19 year old Ellie came from England to learn Spanish and teach in a local indigenous community. Follow her adventures in her monthly journal,  ‘Diary of Ellie Kilpatrick’.

Monday Week One

My teacher and I have had some very funny conversations when I say things wrong. For example the word for orange and spider are very similar and I said I was scared of oranges. He said that is very strange. So I said it’s actually very common. So he said I was crazy. I later realised what I had said! I also told him my dad has black skin instead of hair and have only realised my mistake today after him thinking for 3 days that my dad is black! Also I said my mum thinks our dog is a baby. So he said that my mum should see a phychiatrist because a dog and a baby are very different!!! I'm sure the children will find my mistakes very amusing!!!

 

Monday Week Three

Just finished my first day teaching! I have the year fours (so about 8-9 years old). They are really sweet and I only have 5 in my class. 2 boys and 3 girls. They are a little bit hyperactive but they work really fast so I ran out of sums so I just had to play with them outside! I am teaching them Spanish tomorrow- which will be really hard as they are a lot better than me. It’s a half an hour walk up, into the mountains to the school - hard work!
They also decided I was the princess of England so covered me in flowers!

Thursday Week Two

They are so cute and I love that the biggest competition is who gets to walk me home, holding my hand. They dressed me up as a bride on the walk home today by putting my coat on my head and giving me a bunch of flowers and then wetting themselves with laughter cos Benn (the boss of the project) is my husband! Tomorrow is geography so I am going to teach them about the equator and the different continents. In the afternoon we will make binoculars out of used toilet rolls! There are 36 in the school from 4-13.

Wednesday Week Three

My camera is broken! It rained all day yesterday and Igot completely soaked and it went through my bag into my camera. I am so fit now. After my 45 min bus journey, I then have to walk up a mountain for half an hour, carrying the rice and veg for the kids lunch and also a little kid on my shoulders and many others hanging of my bag. I nearly died the first day but I can nearly do it without resting now! Did a treasure hunttoday and taught them about the map of the world. They had never seen a map of the world before. They couldn’t believe Ecuador was so small- they thought Africa was Ecuador.

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