LiTeRaCy CaMpAiGn... an unforgettable experience

Well, this year all the fifth courses had to participate in the program to help the people who didn’t finish the school or the high school, this program is called “Programa de Educación Básica para Jóvenes y Adultos”. This experience was amazing, although we had to do this on Saturdays’ afternoons. First of all, we had a training with the students of sixth courses; this training lasted two days, but it was funny, because we did some activities that we used to do when we were little children. Later, we had to look for people who wanted to enter this program organized by the government; it was difficult but with effort and with our parents’ help, each student got 3 people. The great day came, and on October 18th, we had our first day teaching people. At first, we didn’t know how to do this, but thanks to our teacher Jorge Campaña, we developed correctly the activities that we had to do. Unfortunately, this was a rainy day and not many people came. We did well the first day.
We were already separated in different groups. The first one had to help children to do their homework, the other one had to take care of the babies, and the rest of the groups had to teach the people who were registered in this program. The first Friday, we took the tests to the people who were there, and having had the results, this people were distributed in different modules. The first module was for the people who didn’t know how to write or read; the second the third and the fourth ones were for the people who didn’t finish the school. So, one week later, we started teaching the people, while the students of sixth courses prepared the materials for us. All the weeks we had to give a planning sheet in order to get a better organization and to prepare the class one or two days before. I was in the group that had to help children with their homework; Pame Romero, Montserrat Rosales, Sopi Rosero, Vero Salazar, Luis Santamaría, Mariale Vallejo, Francisco Yánez and Alvarito Zambrano were also in my group. At first it was stressful because children made a lot of noise and we had to control them, but with the time I got used to it. There were nine people in my group, and each one of us had to help two or three children. Unfortunately, we had to give one planning sheet per each child. It was a hard work.
We also organized programs in some special occasions, for example, in Christmas Day, we sang some carols and the people participated in different contests. In Saint Valentine’s Day, Dany Arteaga sang, Pao Carrera danced and we gave them flowers and some chocolates made by us. But after we came back from vacations, many people didn’t come, and one of them was my student. I had some problems with her, because she wanted me to pay her five dollars to go to this program; I wasn’t going to do that, so she didn’t come anymore.

Some months later, we had to change the groups, so my group this time went to teach people in Module 3. The people here are amazing, because they always want to learn new things, specially one man, Benito, who is in his sixties but he is always participating and studying for the tests, I think he is the best student in our module. We had to teach Grammar, Math, Natural Science, Social Science and English, so two people gave one subject while the others helped our students.
For the Teacher’s Day, our students called us to a small meeting, and here they thanked us for helping them and they gave us some cake and soda. It was impressive that I was almost going to cry. And four Saturdays before we were going to finish with this arduous work, the teacher Jorge Campaña gave us some information to do the final report; it was a long task so we did it during two weeks. We gave the first draft on May 6th. After this, we did a small program in order to celebrate Mother's Day and the people did enjoy it.
During the next week, the teacher Jorge Campaña checked our reports. On May 16th we had our last day of this hard work, so we told our students to be on time on May 30th in order to give them their certificates. Finally, we gave the last draft of our reports and this comming saturday we will be having a small program, and with this, we will be closing this Literacy Campaign.

This was a satisfactory experience, because we helped people to finish the school, and also, to make their dreams come true. They were very grateful with us when we finished with this work. In my opinion, I learned many things during these months: I learned more about the different cultures in our country, and the best one is that I made new friends, not only with the adults, also with the children, because now when they see me they say ‘Hey! Hello Gaby!’ and I feel happy with this. So I want to thank my parents for helping me with this hard task, my friends for those special moments during these months, our teachers for helping us to do the right work, and specially to our students, because without them we wouldn’t have experienced this.

Nightmare Hall: The Whisperer (2nd part)

