The weather is moving toward autumn here: Sunday morning was damply chilly and completely cloudy, so that the nearby mountains and the ocean were both invisible from the roof. (I love hanging my laundry out on the roof because whenever I go up there, the view of all the brick houses and dusty roads up and down the hill makes me stop and ponder the fact that I'm in Peru, on a roof, hanging my hand-washed laundry out to dry.) From what I've heard, the entire winter in Lima is cloudy, chilly, and damp... something to look foreward too. On the plus side, I really have gotten used to cool or lukewarm showers--it actually feels weird to me now to take a steamy hot shower or to leave the water running the entire time. I tried it recently when we went away for the weekend and stayed in a hostel, and it just wasn't as great as I remembered. It helps that I'm getting up early to go jogging almost every other morning, so I'm all warmed up by the time I shower. Other things I am surprisingly used to are lighting the gas stove and oven with a match, flushing the toilet with buckets of water left over from doing laundry, and washing all the dishes by hand. I only very rarely miss driving; I miss my washer and dryer constantly. It's even stranger to be without things like a microwave, dishwasher, etc. now that we have recently gotten high-speed Internet in the house. (YAY!!)
We've now had almost two full months of classes at Fe y Alegría, and our schedules are finally settling down into what we hope will be a comfortable pattern for the year. A brief description of what I do on a weekly basis:
I am working with small groups of 9th and 10th grade students during their English class, taking them to the library to work on conversation and grammar a bit more extensively than they would do in the classroom. It is nice to work with only six students at a time, but Catherine and I have both felt frustrated lately because there is little continuity in teaching this way: the groups keep changing, which on one hand gives everybody a chance to work with us, but on the other hand means that you can never be sure what you have taught to whom, or establish any standards for your little "class" such as speaking English whenever possible. Apart from English groups, I am also helping two of the 11th grade Communication classes (what we would call an English class) with discussion of literature. Every Friday, half of each class goes with me to discuss the book they're reading in the auditorium, while the other group stays with the teacher to discuss their book. I've been giving reading quizzes and working with them on pulling quotes out of the text to answer the questions I ask. It's extremely difficult to make them do the reading they're supposed to do outside of class. The students are all incredibly warm, energetic, and eager to learn, but they haven't been taught to do much of anything on their own; from what I've seen, the classes seem to emphasize memorization over critical thinking. The first few reading quizzes have been abysmal, and on their test, which covered both my book and other things they're doing with their teacher, some of them simply don't answer whole sections. It's a little scary. Last Friday I think I finally scared some of them by handing back the reading quizzes, but I honestly don't know what I'm going to do if they don't respond to my attempts to get them to read. I don't want to be the bad guy yelling at them all year, but there's so little class time that I barely have time to do anything else.
For the first few months I was here, there was almost no music in my life, which I felt as a loss--but recently I have become very musically occupied once again! Last Friday was my first rehearsal with a chorus of nineteen fourth-graders, and it went very well. I call them my Pollitos, or Little Chickens, because their "audition" was to sing a children's song about little chickens in two different keys, and the ones who could more or less stay on pitch got to be in the choir. (There were surprisingly few who could.) They were very attentive for most of the rehearsal and completely unembarassed to use their voices in silly ways for warm-ups. We worked on singing the Spanish version of Frére Jaque, and I actually noticed an improvement in their intonation by the end of the rehearsal! I was so happy! I'm also working with a chorus of 9th through 11th graders, who are more hesitant about using their voices but able to sing more complicated things; so far we've managed to get four parts going on a simple song, badly tuned, but four parts nonetheless. The students love it. Several of the guys play guitar very well and accompany us. And finally, I've become a regular member of the church choir, which is fun because I get to meet adults from the parish.
In trying to find the best work for myself here, I've learned more about what my own vaguely-defined expectations were for this year and what I'd hoped to accomplish. I've discovered that being "The Teacher" is not a role I easily identify with--I don't have the training, the wardrobe, or the urge to impose my will on large groups of unruly young people, which seem necessary for the job. The way I see it, if you don't want to learn, it's your loss, so why should I drive myself crazy trying to force you? (Especially when I'm not trained to do so and don't really know what I'm doing?) I am well aware that this attitude makes me better suited for a college environment than a grade school one, and also that I have voluntarily come to Peru in order to help grade school students, so to some extent (as Catherine has pointed out) I did "sign up" to be The Teacher for a year. But if I stop to think about it, I realize that I never pictured myself in front of a class; my idea of "helping the school" was basically that of tutoring students one on one (including the adults whose classes have moved!) . Today, for example, I had a student come by for help with an English project, and I loved being able to work with just her, going through everything until she understood it. It's funny how you can get so caught up in what you think you're expected to be doing, and trying to make it work, that you forget that you might be better off doing what you're more comfortable with. For example, another thing I'd pictured myself doing was helping in the parish, visiting sick people or something like that, which I hadn't even thought to ask about until recently because I've been so focused on making things work at the school.
However, all that said, I definitely do enjoy working with my choirs, and even with the Communication class I am willing to play Teacher for the sake of having them read and talk about books, because music and literature are very important to me, and I'm confident in my ability to teach the students something in those areas. The English groups have drawn me into the school by introducing me to practically all the 8th through 11th grade students, but they are actually where I feel the least comfortable at this point, because I don't have the training that Catherine does in teaching languages. My next step is to reach out a little more to the parish and see if anything appealing needs doing there.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Holy Week and the choir
Just after I wrote my frustrated rant about not being part of this community, things began to change in that respect. Since I have never been one to walk up to random people on the street and make friends with them, I started asking all the sisters for ideas on how to meet people. We agreed that the church choir would be a good option. Then, a few days afterwards, Sister Denise brought us to visit a friend of hers, Elisabeth, who teaches at our school. We spent a lovely two hours at Elisabeth's house with her, her husband, her father, and her one-year-old baby. Peruvians are all extremely warm, gracious hosts; Elisabeth served us Coke and crackers and we talked about the school, Peru, the US, travel, etc. They were such a cheerful family and they invited us back any time. It was nice just to feel invited somewhere! Also, I found out that at least the older and more "finished" houses around here do have running water, electricity, a TV (but no air conditioning or heat, like most of the country).
The same week, I finally got connected with the church choir. Catherine and I had planned to go to Ica for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, but the friend who was going to be our ride called two days beforehand to cancel, and so we were left disappointed. Catherine took another trip back to visit Tony's house in Chaclacayo for a day and a half, but I stayed around because I wanted to see how Holy Week is celebrated here in Delicias... and it turned out to be a great thing that I hadn't left. On Good Friday there was a Via Crucis ceremony in which the fourteen Stations of the Cross were represented by fourteen people in the neighborhood who are ill. The procession left the church and walked around singing to all of the fourteen houses, and at each one there was a prayer and a song with the sick person and their family coming to the door of the house. It was really touching to visit these people, mostly elderly women, and to see the face of God reflected in them and their suffering. It was also a three-hour-long opportunity for me to meet the leaders of the choir. I asked if I could join, and the next day I found myself in rehearsal for the Easter Sunday Mass. It was the most fun I have ever had in a choir that can't sing in tune to save their lives! (The director is talented, and did a beautiful solo song with his guitar for the meditation at Easter, but the group as a whole has major issues. If you think this is just my musical elitism talking, Catherine will tell you how painful it can be in Mass sometimes.) Everybody was really warm and welcoming, asking me where I was from, what I was doing there, etc, and inviting me to sing with them at the Wednesday and Sunday Masses. I was thrilled to have another thing to do, plus a way to meet people and use my interest in music. Teresa had told me earlier that I could be of help to the choir, and I was a little hesitant to go in and try to teach them things "my way," but I never understood what a gift I can bring to them just by singing and playing in tune. I'm planning to teach them one of my favorite church songs that I've found a Spanish translation to in the sisters' song book.
The Easter celebration here was one of the coolest things I have seen yet. It combines a nighttime vigil with a Sunday morning Mass. We started at four o'clock in the morning on the big soccer field across the street from our house. The priests and the altar were in the middle of the field, and the people stood all around on the concrete stadium steps, each person with a candle. There was a huge bonfire, out of which the priest lit the Easter candle, and the youth group did a great dance around it to Andean pipe and guitar music; somebody had made a very precarious-looking tower out of sticks and mounted fireworks on it, which went off one after the other in white spirals that spun and then went out and little rockets that didn't go very high--the technology was "más o menos," like that of the microphone and amplification system, but the people loved it. From the Easter candle, the priest passed the light to the people, and in the dark as we waited for the Resurrection and the sunrise, the whole stadium was lit up with little hopeful golden candles. By the time the Mass ended, the sun was up and it was Easter morning! Afterwards, the other house of sisters came over to our place, and Catherine and I cooked everyone an American pancake breakfast... the only bad part was that we were too full later when we went over to their house for a Peruvian lunch of ceviche, chicken and rice, and fruit salad. It was a great day and a great weekend.
