sv evi

Last Thursday we had our first obligatory meeting for the parents of all the kids in Tomu and Jade’s school, which is called Fernando Ordoñez Cordero. The meeting began at 6:30 pm, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. We were told we were meeting to plan the special event on Saturday October 27th, to celebrate the Fiestas de Cuenca.

We were all packed into the preschool room, sitting on little chairs with a few kids playing blocks at the back. The teachers and administrator seemed nervous as they told us that each group of parents would be expected to organize paying for, preparing, and selling some typical dishes for the fundraiser event. The parents (mostly women) muttered and commented amongst themselves. A few people had comments and suggestions, but finally the teachers succeeded in dividing us into 3 groups (according to our children’s class) so we could decide how to proceed.

The preschool parents were charged with bringing Hornado, which is a roasted whole pig, plus mote (hominy), llapingachos (like mashed potato blobs, very yummy), and salad. Usually Hornado stands pop up around town on the weekends; Riki saw some neighbors with a live pig in the back of their truck on Thursday, and he knew it was for a Hornado. The teacher asked if there was anyone who would volunteer to bring anything. One woman said she’d bring llapingachos for 40 people, and we all clapped. As the meeting progressed, we had to decide the cost of each plate ($3 dollars), and who would get what, and if we wanted a whole pig or just the hindquarters because it was so expensive that we (the school) wouldn’t make any money. And how much each parent had to pay ($10, and if there is extra we will save if for Christmas). Also, the teacher put us into groups for selling the pig, each group has one hour to sell during the event.

This is a Hornado

I kept my mouth shut the whole time, but it was so interesting to see how a group of strangers comes to an agreement about a pretty complicated affair. At the end, it didn’t seem like we had worked out all the details, but Profe Maritza was satisfied, and I was happy to go home. The whole thing took about an hour, which was a short meeting, according to the other parents. Tomu and Jade are the only students from North America in the school.

I noticed another interesting difference regarding the school calendar. I asked Profe Maritza for a copy of school calendar for the year. She said, don’t worry, we will always let you know when we don’t have school. I said, well, I’d like to be able to plan vacation time, in case we want to travel or we have visitors. She repeated, Don’t worry, we will let you know. Basically, saying No I won’t give you a calendar but without saying no.

How Profe Maritza lets us know is she passes a typed slip of paper to each parent at pick up or drop off which says “no school Friday”. We got this paper on Wednesday, 2 days before. I wonder how parents who work figure out child care with such short notice!

So a few days later, I tried with the Administrator, Andres. He brought me into his office and showed me a calendar on the wall, and said before he started work this year, they had no planning. So I found out they have a week off at Christmas and a week off in February for Carnaval and the last day of school is somewhere around the end of June.