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!