The same week, I finally got connected with the church choir. Catherine and I had planned to go to Ica for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, but the friend who was going to be our ride called two days beforehand to cancel, and so we were left disappointed. Catherine took another trip back to visit Tony's house in Chaclacayo for a day and a half, but I stayed around because I wanted to see how Holy Week is celebrated here in Delicias... and it turned out to be a great thing that I hadn't left. On Good Friday there was a Via Crucis ceremony in which the fourteen Stations of the Cross were represented by fourteen people in the neighborhood who are ill. The procession left the church and walked around singing to all of the fourteen houses, and at each one there was a prayer and a song with the sick person and their family coming to the door of the house. It was really touching to visit these people, mostly elderly women, and to see the face of God reflected in them and their suffering. It was also a three-hour-long opportunity for me to meet the leaders of the choir. I asked if I could join, and the next day I found myself in rehearsal for the Easter Sunday Mass. It was the most fun I have ever had in a choir that can't sing in tune to save their lives! (The director is talented, and did a beautiful solo song with his guitar for the meditation at Easter, but the group as a whole has major issues. If you think this is just my musical elitism talking, Catherine will tell you how painful it can be in Mass sometimes.) Everybody was really warm and welcoming, asking me where I was from, what I was doing there, etc, and inviting me to sing with them at the Wednesday and Sunday Masses. I was thrilled to have another thing to do, plus a way to meet people and use my interest in music. Teresa had told me earlier that I could be of help to the choir, and I was a little hesitant to go in and try to teach them things "my way," but I never understood what a gift I can bring to them just by singing and playing in tune. I'm planning to teach them one of my favorite church songs that I've found a Spanish translation to in the sisters' song book.
The Easter celebration here was one of the coolest things I have seen yet. It combines a nighttime vigil with a Sunday morning Mass. We started at four o'clock in the morning on the big soccer field across the street from our house. The priests and the altar were in the middle of the field, and the people stood all around on the concrete stadium steps, each person with a candle. There was a huge bonfire, out of which the priest lit the Easter candle, and the youth group did a great dance around it to Andean pipe and guitar music; somebody had made a very precarious-looking tower out of sticks and mounted fireworks on it, which went off one after the other in white spirals that spun and then went out and little rockets that didn't go very high--the technology was "más o menos," like that of the microphone and amplification system, but the people loved it. From the Easter candle, the priest passed the light to the people, and in the dark as we waited for the Resurrection and the sunrise, the whole stadium was lit up with little hopeful golden candles. By the time the Mass ended, the sun was up and it was Easter morning! Afterwards, the other house of sisters came over to our place, and Catherine and I cooked everyone an American pancake breakfast... the only bad part was that we were too full later when we went over to their house for a Peruvian lunch of ceviche, chicken and rice, and fruit salad. It was a great day and a great weekend.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
A day off
A week ago last Monday, there was no school for a teacher meeting, so Sister Teresa took me and Catherine to get our resident ID cards from the immigration office in Lima. We are now legal residents of Peru until March 2008. It was cool to see all the different kinds of people in the immigration office--some gringos like us, some Asian people, and some Peruvians there for their own passports and such. We took a colectivo, which is like a taxi car with a set route, into the center of the city because it was faster than a bus... and the driver was determined to get us there fast, because I counted no less than four lights which turned red just before he continued through them, and even in Peru I've never seen anybody inch between two lanes of traffic quite so daringly. Then he charged Teresa 3 soles for each of us, and when she asked when the price had gone up from 2.50 to 3, he handed her the extra 1.50 back immediately, very matter-of-factly, with no effort at argument and no air of shame for having tried to pull a fast one on the three white people. Ah, Peru.
After the immigration office, Teresa had other errands to run, so me and Catherine had a great lunch in this little corner restaurant of the type so typical here. There's a Menu of the Day written on a dry-erase board out front; you get to choose either a soup or an appetizer, and then you choose your main course from two to five options, and both courses plus a drink costs 5 soles, less than $2. These little places seem sketchy from the outside because they're so unofficial-looking, but the food is excellent! I had chicken with pinapple sauce, rice, and beans, and Catherine had goat (yes, goat) with cilantro sauce. My appetizer was avocado salad and hers was a chicken tamale. Mmmm, delicious.
After lunch we wanted to go to Metro, the supermarket that looks like any American Giant or Safeway, for some things we don't buy in the market in the pueblo. But right next to Metro is Ripley, the Peruvian version of Sears or Hecht's, and we had an urge to go shopping. I hadn't realized until we walked in how much I had been longing for something "normal," that is, similar to the world I knew for the first twenty-two-plus years of my life. We spent hours looking for sales, trying things on, and at the end I bought a sweater and jeans... I have never been so happy to be in a department store. Metro had the same effect--it was amazing to be shopping with a shopping cart, aisles, things in cans, Corn Flakes on the shelves, etc. I bought macaroni and cheese in a box as a special treat (the cheese was too expensive for us to buy enough of it to make our own macaroni, which was the original plan.) It's amazing the things that one misses being away--all the stupid little foods that are so common in America, like macaroni and cheese, and aren't even that great except that they're what you're used to. Bubble tea, Domino's pizza, the Bagel Bin in Ellicott City, and Shanghai Cafe are other cravings I've had. But what can you do... the ceviche with sweet potato or the sandwiches with avocado and lime are here to make up for it.
After the immigration office, Teresa had other errands to run, so me and Catherine had a great lunch in this little corner restaurant of the type so typical here. There's a Menu of the Day written on a dry-erase board out front; you get to choose either a soup or an appetizer, and then you choose your main course from two to five options, and both courses plus a drink costs 5 soles, less than $2. These little places seem sketchy from the outside because they're so unofficial-looking, but the food is excellent! I had chicken with pinapple sauce, rice, and beans, and Catherine had goat (yes, goat) with cilantro sauce. My appetizer was avocado salad and hers was a chicken tamale. Mmmm, delicious.
After lunch we wanted to go to Metro, the supermarket that looks like any American Giant or Safeway, for some things we don't buy in the market in the pueblo. But right next to Metro is Ripley, the Peruvian version of Sears or Hecht's, and we had an urge to go shopping. I hadn't realized until we walked in how much I had been longing for something "normal," that is, similar to the world I knew for the first twenty-two-plus years of my life. We spent hours looking for sales, trying things on, and at the end I bought a sweater and jeans... I have never been so happy to be in a department store. Metro had the same effect--it was amazing to be shopping with a shopping cart, aisles, things in cans, Corn Flakes on the shelves, etc. I bought macaroni and cheese in a box as a special treat (the cheese was too expensive for us to buy enough of it to make our own macaroni, which was the original plan.) It's amazing the things that one misses being away--all the stupid little foods that are so common in America, like macaroni and cheese, and aren't even that great except that they're what you're used to. Bubble tea, Domino's pizza, the Bagel Bin in Ellicott City, and Shanghai Cafe are other cravings I've had. But what can you do... the ceviche with sweet potato or the sandwiches with avocado and lime are here to make up for it.
Quarter-year reflections
Wow, we have been here for three months now... one-quarter of our volunteer time!
Three months seems to bring with it a kind of second-wave culture shock, what you might call an end to the "honeymoon period" of being in a foreign country. At first, everything here was so new and different that even the weird, uncomfortable, or annoying things about Peru were all part of the adventure. Now, however, the house we're living in feels like "my house," the street is "my street," the view out the front window of the guys playing soccer on the field opposite the house has become very familiar. Even the market is becoming an expected sight (only the occasional shocker, like the live frogs I saw being sold the other day, still hits me strongly) and the crazy Peruvian driving has ceased to terrify me at all. But as I begin to regard parts of this life as "normal" and thus expect less of the unexpected, things that didn't bother me before have really started to shock and irritate me. If this is "my house" and "my neighborhood," why do I still get whistled at and stared at every time I step out the door? It seems like I can't walk down the street without passing a group of men and hearing wolf whistles or badly pronounced "Hello"s or just plain "Muy bonita!" ("very pretty!") called out after me. It's something that seems completely normal to the people here, men and women alike, but as an American, I can't stop finding it rude and offensive--and more than anything, it makes both me and Catherine feel our status as outsiders very intensely. We're not the tourists here anymore, we're the tourist attraction, and more than anything I would like to figure out how to become more a part of this community.
The community is too large to meet everyone. Mostly we are friends with the sisters we live with, the other house of nuns down the street, and a group of young Peruvians we met through Dr. Tony's house in Chaclacayo. We have been out dancing with them twice and had a good time--my favorite part was seeing two amazing live salsa bands at the club we went to. But in the neighborhood where we live, we simply don't have friends. We know the people at Fe y Alegría, somewhat; at least, everyone is very warm and kind in greeting us when we walk around the school. The students all call out "Miss! Miss!" or "Señorita! Hola!" when they see you, and lots of them come up to give you a kiss on the cheek, which is how people greet each other in Lima. But students aren't friends, and most of the teachers are married with their own families and lives to attend to... and at the end of the day, most of the people we pass on the street don't know us. Last Sunday my frustration about this boiled over, and we spent a long time talking to the sisters about possible ways for us to meet people. Sister Denise has come up with a few contacts for us, so we'll see how that goes. But we discovered in our discussion that the problem may be that the young women around here simply aren't visible. They either have jobs, go to school and have jobs, or are mothers in their early twenties and spend their time with their families. They seem to live their lives in a more private sphere... at least, that would explain why we constantly see groups of men hanging out on the streets, but never a group of young women.
