The School Bully

Cultures change, people change but the school bully ever remains present in the school playground. The second they realise the teachers have turned their backs on proceedings is the moment they strike. I hate them.
The one at my school, 12 year old Segundo, stereotypically is bigger than the rest, stronger than the rest and to think of a better word ‘uglier’ than the rest.
He wears very baggy jeans, an orange ‘puffer’ jacket comparable to a life jacket and a matching colour baseball cap which he wears backwards. His eyes, which are always slightly squinted as if looking into the sun, are dark brown which often hold stares on people. This is matched by an equally intimidating goofy look with his top row teeth, which he places just behind his bottom lip so as to show his front row even further.
If someone makes a mistake in class, the line of teeth stretches as far as his canines so as to make them feel stupid. It is a hideous sight.
The parts of his black hair that you see, are scraggy and with no origin.

On one such incident a 10 year girl, Tanya, was tripped up by Segundo running a full pelt. The action was unprovoked and seemed such a simple thing to do. He just dangled his foot out in the pathway of the girl, whose vision was focused on her destination as supposed to just in front.
Twisting in midair flight Tanya fell crashed the side of her knee cap on the concrete floor. In absolute agony the 10 year old tried to walk away, but fell straight to the floor again screaming for her father to return. Segundo by this point had run off.
Similar to other controversies I was, at last in my life, able to do something about this. Finding the culprit, I picked him up by his legs and carried him back to the girl he had decided to toil with. I then dumped him on the dusty ground and put my size 12 shoe on his chest which practically covered his entire chest. Looking at him directly in the eye, which had by now lost there intimidating stare and said ‘What do you say?
By now the playground had twigged what was happening and gathered around in a circle. I was happy, however, that the children could publicly watch justice being undertaken. Why this never happens in England I’m not sure. Englishmen seem always too keen to look at the ‘other side’ when so often it is simply black and white.

The following scenes were dramatic as they come. Taking little Tanya wincing her eyes back to her house, her grandmother was the only relative at home. Asking me then to return with her to the school was strange in itself, but when she picked up a 4 foot sick, I began to worry I may have caused a storm.

School stopped for 20 minutes as Segundo was taken aside by both school teachers and the grandmother. The children gathered around and pressed their noses on the glass of the classroom. Segundo was humbled. His lips were now puckered not quite knowing how to react. This, I’m guessing was the first time he had had a school shut down just so he could get the discipline he so richly needed.

It was vindication for Tanya, but also for me, because that was the day the school bully met Tommy N.

Teaching ethics

Looking back at primary school gives memories of pleasure, grief and memories of when you wanted to punch the living shit into your teacher.

Volunteering in an Ecuadorian school has thrust me back into this climate where very little has changed.

The teacher, Señor Jesus is barely tall enough to look out of the 4 foot high windows. He wears a white baseball cap which shelters his eyes from the sun whenever he has to talk to me, arching his neck all the way back. He dresses often in denim jacket with jeans of the same colour, which diminishes any kind of respect immediately. His facial expression is constant: eyes wayward constantly searching to latch onto with a mouth that I expect he thinks is aggressive but only comes across as nervous.

When he talks to children, his technique is to behave like a military man, and so marches up and down with his hands behind his back speaking into the sky in short and unintelligible sentences.

“The school must always be clean. And the Hardine (Nursery school) will learn quickly in preparation for the first grade. And for the rest of you, the school must always be clean.” All in that order.

I joke that he must have practiced that in the mirror last night which must have sounded better in his head.

When it comes to teaching, I was very interested to what he would conjure in the opening weeks.

The text books for the school year incidentally have not come and will not come for another month. Until every school in the land has signed in every school child, the order from the government will not be made. Naturally, this process has and will take a while.

For the first two and a half weeks, Señor Jesus has taught the alphabet and numbers 0-9 to 12 year olds. Terribly patronising to say the least, but you do wonder how (unless something is incorrect) how the children could ever get this wrong. The answer is they don’t, but Señor Jesus isn’t content. His terrible insecurity of ‘short man syndrome’ had led him to fiercely stamp down on nay child that gets their handwriting slightly wrong.

Furthermore, in terms of maths, should a child get arithmetic correct but their number graphic faintly wrong, he will put a red ‘X’ through the equation. It is emotionally destroying as you can imagine for anyone, but what is even crueler is that despite getting the important bits right, they go home and the parents see that all is wrong in their text books.

Señor Jesus claims that taking the students with the biggest writing and arithmetic difficulties and asking them to do sums on the bored in beneficial.

