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Wednesday was a crazy full day. The
Manos de Amor place hadn’t had a computer teacher for a while, so I
asked if they had internet, and when they said yes, thought we might
show them Khan Academy and their computer courses. This way they
could teach themselves. Imagine if all these kids started doing the
hour of code challenge? Now that the internet is accessible in so
many places around the world, it can be such a powerful tool for
education, and pulling people out of cycles of poverty. Khan academy
being free, and so comprehensive is an especially valuable tool. You
could seriously teach yourself electrical engineering or linear
algebra or yes, java script or C++. Can you imagine how that could
change someone’s employment prospects? I was hoping to help. As
with all grandiose dreams, the nitty gritty is sometimes less
glorious.
Our internet has been next to nonexistent this week, so Jeff was going in to work at the real estate office of our condo manager. So nice of her to let him use their office. It has been a crucial week for his company, as thoroughly inconvenient as that is for us. Jeff drove us into Puerto Vallarta, and we took a bus the rest of the way to Bucerias. That went without a hitch. We then walked the kilometer or so to the orphanage from the bus stop, only getting lost once. Sigh.
I showed up and the computers in their
little room were literally all in pieces. The cables were tangled,
processors piled in stacks, and everything was very dusty. I am not a
hardware girl either. I don’t know what things are sometimes. I
only recognized one PC to start with, the others I thought might be
game consoles? Routers? I figured it out eventually, and got four
computers completed and online ready to go. I was filthy though by
the end!
The director came in and talked with me
a bit, and we decided it would make the most sense for her to
understand how to use the site, and then she could share with the
kids. We had one little girl come in for a minute while we were
talking, and she ran over and started pushing buttons as fast as she
could before I could get to her. There didn’t seem to be a lot of
experience there with computer etiquette! She was little though
.
The keyboards are re-keyed to make them
work with Spanish, and it took us forever to figure out how to get
her logged on. For example, the @ symbol? Not where it says it is on
the keyboard. You have to just keep guessing with different keys
until it shows up. One more thing that will be a problem with
programming. The / symbol too –not where it should be. Neither is
the _ symbol. Anyway, my glorious dreams of creating orphan
programmers may have been a little ambitious haha. But once you
figure out where everything is, you are probably fine, it {could}
work.
We were also thinking math, science,
etc. If the schools here don’t offer advanced math, or if the
director and her helpers can’t help very knowledgeably with homework
(I know I have gotten stuck trying to help Ari myself), this can help
everybody. The director seemed really interested in this. The whole
site is in Spanish down here, and the videos are in Spanish and
everything. I was really impressed.
Kai was able to share his DS with the boys --who loved it.
Ari and Kai were going to teach the
kids about the website, since they use it every day this summer, and
all the time during the school year, but they ended up playing with
the kids –Kai sharing his DS, and Ari playing ball in the yard.
Ari again was all about the soccer.
I had a little peluquera (hairdresser) there for me.
We walked back to the bus stop, and I
got a text from Jeff saying he was able to figure out a huge problem
at work, and was able to meet us. The kids and I found some late
lunch, and waited for him. This reminded me so much of the mission!
We are walking along dusty streets with our backpacks, looking for a
little almacen to get a drink or a snack, trying to meet a bus, or
find a member’s house. Good practice for my kids I guess!
Our friends told us that all the
theaters had bargain days on Wednesdays, and the tickets were only 30
pesos or so. This is around two bucks. Seriously. First run movie
theaters (I think? I am not up on movies, but they all seemed pretty
new to me), movies are in English if you pick those showings, (with
Spanish subtitles). Getting us all in, and getting a big tub of
popcorn to share put us back like $11.00 total. We saw the new
spiderman!
This whole mall was lush. Everything
looked just like the states to me, if not nicer. I guess it is super
close to where the cruise ships dock so…
We headed towards the south end of
town, and stopped for dinner in this little place in the hotel zone
that looked liked nothing much. It was called Blake’s sport bar. We
sat down, and while we were waiting to order, I noticed seven
stickers in the door from Tripadvisor. This place had been talked
about! We lucked out. We all loved our food. I got a chicken
parmesan, subbing out the pasta for what they said would be a salad
of baby lettuces. I didn’t have much hope for that part being good,
but I needed vegetables badly at this point. The chicken was
delicious, but the salad was perfectly crisp lettuces, with a
housemade orange dressing that I could have licked the plate for. The
garlic bread on the side was made with fresh garlic. Jeff got another
kind of salad that I tasted and was delicious, and we all tried Kai’s
nachos, with a guacamole that was housemade with fresh lime. Oh my
goodness me. Ari got an Italian club sandwich that she ate every bite
of, even when she couldn’t eat her fries she was so full. When a
kid leaves fries for a sandwich, the sandwich is probably good.
We drove home full and happy, watching
the sunset through the trees most of the way.
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