Welcome New Teachers!

Today was MERSD's New Teacher Induction Day.  This is  one of my favorite days of the year.   As a Superintendent, this is the equivalent to meeting a new class at the beginning of the year.  Hosted by Scott Morrison, Director of Curriculum & Technology, it is the day we invite all new faculty to spend the morning getting to know the district better.  We introduce them to the full-year staff, share with them the district mission and vision, and provide them an overview of our expectations for teaching and learning.  I have been incredibly impressed with the level of professionalism and student-centeredness that our new members have exhibited, and I am certain they will make our team stronger.   

College Boot Camp Draws Sixty Students!

Sixty students from the class of 2013 took a break from summer fun and signed into Boot Camp.  Hosted by the MERHS Guidance department, Senior Boot Camp is a three day seminar designed to help students get a jump on the college admissions process.  During the three day session students work individually and in small groups to complete the Common Application.  Additionally, in preparation for the school year, students will…

• Brainstorm and outline their admissions essays

• Develop a vertical list of potential colleges

• Complete student resumes

• Generate teacher recommendation requests

• Link Naviance accounts to the common application

Naviance is a software program available to all Manchester Essex high school students that that facilitates college and career goal setting and planning.  View video to learn more!

Given the popularity of early admissions options, this is a great opportunity for students to work with their counselors and get organized before the start of school.

Sketchy, Surprising, and Significant Stories from Latin America

I’ve been back in the U.S. for about a week, meaning I’ve had a decent amount of time to reflect on my experiences in LatinAmerica. I’ve compiled these reflections into 5 different sketchy, surprising, and significant stories/lessons. Friends, this blog is going to be fun.

The Top 5 Sketchy Moments

An important disclaimer: moments is a word picked very deliberately. Most of these only seemed really bad for a split second or two, and everything turned out alright (just as it does almost 100% of the time in Central and South America).

A similarly situation happening in India.

1. Woah there, maybe not throw giant rocks and broken glass in the road? We needed to take a day bus from Lake Titicaca to Arequipa, but one bus company had cancelled their route, citing “protests.” Not knowing exactly what that meant, we booked an alternative ticket and headed out. Well, “protests” basically meant that underpaid and disgruntled teachers had been hurling stones and broken glass in the main road all morning to make their voices heard. At one point, the crowd reached within a few feet of our bus, throwing stones and breaking glass as they advanced. Honestly, they seemed like mostly nice people, but I was still relieved when we escaped down some dirt back roads.
2. Oh hey Mr. Policeman, why are you driving away with our passports? While taking a taxi across the border from Peru into Ecuador, we were stopped by a couple of policemen who wanted to check the validity of our passports. Umm… ok. Next thing we knew, they want to “bring them back to the station” for further review. Umm, definitely not cool. Luckily our taxi driver worked some magic, and a $4 payment later we had then back in hand.  Crisis avoided.
3. A day of stings, electrocution, and hospital visits: Worst attempt to relax at the beach of all time. 11:00am I get spiked by a small sting ray and have two hours of the worst pain of my life. By the evening things are much better, just in time for a friend of mine to get electrocuted in the shower and an hour later go to the hospital with excruciating kidney stones.  To make a long story short, we were all ok.
4. That was a fun fall down a vertical ice face: Trying to climb a 21,000 foot mountain without safety ice axe training? In hindsight, it’s probably not the best idea. This was especially clear at 19,000 feet, where a completely exhausted and slightly delirious version of myself fell 20 feet down an ice face at 4:30 in the morning. I was roped in and probably quite safe, but those thoughts don’t cross your mind on the way down. 
5. Next time, let’s not breakdown at 2:00am: We loved this bus company. A cheap ticket, a stewardess who loved to help us practice speaking Spanish, and awful American 80’s movies. What’s not to love? And then we broke down on a random Peruvian coastal road at 2:00am. Right away, about 75% of the passengers bailed out and hopped on other passing busses. Luckily, we found the last three open spots on the company’s next bus an hour later. No worries, right?

Top 5 Surprising Lessons

Every now and then things jump up and really shock you. Now most of these are basic facts for the people of Central and South America, but came as a surprises to me in my formerly more naïve state.  

So it wasn't quite the Mayo Clinic, but it was close.