Anyway, our introduction period is over, we're back from our summer at Tony's and our "real work" is solidly underway... and the question appears, are we doing what we came here to do? Is it worth the enormous effort and all the donations that went into NDMVP's program to bring us here? Are we being of service to this community? So far, in the middle of much chaos as I try to find my niche at the school, one thing is working pretty well: I do feel that my English groups are contributing to those students' learning. Not only are they learning some more English, but I have also been working on some study habits with them. Peruvian students (at least these ones) are very warm, eager, energetic, and interested to learn--a far cry from American high schoolers with their "too cool for school" attitudes--but they have absolutely no study habits, no idea how to learn independently, because they haven't been taught to think critically. The idea of taking notes is foreign to them. If you tell them to copy the board, they all copy beautifully, in two different pen colors and a highlighter, but until you tell them to, they just sit there, not even taking out their notebooks. The other day I said to my Comunicación section, "Take out your notebooks," and one girl asked me in perfect seriousness, "Pens too?" I have been trying to tell them that their notebooks are their own, and if they want to remember something later, they should write down the most important things we talk about in class so they can study it. Some of my English students were actually taking notes on their own the other day and I got so happy!One of the jobs I had hoped to do here, however, has disappeared--the Saturday radio school for adults to get the equivalent of their GED has been moved to another location, and so I can't help with that. I had really looked forward to teaching adults basic reading or math, but even if I were to take on students for tutoring, they couldn't get their certification just from me, they'd have to go to the school in its new location, which is two bus rides away. So that's no longer an option.
Now that we're settling in a little bit, the next step is to really become part of the community, to start actually "living here" instead of just being here on a long vacation. It's not just something I want, or something that would be good for cultural exchange, it's something I need very badly in order not to feel like an exile for my entire year here. I'm still planning to join the church choir here to meet some people and get some singing back in my life. As soon as I get back from our trip to Ica this weekend, I'll go up and introduce myself to them after Mass and ask if I can sing. And we'll see where things go from there. Ideally, it would lead to my meeting a few families, some neighbors perhaps, and getting to know some adults instead of just the kids in the school.
The most overwhelming impression I have after a quarter of a year here is that I am now familiar with a different reality. It's kind of incredible to me that four months ago, I had almost no idea of any different kind of life that the one I had lived for 22 years in the United States--and now the sights and sounds of Peru, the crazy crazy buses, the salsa and reggaeton on the radio, the desert, the colors, the market, the mountains, the people, are all starting to sink into my mind as a coherent world, something that I recognize and maybe even understand a bit. Spanish is coming more and more easily every month. Black hair, almond-brown skin, and deep beautiful brown eyes are now the norm that my brain expects when looking at people, and I realize just how much I stand out when I see another white person and find myself staring at them exactly the way I hate to be stared at by Peruvians. I guess the eye is naturally drawn to whatever is different... anyway, it's starting to feel like I'm here to stay for a while.
Three months seems to bring with it a kind of second-wave culture shock, what you might call an end to the "honeymoon period" of being in a foreign country. At first, everything here was so new and different that even the weird, uncomfortable, or annoying things about Peru were all part of the adventure. Now, however, the house we're living in feels like "my house," the street is "my street," the view out the front window of the guys playing soccer on the field opposite the house has become very familiar. Even the market is becoming an expected sight (only the occasional shocker, like the live frogs I saw being sold the other day, still hits me strongly) and the crazy Peruvian driving has ceased to terrify me at all. But as I begin to regard parts of this life as "normal" and thus expect less of the unexpected, things that didn't bother me before have really started to shock and irritate me. If this is "my house" and "my neighborhood," why do I still get whistled at and stared at every time I step out the door? It seems like I can't walk down the street without passing a group of men and hearing wolf whistles or badly pronounced "Hello"s or just plain "Muy bonita!" ("very pretty!") called out after me. It's something that seems completely normal to the people here, men and women alike, but as an American, I can't stop finding it rude and offensive--and more than anything, it makes both me and Catherine feel our status as outsiders very intensely. We're not the tourists here anymore, we're the tourist attraction, and more than anything I would like to figure out how to become more a part of this community.
The community is too large to meet everyone. Mostly we are friends with the sisters we live with, the other house of nuns down the street, and a group of young Peruvians we met through Dr. Tony's house in Chaclacayo. We have been out dancing with them twice and had a good time--my favorite part was seeing two amazing live salsa bands at the club we went to. But in the neighborhood where we live, we simply don't have friends. We know the people at Fe y Alegría, somewhat; at least, everyone is very warm and kind in greeting us when we walk around the school. The students all call out "Miss! Miss!" or "Señorita! Hola!" when they see you, and lots of them come up to give you a kiss on the cheek, which is how people greet each other in Lima. But students aren't friends, and most of the teachers are married with their own families and lives to attend to... and at the end of the day, most of the people we pass on the street don't know us. Last Sunday my frustration about this boiled over, and we spent a long time talking to the sisters about possible ways for us to meet people. Sister Denise has come up with a few contacts for us, so we'll see how that goes. But we discovered in our discussion that the problem may be that the young women around here simply aren't visible. They either have jobs, go to school and have jobs, or are mothers in their early twenties and spend their time with their families. They seem to live their lives in a more private sphere... at least, that would explain why we constantly see groups of men hanging out on the streets, but never a group of young women.
Anyway, our introduction period is over, we're back from our summer at Tony's and our "real work" is solidly underway... and the question appears, are we doing what we came here to do? Is it worth the enormous effort and all the donations that went into NDMVP's program to bring us here? Are we being of service to this community? So far, in the middle of much chaos as I try to find my niche at the school, one thing is working pretty well: I do feel that my English groups are contributing to those students' learning. Not only are they learning some more English, but I have also been working on some study habits with them. Peruvian students (at least these ones) are very warm, eager, energetic, and interested to learn--a far cry from American high schoolers with their "too cool for school" attitudes--but they have absolutely no study habits, no idea how to learn independently, because they haven't been taught to think critically. The idea of taking notes is foreign to them. If you tell them to copy the board, they all copy beautifully, in two different pen colors and a highlighter, but until you tell them to, they just sit there, not even taking out their notebooks. The other day I said to my Comunicación section, "Take out your notebooks," and one girl asked me in perfect seriousness, "Pens too?" I have been trying to tell them that their notebooks are their own, and if they want to remember something later, they should write down the most important things we talk about in class so they can study it. Some of my English students were actually taking notes on their own the other day and I got so happy!One of the jobs I had hoped to do here, however, has disappeared--the Saturday radio school for adults to get the equivalent of their GED has been moved to another location, and so I can't help with that. I had really looked forward to teaching adults basic reading or math, but even if I were to take on students for tutoring, they couldn't get their certification just from me, they'd have to go to the school in its new location, which is two bus rides away. So that's no longer an option.
Now that we're settling in a little bit, the next step is to really become part of the community, to start actually "living here" instead of just being here on a long vacation. It's not just something I want, or something that would be good for cultural exchange, it's something I need very badly in order not to feel like an exile for my entire year here. I'm still planning to join the church choir here to meet some people and get some singing back in my life. As soon as I get back from our trip to Ica this weekend, I'll go up and introduce myself to them after Mass and ask if I can sing. And we'll see where things go from there. Ideally, it would lead to my meeting a few families, some neighbors perhaps, and getting to know some adults instead of just the kids in the school.
The most overwhelming impression I have after a quarter of a year here is that I am now familiar with a different reality. It's kind of incredible to me that four months ago, I had almost no idea of any different kind of life that the one I had lived for 22 years in the United States--and now the sights and sounds of Peru, the crazy crazy buses, the salsa and reggaeton on the radio, the desert, the colors, the market, the mountains, the people, are all starting to sink into my mind as a coherent world, something that I recognize and maybe even understand a bit. Spanish is coming more and more easily every month. Black hair, almond-brown skin, and deep beautiful brown eyes are now the norm that my brain expects when looking at people, and I realize just how much I stand out when I see another white person and find myself staring at them exactly the way I hate to be stared at by Peruvians. I guess the eye is naturally drawn to whatever is different... anyway, it's starting to feel like I'm here to stay for a while.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Fe y Alegría
It's been a slow start at Fe y Alegría for the past few weeks. At the end of our first week we got the call we'd been waiting for to go to Ecuador and claim our visas, which will allow us to stay past the tourist deadline of three months, and so we skipped off north on an overnight bus and were gone for a total of five days. The trip deserves its own entry, so all I'll say here is that we now have religious visas, making our "temporary nun" status official in the eyes of those who check our passports.
When I was considering coming here and heard "school in a shanty town in Peru," I was thinking of a few rooms, a couple teachers, and a chalkboard; thankfully Fe y Alegría is much more developed than that, but in a way it makes it more difficult that the school is fully functional without any help from us at all. In a place where everybody more or less has their schedule and their established ways of doing things, we have to figure out the most beneficial way to spend our time and then create a place for ourselves based on that. Catherine spent the first week as an aide in the kindergarten through second grade and sixth grade classrooms to get to know her future students. Then, starting last Friday, she began to teach them English. She says the sixth grade is going well, but the kindergarteners are basically a zoo, which is frustrating for someone trained as a secondary school teacher. The other big issue is materials: there aren't any, at least not being handed to her. Whatever she wants, worksheets, posters, textbooks, she has to either create or go ask somebody to help get it for her. The same goes for me--it's just that I haven't felt the lack of materials because I haven't really started creating lessons of my own yet.
