Monday, May 28, 2007

Books for Fe y Alegría

Possibly my biggest challenge around here is the Communication class I'm helping with. I offered to help the class with literature discussion, and so once a week I take half of the group to discuss one book while the teacher stays and discusses another book with the other half. We do it this way because there are not enough books in the library for the entire class to read the same book at the same time. My efforts to start discussions have been frustrated at every turn, or so it seems, by the fact that the majority of the class does not read the assignment--and I don't know if it is simply because they think they can get away with not doing it, or if there are other problems in their lives interfering with their studying. I have tried putting my foot down with reading quizzes, which they dutifully take and mostly fail; and although there are always one or two who get 100%, invariably someone comes to me saying that there are no more books in the library, or that they tried to read but didn't understand.

This last I am inclined to believe, since the books that do exist in larger quantities in the library are awful little things that try to squish classic works of English literature (nothing Latin American!) into 80 pages, which they can only do by cutting out so much of the text that the action becomes hard to follow. Treasure Island is difficult to read this way, but we have had some success with it nonetheless, debating whether or not John Silver deserves to be hung for his treason and whether he is a good or a bad person. It's actually a pretty good book for discussion. The Last of the Mohicans, however, is simply unreadable like this--so much of it is cut out that the action doesn't follow smoothly from one paragraph to the next, let alone one chapter to the next. (I laughed and walked away when I saw Moby Dick in this form on the library shelf.) The teacher and I have talked and decided that we're going to have to go outside the school resources to the little paperback versions of classic fiction that the corner stores sell around here for one sol, which the kids can buy and which the teacher has used in the past, but I haven't yet read one so I don't know if they're any better. At least with those, however, we will be able to get enough for the whole class to be on the same page, and I will be able to insist that people do their reading.

Needless to say, it would be a huge help to these kids' education (not to mention my personal classes!) if the school could provide real books for them to work with. There are many things this school could use, but since literature is so important to me and this Communication class is my particular project for the year, I've decided to donate some of my own money for the purpose of buying books--real, unabridged classics of Latin American and world literature, the kind of thing that intelligent 16-year-olds like my students should be tackling. Sister Iris, who teaches the same level of Communication that I do and lends her personal books out to the students in order to give them something better to read, will be in charge of choosing the books we buy.

I would like to invite anyone who is interested to join me in making a donation to the Sisters of Notre Dame for the purpose of buying books for Fe y Alegría. If you would like to support these kids' education in this way, you can send a donation to:

Sr. Lorraine Connell SND
Congregational Mission Office
30 Jeffreys Neck Road
Ipswich, MA. 01938

Checks should be made out to "Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Generalate," with "Kathleen Fritz--Fe y Alegría" in the memo line.

Any amount that you would like to donate will be greatly appreciated! In Peru, American dollars go much farther than they do at home, and so it is much cheaper for us to buy the books here than to have them donated in the United States and shipped. Even $5 can make an important difference for this school and these students. If even a few of my students this year get to read a really quality work of Latin American literature, something like Gabriel García Márquez or the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, I will know I have made a difference in their education--and not only theirs, but also that of the students that will come after them.

If you do decide to make a donation, please let me know at ksfritz@gmail.com so we know how much money to expect.
Thanks in advance, and muchissimas gracias from the students who will soon be reading good literature!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Birthday weekend


Catherine and I both had our birthdays last weekend, and we enjoyed two great celebrations. On my birthday, the 18th, we invited the sisters from the Tupac house to come over for dinner, cake, and dancing. Sister Iris took charge of the cooking and asked us to "order" our dinner of choice from her a week in advance. We chose papa a la huancaína, a typical Peruvian appetizer; baked chicken with rice and vegetables; pisco sour and chicha morada to drink; and chocolate cake. The cake was ordered "delivery" (i.e. Denise made a trip to Metro) and was utterly delicious and so huge that the last remnants are still lingering in the refrigerator. Iris even brought in the help of the señora who cooks for the school kiosk in making the huancaína sauce and of a former student, also named Iris, who came over to do the pisco sours. For our presents, Catherine and I got cute little cactus plants in pots from the sisters in Tupac, a fabulous meal, and lots of fun dancing. I also got a birthday box in the mail from my wonderful parents, which included such delicious treats as chocolates, a sweater, and books by Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. The glittery wrapping paper made me sparkly--always fun on one's birthday.