1. Three nights in a hospital, professional care, xrays, all for $25: Need I say more? Ecuadorian health care freaking rocks. We were all surprised at the quality and value of the system, and it pains me ever more to think how far in the opposite direction our own domestic system has become.
2. Where are my corn tortillas? Yeah, I’m talking to you South America: Central and South America actually have almost completely separate food traditions. Honduras was full of enchiladas, empanadas, and more corn tortilla than I could eat (ok, that last part is a lie). But Peru and Ecuador are all about soup, rice, fruit drinks, salads, and meat dishes. A welcome change, but far from Mexican/Central America food, and far from what I expected.
3. Cell reception at 17,000 feet, really? There is cell service everywhere in Peru and Ecuador. Amazon jungle? Ya, of course. Near the top of a 21,000 foot volcano? Well, duh. At the bottom of the world 2^nd deepest canyon? No doubt! We were consistently surprised and impressed by the service, which at least matches the strength of the US cellular network, and is far less expensive.
4. I can understand everything that you’re saying! Honestly, it came as a huge surprise to me that a month of intensive Spanish lessons actually worked, and worked extremely well. I had conversations with people in Spanish where I didn’t miss a beat, and I was blown away.
5. We’ve spent a month together non-stop, and I don’t need a break… Living together is really the ultimate test of a relationship. My girlfriend of two and a half years and I lived with the same host family in Honduras for a month while we attended intensive Spanish lessons. So we ate together, studied together, walked to school together, basically did everything jointly for a month. And I never really wanted my distance. Humph. Definitely a good sign for the future.

Top 5 Significant Events

And then there are the moments with true meaning, true significance, the ones that make everything worthwhile and then some.

1. Can’t quite tell if this is a dream: People are the highlight of this trip, but places are a close 2^nd. Machu Picchu, the Amazon Jungle, Colca Canyon, I still can’t think of these places without a shiver of wonder and a vivid mental image of what they were like. Such beauty, such power, such raw mystique.
2. How about you can all teach me Spanish for free? Some of the most meaningful times of the trip for me were having conversations in Spanish with locals that I met along the way. Whether it a week in one place making friends with a hostel owner, or a ten minute taxi ride asking the driver about his life and profession, these encounters were absolutely precious. Diamond-like. Insanely valuable. I got to mix learning about local resident and cultures with meeting people with practicing and learning Spanish. Life rocks.   
3. Ya, let’s hang out in The Netherlands sometime: And if it wasn’t the locals, it was great people that we met in our 3-4 day tour groups in Peru. Experiencing the wonder of a foreign country as a group really ties people together. I met Londoners I’m going to try to connect with in the UK, people in the Netherlands I want to visit, and many more fascinating individuals. And we exchanged contact info, so communicating in the future is more than just a dream. People are fantastic.
4. Well, that 2,000 miles wasn’t too bad: I’m still astounded that we were able to cover so much ground in a month. I would say that the scope of the trip was bold, and I’m so grateful that we were able to see everything that we wanted while keeping our sanity and staying on a budget. Just that sense of accomplishment is surely significant in my book.
5. Puede ayudar (Can you help?): It was so simple. A nearby tour group can’t understand their Spanish-speaking guide, but he knows from an earlier I can speak Spanish. Logically, he asks me to translate as he explains the basic outline of the day. And I’ve never enjoyed a 30 second job so much. As I looked back and forth from the guide to the group, I realized, I’ve made it. I can do this Spanish thing. I need to keep working at it, keep practicing, and keep speaking, but I’m not like those people I’m translating for anymore. I’ve seldom felt so accomplished, and could hardly hold back my emotions.

The End (for now)

So that’s Honduras, Peru, and Ecuador. I’m officially closing this chapter of my blog. So far I’ve recorded my experiences in Australia, Kenya, and South and Central America. It’s been a wonderful three years of writing and sharing my experiences, and I thank you for coming along on all or parts of the journey.

Next Up: Expect semi-regular posts from Grad School in England, starting in about a month.

Much Love from the States,

Kurt Berning

Two Weeks in the World’s Most Diverse Country

It’s my last day in Ecuador, meaning it’s the perfect time to recap the events of the past 2 and a half weeks traveling through the world’s most biologically diverse country.

Ecuador: The Quick Itinerary

More or less the route that we took through Ecuador. 

• July 19^th-23^rd:: Plans to lounge on the beach for four days were interrupted by sting raysand hospital visits, but we still managed to relax, find a cheap and delicious local bakery, and drink daily fruit juice smoothies.
• July 24^th-25^th: Left the beach for a trip to Quito, the capital of Ecuador (pop: 2.5 million). Visited the Mitad Del Mundo(Monument at the Ecuador), had a wonderful dinner with a local family that hosted a friend while she studied abroad, and one of our travel trio flew back to the US.
• July 26^th-July 28^th: Took a bus south to Banos, a thriving adventure sports city 3 hours south of Quito. Spent two days trying to climb Volcan Chimborazo(20,701 feet), made it only to 19,000 feet because of wind storms and expansive ice fields.
• July 29^th-August 2^nd: Spent a day resting and hiking around the hills near Banos, then spent three days in “The Oriente”, Ecuador’s slice of the Amazon jungle.
• August 3^rd-4^th: Took the last bus of the entire trip (and only 3 hours!), and spent two days enjoying Quito’s youthful party district (La Foch), and sharing another two meals with the Sanchez family.

