Lo Bueno y Lo Malo

So, why not start off with the positive aspects of life these last couple of days. I have moved in with a host family who could not be nicer and more generous. The mother has gone on and on about wanting to adopt a new son (not really, but one of us volunteers) and has already in two days taken me walking all over the city. She has taken to saying that God has given her an angel (since I tend to introduce myself here with a joke about being like the Angel Gabriel) and also calls me Gabriel Light because I am not too big on the sugar and am concious about what I eat. She, in turn, is the closest thing to a Peruvian health nut that I have come across here, so I am happy as a clam.

The one sort of odd thing is that the family is definitely on the upper end of the class spectrum here. Although I will only live with them for the next month (while the friendship and visits will last the entire two years, for sure), I still feel a bit uneasy. I think the best perspective to take is really that this allows me to get a fuller perspective on life and the people here - one that will provide me with a better understanding of the way poverty shapes the life of my students and also remind me of all the blessings and true struggles that I have committed to once I return to our modest home in Habitat.

To move on to the more negative news, I will return to my work at Colegio Santa Cruz. Hopefully many of you have gotten a chance to check out my facebook photos and seen a little bit of what the poverty and situation is like. I am now there everyday helping out the current volunteer Brad, talking to other teachers, getting to know the students, and just generally showing my face to try to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Yesterday, I learned of a horrible situation, however, that has befallen the community there. A few weeks ago, one female student and four male students from the fourth year of secundaria (kind of like middle school and high school combined) were all drinking and partying. The girl passed out and then the boys video taped themselves raping her. The video eventually ended up on a computer somewhere in Vinani - the neighborhood where the school is located. By now, the news has spread to the whole school, and only yesterday, after a few weeks, were the parents even brought into the school.

I know that I need to try to keep my judgments - especially with such minimum exposure to everything so far - in check, but I can´t help but feel appalled both by what happened and by the way the school has handled it so far. And while I could go on for hours about this, I will leave it at saying that there is definitely a culture of domestic abuse and machismo outside of the school that shaped this event and there is definitely a lack of structure and discipline within the school that made the response so ill-fitting (at least so far) to the situation.

I don´t want everyone out there to think that this school is so terrible though - there are a number of teachers and the director who are very much invested in making it a stronger and wonderful school and many many of the students are good, warm-hearted and friendly kids. But as my fellow new volunteer Nate would say, I have had my ¨not in Kansas anymore¨moment.