Then on Saturday, Catherine's birthday, we invited every young person we are friends with in Peru to come over for dinner. It ended up being about fifteen people that came. We made them an American meal of homemade pizza, fruit salad, and apple pie, and those who came "early" (less than an hour after the time we'd told everyone to arrive) got to learn how to put the sauce and cheese and toppings on the pizza dough and bake it. The apple pie was a huge hit. Iris and Teresa had fun with everyone too, because several of our friends from the church choir are their former students from Fe y Alegría. Afterwards we all left the sisters in peace and went out dancing in Barranco, Lima's bohemian/backpacker/nightlife area, which has a whole street made up entirely of clubs and bustles until 4 or 5 am, with groups of young people wandering around between vendors and jaladores that stand outside motioning them in. In oh-so-Peruvian style, we convinced the driver of a 15-passenger combi bus to take us straight there, our private limo as it were, for a flat fee instead of going by his regular route. The club was much more about dancing than drinking; we danced to merengue, salsa, pop, reggaeton, and some more traditional Peruvian festejo music which I'd never heard before but which I fell in love with. It was almost entirely drums, and the pulsing beat was so rich and alive with layers of rhythms that I lost my usual American hesitancy about dancing and just let the music move me. (It helped that I was dancing with my friend Luis Alberto, the church choir director, who has enough energy for two to three people at all times and even more when he's dancing, so I didn't have to worry about looking too crazy as long as he was there going nuts with me.) We finally got back to Delicias at 4 am after wandering around Barranco for a while with our friends Alfredo and Robert, and slept contentedly until 11 in the morning.

It was a great weekend not only because of the good food and the dancing, but also (mainly!)because of the people who were there to share our birthdays with us. The really cool thing was that during all this partying, no one made us feel different because we were the only white girls among all the Peruvians. We laughed and joked at people's efforts to wish us happy birthday in bad English, and made phrases like "muchos thankyous" and "very gracias", but we didn't feel out of place--everyone was there because we were friends, and the Peruvians took us out to their favorite places, and cooked us their foods, and we cooked them ours, and my friends' faces are now familiar enough that I see them as Luis, Sara, Alfredo, Miriam, Consuelo, Robert, Eliana, instead of just Peruvians with black hair and brown eyes and darker skin than mine. And thus a very cheesy saying of my mom's, that there are good people everywhere, has been proven many times over by the amazing sweetness of the people we know here.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Only seven more months?

I would like to modify my earlier comment about showers. Cool showers are refreshing in the summer. When it is cold, however, there is nothing like a hot steamy shower. We do have hot water here but it's not the same because, standing in a bucket, one can't use a very high volume of water or leave it on the whole time. More than once now on chilly mornings I have thought, The first thing I am going to do when I get back to the US in December is take a long, luxurious hot shower, and how delicious it will be against the cold weather... And then I think of the enormous amount of water that takes, and how little I use here, and I wonder whether we who have access to water will ever be able to force ourselves to use it more responsibly, as long as the supply seems endless and it's so cold outside on those northern winter mornings. It's literally a question of global awareness and concern for the future vs. my immediate comfort. And I just don't know how much hope there is for the former in that contest. Even for me, even after living here for a year and seeing the struggles that so many people have with water, I will not be surprised if a long, luxurious hot shower really is the first thing I do when I get back home. If or when the supply of water in America physically runs out, then we might start to see some real changes...

When I first came, a year felt like forever; now only seven more months seems way too short! All of a sudden Catherine and I are both really busy in the school and the parish. In addition to my English groups, Comunicación classes, and choirs (I'm working on getting two rehearsals per week with each), and Catherine's English groups, English classes, English clubs, and tutoring students in English, we are team-teaching a beginning English class for adults and adolescents in the parish on Tuesday-Thursday nights. It is a ton of fun because some of the students are our friends from the church choir, others bring their young children, and it is a relaxed but interested atmosphere (and they take notes without being told to copy the board! So amazing!). It's a tad frustrating when people waltz in 20 minutes late, however, and say Good Evening like nothing happened. We have scolded them to come on time, but it doesn't do much good. 20 minutes late is practically standard for some Peruvians, and as for parties, we've learned not to show up until an hour after it supposedly starts.Some changes in my work at the school that I am really excited about: I am now going to have my literature discussion with the Comunicación kids during their two-period class instead of their one-period class, so I get them for an hour and a half per week instead of 45 minutes! Maybe I will actually get some things discussed! Also, two of the best students in the class responded with real interest to my offer of private tutoring in how to write essays about the books we read. They are utterly bored in class and want to do more interesting things, and moreover, they will need to be able to write about what they read if they want to go to college. Angela, the one girl who always gets 100% on everything, has just been dying for something else to challenge her--I saw it first in her reading quizzes and then in the little sparkle in her eyes when I proposed that she come for lessons on how to write essays. I am so excited to get her and Karen on their own and get into some of the more interesting things going on in these books, and then get them writing about them!

