Two-Thirds-of-a-Year Reflections

Wow, it's September.

In school terms, there's still a whole "semester" to go, but it feels like we have no time left at all. Somewhere around late July I got really busy, and August flew by in a blink after we got back from vacation. I'm still working with the small groups on English in the school, and at long last we have actually moved on from "to be," describing people, and questions like "Where are you from?" and "How old are you?", to starting the present tense and describing what you do every day. Some of the groups remember nothing of what I did with them the last time I saw them (back in May). Others pick it back up with a quick review and move on eagerly. So I suppose we are actually getting a little done in these groups.

[Cute story: One of their exercises is based on a picture of my sister Annie that mom sent me. I wrote a few paragraphs of, "Hi, my name is Annie and I'm from Maryland. I'm 17 years old. I have a brother and two sisters..." using "to be" and "to have" to talk about oneself and one's family. The students have to read it and understand it and try to write one of their own. One of the guys was very impressed with this American girl he was reading about and asked me, "Miss, do you know her? Can I get her email? What's her phone number?", telling his buddies how cute she was, etc. Then at the end, I defined the word oldest for them and said, What does it say about Annie's oldest sister?... and Annie's admirer turned beet red and moaned, "Sorry! Sorry!" when someone finally figured out that she was my sister. It was great. I said I would pass on his compliments.]

Besides the groups, I have a lot of private tutoring students for English, which is great because they are adults and they actually show up. Although even there, there are always adventures, particularly with the guy students. One of them keeps bugging me and Catherine to go dancing or go to lunch with him and his friend, insisting that he wants to be "better friends" with us, and bringing me little gifts like earrings and "little rocks" (his bad English translation of "piedritas," little plastic-looking "stones" that one could string on a necklace). Just what I wanted. Not so much interested in English, that one. Next time I am going to tell him straight up that I do not want to be his friend... he's getting on my nerves. Another of my students came over last week and did grammar obediently for half an hour, and then when I was in the middle of a sentence he interrupted me in Spanish with, "Do you know the origins of the Catholic Church?" He is very disturbed about his religion right now. He also thinks that the Internet is a reliable source of information. "But it says on the Internet that Jesus used to be called Cupid and Mary was Aphrodite! Do you believe everything you read on the Internet? Why not?" Teresa very generously agreed to talk to him about religion (and the Internet). Who knows if he will keep coming to English class. But my female students are delightful. Besides Sister Miriam, my favorite student is a 27-year-old woman named Olga who lives nearby with her mother. She went to college to be a history teacher, but she can't find a job right now, so she has time and interest to study English. She is so sweet and really knows how to learn, being accustomed to studying. She always makes my day when she comes over.

I am still working with my fourth grade chorus and loving them more every week. The other week I got them singing a song I learned from my friends in the parish that has two parts on the refrain. It's simple, and they didn't do it really in tune, but I just thought as I listened to them, My God--they're singing in two parts!! When I started with them in March they couldn't sing at all! And my most recent job is teaching my friend Miguel voice lessons. He is really into classical music and Italian opera, and he has a great voice, he just needs a little ear training and music-reading and tips on technique. It is so much fun! I was nervous about teaching voice lessons because I've never done it before, but when he started singing I realized immediately that I had tips to give him, so it's all good. It's so amazing to find someone who appreciates the beauty of classical music around here--I hadn't realized how much I missed CSPAC and the music world of Maryland. And his lessons encourage me to practice my own singing, and when I do I am almost surprised at how beautiful and fun it is. My voice, like the rest of me, is growing and maturing here even as I take a break from the lessons I had in college... almost without my noticing, it's becoming freer and fuller and less self-conscious. Amazing.

In two weeks I'm taking a trip to Tambogrande to be there for Sister Marleney's vows and the wedding of Sister Miriam's cousin, whom I met earlier in the year. (It's going to be warm there!! Although I can tell it's starting to move toward spring here, thank God.) Very exciting.

And so life is going along swimmingly here. And recently that insistent something inside of me that has been pushing me this whole time towards staying another year... has reasserted itself. I've already told NDMV that I'm going home, but they haven't found anyone to replace me yet... and just this weekend, a plan has unfolded in my head that seems simple and natural. It's scary in more ways than one, but it takes away my anguished feeling of being torn in two between Peru and the US. And it runs thus: This year from now till December, I study for the GREs. (Catherine will be nice enough to bring my prep book back from my house when she visits the US for her sister's wedding.) Then I spend a good month (or 6 weeks?!) at home in January, take the GRE's, talk to my profs at Maryland about grad schools to research, meet my new baby cousins, spend time with everybody, etc. Then I come back to Peru. From February to September, in between my teaching here, I can read (at the suggestion of my teachers) things that will help me prepare to study for a PhD in English, concentrating on spirituality in literature. I can do my graduate applications from here starting this time next year, and in 2009, assuming I get in somewhere, I will have over 6 months to live at home before starting my grad program. ...And the little voice inside me, the one that said "What if I stayed?!" even back in March when nothing was working--that small but undeniable urging quiets down. It's an idea that brings the two worlds together a bit. It gives me purpose and direction in my American life, keeping me in touch and moving toward a career in that world, but lets me spend my time in Peru in the meanwhile, with the culture and the people that have become dear to me this year. (And doing something good, too, now that I'm familiar with the system and can continue my projects.)

Of course all the other voices inside me are saying, "What are you, insane?!" But really I think I have been wanting to want to stay another year ever since I got here, and now I may actually be ready to take that seriously. I need to talk to the sisters about it. (I've already talked to my parents about the possibility... they took it extremely well.) I would like to take a retreat to really mull it over. Today I went to lie down for a nap, and the neighbors started up their Waino again, and I just burst out laughing and crying at once over how unbelievably annoying that stupid music is, and how they're going to do it for the next twelve hours nonstop, and keep me from sleeping, and at the same time how it's so fabulously Peruvian just like everything else that drives me crazy and makes me love this place, and was I really going to spend a whole nother year here?!, amazed at how I was unable to say no even during a Waino Sunday to the insistent something inside me that says Stay and will not be argued with. Just then my friend Matilde came in and listened to me spill all my thoughts about all this, and gave me hugs, and said she thought my plan was a good one. She is Miriam's cousin and is far away from her family like I am, working in Lima to make money to go to college. We don't see each other that often, but she and Consuelo's sister Eliana are like younger sisters here to me and Catherine. They are really sweet girls.

I'm not committing yet. But there you have all my thoughts. I would appreciate any good-decision-making vibes or prayers. Thanks.