Successes and Setbacks

It has recently been brought to my attention that people are in fact still reading this blog (thank you Adam!) and so it is time for an update that covers a little more than the silly things I say in Spanish.
I am now underway in my first full year of service. In some ways it has started with a bang, and in others it has kind of limped along. To end the blog on a higher note I think I will start with a few of the setbacks I have met. As a sort of disclaimer to the setbacks section, I hope that no one takes them as complaints, my goal in sharing these are simply to give a realistic picture of what is like in my situation in PC Peru.

First, as I approach the year point of being in Peru (I left Ohio June 9th for D.C. and arrived in Peru the 10th) I have made a few realizations. In some sense the time has flown, I am used to living in Peru and my life here, and don't really have dreams about food anymore. From another perspective thinking about all the upcoming important events back home and looking at more than a year left in service, it is hard to imagine that much more time before seeing my family and friends (and devouring a turtle cake!).
As far as personal issues go that's really all there is. Spanish has improved a ton and I can now understand a lot more, including the side comments kids make in class which make things a lot more interesting. Also the sickness problems have died down (knock on wood), and for those keeping score at home I have been almost completely healthy since the beginning of March, a huge streak for me.

On to the work setbacks. Coming into the school year out of summer vacation my mind was full of possibilities and projects and just general excitement for the options I was exploring. So starting the school year I was pretty optimistic that some of these things would happen, and soon, and well, that basically just didn't happen.

One thing that I think the overwhelming majority of Peace Corps Volunteers face, if not all volunteers, are these types of situations. I think the only real remedy is to keep expectations realistic and continue to try new things, which is the stage I am in now. But I am getting ahead of myself.

First, essentially what happened is that the school year did not get off to the start I had hoped for. I spent the first couple days of classes in our In-service training and Project Design Management workshop in the department of Ancash and got back in the middle of the first week of school. I made it to school that week to show my face, see what was going on, and try to present some project ideas to the principal. All of that was accomplished and I was excited about doing things more officially this time around (last year I just showed up and started teaching classes). Then the first drag came, and it took over a week and a half to get the class schedule and to get the individual teachers on board and decisions made about what type of programs we would be doing in the tutoria hours. This approach did take a lot longer time than just showing up at classes, but so far has proved to be way more effective, which I will get to in the "successes" section.

From there things proceeded normally as far as classes go. I got my schedule defined and then set my sights on the next thing which was the reading initiative I had been dreaming up since last fall. I presented to teachers and students alike as a general idea of wanting to do something about reading. After about a month I got a meeting with two teachers, my host mom and her friend and presented them the two ideas for the reading projects, the Book It! idea along with a form of reading buddies we call "Amigos y Libros." After the Book It! speech I got blank stares, however after the reading buddy presentation there was a little bit better response and we set up a meeting for the following week with other teachers. That meeting came, I presented the plan a little more in-depth, and well it got pretty convoluted in the discussion that ensued and it ended with a decision that they would pair kids up within the same classes to help their other classmates catch up to their level, instead of its original design to have older kids work with young kids. Now maybe you have a different opinion, but I am pretty sure that no high school kid is going to listen to his or her classmate trying to read to them. Needless to say I haven't pursued that strategy and am trying to form a different plan.

As an additional note here the original plan was to open the library in March and inaugurate it with the Book It! type plan, just going straight to the students and getting them to come and read. The hitch here is that it is now May and the library has not changed (still window and floorless) and there is now an argument within our municipality as to whether it will end up being the library or not...

Another setback that I imagine is probably not something that will change is what we call the "Feriado." I think this would translate as holiday, basically days off school. The popular claim in San Pablo is that it is a very festive town, which is completely true, but also amounts to a lot of days out of school and difficult time trying to get anything into a rhythm, or if you do it is soon interrupted by a feriado. Prime example, I am writing this blog on our two days off for 'labor day' and in two weeks is the school anniversary. While it's always good to respect tradition and custom, it is certainly an adjustment for me coming from a different culture where we do not celebrate these same events and certainly not in the same fashion.

The final area of setback right now is with the youth camp, VALOR, that I posted about awhile back. Some of you may remember back in November-December time there was a big strike in my region, Cajamarca, about a mining project. Well those strikes died down in January and have since been quite. Meanwhile there was an environmental impact study done that recently concluded that the project is a go. With this news the strikers have been called on to come back, scheduled to begin May 31st, the same day we had planned to start the camp. The logical decision was then to move the camp up a week so it would be done before any protests started up, but it just so happened that it moved right into the anniversary of my high school. The problem now is going to be getting kids interested let alone permission to travel to the camp instead of being at the anniversary activities. Hopefully it all works out. To those of you that may have donated rest assured that your funds are being put to good use, and I also want to say a first of many thanks.