In one such instance two students, Geovanni and Johnny, were asked to come to the front. Clearly terrified of their handwriting ability their focus is not on the sum but on the quality and legibility of the numbers. Take it from me, you can read them. You just felt, however, that whatever they did was going to be wrong in the eyes of Señor Jesus.

Of course it was. Shaking with fear, even too scared to write their working on the board or to say it out loud, they couldn’t add 9 + 3.

Standing their in a pool of shame, Señor Jesus asked students, whether the sum was ‘good or bad.’ Noticing the mistake immediately every student said ‘mal’.

The two students stood their motionless and dejected, their hands flopping either side as their eyes glazed across the classroom as their classmates effectively told them that they ‘thick’. With clenched fists, I stood next to them feeling like a bully had re-entered my life in the form of this ‘teacher.’ I put my arm around Geovanni to shelter him from this storm of unjust criticism.

I calmly walked across the room and approached Jesus. If we were outside, I would have eclipsed the sun in my shadow. This was a time to stand up and torment the tormentor. “I want to talk to you later,” I said practically not being able to speak myself having watched a public humiliation of two children. His tone of voice and facial expression changed. It was different to the one he puts on for the kids. My eyes were focused on his so hard; it was like trying to see in the dark. He knew and I knew what was going to happen.

Ten minutes later, I let him have my best go of a telling off in Spanish. I could have said it in English; I think he would have still got the point.

“You can’t do that; you simply cannot get children to get up there on their own to just be humiliated in front of the class. You give no confidence, and just inspire fear. You say something is wrong when it is correct.” I felt like laying him out there and then. I would have sent him into orbit with the adrenaline that was pumping through my veins.

This went on for five minutes and by the end of it all, I had managed to gather a small audience of kids. I felt like the guy that I always wanted to have around in those circumstances. The young pretender that still remembers only too well what it was like to be that age.

Some children asked me, ‘What happened?’ for which I explained as best as I could. The truth is that this teacher needs to leave if these kids have a chance to learn, graduate and not follow their parents into the fields to work.

When I re-entered the classroom after lunch the exercise had differed to writing. They were all writing the name of the school, in their pristine handwriting, to the bottom of the page.

Democratic example too?

In just over a month’s time, Ecuador holds its General Election. It, by all accounts, is rich in democracy with no less than 15 candidates running for the presidency. The country can also expect high turnout as it is law to vote; something which has been suggested in the USA and the UK. Ecuadorians, incedently, cannot believe that anyone would not vote out of choice or apathy.

You also don’t need a great deal of money to run the campaign. Cherie Blair spent 8000 GBP on her hair alone during the 2005 UK General election. In Ecuador, you would be able to launch a successful campaign with that sum.

The figure needed is just $10,000 (5,700 GBP), so anyone who has worked hard for 10 years or so could in fact run for office. A friend of mine here earns that in half a year, but any talk of presidency doen't intrest.

Despite this positive outlook on the electoral process and discovering that you don’t need to have won the lottery to run, it’s rather confusing to hear that people are turned off by the whole process.

Ecuador is corrupt from the political powers downwards, I was told by a resident here. “Candidates take money from large companies or rich donors in return for a position in government.”

I subsequently explained that this is what all politicians do when they seek power and referred to Tony Blair’s “cash for peerages” scandal that has only just been released in the last few months.

Money, however, goes further here than it does in developed western cultures. Your purse of $10,000 can afford you large spaces to put your name, or now more popular is your image. Candidates give free spades with their faces on the head, and put up posters in schools the size of walls with their picture on it too.

This is perhaps a little step too far; school is a place for children who obviously can’t vote. Giving spades to workers is one thing, but with a caption is mere propaganda and comparable to the Nazi and Stalinist regimes where same techniques were used.

Having said that, there is a ‘myth’ amongst westerners that their system is better, less corrupt and cleaner in general. When you closely analyse the methods to pull voters in and compare them to the UK and other democracies, there are glaring similarities. The truth is here, democracy is thriving more than in the US (with more people being interested in politics) , who preach democracy to the world. There are more candidates, less money is needed to run and, albeit forced, everybody votes.