During the first week I spent most of my time in the 8th through 11th grade English classrooms. The English teacher, Soledad, is a very nice, very graceful woman who speaks English well but knows she has an accent, so she asks me to help the kids pronounce the words they study. I've even noticed that she has corrected a few things about her own pronunciation based on what I've been teaching the kids, which is really professional of her. Not to mention the fact that she has basically accepted me into her class as an auxiliary teacher and been totally flexible about when I'm there and when I'm not. Flexibility, I'm learning, is one thing that this school and the teachers have in spades. Structure... not quite so much.
The first few weeks of English have been review for the students: introducing themselves, spelling (I made the more energetic groups sing the alphabet song), and vocabulary like fruits, vegetables, colors, and parts of the body. They only have two 45-minute periods of English per week. There are some hilarious things that get said in a language classroom, from the students who are "fixteen" years old to the literal translation of the school's motto on the wall, which reads, "Honesty, Laboriousness, Veracity," to the fact that not one group of students remembered on the first day that the letter Y is Y and not U. One class after another would get to "I'm sorry" on the chart of Magic Words and spell, S! O! R! R! U! (Monty Python fans--"Y, sir!"--"Y!" U is right out.) But helping with pronunciation is only so exciting, and I was getting bored, until just yesterday I started taking small groups of the more advanced students to the library for a little extra enhancement of what they're reviewing in class. It's going great so far. For tercero (9th grade), we took the colors they'd reviewed and started saying sentences like "I have a white shirt." For cuarto (10th grade), we expanded their review list of fruits and vegetables to include other foods and started to say, "I like to eat (whatever) for breakfast." It feels great to take the kids who are ready to go on and give them more to do. If nothing else, I feel that is a real gift I can make to the school this year. Of course, they are going to demand actual lesson planning, but I have a trained teacher as my Siamese twin for the year, and she's already given me a crash course in that.
So English is moving along for both of us. Our other projects are still in the works. For the after-school English club, we have to coordinate with the vice-principal for secundaria about the timing, plus decide whether we want one group or more, on what level, etc. I need to get Catherine and Soledad in the same place at the same time to discuss that... hopefully today... The hard thing is organizing anything, because it's all so unofficial that I'm never sure when something is actually happening or not. For my choir, the one that exists in my head at least, all I've managed to accomplish so far is to email my middle school choir director for advice on working with kids, and find out that all I'm getting is one rehearsal per week (on Fridays from 4:30 to 6! Gross!) with one grade, instead of two rehearsals per week with both third and fourth graders. Scheduling, you suck.
Finally, I have wisely or unwisely inserted myself into another classroom: the Comunicación classes for 11th grade, i.e. language and literature. This has been my big frustration recently, comparable to Catherine's kindergarteners and not for altogether different reasons. With only three 45-minute periods of Comunicación per week, there's not enough time to do everything the teacher needs to fit in. So far I have tried to lead two discussions on short readings from the textbook, and I'm totally talking over the kids' heads, but I can't figure out how to go more basic without sticking entirely to comprehension of the plot, which they are right on board with. I hate to lead them by the nose from one appropriate quote to another and thus to the point I want to make, but they don't seem to come up with it on their own, so I have no idea. Plus, besides the excerpts of classics in the book, they are supposed to be reading one book per month outside of class, which there will be NO time to discuss, so the teacher wants me to start a voluntary discussion group outside of class. Which is great, but I have to figure out how much I should try to do, analysis- and writing-wise, with the whole class and how much with the outside group; they should all be learning how to write papers, but... Such are the difficulties. And it's not really my class anyway, so even if I knew what kind of goals to aim for with this group of students, I might not be able to really work toward them in the way I'd like.
And with all this, plus cooking twice a week with Catherine from our Peruvian cookbook, in a way I'm still bored. It's funny. At Dr. Tony's, I knew I was in a non-academic setting where my job was to worry about kids brushing their teeth and fighting over toys and peeing on the floor, and that was just that, and I got to know the kids and came to love them. But here, it's school, and yet I've been frustrated so far in trying to do some of the great things that I love about school. It's mainly because I don't know what I'm doing, either as a teacher or in terms of organizing new groups and activities; it takes a while to soak up all the information of a new setting enough simply to judge what needs to be done, not to mention figuring out how to do it. I've never been the one organizing people and making things happen, so this is my crash course. But it's a good course to have, crash or not. I think if I can just get a couple of long-term goals in my head by talking to the teachers and figuring out what goals they have in mind for their classes for the year, I'll have more of a direction to go in. The trouble is that everything seems very spontaneous, one lesson on this, one lesson on that, with no established yearlong curriculum, at least not that I've seen. I think the curriculum is in the teachers' heads. Anyway, such are the issues of the day. Catherine and I are planning to visit Ica for Semana Santa and need to figure out how to reserve hostels and bus tickets too. But at least we have learned to cook with aji and cilantro, i.e. pure deliciousness. Scones are coming up soon.
When I was considering coming here and heard "school in a shanty town in Peru," I was thinking of a few rooms, a couple teachers, and a chalkboard; thankfully Fe y Alegría is much more developed than that, but in a way it makes it more difficult that the school is fully functional without any help from us at all. In a place where everybody more or less has their schedule and their established ways of doing things, we have to figure out the most beneficial way to spend our time and then create a place for ourselves based on that. Catherine spent the first week as an aide in the kindergarten through second grade and sixth grade classrooms to get to know her future students. Then, starting last Friday, she began to teach them English. She says the sixth grade is going well, but the kindergarteners are basically a zoo, which is frustrating for someone trained as a secondary school teacher. The other big issue is materials: there aren't any, at least not being handed to her. Whatever she wants, worksheets, posters, textbooks, she has to either create or go ask somebody to help get it for her. The same goes for me--it's just that I haven't felt the lack of materials because I haven't really started creating lessons of my own yet.
During the first week I spent most of my time in the 8th through 11th grade English classrooms. The English teacher, Soledad, is a very nice, very graceful woman who speaks English well but knows she has an accent, so she asks me to help the kids pronounce the words they study. I've even noticed that she has corrected a few things about her own pronunciation based on what I've been teaching the kids, which is really professional of her. Not to mention the fact that she has basically accepted me into her class as an auxiliary teacher and been totally flexible about when I'm there and when I'm not. Flexibility, I'm learning, is one thing that this school and the teachers have in spades. Structure... not quite so much.
The first few weeks of English have been review for the students: introducing themselves, spelling (I made the more energetic groups sing the alphabet song), and vocabulary like fruits, vegetables, colors, and parts of the body. They only have two 45-minute periods of English per week. There are some hilarious things that get said in a language classroom, from the students who are "fixteen" years old to the literal translation of the school's motto on the wall, which reads, "Honesty, Laboriousness, Veracity," to the fact that not one group of students remembered on the first day that the letter Y is Y and not U. One class after another would get to "I'm sorry" on the chart of Magic Words and spell, S! O! R! R! U! (Monty Python fans--"Y, sir!"--"Y!" U is right out.) But helping with pronunciation is only so exciting, and I was getting bored, until just yesterday I started taking small groups of the more advanced students to the library for a little extra enhancement of what they're reviewing in class. It's going great so far. For tercero (9th grade), we took the colors they'd reviewed and started saying sentences like "I have a white shirt." For cuarto (10th grade), we expanded their review list of fruits and vegetables to include other foods and started to say, "I like to eat (whatever) for breakfast." It feels great to take the kids who are ready to go on and give them more to do. If nothing else, I feel that is a real gift I can make to the school this year. Of course, they are going to demand actual lesson planning, but I have a trained teacher as my Siamese twin for the year, and she's already given me a crash course in that.
So English is moving along for both of us. Our other projects are still in the works. For the after-school English club, we have to coordinate with the vice-principal for secundaria about the timing, plus decide whether we want one group or more, on what level, etc. I need to get Catherine and Soledad in the same place at the same time to discuss that... hopefully today... The hard thing is organizing anything, because it's all so unofficial that I'm never sure when something is actually happening or not. For my choir, the one that exists in my head at least, all I've managed to accomplish so far is to email my middle school choir director for advice on working with kids, and find out that all I'm getting is one rehearsal per week (on Fridays from 4:30 to 6! Gross!) with one grade, instead of two rehearsals per week with both third and fourth graders. Scheduling, you suck.
Finally, I have wisely or unwisely inserted myself into another classroom: the Comunicación classes for 11th grade, i.e. language and literature. This has been my big frustration recently, comparable to Catherine's kindergarteners and not for altogether different reasons. With only three 45-minute periods of Comunicación per week, there's not enough time to do everything the teacher needs to fit in. So far I have tried to lead two discussions on short readings from the textbook, and I'm totally talking over the kids' heads, but I can't figure out how to go more basic without sticking entirely to comprehension of the plot, which they are right on board with. I hate to lead them by the nose from one appropriate quote to another and thus to the point I want to make, but they don't seem to come up with it on their own, so I have no idea. Plus, besides the excerpts of classics in the book, they are supposed to be reading one book per month outside of class, which there will be NO time to discuss, so the teacher wants me to start a voluntary discussion group outside of class. Which is great, but I have to figure out how much I should try to do, analysis- and writing-wise, with the whole class and how much with the outside group; they should all be learning how to write papers, but... Such are the difficulties. And it's not really my class anyway, so even if I knew what kind of goals to aim for with this group of students, I might not be able to really work toward them in the way I'd like.