So it’s been quite the rapid two weeks, with highlights and strange events abound. Here are a few of the best:

Hospitality at Its Finest

Let me set the stage a bit. Imagine you’ve talked to a person once. All you know is that they are some sort of friend of a student that you hosted, and that they are visiting your city. So what do you do? Well, for Franklin and Maria Sanchez, the clear answer was to invite this somewhat random person and his two friends over for an amazing Ecuadorian dinner and be world-class hosts.

Ok, so it wasn't quite like this, but it sure felt like it. 

And the love extended far past the three hours of food and great conversation. The Sanchez’s’ met us at the bus stop and helped us find their apartment, gave us travel guides of Ecuador, and even called a taxi after dinner and bargained down the price so that we could get home safely while paying a fair amount. After a month of eating in restaurants and staying in hostals, being welcomed into any home for an evening meal was an absolute treat. 

So It’s Like the Highest Mt. in Ecuador, Can’t be That Hard Right?

Sometimes you just have to go for it. At this point our travel group was down to only two: myself and my friend Aaron. Both 22, both in good shape, both excited for adventure. So when we read that Vulcan Chimborazo was the highest in the world (as measured from the core of the earth), of course we had to try and climb it. I mean, how high really is 20,701 feet? (Answer: 3.9 miles). Ok, well it sounds like a lot, but how bad could it be? (Answer: Quite bad).

Looks so innocent right? It's just asking to be summited. 

The plan seemed simple enough. The first day we would drive to a base camp, acclimatize a bit at 14,000 feet, and then head for the summit around midnight. We had everything provided: ice axes, crampons, winter clothing, a strong mountain guide, etc. And the day of the climb, things started off quite swimmingly. We arrived at base camp, did some exploratory hiking, ate a carb-loaded dinner, and then hit the hay around 8:00pm. We woke up from this short nap around 10:00pm, ate a quick “breakfast”, geared up, and started the ascent.

Ok, so it wasn't quite like this, but after six hours of hiking it sure felt like it. 

And we were absolutely cruising! Our guide, Faustio, set a blistering pace and we were practically flying up the mountain. Before we knew it, we had climbed from the 4800m base camp to 5300m. But then we started hitting ice, and it was time to get serious. We harnessed up, tied into to the same rope, put crampons on our boots, and started to pick our way toward the summit. It was an absolute slog. 5400…5401…, the meters crawled by as we scrambled up dangerous ice faces. A little background: When the mountain is covered in snow, it’s an easy hike up because walking on snow is pretty simple.  But we weren’t lucky with snow, and at 5700m we were met with unyielding canyons and valleys of ice, making our progress excruciatingly slow. By 4:30pm we had reached 5800m and were completely exhausted. I had lost my footing numerous times (one time falling about 20 feet down a vertical ice face), the wind was howling, and every other group of climbers had given up. Reluctant but relieved, we abandoned hope for the summit and descended to the safety of base camp. So we only made it to 5800m (19,000 feet), but kept our lives. Not a bad trade.

   

Prime Experiences in the Secondary Jungle

"Destroying a tropical rain forest and other species-rich ecosystems for profit is like burning all the paintings of the Louvre to cook dinner."  --- E.O Wilson

Having been soundly defeated by the Mountain, we resolved to conquer the Amazon Jungle. Quick lesson: There are two basic types of jungle. One is called "primary jungle", meaning it is basically untouched by human influence, while the other is "secondary jungle", or jungle that was once entirely cut down and is in the 2,000 year process of recovery. So good news everyone, the jungle that we've been cutting down at ridiculous rates grows back! Pssh, I guess environmentalists are just being impatient. I mean what is 2,000 years between friends? Right?... (Crickets)... Anyone?

"The Shaman's" strategy: listen to the river, watch for familiar trees, and use the map in his head to find the right trail. 

We couldn't secure a primary jungle check for a number of frustrating reasons, so we settled for a three-day non-camping trip to nearby secondary jungle, which turned out to be surprisingly rewarding. Our guide, Byron, a.k.a. “The Shaman” was native to the area, and took us down trails that other guides couldn’t navigate. He also had a wealth of knowledge about local plants and medicine, teaching us that the jungle is probably the world’s best natural pharmacy. And this was jungle that was cut down 30 years ago, 1.5% recovered to it's full capacity. Obvious conclusion: Stop cutting down the freaking jungle. How to help? Support rain-forest certified products, or research relevant organizations.

So What Now?

I’m currently sitting in an airport in Bogota, Colombia, waiting for my flight to whisk me back to the states. I’m excited to return, but bummed that it’s much more difficult to find Spanish speaking opportunities in the US. I’ll finish up this series of blogs on South America with one last recap in a week or so, but for now…

Much love from Ecuador,

Kurt