Birthdays!

Well, it’s been one crazy busy week. Today is my first day off in two weeks, so I celebrated by sleeping in until 6:30 am and eating massive amounts of pancakes. Here’s the update for the week:

I had a few small breakthroughs with my little ones at Maldonado, getting them to recognize vowels and think of words that start with those vowels, teaching them to write their names, and teaching them how to jump rope. Last week I had two kids pee in their pants, and this week I didn’t have any!

Spanish is going well, although it is absolutely exhausting to go to a 2-hour Spanish class after a day here and with all of the lesson planning I have to do to fill every 5-minute period (hats off to teachers of PreK-3, by the way). Beatriz, my teacher, is quite tough, but is quite good. You have to take her with a grain of salt. She basically told me that I was a good student, but that my notebook was a disgrace (admittedly, it’s fairly messy), and she wants me to be much neater from now on. She also tries to get me to use color coding, but with the amount of time I have here, that’s just not going to happen. The most awkward part of Tuesday’s class was when she asked me to describe her physically and emotionally, which would be awkward in any setting, but especially with a teacher that you are sort of afraid of.

I finished my scabies meds and my rashes are gone (for now), which is a good thing.

For those of you who followed my blog last time or were in Peru with me, you may remember a girl named Milagros that I adore at Triunfo. She hasn’t been coming to summer school, but I did spot her from the van the other day, unfortunately with a huge bundle of alfalfa on her back, either coming from or going to the chakras to work. She has one of the most horrendous home lives of all, so it’s really too bad that she can’t make it to summer school, but I look forward to seeing her regularly in March.

Friday was a great day, because we celebrated the birthdays of all of the kids with January birthdays. We make a fruit salad and buy cake and a present for each student. We buy presents like books, backpacks, pencil cases, shoes, or other practical but exciting presents. Pabel, one of my favorites from Maldonado, has been talking about his birthday all week, and he and his little brother came to school today all dressed up in little sweater vests (they’re about 6 and 2). His little face just lit up when he open up his present, which was a backpack with a pencil case, pencils, and a sharpener, and immediately put it on and spent the rest of the party wearing it. He is a bit of an odd character and spent much of last year running away. He was so badly behaved last year that his mom changed his name from Fernando to Pabel in the hopes that a new name would give him a fresh start. Apparently he comes from a very violent household, and one day this week he just huddled under the desk and wouldn’t come out. The attached pics show Pabel and Karina and then Pabel with cake on his face and showing off his new presents. Birthdays are so fun because we all get to relax a bit, I don’t have to be my mean teacher self, and the kids get to feel special and loved.

After all the festivities, Carla and I went to the market with Crazy Carlos as the driver. We were buying enormous sacks of rice and potatoes, and when we got almost all the way to Maldonado to drop them off, found that the entire path had been dug up due to construction, so Crazy Carlos had to take us a very roundabout way and almost drove us off a cliff and into a field and some sheep. Luckily we survived.

Friday was one of those days where I felt like there is no place I would rather be in the entire world right now than here (minus the car rides with Carlos, of course). I know that in about two months I have to get more realistic about my dwindling bank account and get one of those job things, but for now I am enjoying the freedom that I have to be here and do work that I feel is incredibly important. Coming back and seeing the progress in some of the kids since being here last or just over these last few weeks makes me so confident that what GVI is doing here is both positive and sustainable, and even though I do eventually have to leave, I know that plenty of others are lined up to continue these projects over the years.

I now have relatively relaxing weekend ahead of me, and after this week, I get to hand off some of my lesson planning and teaching responsibilities to our new volunteers. My role shifts a bit from now on to supporting volunteers and making sure they’re doing what they need to be doing. I’ll be teaching a bit less, but to be quite honest, I could use a break! Hope you all have nice weekends!

Masks, New Vols, and an Anniversary

On Friday I did an art project with the kids where they got to design and decorate masks. They loved the glitter glue and attaching random pieces of paper and buttons. At one point I looked over at Abraham, and he was using the glitter glue to write "La muerte," which means death! Hector and Dayana copied him right away, but we managed to convince Jose Antonio to write "El bueno," which means "the good one."

This Saturday we gained six new volunteers, which will be a great help. With GVI having now been in these projects for two years, the reputation of the schools has grown and more and more students enroll every year. Unfortunately for me, many of the new enrollees are in first grade, so my class grows every day, but as of a week from tomorrow, I will have three additional people to help me out. I picked up three of the volunteers at the airport. It wasn't too hard to spot them-they were the only white people on the flight. It was a little funny to me how petrified some of them looked upon getting off the plane, suddenly realizing that the trip they have been planning for months had finally arrived and they had no idea what to expect. I just decided to talk non-stop about how great it is here and tell funny stories about the ridiculousness of my classes with the munchkins, and they seemed more at ease. Now our numbers are up to twelve, with people from Australia, England, the US, Canada, and Ireland. I think they're all going to be great in the schools.