And with all this, plus cooking twice a week with Catherine from our Peruvian cookbook, in a way I'm still bored. It's funny. At Dr. Tony's, I knew I was in a non-academic setting where my job was to worry about kids brushing their teeth and fighting over toys and peeing on the floor, and that was just that, and I got to know the kids and came to love them. But here, it's school, and yet I've been frustrated so far in trying to do some of the great things that I love about school. It's mainly because I don't know what I'm doing, either as a teacher or in terms of organizing new groups and activities; it takes a while to soak up all the information of a new setting enough simply to judge what needs to be done, not to mention figuring out how to do it. I've never been the one organizing people and making things happen, so this is my crash course. But it's a good course to have, crash or not. I think if I can just get a couple of long-term goals in my head by talking to the teachers and figuring out what goals they have in mind for their classes for the year, I'll have more of a direction to go in. The trouble is that everything seems very spontaneous, one lesson on this, one lesson on that, with no established yearlong curriculum, at least not that I've seen. I think the curriculum is in the teachers' heads. Anyway, such are the issues of the day. Catherine and I are planning to visit Ica for Semana Santa and need to figure out how to reserve hostels and bus tickets too. But at least we have learned to cook with aji and cilantro, i.e. pure deliciousness. Scones are coming up soon.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
A little down time
We had over a week in between returning from Tony's and starting school, and it was a period of re-adjustment for me. Coming from Chaclacayo back to Las Delicias is certainly not as shocking as coming from the US was at first, but it is still a change--from green parks and paved highways in the mountain valley to the dusty streets of a pueblo joven. We had little to do that week, and we were both starting to get restless, especially when we heard from our fellow volunteers in Kenya who have been working at their official assignments for two months now and are well into the swing of things. A few of the things we did while waiting for school to start:
Got rid of the head lice, listening in the process to tons of salsa on the radio while combing through each other's hair. A lot of salsa, it turns out, is very explicitly about sex. "Don't take off your clothes, I want to do it myself" sounds odd to that upbeat salsa sound of trumpets and percussion.
Went to a meeting of the "volunteer network" in Miraflores. There were about twelve non-Peruvian volunteers there, mostly in their late teens or 20's, gathered for a little support and sharing and ice cream. I loved it because not only did I have a lot in common with them, but we all spoke different languages and had to communicate in Spanish, nobody's native language, to understand each other. There were 5 English speakers, 3 French speakers, 2 German speakers, an Italian, and a woman from Japan, all laughing about the weird things Peruvians do and the reasons we love this country. It was awesome!
Met up with Miguel, a friend of one of our friends from home who grew up in Peru. He's super nice and took us to a Pizza Hut in Miraflores, which is much nicer than Pizza Hut at home. We had pisco sours with our vegetarian pizza. Afterwards we walked around Miraflores and found a park-plaza where people were out dancing salsa at night--so cool.
Visited Catherine's sister's husband's sister and her family, who were incredibly nice as well and took us to a wonderful restaurant in Pachacamac so we could try lots of different Peruvian foods. We drove by big stretches of desert with Inca ruins on the way, low rock walls worn down by hundreds of years of sand and sun. The next week they invited us back, and Catherine went, but I went to the beach with some friends we met in Chaclacayo. The Pacific Ocean has bigger waves than the Atlantic! (or at least this beach had bigger waves than Bethany Beach, Delaware) but they break farther out, so you can swim around in the surf as it comes washing in. The mountains, which looked like huge sand dunes at this point, came almost right down to the shore, so you'd be on the beach with a huge cliff rising straight up a hundred yards behind you. It was hazy and the sun only came out for a short while, but there were few people and big flocks of seagulls that I enjoyed running at and setting aflight. On the way back came another very authentic Latin American experience--the car overheated, and we had to wait until some people stopped to help us with the appropriate mechanic tools to get us going again. Luckily there was a lot of traffic going back from the beach at that point, so it didn't take that long to get moving again.
Attended teachers' meetings the Thursday and Friday before school started. Catherine and I were not impressed by the discussions--the biggest meeting we saw was a workshop on how to plan lessons according to a certain model, but it did not seem to be working at all. There was supposedly a "transverse content" that would last all year and be worked into each lesson, such as "self-respect and respect for others," but then the discussion got bogged down in "abilities, sub-abilities, and sub-sub-abilities" that the students would demonstrate, each supposed to have its "proof of achievement" which is basically a bureaucratic way to ask if the student gets it or not, and there was more time spent on determining what the sub-sub-abilities and corresponding "constant necessity" were than on actually planning anything. Proof, I suppose, of the silliness of some of the things people come up with in trying to make sure that education is happening the way it should. But that's not to say that the school itself is unimpressive--it is actually astounding, considering that the people, with the help of Fé y Alegría, have built it up from nothing but dusty hillside, just like they build their houses and neighborhoods. The building is an open rectangle with a courtyard, gardens, and playground in the middle. The kids come in their uniforms every day to study math, Spanish language and literature, history, English, religion, art, and other classes, and the older ones have career-oriented workshops one afternoon a week. Catherine and I are hanging out in certain classrooms for the time being, getting the feel of things before we start up our projects like an English club, a book club (yay!), a choir (whee!!), and maybe an English class for the teachers. All of which has yet to take shape... for the meantime, I'm teaching some pronunciation in the English classes, and I've gotten some nice "thank you"s instead of "sank you"s out of the kids, so so far so good.
Got rid of the head lice, listening in the process to tons of salsa on the radio while combing through each other's hair. A lot of salsa, it turns out, is very explicitly about sex. "Don't take off your clothes, I want to do it myself" sounds odd to that upbeat salsa sound of trumpets and percussion.
Went to a meeting of the "volunteer network" in Miraflores. There were about twelve non-Peruvian volunteers there, mostly in their late teens or 20's, gathered for a little support and sharing and ice cream. I loved it because not only did I have a lot in common with them, but we all spoke different languages and had to communicate in Spanish, nobody's native language, to understand each other. There were 5 English speakers, 3 French speakers, 2 German speakers, an Italian, and a woman from Japan, all laughing about the weird things Peruvians do and the reasons we love this country. It was awesome!
Met up with Miguel, a friend of one of our friends from home who grew up in Peru. He's super nice and took us to a Pizza Hut in Miraflores, which is much nicer than Pizza Hut at home. We had pisco sours with our vegetarian pizza. Afterwards we walked around Miraflores and found a park-plaza where people were out dancing salsa at night--so cool.
Visited Catherine's sister's husband's sister and her family, who were incredibly nice as well and took us to a wonderful restaurant in Pachacamac so we could try lots of different Peruvian foods. We drove by big stretches of desert with Inca ruins on the way, low rock walls worn down by hundreds of years of sand and sun. The next week they invited us back, and Catherine went, but I went to the beach with some friends we met in Chaclacayo. The Pacific Ocean has bigger waves than the Atlantic! (or at least this beach had bigger waves than Bethany Beach, Delaware) but they break farther out, so you can swim around in the surf as it comes washing in. The mountains, which looked like huge sand dunes at this point, came almost right down to the shore, so you'd be on the beach with a huge cliff rising straight up a hundred yards behind you. It was hazy and the sun only came out for a short while, but there were few people and big flocks of seagulls that I enjoyed running at and setting aflight. On the way back came another very authentic Latin American experience--the car overheated, and we had to wait until some people stopped to help us with the appropriate mechanic tools to get us going again. Luckily there was a lot of traffic going back from the beach at that point, so it didn't take that long to get moving again.
Attended teachers' meetings the Thursday and Friday before school started. Catherine and I were not impressed by the discussions--the biggest meeting we saw was a workshop on how to plan lessons according to a certain model, but it did not seem to be working at all. There was supposedly a "transverse content" that would last all year and be worked into each lesson, such as "self-respect and respect for others," but then the discussion got bogged down in "abilities, sub-abilities, and sub-sub-abilities" that the students would demonstrate, each supposed to have its "proof of achievement" which is basically a bureaucratic way to ask if the student gets it or not, and there was more time spent on determining what the sub-sub-abilities and corresponding "constant necessity" were than on actually planning anything. Proof, I suppose, of the silliness of some of the things people come up with in trying to make sure that education is happening the way it should. But that's not to say that the school itself is unimpressive--it is actually astounding, considering that the people, with the help of Fé y Alegría, have built it up from nothing but dusty hillside, just like they build their houses and neighborhoods. The building is an open rectangle with a courtyard, gardens, and playground in the middle. The kids come in their uniforms every day to study math, Spanish language and literature, history, English, religion, art, and other classes, and the older ones have career-oriented workshops one afternoon a week. Catherine and I are hanging out in certain classrooms for the time being, getting the feel of things before we start up our projects like an English club, a book club (yay!), a choir (whee!!), and maybe an English class for the teachers. All of which has yet to take shape... for the meantime, I'm teaching some pronunciation in the English classes, and I've gotten some nice "thank you"s instead of "sank you"s out of the kids, so so far so good.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Goodbye to the Hogar
During my first days at the Hogar, I thought I would never survive five weeks; the days were incredibly long, and there were so very, very many children. But it has come to feel like a home away from home, and our five weeks went by like no time at all. I'll try to put down some of my strongest memories from my time there, knowing that I will be back to visit for a weekend or two or three during the rest of my year.
