For those of you who read my last blog, I thought about apologizing, but no, I'm not sorry, all you did was read it, I was the one who had the joy of experiencing it.
Anyway so my idea for this is to provide a monthly update on life in Peru mainly around my work and my life and anything else interesting that happens. So far in just the first month so much has happened I am not sure where to start.
One thing is for sure, what started as a slow, painfully ill, first week, has accelerated beyond belief. While life and work are very different than our concepts in the US, I have gotten a lot 'busier.' Living a life where I am constantly a representative of an organization let alone an entire country it kind of feels like I am working 24/7. Add to that the fact that it takes 100 percent concentration to understand what is going on around me at all times makes for some exhausting days. The Spanish, as always, is coming along but I've got a long way to go. That's something that is continuously being revealed to me a little bit more everyday. I am up to the point where I can start a little bit more in depth conversations but I get tripped up a lot and I feel bad for the people on the other end trying to figure out what the heck it is that's falling out of my mouth.
Despite these language barriers I have managed to put together a fairly productive daily schedule that involves the majority of my time being spent in the schools. At this point the classes I teach have been by invitation. Twice a week I go to the 'Inicial' (kindergarden) for about an hour and teach some very basic English. This is more because the director of the school is my host aunt and it is a good opportunity to interact with some kids and to put myself out there to more of the community. I see the kids in the street after school and they love to point out to their parents that the gringo is their English teacher.
That is typically the start to my Monday and Wednesday morning. Aside from this I go once a week to the boys' 'primaria' school, which is comparable to our elementary/junior high. I'm not sure how it is in all of Peru but in my town the boys and girls go to school together at the Inicial but the Primaria level is separated. Here I teach another section of English. English teaching is a popular way-in for a lot of volunteers in Peru. Just about all, if not every, school teaches English. The problem is that often the teachers don't know the language all that well themselves so when we role into town that is typically the first thing we are asked. Also because people don't fully understand Peace Corps and what we are there to do, but they know we can speak English so it makes sense that this would be a first request.
My other major task, what I consider to be my primary responsibility now, is at the 'Secundaria' (high school). This school ranges 5 grade levels and the kids typically finish when they are 16. Here I have been working in the 'tutoria' program. Each class has one period a week where they are supposed to talk about something outside the normal curicculum. Things like self-esteem, making life decisions, alcohol and drugs, etc. In several cases this ends up just being a free period where the kids just run around or sit and talk with their friends. So naturally the teachers had no problem letting me come in for this period. Up to this point I have been making my rounds and trying to meet all the classes. Per request of some of the teachers I have been talking about leadership and doing different activities with the kids regarding this theme. Next week I am planning to start a different, more class specific, program which is yet to really take shape. Writing lesson plans in Spanish is quite a task.
Weekends are usually pretty dead around town so I use this time to read, write those lesson plans, or do laundry. Washing clothes by hand is the one things I truly despise here. For the most part I don't mind not having the amenities we have in the US, but oh how I miss washing machines. Basically what laundry boils down to here is trying to stay as clean as possible with my dress clothes so that I can wear them again and again without washing them, which I have managed to do with some. The times I have been forced to wash clothes I try to dry them before my host mom sees them because she says I don't know what I'm doing and then will rewash them. All of which is true but I feel bad letting her wash my clothes, even though it does come out with much more positive results. However, as with everything here, I am learning and it is getting noticably easier, although I don't know how to remove stains and may have already ruined a few shirts.
Anyway as I mentioned in a previous post I have started working on our major assignment for our first three months, the community diagnostic. For this I have been spending my period with the classes to have them take a comprehensive survey and ask other questions about lives and their opinions of their school and community. My goal is to survey all the students, which is something over 600 so we'll see if it works out. It equates to a lot of reading and trying to analyze results, hand-writing, and Spanish at the same time. Needless to say I am not off to a great jump on that part, I think I have only read three surveys so far. It has been an interesting project though and I am learning a lot about the youth in my area and starting to form ideas for what I might want to do in the future.