On to success.

I think the clear overall success has been advancing in my ability to communicate. It's far from perfect, as you can see by the last post, but at least now I can appreciate things like that instead of just being confused by everyone laughing at me. I think more than anything the best part is no longer feeling like it is a barrier, or at least not as much as it used to be. However I am starting to miss the ability to pretend like I don't understand what's going on when uncomfortable comments are made.

In terms of work success I have a pretty busy schedule and almost always have something going on all day, everyday of the week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I spend at the local high school working in tutoria and helping out the English teacher. In tutoria we are doing a variety of life skills and other topics like communication, leadership, self-esteem, life planning, etc. It so far has been going really well, most of the teachers are staying with me, and more are participating in classes and seeking me out to see when I am coming back. With the English teacher I pretty much just hang out in her classes during my free periods and field questions and pronunciation problems, it is a nice way to bond with the classes I can't get to in tutoria but probably not something I am looking to continue all year. Hopefully it's also helping the teacher to learn some more that she can pass on in the following years when I am not there.

Santa Rosa
Aside from the local high school I am also working in a high school out in the 'campo' (country). Every Wednesday I ride out the 30-40 minutes to the school with a couple of the teachers that live here in San Pablo. The school is really small, and I see everyone in the one day a week. There I am working in tutoria (the reason I accepted to go there in the first place) and, of course, teaching English. However for once this doesn't feel like the basic English classes where you teach a few words and leave. This is set up so the teacher there stays in class with me and is pretty much a student himself, with the goal of ending the year and him being able to repeate the lessons and actually know some English himself. It has been my favorite form of teaching English so far, something that actually might be sustainable.

More English
Santa Rosa and the high school are of course not the only English programs I have going on right now. The other two successful ones are for adults. My site mate and continued the class she did last year and the one we did together in January-March and are now at intermediate level. I am also doing a new round of basic for adults who missed out on the last cycle, including my host mom (she now asks me "what's up?" and tells her children "peace" when saying goodbye to them on the phone). This time around we are coordinating with the local secondary school who is coordinating with the regional school board (or whatever you want to call it) and this course is actually going to count for credit from legitimate institutions instead of something we just sign ourselves.

The other, and last, English program we are involved in right now is with the tourism department of our municipality. Basically they took six of the town's barrios and my site mate and I split them between the two of us and teach some basic English to these groups on Monday and Friday afternoons. We are supposed to have some kids ready to do a dialogue and a song in front of the town in the big fiestas in June, so we'll see where that goes. The big plus of this is that I think it is maybe leading to the formation of a youth group though, which is more than I expected when we started the classes.


On a non-English note, I will soon be getting back to my soccer roots hopefully as a player and official-type position. The league I played in last year is supposedly starting up again in May as well as a regular soccer tournament on the field which is apparently a big deal in town (Copa Peru). I was also recently asked by some of the high school students to be a part of helping them form their own league, equivalent to the one I played in last year but for kids. I have signed some stuff but I am not entirely sure what my role will be yet but it is really exciting to see that the kids are going to have something for themselves.

So to wrap up I have a few more ideas of things I would like to do, one of which is of course to continue working on the library and eventually literature project. Forming a real youth group would be great, and maybe some type of youth center or something for them to do, a lot of them just spend time walking around the streets. I have also been thinking about bringing a little bit of St. Charles to San Pablo and making some type of Positive Addiction event, just as something different to encourage positive habit forming. Just a thought for now.

I also should mention that I think everything is set to go for the court, so thank you to anyone who may have donated for that. I don't think I will get to know who you are, so just know it is greatly appreciated.

Final note, my site current site mate, Ana, is finishing her service in August. She has been a huge asset to everything that has been my service so far, getting me acclimated, introducing me to people, and being a friend as well as someone who speaks English! We have recieved word that they will be sending a replacement for her, not sure who yet, but I will be getting a new site mate. Hopefully I can be as helpful to the newbie as Ana has been to me. I may even be in a position where I am more advanced in Spanish, which is amusing and hopefully for their sake not true.

There is your update friends. I will be back with a VALOR update when I have one. So talk to you all soon and see you in roughly a year and 3 months!

Hunting for 'Eggs'

Now I must warn you, the title may be a little misleading here as I did not actually participate in an Easter Egg hunt. In fact I am just writing this blog because I thought you might miss hearing about the silly things I say in Spanish. School is back in session and so is the inappropriateness!