During the week we usually help the little kids get bathed and dressed in the morning, go into Lima with them to their appointments if needed, or else hang out at the house helping with their lessons or playing. I, however, always enjoyed Saturdays most because it was market day. On a typical Saturday morning I get up at 6:45 or 7 to be downstairs by the time the kids finish breakfast at 7:30. (Wake-up call: the sound of Tony yelling from downstairs for the kids to finish their breakfast ("Angela! Avanza!"). Some of them just sit there staring at their food until barked at, which I do not understand.) Coming down from my room, I never make it past the second-floor landing, because there are little boys with leg problems sitting in chairs by the nurses' station who call out to you to bathe them, take them downstairs, or brush their teeth, all at once. It's both exhausting and hilarious to be greeted every morning with "Senorita, pichi!" or "Catalina! Catalina! Tu me banas!" I've gotten good at saying "No, I can't right now," if I'm too tired to deal with it that morning, but most of the time I kind of like it--it wakes you up kind of like a cold shower, which I am also learning to appreciate. I prefer to get the morning chaos out of the way before breakfast so that my eating won't be rushed with requests to go upstairs and brush teeth, etc.
At 9:30 or 10 on Saturday mornings we would go to the market. Dr. Tony drives one of the 15-passenger combis that are ubiquitous in Peru, with the volunteers, one of the cooks, Tony's friend Frank who is like a grandfather to all the kids, and usually one of the boys as well. The highway goes in between two chains of mountains that are nothing but stark, bare, gray-brown rock, but in the valley there are trees, houses, flowers, a river. The weather for the most part was sunny and relatively clear in Chaclacayo. We went to three different markets because Tony's favorite places to shop for vegetables (including 48 kilograms of potatoes every week), fruits, and meat are in three different places. Frank (Tio Fransicso to the kids) always bought a mano of tiny, sweet bananas and gave one to everybody. Among all the delicious food that we had at the Hogar, I think the fresh, sweet mangos we bought at that fruit market were my absolute favorite. On our last day at the market, Catherine and I bought a Peruvian cookbook, so now we're going to learn things like ceviche, papa a la huancaina, chicha morada... yum!
Later on we would take the kids to the park after lunch. I haven't yet managed to inform all of Peru that their custom of throwing water at women in February is disrespectful and unacceptable, but we did manage to have some great water fights among ourselves at the park (shh, don't tell Dr. Tony.) My friend John, a volunteer from Ireland and one of the nicest people I've met here, went and bought one of the boys a water gun, at which point we female volunteers taught the girls that the proper response to such a thing is not to scream and run, but to run at them all at once and take away the water gun! It was hilarious, especially since they kept giving the water gun to the blind kid, Jose Luis, or Arlis, who's in a wheelchair. I like Carnevales much better when it's among friends and/or when the people who have the most water are blind or immobile.
One of the most intense parts of our stay for me was being with some of the young women in the house, Anita and Marleney, when they were in pain at different times. Just before we left, Marleney had an operation which I didn't entirely understand, but which left her lying in her bed groaning in pain for hours even after they gave her painkillers. I had nothing to do but sit beside her and hold her hand. I sang songs that my mom used to sing to me as a baby, and then we prayed the Rosary together with some of the younger girls who were standing nearby in concern. Marleney was in too much pain to even pray along at some points, but later she thanked me for staying with her and taking care of her. It was a difficult but deeply touching experience to be there with my friend even though I felt I couldn't do much to help her. I did, however, go find Tony and ask for more painkiller for her, which seemed to work wonders in a few hours. When she felt better, we sat around chatting the same way we usually do in the mornings when she helps the cooks clean the little stones out of the rice before it's cooked.
The day before we left the Hogar was the birthday party for Terri. Terri is a missionary who felt called to sell everything she had in her home in Belgium and come to Latin America to work with the poor. She is a wonderful presence in the house--the kids call her Mama Teresa, and she is always very peaceful, joyful, and down-to-earth in the midst of all the chaos. The kids put on a musical show (Jose Antonio on the zamponia (pan pipes) and Jose Luis on the cajon (box-drum) playing traditional Andean music!) and a fashion show for her in the afternoon, and there was dancing and cake and ice cream on the patio. Then in the evening, all the volunteers, nurses, Tony, Frank, Terri, and the teachers went over to one of the teachers' house for a very authentically Peruvian party. We had baked chicken with aji sauce and salad for dinner, and then the teacher's husband played his trumpet (he used to be in a salsa band in Las Vegas) and their grandson played the drums, and everybody danced salsa and merengue. The younger teacher, Jenny, and her son did a dance to the trumpet music that involved white hankerchiefs and twirling and audience clapping. Victor and John ended up dancing in circles of women because they were the only guys around besides Tony and Frank, who didn't dance much (but even Tony got up and danced a little!). What an incredible way to end our stay. In the middle of all the fun and music I liked translating between the English-speaking volunteers and the Spanish-speaking nurses; Frank, who likes speech-making, kept making me his translator so that everybody would know what he was saying to Terri. All the volunteers chipped in to buy a nice bracelet for Terri, who was always our contact person whenever we needed anything in the house.
And so the day of our departure arrived... and it was discovered that all the girls in the house had head lice, and so did we. So the morning we were supposed to leave, Catherine and I treated our hair and started picking out the nits while we waited for the taxi (with the help of some leftover cake and ice cream to get us through). Back home in Delicias, we had to wash all our clothes in hot water, which means dumping boiling water from the stove onto buckets of soapy laundry, then wringing it out later and hanging it to dry... fun times. Now, after many nights of us combing through each other's hair, the little critters seem to be gone, knock on wood. I'm calling it part of the authentic Peruvian experience. We hope to go back and visit the Hogar soon, because we both miss the kids--but I'll be sure to put my hair up and wear a hat when I do.
During the week we usually help the little kids get bathed and dressed in the morning, go into Lima with them to their appointments if needed, or else hang out at the house helping with their lessons or playing. I, however, always enjoyed Saturdays most because it was market day. On a typical Saturday morning I get up at 6:45 or 7 to be downstairs by the time the kids finish breakfast at 7:30. (Wake-up call: the sound of Tony yelling from downstairs for the kids to finish their breakfast ("Angela! Avanza!"). Some of them just sit there staring at their food until barked at, which I do not understand.) Coming down from my room, I never make it past the second-floor landing, because there are little boys with leg problems sitting in chairs by the nurses' station who call out to you to bathe them, take them downstairs, or brush their teeth, all at once. It's both exhausting and hilarious to be greeted every morning with "Senorita, pichi!" or "Catalina! Catalina! Tu me banas!" I've gotten good at saying "No, I can't right now," if I'm too tired to deal with it that morning, but most of the time I kind of like it--it wakes you up kind of like a cold shower, which I am also learning to appreciate. I prefer to get the morning chaos out of the way before breakfast so that my eating won't be rushed with requests to go upstairs and brush teeth, etc.
At 9:30 or 10 on Saturday mornings we would go to the market. Dr. Tony drives one of the 15-passenger combis that are ubiquitous in Peru, with the volunteers, one of the cooks, Tony's friend Frank who is like a grandfather to all the kids, and usually one of the boys as well. The highway goes in between two chains of mountains that are nothing but stark, bare, gray-brown rock, but in the valley there are trees, houses, flowers, a river. The weather for the most part was sunny and relatively clear in Chaclacayo. We went to three different markets because Tony's favorite places to shop for vegetables (including 48 kilograms of potatoes every week), fruits, and meat are in three different places. Frank (Tio Fransicso to the kids) always bought a mano of tiny, sweet bananas and gave one to everybody. Among all the delicious food that we had at the Hogar, I think the fresh, sweet mangos we bought at that fruit market were my absolute favorite. On our last day at the market, Catherine and I bought a Peruvian cookbook, so now we're going to learn things like ceviche, papa a la huancaina, chicha morada... yum!
Later on we would take the kids to the park after lunch. I haven't yet managed to inform all of Peru that their custom of throwing water at women in February is disrespectful and unacceptable, but we did manage to have some great water fights among ourselves at the park (shh, don't tell Dr. Tony.) My friend John, a volunteer from Ireland and one of the nicest people I've met here, went and bought one of the boys a water gun, at which point we female volunteers taught the girls that the proper response to such a thing is not to scream and run, but to run at them all at once and take away the water gun! It was hilarious, especially since they kept giving the water gun to the blind kid, Jose Luis, or Arlis, who's in a wheelchair. I like Carnevales much better when it's among friends and/or when the people who have the most water are blind or immobile.
