Lessons from the children

This past month, my job has consisted of playing hide and seek, making colorful crafts, singing Itsy Bitsy Spider and using flash cards to teach words such as butterfly and pencil case to four adorable children. Well, adorable when they're not arguing, being mischievous or hugging me with muddy hands anyway. After five weeks of summer camp, the kids have certainly improved their English but at the same time, they have taught me a great deal. Other than the obvious lessons, like living in the moment and being brutally honest, here are some of the things I learned from the kids this summer: 

How to do a handstand 

Well, sort of. In the break, the kids would always run out into the garden yelling: Teacher, teacher - let's gooo! while cartwheeling down the hill. At the bottom they would pick up the hula hoops and continue their circus tricks. I've never been able to do a cartwheel or spin a hula hoop in my life but I have been working on handstands in my yoga practice so after an initial attempt to escape, I gave in and joined the kids on the grass. The idea of peacefully sipping a cup of tea while watching them play had disappeared on the first day anyway. 

At first, I was terrible. I was told to go and practice against a wall because my knees were too bent. Then, once I got that down, there was still the small matter of trying to land on my feet. The kids would slowly shake their little heads in disbelief while watching me repeatedly fall over. Teacher - you need practice, the oldest girl proclaimed with a solemn look on her face. She was absolutely right but then again, practice does make perfect. I'm proud to announce that on the last day I managed to do both a cartwheel and a handstand and I was even able to spin the hula hoop around a couple of times. Okay, so it wasn't perfect but at least the kids cheered and clapped and for some reason, looking at the world upside down makes me happy.

How to negotiate

A completed worksheet is rewarded with a small sticker. Five small stickers earns you one big sticker and if you collect five big ones, you'll receive a present at the end of the week. Not hitting your classmates and and helping to clean up means you've deserved a candy that day. Finishing the educational games with a perfect score gives you the right to play a computer game of your choice for five minutes. A promise of good behaviour can extend the break with ten minutes. Everything is negotiable. Everything is a choice.

How to win someone over with your smile

An Ecuadorian friend told me once that if I smile at him, he'll do anything I want and that's how I feel about the kids. That must be why they are so good at negotiating. Apparently, crawling up into my arms and giving me a sweet (albeit toothless) smile is how you can obtain anything from stickers to candy to longer breaks. It's also a good way to secure a permanent spot in my teacher heart.

Curious to try out this seemingly effective technique, I decided to beam brightly at the slow-moving Ecuadorians who have been working on my terrace for ages now. Their job was supposed to be finished months ago but every week a new "obstacle" seemed to appear. Now, I didn't go anywhere near their dusty arms but a simple smile turned out to be enough. Two days later I came home to find that all the tiles had been laid out and this morning I was finally able to roll out my mat and do sun salutations outside. Result!

How to not be afraid of showing affection

The youngest girl in the group jumped onto my lap already on the first day. She couldn't remember my name but she obviously had no fear whatsoever of being rejected. Every day she'd skip down the stairs two steps at a time while holding my hand and trusting that I wouldn't let her fall. The other kids took a little longer to warm up but soon enough they all started fighting over who would get to sit next to me during story time and they were also constantly hugging me and asking me to braid their hair or give them piggyback rides.

Even though I'm quite happy to go back to teaching adults next week (my back is killing me), I'm going to miss the kids and their precious smiles. We can learn so much from their fearless attitude. As adults, sometimes we don't even try because we're afraid of failure. Or perhaps there's an even greater fear that some day, we might succeed. Because when we do, we have to ask ourselves the following question: If I can accomplish this, then what's stopping me from getting what I really want? There are no more excuses. What's the worst that can happen anyway?

Shaking hips on shaky grounds

I've been thinking about reality versus social media this week. What's really behind all the colorful Instagram-pictures and cheerful status updates? In fact, most of the time our social media image is probably quite far from who we truly are. My truth is that whenever I manage to get away from school for an hour or two, I go for a hike or stroll into town and take lots of pictures that I later publish throughout the week. This is not meant to create an illusion of some kind of sunny life spent on beaches, it is simply because right now my reality consists of in-put sessions, lesson planning, teaching, written tasks and not much else. We often work for about 10 hours a day and spend our weekends writing assignments that are due Monday morning at 9 a.m.

As I've mentioned before, the Celta course is extremely intense and requires a lot of hard work but what I've come to realize is that I honestly love every minute of it. I'd be lying if I said that I jump out of bed with excitement every morning but the truth is that I don't want to crawl back under the covers and sleep for another month either, which was often the case back home. Here, I wake up knowing there's a delicious breakfast waiting for me and that I get to share the rest of my day with wonderful people. And I never, ever get bored during the day, there's just so much to learn and take in. 

That being said, I'm always happy to escape the Celta world occasionally so this Saturday we decided to go dancing. We started off with a round of cocktails and then entered the Montañita madness that this place turns into on the weekends. The clubs are full of people dancing their hearts out, shaking their hips, kissing, singing, laughing, drinking and including everyone in a Macarena choreography or a bunny hop tour around the dance floor. Their joie de vivre is totally contagious and we ended up staying out the whole night making new friends and forgetting all about our assignments.

Sunday night, a yin yoga class at Estudio Casa del Sol seemed like the perfect way to end the week. The class takes place in a room full of people but even so it's all about you, yourself and your mat. There are candle lights, essential oils and words of wisdom. Deep stretches for the body and long moments of silence for the mind. A chance to listen to that inner voice and try to understand what it's trying to say. Where does it want you to go? What does it want you to do? And most importantly, who does it want you to be?

Edit: I had just finished this text and was going to switch off my computer and go to bed when, suddenly, the ground started shaking. The night guard came running, telling all of us to get out of our cabanas immediately and gather outside by the pool. Apparently, another earth quake was happening in Esmeraldas, relatively far from Montañita. We are fine and after about half an hour or so we were allowed to go back in. As I'm writing this I can still feel the earth moving beneath me and it's a little scary, kind of like being out on a boat in stormy weather. But I will turn off my light now and trust that the peaceful feeling I had after yoga class will come back and help me fall asleep.

Everything will be alright.