As for the near future there are a few things taking shape. My site mate and I have a tentative plan for a summer school program. January and February are their primary months of 'summer' vacation and from what I've heard a lot of families leave for the coast since it is the rainy season here, thus I'm not sure what town will look like but we are hoping to get some kids involved in something constructive over the break. We are also planning a project that is very popular amongst the other Youth Development volunteers, the World Map Project. Yes, this is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. We have obtained permission from the municipality to form a group of kids to paint the map on one of the walls of the new library. With this we are hoping to do some geography/culture lessons and promote literacy, also giving the kids a feeling that they could contribute to the creation of the library. (Speaking of library we are always accepting donations!)
After this the new school year will be back around and I will have to see what lies ahead for me next year, I am hoping to present my community dianostic findings at the beginning of the term which is in March.
In other news life here has been very interesting and I continue to find myself in situations that I don't fully expect or understand. I find myself often wondering, 'this might be the most ridiculous situation I have ever found myself in.' For example one night my host parents informed me that they also like music in English and happened to have a CD that they wanted to put on for dinner. Thus we had a nice family dinner listening to Nirvana. Another day I walked out of my front door at about 10 or 11 AM to go to the school and was met by the town drunk who said something in Spanish like 'Hey! German, weightlifting!.' And several other examples like dancing with the old church ladies at the town festival.
Just to hit some of the other highlights; I have joined the teacher's soccer team and we have games every Thursday, with jerseys and the whole deal. We are in third in the league in case you were wondering. I have only played two games because at first they didn't believe me when I told them I know how to play soccer (they thought I was referring to our version of football), then the other teams didn't want me to be able to play because I don't actually work for the school, but that issue was eventually resolved. So that is a really cool assimilation experience, being part of the team. We also play just about every afternoon at the school for fun so I get to know a lot more kids this way (they are also more concerned on whether I am going to show up for the game than for class).
Back in September there was the town festival for El Senor de los Milagros (the God of Miracles) so just about everything stopped for a couple days. One day there was a race, where I experienced my worst encounter with the 'hora peruano.' By this they refer to the fact that almost nothing starts on time. My host dad told me the race started at 8, so I went around 8:30. At 11:30 we finally started. I ended up getting second place, some kid that works out in the farms blew everyone away. There was also a guy who ran the race in his dress shoes and dress pants and did an impressive job of it.
The rest of the festival included some awesome fireworks that we would never be allowed to have in the US, a procession through the streets of the town, and a 'bufa' which is something like a fake bull fight comedy. At some point I will be posting videos or pictures of those events.
Most recently there is another event that I am not exactly sure what to call. Basically my site mate's host mom told me that Mary was coming and they hung a bunch of stuff up on the ceiling like bananas, pop, wine, and some other things. Then this last Saturday there was another procession where they brought a small statue of Mary which has occupied the living room ever since. People then come and pray the rosary or other things. Peru is very much about the community parties and the first night the house was jam packed with people and a band, all of which were fed (one of my favorite parts about this country). Rumor has it this weekend the presents come down and whatever you recieve you have to bring back two of the next year.
So that's my update for now, if you have actually read to this point let me know what you want to hear about life in Peru, there is a lot going on and I know I am leaving out a lot so let me know if you have any questions.
Hope everything is going well back home!
Oh and PS as far as homesickness goes I of course miss my family and friends and everyone, but I have to admit my toughest days are when I have dreams about food. More than a few times I have woken up after I dreamt about eating something delicious and that was the only thing I could think about during the day.
So if you are interested in sending me a care package please consider including the following iterms;
1) turtle cake(s),
2) a Pat's Donuts & Creme chocolate filled stick,
3) Pat herself for to make me said donut
3)Dairy King,
4) general tso's chicken, (will also accept General's Fried Chicken, I haven't tried it but I hear it is "butt kickin'")
5)a real pizza (yes I've sunk so low as to even have a dream about Little Cesear's)
PSS on the topic of food, here is a list of some of the interesting things I have eaten, fortunately only two of them have looked at me before/during when I was eating them:
Several different colors of potatos (all of which have been good and my favorite being a purple sweet potato), Ceviche-the raw fish version (probably my favorite thing in Peru), Anticucho (cow heart-also actually delicious), Papa reina (fried potato stuffed with glory), fish from head to tail (delicious but annoying because there are a lot of bones), Cuy Frito aka fried guinea pig with face and all (actually not too bad), cow stomach (that bad), intestines-not sure which animal (worse), pig skin- hair included (I'll let you imagine how that turned out for yourself).