Last Friday, my choirs sang for the first time during the performances for Mother's Day! Mother's Day is the biggest holiday I have experienced yet in Peru--all the stores go nuts with advertising, things close the Friday before and the Monday after, there are half-days at school and the mothers are invited to see the kids put on dance numbers in their honor. The graduating class did an amazing traditional dance from the sierra. It looks almost like Valentine's Day with all the hearts and roses and cards and flowery poetry for Mamá spilling out of every store, not to mention the long speeches after church in praise of mothers and the raffles of pretty baskets filled with all sorts of foodstuffs for the house. (One of the speakers after church, a mother herself, even mentioned that the best thing to do for one's mother is to cook dinner once in a while and let her rest. But in general the ceremonies focus on how loving and giving mothers are and how children should always remember them and care for them... it's really very touching. Peruvians are very good at tenderness, at honoring love and devotion, especially in families.) Anyway, each of my choirs, the fourth graders and the 9th-11th graders, sang a song for their moms.
Neither was really in tune, but the microphone situation was not great either, so you couldn't really tell the difference in the end--and the kids really enjoyed it. One of the fourth graders, just before we went up to sing, said to me with a huge grin on his face, "Señorita, Señorita! Somos el coro nosotros!" (We're the choir!) . I said, yes, you are the fourth grade choir of Fe y Alegría 34! Are you proud of yourselves? and got a resounding ¡Sí! It was ridiculously cute. And I am so proud of them because they are learning to sing do, mi, and sol in tune! They don't have high do yet, but we're working on that.

So for all those reasons, a year suddenly seems like way too short a time to do the work we're doing. After December, who is going to keep the choirs going? Will the current 10th graders learn to write essays about the books they read if I leave? As unqualified as I sometimes feel to be doing those things, I can tell they are needed, and it's so exciting to be bringing something to the school that wasn't there before. And I find myself thinking, is it possible that I might want to stay another year? I had never entertained the thought until recently, but just knowing how long it takes to find one's niche, and thinking of new volunteers having to start over every year, and starting to feel part of the community a bit... one wonders. But then I call my mom and hear about everything going on with my own family in the US, and I want to be there too. So we'll see. Graduate school hovers on the horizon in my future, but I'm in no hurry to start that; for now I'm very happy to be here.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Randomness

This entry will continue to grow throughout the year; I will try to update it with some of the things I find funny, shocking, or more interesting than usual.

Llama sighting!! A few weeks ago we saw our first real live llama in the park in the pueblo. (It was very small and may actually have been a vicuña, but that's close enough.) It was decked out in brightly colored trappings and there was a little girl nearby in traditional highland dress--clearly something that did not belong there among the buses and commercial streets. It looked like someone had brought it there as an attraction for kids, and you could get your picture taken with it if you wanted. Unfortunately I didn't do this because I had to jump on a bus that was leaving.

Sheep walking. One day when I went out to jog around the cancha, there were several people out with their dogs and one guy out walking his sheep. I have also seen this sheep in its house, where it hangs out on the roof baaaaaing at passersby just like all the dogs do.

Enormous avocados. Last week I bought two that were each the size of a small eggplant. They were delicious.

Haircut for a dollar! "What the heck, it's a dollar" was my swing thought here. I had heard that haircuts were ridiculously cheap here in the pueblo, but still, at first I didn't believe I had heard the señora correctly when she said 3 soles. I showed her about how much I wanted cut off, and she proceeded to take large sections of my hair, dry, and go CHOP! Amazingly, it turned out pretty good.

Chicken farms. Possibly the most surreal moment of this whole year. Our friend Alfredo is a chicken farmer, and when he drove us to Huacho for the weekend, we stopped by his work so he could see to a few things. The chicken farms were in the middle of nowhere and the desert around looked like rainbow sherbet because of all the vividly different colors of the sand, it was very starkly beautiful. We couldn't go in because chickens are apparently really susceptible to disease, so Catherine and I stayed in the car reading our books, except at one point when we got out and wandered down the road out of boredom, and a car of Peruvians came driving by and stared at us as if to say that a pair of gringas out for a stroll around the chicken farms was the most surreal moment of their year as well.

Trash truck. People don't leave their trash out all night here for the truck to collect in the morning, because the dogs wandering loose around the street would get it. So the trash truck comes by once every few days and just parks on the corner for a few minutes to announce its presence. It honks its horn imperiously, without stopping, and one of the workers hops down and rings the heck out of something that looks like a huge, clanging triangle. Then it goes slowly on down the street while people come running out of their houses with their trash to catch it.

Ketchup in a bag... and milk, and jelly, and mayonnaise, and other things you would normally find in cans or cartons in the US, they are all sold in plastic bags around here. Cheaper, but more difficult to re-seal.

Listening to "Whip it" on the taxi ride back from Ollantaytambo to Cusco, at night under a gorgeous full moon. We asked for American music...

No seatbelts necessary. Peruvian men ride motor vehicles in all the ways you always wanted to as a kid, but your parents wouldn't let you. Lounging in the back of pickup trucks, in the trunk of the taxi, perched on top of the cargo cases on a multi-axel delivery truck. On the way back from Arequipa to Lima, the bus stopped for breakfast and one of the drivers opened an underneath baggage compartment--and the other driver climbs out. He had a little bed and pillow made up in there for himself.

Two-in-one banana! Picture coming soon.

My sandals molded. I should have known better than to keep them in a drawer in Lima for months during winter. Good thing they were old.