To give a little context last night we were teaching our adult English class about how to say things like "I am going to..." and then had them write about what they are going to be doing during Holy Week. We then broke into groups and discussed what they had written. My group then asked me what kind of things we do in the United States and about our customs for Easter. So I told them about several things and was concluding with Easter egg hunts. I didn't at the time know the Spanish word for 'hunt,' so I said the word for search. A discussion then ensued and they taught me the real word for hunt, which is cazar. I wrote it on the board to make sure I was spelling it right.

One of the students then asked me, "te gusta cazar" (do you like to hunt?) and I responded with a simple "si, por huevos" (yes, for eggs) of course referring to the Easter egg hunts I had just described. The group erupted with uncontrollable laughter and it took me a second to realize why....

Huevos (eggs) is slang for testicles.

Some of the male students then proceeded to leave covering themselves and laughing at me.

That is all.

The First, the Second, and certainly not the last times

Hello Friends, Family, and other random people who may have stumbled upon this blog somehow,

I know I said there would be another blog coming around this time, and I still will be doing that (once I get a more completed schedule worked out) but in the meantime I have a couple requests for anyone interesting, willing, and/or able. We have a couple projects coming up over June and July and right now we are working on some fundraising to make sure that we can do these projects.

The first is a youth camp for boys that will be taking place in June. We are looking for funds/materials both to run the camp and to get youth there. We do two camps a year, one for boys and one for girls. The girls' camp was right after I got to my site last year so I didn't get a chance to bring anyone, but I did get to participate a little bit and see what the camp was like. Needless to say the girls loved it and I think it made an impact in some of their lives. Now it is coming time for the boys, and since I have been in site for some time I am going to have the chance to bring two boys from my site to the camp.

The second is a project that my site mate, Ana Madrid, has applied for through an NGO in the U.S. called Courts for Kids. You may remember me mentioning this project in previous blogs. Right now we are in the preparation stage and we need some help with funds getting the ground leveled out and prepared and what not. The volunteers from the NGO will be coming the last week of July and everything has to be ready by then, so we are trying to get a jump on things now that rainy season is starting to clear up.

So anything you could help us out with would be great. The two websites are listed below where you can go and donate online by credit card. Or if you prefer you can always send check or money orders (sounds like an infomercial), however I figured it would be easier for everyone to just do it through the websites. Also that way I won't know how much you are donating (or how cheap you are being...just kidding).

Please help out if you can, but if the timing is not right, remember I have a year and a half left of service (today I have officially been in Peru for 9 months) so there will be plenty more opportunities to come!

Here is the website for those looking to support our youth camp, V.A.L.O.R.
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=527-087


For the court donations go to http://www.courtsforkids.org/ go to the donation tab, and when making your donation indicate that it is for La Conga, Peru. There is also some information there about the project if you would like to read more.

Thanks in advance! Let me know if there are any questions about the donating process or about exactly how we will be spending the funds.

Cuy Farm

Summer Vacation Update

Okay so maybe I haven't stuck to my update a month goal, but allow me to explain.

Much has changed since the last update back in November, however at first there was nothing then there was a lot. Just as I was starting to get my feet under me in the classes, the school year ended. My last classes were around Thanksgiving time, then the week after my Youth Development group had our first In-Service Training. That was a week in the department of Lambayaque, about 4-5 hours from my town in Cajamarca. There we had a week of training sessions and got some field experience helping with some World AIDS Day events. We were scheduled to be there from Sunday and then return the next Saturday, but as it happened there was a huge strike in Cajamarca and so we were stuck there a few extra days (If you care to look it up the strike was over the Yanacocha gold mine (American Owned) that has a big operation in Cajamarca. Basically the mine wants to move water from a few natural lagoons and put into resevoirs that they would build, and the people don't want them too).

Fortunately that cleared up within a few days (the strike that is, the people's objections to the mine haven't gone away) and we got back to our sites. It was nice to be back however I quickly realized that December was going to be a different kind of month. Similar to the States it is much about holidays, however here it was the start of summer vacation so the schools were out sooner and there was really no interest in getting anything new started. So my main objectives for the month were to promote our summer vacation program to any kids I could still find in the schools or the neighborhoods and celebrating at all of the different parties. Each of which I will give a brief description.