…. Shea hung up the phone; she couldn’t believe what was happening. Her friends noticed that she was worried about something, but she denied it, she said that she was only tired and needed some rest. That night, she had to study for the exam with the copy of it; her room would be empty because her roommate was going to a party. The next day in the classroom, all the students were nervous, especially Shea. When Dr. Stark entered the classroom, she said that there was one reason to leave the office opened where the test was. In that moment, Shea was confused. Dr. Stark continued talking and said that she put a camera on the room; and that after the test she would see that videotape. Shea knew that if Dr. Stark saw that video, she would be in trouble for a long time.
After taking the exam, Shea was feeling bad. She decided to tell Dr. Stark everything, so she went to her office to talk to her. When she arrived there, the door was opened, and Dr. Stark was on the floor, lying unconscious and bleeding. And the paperweight (where Shea left some blood spots) wasn’t there. Immediately, Shea called the emergency services but she didn’t give them her name. After a few minutes, some people arrived and took Mathilde Stark to the hospital. When Shea went to her room, she noticed that Tandy wasn´t there, and some seconds later, the telephone started ringing. It was the whisperer again, and he told her that he had taken the video and the paperweight. The whisperer also said that he would give her the video but she had to wait for a note in her mailbox.
For some days, Shea was impatient, and one day, there was a white notebook paper in her mailbox that was from the whispered. In the letter he said that he would meet her at the woods behind Nightmare Hall. Shea was scared, but she decided to go there. That night, she went at midnight to the place where the whisperer told her to be. She could hear his voice, but she couldn’t see him. He just explained what Shea had to do in order to get that videotape. It was a horrible thing what Shea had to do: she had to go to the lab where one of her friends worked, take a snake named Mariah, put it on a bag, take it to the room 620 and leave it inside the room!! Shea couldn’t imagine what was happening, but she had to do it if she wanted to get that videotape. So the next night she figured out the entire plan. But when she was leaving the building, she heard a scream coming from room 620 and everyone woke up. One of the girls who slept in that room, Bethany, had heart problems and had to be taken to the hospital. Shea helped there and then returned to her room. When she entered, the whisperer called her, but she was so mad that she hung up the phone. Some days later, Shea received a bag that contained something rectangular. She thought that it would be the videotape and when she opened it, she saw it. It was finally on her hands! That afternoon she went to see the video, but when she played it, she could only watch a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Shea couldn’t believe that. All what she had done for nothing?
Suddenly, she heard a voice, it was the whisperer. He was really mad and that was the reason of changing the videos. But he told Shea to do another thing so she could get the video, but this time it was a worse thing: she had to cut Tandy’s hair! She couldn’t do that. He told her that he had to go, but she had to do that in order to get the correct videotape. That night she went back to her room and saw Tandy sleeping.
Next day, Shea woke up and saw something strange: Tandy’s hair was on the floor. She didn’t know what to do, and when Tandy woke up, she screamed and then Dinah appeared. Tandy explained what had happened to her. Fortunately, Dinah could help her to have a nice hairstyle. That afternoon, while Shea was walking, someone took her neck with his hands, it was the whisperer, he told her that if she wanted the videotape, she had to look for it, and then he put something on her bag and left her. Shea looked into her bag and saw a cassette; she went to listen to it, and it said that she had to look for the videotape at Nightmare Hall. There was going to be a party there, so she could search it that night.
The night of the party, Shea visited every part of the house, and finally, she found the cassette inside a VCR and put it into her bag. After they left the party, Shea was very anxious and went to a room in the library to watch the videotape, but when she played it, she noticed that it was not her. “It’s me, I see you found it”, said Dinah. Shea was confused and Dinah explained her that she also took a copy of the exam and that she also wanted the videotape. She thought that Sid was the person who hurt Dr. Stark, but it wasn’t him, because after a few minutes they heard a voice, it was the whisperer! Shea went up to turn on the lights and when she did it, she discovered that the whisperer was Dr. Stark. Shea and Dinah were scared, because Dr. Stark started shouting and complaining about the students who cheat in the exams. She also explained them how she planned all this and how she could do what she did. Dr. Stark wanted to hurt Shea, but fortunately, the police arrived and took her to prison.
Things got back to normal, Dinah and Shea felt better, and they continued going out with her friends.


Comments on the ending:

In my opinion, this ending was perfect for this story, because at first I couldn’t imagine that the teacher would be the whisperer and it keeps you in suspense until the end of the story. I wouldn’t change this ending, because if I changed it, it would not have any sense and if I put another character as the whisperer, it would be obvious. But I would add something else, which can leave the reader in more suspense:

Things apparently got back to normal, Dinah and Shea felt better, and they continued going out with her friends. Their lives were ok, but one day, Shea entered her room and the telephone started ringing. The memories of the past situation that she lived came back to her mind. She started shouting and saying “No, please not again!”
Her friends went to see what was happening and tried to calm her down, but they couldn’t. She started trembling so they took her to the hospital. One night, Shea alone in a room, she heard a voice and then she saw Dr. Stark’s face, so she ran away but the doctors could stop her and said that Dr. Stark was in prison. That was the day when the doctors realized that Shea was out of her mind, and it was caused after the moment that she lived that horrible situation.
Shea was taken to a mental hospital; her friends visited her every day. Unfortunately, with the constant nightmares that she had, she decided to kill herself, but nobody knew how she died.