Today was the 13th (or 14th, depending on who you talk to) anniversary of the town of Maldonado, so there was a big party that we all attended, complete with food and a dance competition. I must say, I like watching the reaction of the new volunteers to the towns that we work in. I remember my first day quite vividly, and I'm sure that for them it was some combination of being horrified, excited, nervous, wondering what they've signed up for, and dreading the day that they have to leave, just like it was for me. At the anniversary, many of the town drunks were there, and it was amusing/horrifying to watch one of them dance awkwardly and break beer bottles on the ground in between dance numbers. Lovely. Some of the kids in 5th and 6th grade performed a great dance, and then we had to leave so the new volunteers could meet up with their host families. The town president was begging for us to stay even though we were already 30 minutes late, and forced Carla to make a speech in front of everyone. She said a few words of congratulations, and got more of an applause than anyone else that day. It was neat to see her and GVI recognized so positively within the community.

Now I'm gearing up for another crazy busy week at school...Here are some photos of dancing at Maldonado, Friday's art project, and the new swings at Triunfo.

Crazy Carlos

Our driver, Rene, is on vacation this week, and his brother-in-law Carlos is driving us around for the week. Carla referred to him as "Crazy Carlos" before we all met him, and we weren't really sure what to expect. On Monday, he almost drove us off a cliff. Today he clearly ignored the rules of a roundabout and, not surprisingly, a taxi hit us. It was very minor and just felt like a little bump and it was 100% Carlos' fault, but he and the taxi driver managed to argue and yell at each other and inspect the "damage" while I was awkwardly waiting for Carlos to take me to the market. They would yell for a while, and then spend about 5 minutes glaring at each other, and then they would expect the damage again, and this went on an on until I finally got in the car. Carlos then tried to just drive away quickly so that the taxi driver couldn't get his license plate, but we had to stop just long enough to avoid oncoming traffic that the taxi driver now has poor Rene's license plate number. I'm not really sure that it will do any good, but oh well. On the way to the market we had some more near-misses. Luckily Rene returns soon.

I also found out something kind of funny about yesterday's transportation strike. Apparently a new law was passed that says that the minibuses that people drive around for public transportation have to be less than 25 years old and they have to pass certain safety regulations. So naturally everyone was up in arms and had to have a massive demonstration and parade around the plaza. Heaven forbid the the safety of the public transportation here is improved!

Not much else is new...just teaching away. The kids at Triunfo are really loving being able to listen to music and sing a bit. We've been reading a lot, practicing writing, drilling addition and subtraction, jumping rope, and occasionally doing some art projects. Today at Maldonado I took some of the little ones out for PE, which basically consisted of me trying to get them to practice throwing a ball, which was of course disastrous. Better luck next time.

A Nice Break

Today there is a transportation strike in Arequipa, which meant that we did not have school today (people who don't strike often get things thrown at their cars or the roads are blocked). It was lucky timing, and I was happy to be able to get some sleep this morning and then watch the Inauguration. It's also nice to be able to catch up on lesson planning, which is so hard to do at the very end of each day.

I don't have a whole lot to report about the schools. Maldonado proves to be a big challenge for me, with so many little ones and so little space. I basically hand them something to do and then rotate amongst their tables to help sharpen pencils, give out erasers, and get them to do their work with the promise of stickers (yes, I've resorted to bribery). The toughest part are the ones that have never been to school before, have trouble focusing or even holding a pencil, and starting from ground zero with counting and the alphabet is surprisingly difficult to teach.

Triunfo is easier since I know the kids and have more space, so I've taught actual lessons there. I've been trying to teach them a game in PE that I always used at Cal-Wood with fifth graders, but it is proving difficult with the little ones. Its called group juggle, and you stand in a circle and toss an object in a pattern of people and then add more objects. They're surprisingly good at remembering who to throw it to, and surprisingly bad at the whole throwing and catching part. Yesterday I introduced a singing unit (with the help of some CDs from my mom's choir director) and it didn't backfire as much as I thought it might. They are mostly fascinated by my CD player, but by the end of our session were actually doing quite well with the song. It's nice to be able to introduce things to them that are different from anything they've done before, even if it's something simple.

