a binder with the curriculum, a few pens, some plastic paper protectors, and some chalk. My classroom was a school room which we used after the regular school day was finished. The school room had a cement floor, a thatched roof and three walls. The third wall was totally open, allowing a fresh breeze to pass through. It also allowed dogs and curious children to pass through as well and they did so regularly.

San Miguel, home to about 75 families, has no electricity. This meant that during the last half hour of our class each day, it was a bit dark and sometimes we had to stand outside in order to glean a bit more light.

On the first day of class, I quickly realized that the wonderful curriculum I'd been given was going to need some modifications:  it was apparent that my eight enthusiastic learners were LIFE (Learners with Interrupted Formal Educaiton). They'd had about five or six years of schooling. So I modified the curriculum and activities as best as I could as I went along and it ended up being a great learning experience for both me and the learners.