Nightmare Hall: The Whisperer

The author of this amazing book is Diane Hoh. She grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania. Since then, she has lived in New York, Colorado, and North Carolina, before settling in Austin, Texas. “Reading and writing take up most of my life,” says Hoh, “along with family, music and gardening.” Her other horror novels include Funhouse, The Accident, The Fever, and The Train.
“Writing tales of horror makes it hard to convince people that I’m nice, gentle person, ” says Diane Hoh.

Well, I decided to read this book because I love horror stories and when I saw the paperback of this book and the title, I said “This book is for me,” it took me about 2 hours to choose the book I was going to read, and when I finally found it I was happy. After taking a look to the paperback, I started reading the synopsis of the story. It left me in suspense and I wanted to know what happened and how the story would finish; these are the reasons of choosing this book.
The suspense makes this book interesting, because when you start reading it, every chapter leaves you in suspense, and you want to know what’s going to happen, so you continue reading and the time passes and you don’t mind about it. You just get into the story as if you were the main character and if you were doing and feeling the same things as him or her.
The main characters of this suspense and horror story are:
- Shea Fallon: a girl that is a good student in the university who has many friends, but things will change for her.
- Dr. Mathilde Stark: the Bio teacher, she is strict and she doesn’t have many friends.
- Dinah: Shea’s best friend. She is with a guy that is very possessive.
- Tandy: Shea’s roommate, she has beautiful blond hair, she is so vain.

This story is about a girl whose name is Shea Fallon. She did something wrong some time ago and she can’t tell anyone about this; she’s sure that nobody will know what she did, until someone calls and tells her in a whispered voice that nobody will know what she’s done.
Shea Fallon is a girl who studies in Salem University, and whose best friend is Dinah, both of them are talking with their friends, when suddenly one of them says something related to an exam and Shea remembers that unforgettable afternoon. She was worried about the most important exam that she had to take in Biology class; she didn’t want to fail so she decided to do the worst thing that anyone could imagine that she would do: take a copy of the exam. That afternoon, alone in Dr. Stark’s office, she was searching the exam, and when she finally found it, she took one copy with the machine that was next to her. She couldn’t imagine what she was doing. She looked at every part of the office, and she got out of it. No one had seen her and that was good for Shea. She put away the copy and she went to her room. Fortunately, her roommate Tandy wasn’t in the room so she could answer the exam with calm. The next day, everyone was having lunch, when suddenly a telephone started ringing. Shea answered it, and someone, with a whispering voice, said “You don’t have to worry. No one will know what you’ve done. I’ve seen to that.” Shea was scared because she couldn’t recognize the voice, and then, that person put down the phone. The person that called her only whispered, but how could somebody know what she’d done, if that afternoon no one was next to her? Could that be possible?... To be continued...

This book is amazing, because the suspense and the horror are in every chapter of this story. This book made me get into the story and as I read it I could imagine that I was doing and living everything that happened there. This is the kind of book that I like to read, because you want to know what is going to happen, and I couldn’t stop reading it. I personally recommend this book to the people who love horror and suspense stories, because as you read it, you will feel the main character of the story, and you will also focus on every part of it.

A new and a wonderful experience in my life: Lupinus trip

Well, all this adventure started when we investigated about chocho. At first, I didn’t know that chocho had other names, like lupinus, tarwi, altramuz or tauri; and while I was searching for information, I also found that chocho flower has different colors like pink, yellow or purple, and that it’s seeds can have different forms. Something that amazed me was the chocho’s disease, which name is Antragnosis. I also knew that Incas ate it a lot in the past, and that it can be used in many recipes.

After doing this, we discussed in the class about this product that has many benefits for us, because it has proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, iron and vitamins. Each student put a characteristic of lupinus on the board, and we could learn more characteristics about chocho, the ones which we didn’t find.

Having all the theory in mind, we continued with the third part of the project, which consisted of creating something amazing with lupinus. In this activity we used lupinus with Antragnosis and lupinus which were in a good condition. We knew that lupinus with the disease could be used to create wonderful things, even though it can’t be eaten by us. So, we started to create something amazing; but the previous day, Pame and me didn’t know what to do. In the afternoon Pame told me that we could create a doll with a chocho’s cob, and I agreed with that because it was an original idea. So, in class we pasted all the lupinus that were in a good condition on the cob, and for the nose we pasted one seed of lupinus with Antragnosis; for the skirt we pasted on the leaves of the cob some brilliant figures and for the eyes and the mouth we used a pink glue. We also put on the doll a ‘scarf’, which was actually a ribbon. Everyone liked our project and they said that it was beautiful and amazing. All the students created beautiful wonders as you can see in the pictures. There were bottles, dolls, an angel and also a notebook.