I had my first Spanish class last Tuesday with Beatriz, and she is going to teach me a combination of methodology to teach Spanish as a second language and work on my own grammatical errors that 13 years in I still mess up. It's a one-on-one class, but I sit in a classroom with benches attached to desks and she stands up at the whiteboard. The room is really echo-y, so sometimes she will stop talking and I will have no idea if I am supposed to respond or not because I keep losing the ends of her sentences, but oh well. I have another class with her this afternoon.

This is a big weekend for us here, with the arrival of six new volunteers, shopping at the market for the week, orientation for the newbies, and attending the town of Maldonado's 13th anniversary celebration, which will apparently include a city-wide dance competition and we may be forced to dress in costume against our will. Hmm. All that plus lesson planning, of course. All the new vols will be in Spanish class for their first week, but it should be nice to have more people in the schools and more opportunities to give the kids who need it most some individual attention.

I'm continuing with my scabies meds and will be on them until Monday, so let's hope they actually do something!'Luckily (at this point) it's way less itchy and uncomfortable than last time. That's all for now.

Return of the...

SCABBIES! Yes, I returned to the US the last time around with scabbies, and it only took a mere 2.5 days in the schools for a familiar red rash to appear on my arms. A doctor came to see me this afternoon and I got a prescription. I hope that it works and that I don't have to deal with itchy arm rashes and doctor visits every week. We'll see.

Not much to report, other than that. I'm happy it's the weekend. Today three of our volunteers were away on the Colca Canyon trip that I did last time, so Carla, Chris and I managed on our own, but I had about 1,000,000 preschool-2nd grader's to deal with in each school, and this morning, if I had heard someone small shouting SENORITA! one more time, I think I might actually have gone insane. Maldonado is going to be a bigger challenge for me than Triunfo, because grades 1-3 are all in one classroom, so there are constant distractions, and I feel like they are farther behind my kids at Triunfo. Even though I still have multiple grades at Triunfo, I have my own classroom, which is really nice and I can actually teach lessons instead of just hand out worksheets and then go from one table from the next telling them to do their work, sit down, stop using their pencil (which is really my pencil) as a nose-picking device, etc.

This weekend will be pretty chill (one of very few), so I hope to get some time to relax, in between applying scabbies lotion.

Homecoming

Wow. It's been a busy last few days. Where to begin...

I arrived in Arequipa with no travel issues (a small miracle, in my opinion). Rene, our GVI driver, unexpectedly picked me up, which was very nice, considering all the unsafe cab companies around here. There's been a slight change of plans with my host family. I was originally going to stay in their house while they were away at the beach, but they decided not to employ their maid during that time, so I'm staying at the Casa de Avila, where we have our GVI office and where my boss, Carla, lives, for a few weeks until they return during the first week in Feb. At first I was a little disappointed, but I have a really nice room here, and it is much more central to all of our activities.

Carla, our project manager, got stuck in Madrid for two days, so Chris, the other in intern and I, managed to give the orientation to our three new volunteers, shop for food, arrange rides, and all kinds of other logistical things. Carla did end up arriving very early on Monday morning and was with us on our first day. Yesterday, we just went to Triunfo, and it took a while for kids to arrive, but eventually they came and we had about 15 in total. It was great to see some familiar faces and hug and kiss the kids I've been thinking about for so long. We didn't too much too formal, since our three new volunteers were just trying to learn names. There is a new, fairly dangerous swing set, but the kids are having fun with it.

Today was my first day at Maldonado, and it went fairly well. We had about 15 kids there, as well, and were mainly teaching math. I'll be with grades 1 and 2 in each school, which is great. There's a little munchkin in first grade at Maldonado named Careena, who has a beautiful round face and I just wanted to put her in my pocket when we left. We're at Maldonado until 11:30, and then we walk to Triunfo and get there at about 12:00, when we serve lunch. We teach until 3:30, and then take off. I'll be taking a Spanish class on Tuesdays from 5-7, and then I have plenty of lesson planning during the week. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we have shopping to do at the markets, and most Saturdays and Sundays will involve airport pickups of new volunteers and orientation.

It certainly feels different to be in a more managerial position, especially because two of the volunteers are at least 15 years older than I am! It feels good to have a lot of responsibility, even though my hours are much longer. I get to teach and also make sure volunteers are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that they're happy. My job will become harder as we start the real school year in March and I will also need to be the liason between volunteers, the teachers, and Carla. There will be a time in February and March (probably 1-2 weeks) when Carla will need to go to Chivay with the other intern to help set up a new project, which means...I will be acting as Program Manager. If things go wrong, the person to call is...me. But hopefully by then I'll actually know what I'm doing.

I need to take a quick break before Spanish and lesson planning. More later!