Promocion - this is the word used for graduating class, so instead of saying 'Class of 2011,' it's 'Promocion 2011.' Each one has its respective party, kind of like a giant graduation ceremony/party all rolled into one. There are promociones all the way from kindergarden up through the high school, and even some of the supieror education schools too. Since I had worked in the majority of the schools in my town, I got invited to each one's promocion, and even some I didn't work at. So for about a week and a half there was a graduation or two per night for me to attend. The parties involved an announced walk-in for each graduating student and their date (yes even the kindergardeners had dates), gifts from the madrina and padrina of the promocion (godparents), some type of meal (usually guinea pig), and a dance. In Peru there isn't a party without a dance.

Chocolatadas - This was the typical Christmas party for any class, organization, or any other reason you can think of. Everyone gets together and has some paneton (fruitcake) and hot chocolate. I can't quite remember how many I went too, but the most memorable was one with my class of the first grade girls in the high school. They were having a secret santa along with their party and they asked me to participate. So they had the drawing while I was stuck in Lambayaque, and no one told me anything about it until the night before. My host mom informed me that the person I was supposed to give something to was my host dad. I asked her what kinds of things people usually give and she said they just make cards to show friendship...so of course that's what I did. Not wanting to make a card, but feeling better after I did, I showed up to the party with it tucked away in my shirt, assuming everyone must be doing something similar so that others wouldn't see it. However to my great surprise when i got there, everyone had bought presents, even my host mom who had told me not too. So it was pretty great standing up in front of everyone and giving the only non-present, fortunately my host dad understood since he was there when my host mom told me nobody buys presents.

Christmas - Several people have asked me about this one, and the first answer is yes, Peru does celebrate Christmas although as one might expect it does depend on religion and economic status. The large majority of Peru is Catholic, but there are other religions as well. On the economic status thing I was told that the people out in the campo (country) usually don't do anything to celebrate. However for those that do, the typical Christmas celebration all takes place on Christmas Eve (Noche Buena). The day is spent in preparation (in my family's case we were making tamales), then in the evening everyone gets dressed up and goes to mass around 10 or 11, early enough so that they can be done before midnight. Then they go to wherever they are going to be celebrating, which in our case was the house of a family friend. Everyone then waits until midnight then wishes each other a Feliz Navidad and has some wine or champagne. Then they eat turkey and whatever else they have prepared, and dance (told ya) until the early morning. Christmas Day then is used for sleeping. In our case we got home around 3 or 4 AM and then went to an aunt's house on Christmas Day for lunch. Also as a PS on this one, Peru is all about their fruitcake, I have never seen nor have I wanted to see so much fruitcake in my whole life.

So that was about all of my December. For New Year's I got to take a trip to Mancora, a beach on the northern coast of Peru in the department of Piura. The New Year's celebration wasn't much different than that of the U.S. but there are a lot of superstitious things that some people do. One was to wear brand new yellow underwear, another was to eat 12 grapes, and another was to run around the block with a suitcase so that you would travel more in the new year. I ate a few grapes.

From the New Year's trip I came back to site and my site mate and I hit the ground running with our summer vacation programs. Our original plan was to have English class for the Institute students on Monday's and Wednesday's and to have our vacaciones utiles program on Tuesday's and Thursday's. Plans were quickly changed after we showed up that first Monday without a student. We found out that many of those students are doing their internships during the day so we moved the class to evenings and opened it up to any adults. Thus having more free time in the morning we extended the vacaciones utiles program to Monday-Thursday, and Friday as an optional sports day. Both programs have been great successes, we have about 60 kids that come and go in our vacaciones program, and about 20-30 stable adult English students. So far in our vacaciones program we have done classes on nutrition, recycling/hand washing, U.S. sports, drug awareness, and we had a career day with 9 local professionals. We are also getting ready to start teaching English in one of the small towns just outside of San Pablo, the community bank is continuing, and this morning we dragged some sanded down trees around that are going to be used to build a guinea pig farm.

Finally just a few other things of interest.
My host family is currently living in Lima, leaving the house all to me back in San Pablo. With this I started trying to cook for myself, but out of both convenience and their insistence I am now eating with my site mate's family.
The rainy season has hit, and it has hit hard. It is foggy almost all the time, kind of like living inside a cloud. When the rain comes strong the water in the house comes out brown. However we do get a few clear days now and then when the water clears up and it is possible to try clothes.
Carnaval is coming up soon and the biggest celebration in Peru is in Cajamarca. Rumor has it that the big events are water/paint balloon fights. In preparation, for pretty much all of January and February all the kids run around the streets throwing balloons at whoever they want. We got into a strategic battle with the kids from our vacaciones program, and of course we won!
Our cat ran away. Hopefully he comes back so we don't get rats.

Okay that's all I have, look for the next one sometime in March, with the start of the new school year.
Oh and for those of you keeping score at home, the soiled bed count is now at 2!