So Much to Report, So Little Time

Alright I have about ten minutes to write before returning to Spanish class and then going to Triunfo.

Let's see...my host family continues to be wonderful. I met the two grandchildren, Melanie and Geraldine (ages 4 and 7) and they are adorable. Melanie is the hardest person to understand that I have come across on this trip, so I smile and nod a lot around her. Martha makes great food for me and I am constantly in awe of how well she keeps up with current events, often putting me to shame.

Spanish class is going pretty well, but again, frustrating that I tend to make the same mistakes over and over. The great thing about one on one classes is that they can really target your specific weaknesses, and we can use material that I'm interested in (I've been reading up on rural education in Peru, surprisingly only slightly more horrifying than education in the US).

Yesterday afternoon I made it to Triunfo for the first time. I arrived during lunchtime (GVI provides lunch and toothbrushes) and within minutes of my arrival, the entire class of first and second graders poked their heads out of the doorway, and one by one came up to give me hugs and ask me to spin them around. The teachers take off at 1:00, which is the end of the offical school day, so GVI takes over with lunch and then an hour to help with homework. The teachers aren't there because they want to be: there are more teachers than teaching positions, so they are stuck here. Their methods are very old school, where the main method of teaching is writing something on the board and having the students copy it, even though many of the first and second graders can't read or write. Then they are instructed to do a worksheet on the material, which of course they can't do. Then they get yelled at. Remember, these are kids with terrible home lives and school is merely a respite from manual labor or abuse. They don't really have an understanding of why they're there or why they should be learning, as many of them won't continue past sixth grade.

Given all this, this next month will certainly test my patience. Yesterday I just couldn't possible think of another way to explain "Write this word right here," and oftentimes the kids just say ·I can't, I can't." One little boy, who might be my favorite, Jose Antonio, was trying to do a wordfind in English. One of the words was "peach," and neither he nor I could find it. He kept looking up at me and saying in a really cute accent, "Peach, señorita, Peach!" (By the way, there are only four girls in first and second grade and the rest are little boys-perfect!) There's no doubt in my mind that this next month will be very trying in a lot of ways, but I look forward to getting to know the kids.

My first full week there should be quite interesting/disastrous. Monday is the "day of the teacher," so the teachers, to celebrate, won't be coming to school. GVI will teach all day, which seems like it will be a challenge since we have little authority. Starting Wednesday, there will be nation-wide strikes about all sorts of social issues, and the city could be closed down for up to five days, possibly making it impossible for us to get to school, which would be really unfortunate. If we do make it, I doubt the teachers will.

Tomorrow morning I leave super early to go on a 3-day trek through Colca Canyon, returning Sunday night, so don't expect to hear from me for a while (especially with the strike and everything, I'm not really sure what to expect).