The final part of the project was to cook a dish with lupinus, so the first Monday of December we did this. Chemistry people and Socials got together in the lab, and we started to cook. Everyone was doing something: some were cutting tomatoes; others were squeezing out lemons and oranges. In my group were working Pame, Dany and me, ande we decided to prepare ceviche of lupinus. We used oranges, lemon, tomato, tuna fish, pearl onion, salt, pepper, ketchup, pop corn, ‘tostado’ and obviously chocho. We had a fun time that day. And finally, each group tried all the dishes that were prepared, and obviously ALL OF THEM WERE DELICIOUS!! But in my opinion, our recipe was the best because it included many things and it had a great taste.

In conclusion, in this project I learned many things, for example the uses of chocho, its benefits, the history of it, how it is also known, and more things. But I also learned how to work in a group, how to search information, and also how to cook and create a different recipe. So I thank you Monica for giving us this project to do. It was an amazing experience, because we shared a great time with our friends and also with our teachers.

San Luis Shopping, a simple place but I always have fun there

One of the places I like the most is San Luis Shopping. This place is well known in Quito and is located in Los Chillos Valley. Many people go there to watch a movie, to eat something or just to get together to talk about what they have done. But the reason that I like this place is because I have fun with my friends every time I go there. For example, one day I went to San Luis Shopping with Pame, Cami and some friends more. We got together in front of Megamaxi, but Pame was late, so until she came we decided to go shopping, and when we went upstairs, we saw two men acting like if they were ‘cavemen’. Cami was so scared and also my other friends. Suddenly, one of those men came and started to bother us, but it was funny because even my friends were scared, they started laughing. Then Pame arrived, and we went to buy some candies. They were delicious and we took many pictures with them, we love doing this. Finally, Cami went home with her mom and we stayed in San Luis Shopping three more hours with one friend that arrived later. We were laughing and laughing.

I also have more wonderful experiences in this amazing place, like meeting new people or joking and bothering others like a friend that I have in Movistar, because my friends and I bother him every time we go to San Luis, but he also bothers us so we laugh and we also help him in his business. But the most important experience for me is when I met my boyfriend, because the first time I saw him was in this shopping centre. San Luis Shopping has many places, ones for eating, others for buying clothes, and others where people, especially young people, get together on Fridays and Saturdays.

An amazing trip to the Amazon region

Well, another place I like the most is Puyo city. I went there when I was 13 years old, and it was an unforgettable trip. Everything started when my family and me went to Ambato to visit my grandparents, and when we arrived, my cousin told us about the Amazon region, so we decided to go there. We got our backpacks and we got into the car. Before we arrived to a hotel in Puyo city, we had travelled 3 hours and we were really tired. The hotel was really nice, and at night we went to see the city. We ate some ice-cream and we walked along the streets watching and learning more about this culture. Some minutes later, we returned to the hotel.
Next day, we saw a little monkey in the restaurant, and it was really funny because he jumped from one table to another. Having breakfast, we decided to go to the zoo that was located some kilometres before Tena city. When we arrived, two German people attended us, and they showed us all the animals that lived in the Amazon region, like monkeys, the “danta”, big and small snakes, parrots, and a large diversity of butterflies. Having visited this amazing zoo, we travelled to Archidona, a small town before Tena city. Some people told us to visit the “Archidona Caves”, and when we got there, we put our bathing suits on and entered into the caves. It was really nice, but at the same time I was afraid because I thought I was going to fall down. We were able to see some bats and a small cascade in the cave; we also had to swim through a small lake to continue with the trip. After some hours, we got out of the cave, we ate some fruits and we continued with our adventure. Then, we went to a big lake and an old man drove the boat while he was explaining us about Archidona. We could see some vultures eating dead animals in an isolated part of a small island in the centre of the lake, and when we got back to the car we ate some meat and potatoes. That afternoon we returned to Ambato to tell my family about the great adventure we had in just 2 days!
It was an amazing and unforgettable experience because we learned new things about the people in the Amazon region, we saw animals that I had never seen in my life, and also we made new friends, like the German people and the old man that helped us driving the boat. We also had a really good time with my sister and my cousin, because while my dad was driving the car, we said hello to the people in Tena and Puyo cities.