Giving piggybacks

The house opposite the school I work has been slapped together using nothing more than concrete blocks you find on the inside of households in England. Clearly visible is the cement fixing between each one whicha appears casual and lazy. The wall itself can be no thicker than the size of a fist. The roof, made of tin, is similar to ones found on English haybarns in the countryside. Where the roof doesn´t meet the wall, thanks to the 'U' shaped structure, the holes are filled in with cement as well. A gust of wind or a long cold night, would send shivers down your spine.
The colour you see is grey which matches the plastic tarpaulins used instead of glass for the windows. At least the tempory covering hides the iron bars used as a rather feeble way to keep out intruders.
Overall, the house could be mistaken for an abandoned building site and is aestheticaly appaualling.
The residents are a large familly prising of a mother, father and their seven children with the eldest being 18 and the youngest just seven months.

It is the middle of these children, a girl called Martha, that I have felt a particular attachment to. She is just 12 years of age but has responsibilities comparable to thats of a middle aged housewife. She is about four and a half feet tall, her shoulders coming up to the height of a door handle.
Often asked to stay at home to babysit (which involves carrying your baby sibling on your back all day), clean the house or do the laundry, Martha has incredible patience for a girl that should do no more than play. When offered fruit, she will make sure that her brothers and sisters are fed ahead of her, which often means she goes without.

And the way they treat her is disgraceful.
One day, when I was working in the school, Martha was playing Bingo with the other children. (Coming to school does not except her from her babysitting duties. She still had her baby brother on her back throughout). After a while, I saw her mother come down the from her house. Her expression was motionless. She entered the classroom without knocking and approached Martha. In one movement, she took her son away from her daughter and kicked her twice on the shin. It was not a half-hearted knock, but a devilish stinging kick that I imagine would hurt even me. But a 6ft man Martha is not, and after I calmed down from the shock I approached Martha who by now was staring glazed eyed out the window. She was so brave to fight back the tears. I pleaded with her to answer the obvious question, why? But her stubbon and strong character kept her quiet as a church. To this day, I have no idea what she had done wrong.

Watching her work whilst her friends play is also painful. Only for me, this time.
Asking where she was went I went round to her 'abandoned house', I was told she had gone for a walk. I knew the feeling so well. A walk, a think, a cure. So when I saw here sitting at the bottom of the bow of the hill with her chin in her hands, I felt an overwhealming sense of loyalty. It was her chill out moment that is so richly deserved. She had that same fixed stare that I saw the day she had been kicked by her mother. It was deep and thoughtful.

Having shouted her name from the top and waving my arms like a lunatic, she came running up the hill as fast as she could and breathing as much oxygen in as her lungs could take so as to have a big hug which I was more than pleased to give. Deciding that she had done enough carrying for one day, I offered my back as a mode the of transport back to her house. So in the afternoon twilight, where shadows are twice the length of your own height, we set off. She was laughing all the way home.

A calculated risk

When you consider the risk of carrying cocaine in South America, it really isn’t worth it. Exactly 10 times cheeper than the product you get at home and enevitably better it is hard for tourists from richer countries not to indulge when presented with the chance.

The price of cocaine in South America is between $5 (2.70 GBP) and $20 (11 GBP) for one gram, compared to 50 GBP back in England. Supplied directly from the plantations of Colombia, the spiritual home of cocaine, it has been passed down through very few hands if you decide to purchase. Cut with little if nothing at all, what you get is near enough the real deal and better than anything at home.

The price, however, can be more than handing over the note, or any other long term mental effects the drug might have.
Supplied with millions of US dollars every year from the United States administration to keep the cocaine trade down to a minimum, the Ecuadorian police authorities stamp out drug trafficking to a near rediculous level. Often with random checks on tourists out on the street, there is no doubt who they target.

Caught with any amount is an instant jail sentence of up to 16 years. Often no trial for at least a year many tourists, including a BBC journalist Zoe Savage now sit in jail victims of a ruthless system which targets the vunerable.

The latter case study is particuarly tragic. A day before Zoe Savage was set to fly home having recorded a documentry on child poverty in Quito, cocaine was planted on her. Stopped at the airport by police with sniffer dogs, she was arrested and has now served half of an eight year jail sentence for a crime she never commited. Needless to say, the prisons in South America are not how you would imagine, and very often in women’s prison’s the guards blackmail the inmates in return for sex. As a result, many children are born inside the walls.

In addition inmates, regardless of crimes commited are put in together and allowed to walk around intimidating the weaker. Mrs Savage came face to face with a triple murderer, with the women having killed in cold blood her husband, a woman that he had been sleeping with and the unborn child inside her.

Savage’s story is an accurate reflection of how if caught, then don’t expect the same luxury of being put into the reletive luxurios surrondings of a magistrates court within 24 hours. It doesn’t happen here.

Perhaps nothing better would be to take a caculated risk, before taking the bate.