One of the most intense parts of our stay for me was being with some of the young women in the house, Anita and Marleney, when they were in pain at different times. Just before we left, Marleney had an operation which I didn't entirely understand, but which left her lying in her bed groaning in pain for hours even after they gave her painkillers. I had nothing to do but sit beside her and hold her hand. I sang songs that my mom used to sing to me as a baby, and then we prayed the Rosary together with some of the younger girls who were standing nearby in concern. Marleney was in too much pain to even pray along at some points, but later she thanked me for staying with her and taking care of her. It was a difficult but deeply touching experience to be there with my friend even though I felt I couldn't do much to help her. I did, however, go find Tony and ask for more painkiller for her, which seemed to work wonders in a few hours. When she felt better, we sat around chatting the same way we usually do in the mornings when she helps the cooks clean the little stones out of the rice before it's cooked.
The day before we left the Hogar was the birthday party for Terri. Terri is a missionary who felt called to sell everything she had in her home in Belgium and come to Latin America to work with the poor. She is a wonderful presence in the house--the kids call her Mama Teresa, and she is always very peaceful, joyful, and down-to-earth in the midst of all the chaos. The kids put on a musical show (Jose Antonio on the zamponia (pan pipes) and Jose Luis on the cajon (box-drum) playing traditional Andean music!) and a fashion show for her in the afternoon, and there was dancing and cake and ice cream on the patio. Then in the evening, all the volunteers, nurses, Tony, Frank, Terri, and the teachers went over to one of the teachers' house for a very authentically Peruvian party. We had baked chicken with aji sauce and salad for dinner, and then the teacher's husband played his trumpet (he used to be in a salsa band in Las Vegas) and their grandson played the drums, and everybody danced salsa and merengue. The younger teacher, Jenny, and her son did a dance to the trumpet music that involved white hankerchiefs and twirling and audience clapping. Victor and John ended up dancing in circles of women because they were the only guys around besides Tony and Frank, who didn't dance much (but even Tony got up and danced a little!). What an incredible way to end our stay. In the middle of all the fun and music I liked translating between the English-speaking volunteers and the Spanish-speaking nurses; Frank, who likes speech-making, kept making me his translator so that everybody would know what he was saying to Terri. All the volunteers chipped in to buy a nice bracelet for Terri, who was always our contact person whenever we needed anything in the house.
And so the day of our departure arrived... and it was discovered that all the girls in the house had head lice, and so did we. So the morning we were supposed to leave, Catherine and I treated our hair and started picking out the nits while we waited for the taxi (with the help of some leftover cake and ice cream to get us through). Back home in Delicias, we had to wash all our clothes in hot water, which means dumping boiling water from the stove onto buckets of soapy laundry, then wringing it out later and hanging it to dry... fun times. Now, after many nights of us combing through each other's hair, the little critters seem to be gone, knock on wood. I'm calling it part of the authentic Peruvian experience. We hope to go back and visit the Hogar soon, because we both miss the kids--but I'll be sure to put my hair up and wear a hat when I do.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Tourism in Lima
Two weeks ago, a few of us volunteers took the weekend off to be touristy in Lima. What a great way to relax! We stayed in this great little hostel in Barranco called The Point, which I would recommend to everybody. It is right across the street from the cliffs that overlook the ocean and very clean, with a garden patio, hammocks, ping pong, a kitchen, and an in-house bar with cheap drinks. We took a colectivo into Lima and got there in time for lunch, which we had at a delightful little restaurant just down the street. I had been in Peru for a month and this was my first meal in a restaurant, and wow! I had the best fish I've ever had in my life, cooked with tomatoes and onions and rice in a delicious sauce. They also brought us a free appetizer of ceviche, a typical Peruvian dish of seafood covered in lime sauce, onion, garlic, and other wonderful things. You can get it with just fish or with fish pieces along with shrimp, scallops, etc. None of it is cooked, which is why we had to wait to get it in a good restaurant--but it is delicious!! We also had chicha, a purple drink made from some type of corn with apple slivers and lime juice, which is awesome. The day was sunny and beautiful and we walked along the coast of Barranco up to Miraflores, the rich, touristy section of Lima. The coast is amazing because it is all high cliffs overlooking a thin strip of beach, and at the top there are footpaths going along among trees and gardens with beautiful flowers. I told the others that I didn't care about living in a poor area of Lima if I could just come walk along the coast looking out at the Pacific every week! Sadly, everyone has been telling us that Lima is covered with fog for the entire winter... so we were very lucky to have that weekend be so beautiful.
Wandering around Miraflores, we came to a plaza with a huge sign that said Dia del Pisco Sour. They have a whole weekend celebration of their national drink! I couldn't believe it. There was music set up in the plaza and a pavilion with lots of different vendors of pisco (a liquor made from grapes) and pisco sour (a mixed drink involving egg whites, syrup, and other good things.) We got lots of free samples and then I bought a little glass of the best kind. Farther down that street was a whole strip of painters selling their art, much of which was gorgeous. I'm saving my shopping for later in the year, however.
As it got dark, we walked a lot through the city and took a bus to the center, where we saw two famous plazas, and in between them a street full of crowds, clothing and cell phone stores, and questionable-looking food places--Norky's, for example, looked like Boston Market but greasier. One of the plazas had an amazing cathedral that must have been from the 16th or 17th century, huge, dark and cavernous inside, with beautiful statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary lit up in the chapels and covered in gold adornments. I've been noticing that lots of the statues of the crucified Jesus that I see here are more graphically realistic than the ones in the US. In the Delicias church, for example, there is a model of Jesus crucified and lying in what looks like a glass coffin, bleeding and wounded--very arresting, and it's literally not far removed from the people, because they walk by on their way out of church and lay a hand on the glass to pray. In contrast, here in the suburb of Chaclacayo there is a mural on the church wall of different scenes from Jesus's passion, but no blood anywhere in the picture--the images are more stylized and Jesus himself looks almost as healthy as the people hurting him, so that the whole thing has an air of sadness rather than violence. The contrasting images remind me very powerfully of the difference in the lives of the rich and the poor and what they have to deal with. The residents of Chaclacayo are saddened by the suffering in the world, but it's the people of Delicias who really want a god who bleeds and dies, who can relate to their suffering. I'm sure I don't even understand this now as fully as I will later; I don't know if I can ever truly understand it, coming from my comfortable background; but I can tell it's there.
Anyway, that night in Lima we went out with a group of gringos from the hostel to a dancing place. The live music was very cool, but I came back early at 3 am to go to bed and get a good sleep. The next day we wandered around some more after a comfortable morning sleeping in at the hostel and then came back. I'm looking forward to trying more typical Peruvian foods in the future--Catherine and I have bought a Peruvian cookbook for when we go back to Lima and have to take turns cooking for the house.
Llama count: still zip.
Wandering around Miraflores, we came to a plaza with a huge sign that said Dia del Pisco Sour. They have a whole weekend celebration of their national drink! I couldn't believe it. There was music set up in the plaza and a pavilion with lots of different vendors of pisco (a liquor made from grapes) and pisco sour (a mixed drink involving egg whites, syrup, and other good things.) We got lots of free samples and then I bought a little glass of the best kind. Farther down that street was a whole strip of painters selling their art, much of which was gorgeous. I'm saving my shopping for later in the year, however.
As it got dark, we walked a lot through the city and took a bus to the center, where we saw two famous plazas, and in between them a street full of crowds, clothing and cell phone stores, and questionable-looking food places--Norky's, for example, looked like Boston Market but greasier. One of the plazas had an amazing cathedral that must have been from the 16th or 17th century, huge, dark and cavernous inside, with beautiful statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary lit up in the chapels and covered in gold adornments. I've been noticing that lots of the statues of the crucified Jesus that I see here are more graphically realistic than the ones in the US. In the Delicias church, for example, there is a model of Jesus crucified and lying in what looks like a glass coffin, bleeding and wounded--very arresting, and it's literally not far removed from the people, because they walk by on their way out of church and lay a hand on the glass to pray. In contrast, here in the suburb of Chaclacayo there is a mural on the church wall of different scenes from Jesus's passion, but no blood anywhere in the picture--the images are more stylized and Jesus himself looks almost as healthy as the people hurting him, so that the whole thing has an air of sadness rather than violence. The contrasting images remind me very powerfully of the difference in the lives of the rich and the poor and what they have to deal with. The residents of Chaclacayo are saddened by the suffering in the world, but it's the people of Delicias who really want a god who bleeds and dies, who can relate to their suffering. I'm sure I don't even understand this now as fully as I will later; I don't know if I can ever truly understand it, coming from my comfortable background; but I can tell it's there.
Anyway, that night in Lima we went out with a group of gringos from the hostel to a dancing place. The live music was very cool, but I came back early at 3 am to go to bed and get a good sleep. The next day we wandered around some more after a comfortable morning sleeping in at the hostel and then came back. I'm looking forward to trying more typical Peruvian foods in the future--Catherine and I have bought a Peruvian cookbook for when we go back to Lima and have to take turns cooking for the house.
Llama count: still zip.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Carnivales
Disclaimer: Carnivales is clearly one of those things they warned us about in our program orientation, where the customs in another county seem downright WRONG to you, but perfectly normal to the people here... so read the following with a grain of culture-shock salt. All I can recod is my own expeience; perhaps later on I will come to undestand this better, but there are certain aspects of it that I hope I never come to approve of.
So February in Peru is the time of Carnivales, something that was probably originally related to Mardi Gras but has now become totally different. Instead of one day, it's the whole month, and instead of any celebrations that I can see, the custom is for young people to throw water at random passersby on the streets, especially on Sundays, especially off the main roads where they can wander around in groups waiting for potential targets. Water balloons, buckets of water, hoses, and water guns are all included. Now I don't mind a water fight between friends, especially since it's summer and hot, but to me there are several things very wrong with this little custom.
1. It can be dangerous. Kids throw water balloons at passing buses and cars, and Dr. Tony says he has known them to shatter the windows. And water balloons thrown at people on the streets can hurt. (See story below.)
2. It is disrespectful. In Lima, the throwing can include paint as well as water; here in the suburbs it is a little calmer, and they stick with grass clippings in their buckets of water. Not to mention the fact that they do it to complete strangers who may not want to be soaked!
3. It is a battle of the sexes. Boys soak girls and girls soak boys; when we took the kids to the park for the first time in February, some of the male volunteers were very sternly lectued by the boys for being traitors and thowing balloons at them instead of the girls. Now this is not a bad thing when there are plenty of boys and girls all throwing water at each other, like when we all go to the park together from the house. But what happens in practice is that groups of boys roam the streets targeting girls to soak. Last week, Catherine and I were coming back from the Intenet cafe in the evening and we decided to take the back road through the pretty, quiet suburban neighborhood... or so we thought. We didn't even notice that there were eight or ten teenage guys nearby until we had passed them, and suddenly they yelled, Now! Let's go! and ran toward us with water balloons and buckets. One of them came up three feet behind me and pegged me straight in the butt with a baloon. I couldn't believe it. They tossed a bucket of water and grass clippings all over us, which Catherine got most of, and there were balloons exploding eveywhere around us. We didn't want to scream and run, but we basically had nothing else to do. These were not little kids; they were young men in their late teens, ten of them, laughing and soaking us as we stuggled to comprehend the situation and remember our Spanish curse words and failed at both. We half-ran away and quickly turned back to the main road, where we have not had problems so far.
It was kind of a scary feeling because we were really helpless, but I was more ouraged than afraid. It was not a water fight because we had no water; it would not have been fair even if we had had water because they were ten young men and we are two women. It was absolutely sexual harrassment because he hit me in the butt with the balloon. But what really set me off was how the kids laughed at it when we got back. Incensed, I told my story about how they attacked us ten to two and hit me in the behind, and one of the boys said, Oh yeah, the girls always hope the water doesn't get them here! and pointed to his chest. I don't have time right now to go into how this mentality really really scares me. Suffice it to say that it shows how the machismo of this culture, the objectifying of women, goes waaay deeper than I'd thought, and you'll never convince me that this water-throwing is unconnected to the early sexualizing of young Latina girls and the issues with respect for women here. The kids try to tell me that it's a two-sided battle and that girls throw water too, but you don't see groups of girls roaming the streets and hitting solitary boys in the crotch with water balloons. That's all I'll say. I was ranting angrily about it all night, but the kids were all laughing, and what troubles me is that I don't know if I can make them see why it's a problem.
Anyway... rant over for now. The next day in the park, I got out a lot of my anger by pegging one of the more obnoxious boys in the house with a balloon--while he was running, too. It was very satisfying. Especially because he hit me first with two balloons and then sprayed me and the other girls with the hose, after I told him I wasn't playing. To their credit, John and Victor, the American volunteers, were very suppotive in equalizing the playing field a bit among the kids and chasing down the more troublesome boys so that the girls could have a chance at hitting them. Sheesh.
So February in Peru is the time of Carnivales, something that was probably originally related to Mardi Gras but has now become totally different. Instead of one day, it's the whole month, and instead of any celebrations that I can see, the custom is for young people to throw water at random passersby on the streets, especially on Sundays, especially off the main roads where they can wander around in groups waiting for potential targets. Water balloons, buckets of water, hoses, and water guns are all included. Now I don't mind a water fight between friends, especially since it's summer and hot, but to me there are several things very wrong with this little custom.
1. It can be dangerous. Kids throw water balloons at passing buses and cars, and Dr. Tony says he has known them to shatter the windows. And water balloons thrown at people on the streets can hurt. (See story below.)
2. It is disrespectful. In Lima, the throwing can include paint as well as water; here in the suburbs it is a little calmer, and they stick with grass clippings in their buckets of water. Not to mention the fact that they do it to complete strangers who may not want to be soaked!
3. It is a battle of the sexes. Boys soak girls and girls soak boys; when we took the kids to the park for the first time in February, some of the male volunteers were very sternly lectued by the boys for being traitors and thowing balloons at them instead of the girls. Now this is not a bad thing when there are plenty of boys and girls all throwing water at each other, like when we all go to the park together from the house. But what happens in practice is that groups of boys roam the streets targeting girls to soak. Last week, Catherine and I were coming back from the Intenet cafe in the evening and we decided to take the back road through the pretty, quiet suburban neighborhood... or so we thought. We didn't even notice that there were eight or ten teenage guys nearby until we had passed them, and suddenly they yelled, Now! Let's go! and ran toward us with water balloons and buckets. One of them came up three feet behind me and pegged me straight in the butt with a baloon. I couldn't believe it. They tossed a bucket of water and grass clippings all over us, which Catherine got most of, and there were balloons exploding eveywhere around us. We didn't want to scream and run, but we basically had nothing else to do. These were not little kids; they were young men in their late teens, ten of them, laughing and soaking us as we stuggled to comprehend the situation and remember our Spanish curse words and failed at both. We half-ran away and quickly turned back to the main road, where we have not had problems so far.
It was kind of a scary feeling because we were really helpless, but I was more ouraged than afraid. It was not a water fight because we had no water; it would not have been fair even if we had had water because they were ten young men and we are two women. It was absolutely sexual harrassment because he hit me in the butt with the balloon. But what really set me off was how the kids laughed at it when we got back. Incensed, I told my story about how they attacked us ten to two and hit me in the behind, and one of the boys said, Oh yeah, the girls always hope the water doesn't get them here! and pointed to his chest. I don't have time right now to go into how this mentality really really scares me. Suffice it to say that it shows how the machismo of this culture, the objectifying of women, goes waaay deeper than I'd thought, and you'll never convince me that this water-throwing is unconnected to the early sexualizing of young Latina girls and the issues with respect for women here. The kids try to tell me that it's a two-sided battle and that girls throw water too, but you don't see groups of girls roaming the streets and hitting solitary boys in the crotch with water balloons. That's all I'll say. I was ranting angrily about it all night, but the kids were all laughing, and what troubles me is that I don't know if I can make them see why it's a problem.
Anyway... rant over for now. The next day in the park, I got out a lot of my anger by pegging one of the more obnoxious boys in the house with a balloon--while he was running, too. It was very satisfying. Especially because he hit me first with two balloons and then sprayed me and the other girls with the hose, after I told him I wasn't playing. To their credit, John and Victor, the American volunteers, were very suppotive in equalizing the playing field a bit among the kids and chasing down the more troublesome boys so that the girls could have a chance at hitting them. Sheesh.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Rich and poor
This past week we got to see the immense contrast that exists in Peru, as in the US, between the very rich and the very poor. The part of Lima we live in, Las Delicias de Villa, is definitely a poor, third-world area. Not all the streets are paved and there is dirt and dust everywhere; some of the houses look finished but others are literally shacks made out of some brick and some random pieces of siding material. You wouldn't think anyone lived there except for the laundry strung up inside. Many houses don't have running water, electricity, or both, so there are always wet patches on the streets where people toss their water out the front door, which sometimes get unattractive if people drop fruit peels or other things that can attract flies. There are knee- or waist-high piles of dirt everywhere, which I can only explain by guessing that the people were moving it out of the way to build their houses and had literally nowhere to put it. Rich people can take dirt "away," but where does it go? A question I had never asked myself.
Chaclacayo, in contrast, has pretty houses with gardens, a library, a nice central park/square with coffee shops and laundromats and a bar or two. No piles of dirt. And there really are some very rich people here, because last week Dr. Tony and all the kids were invited to the home of some friends from church for lunch. They live in a gated community right at the foot of the mountains. They have a lovely house with lots of windows and glass doors, a pool, a patio, a lush green lawn which has to be irrigated to be that way, a trampoline, two new-looking cars, and four or five domestic servants, plus a full-time nanny for their little granddaughter who was visiting. The couple seemed like very nice, unassuming people; you would never guess that they were rich until you saw their house. Dr. Tony told us that they invite the kids over twice a year and send their servants' children to school. The kids loved the trampoline and pool. What an amazing contrast to see.
Chaclacayo, in contrast, has pretty houses with gardens, a library, a nice central park/square with coffee shops and laundromats and a bar or two. No piles of dirt. And there really are some very rich people here, because last week Dr. Tony and all the kids were invited to the home of some friends from church for lunch. They live in a gated community right at the foot of the mountains. They have a lovely house with lots of windows and glass doors, a pool, a patio, a lush green lawn which has to be irrigated to be that way, a trampoline, two new-looking cars, and four or five domestic servants, plus a full-time nanny for their little granddaughter who was visiting. The couple seemed like very nice, unassuming people; you would never guess that they were rich until you saw their house. Dr. Tony told us that they invite the kids over twice a year and send their servants' children to school. The kids loved the trampoline and pool. What an amazing contrast to see.
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