So I learned a lot this week about Peruvian Bureacracy - and yes, I think it deserves the big old capital B. Basically, even though school starts on March 2nd, the teachers,since they are not technically contracted, had to go through this whole crazy system of taking a standardized test and then worrying about whether someone who scored better on it would take their job.
While I still have time - because I have to run - I just want t mention that the test is basically a bizzaro version of the SATs in Spanish with sections on local history and law that are real real specific. One of those questions was like, what is the number of the law that says this about education or according to this random theorist, what should 5th graders know. Everyone takes the same test and all the non contracted jobs are decided by placement order from the test (U went to see this process take place and it was real real bizzare as they call people up to the front of this big room and they just pick jobs off of a list). Also, some oif the math/logic questions were like this: Who is Ernesto´s fathers´s son? or Which of these coins would you not use to buy food?Then of course there is hours and hours of paperwork - just real nonsensical to me personally.
On another fun random note, I have been going a lotto the step class that this woman in Habitat runs out of her house. It is possibly ne of the most challenging phyiscal routines I have ever done (and I say that only partly in jest). She is this super intense, but also very interesting, way of sdoing things while absolutely blasting (you can hear it all over the neighborhood) techno pop remixes. It also takes place in her living room, she dresses up in spandex, she yells ¨vamos chicos, vamos¨quite often, and the normal slate f usual suspects is us gringos and a randm array osf older women from the neighborhood who really do their own thing because they cant keep up.
It´s amazing and I promise photos.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Post Dia de Amistad (St. Valentine´s Day) Down Time
So, I am currently writing from the apartment of not even my Peruvian host family, but their extended family here in the city of Arequipa. All I can say is that I am definitely feeling like I am playing the role of the mooch a bit, but they did invite me to stay a day longer, so I must be entertaining them/pulling at their heart strings at least a bit.
The last couple of weeks I traveled with my community mates to Puno to see the fiestas de la Virgen de la Candeleria - which is quite an experience as everyone is dressed up in interesting clothing and dancing in the streets and the beer is absolutely flowing (I will put up some fun pictures when I return to Tacna) - then I took part in a five-day silent retreat here in Arequipa (which after a month with the adolescents was quite nice. I spent a lot of time just reflecting on life - deciding I am very happy and ready for the new school year, but must enter it with more patience and willingness to not have as complete control of my classroom as I had in Harlem at St. Al´s), and am now visiting some of the sites and eating well with the extended host family. Yesterday I had ricotto relleno - which was absolutely amazing and had peanuts in it, which I adore - and shared much good conversation, Cusquena Malta beer (my favorite), and Pisco. I also helped them make a cake, but had my self-esteem as a cake baker shot down when I learned that one of the family used to work as a bread/cake maker. Oh well. The family is super interesting though because there are 11 brothers and sisters in total and are very proud and long-established Arequipenens. They are very gregarious and four of the families still live in this big old house (with a new wing) in an old part of town that couldn´t help make me think of ¨One Hundred Years of Solitude¨.
Anyway, Arequipa is beautiful and has this volcano that overlooks the city. I am a little ready to get back home to Tacna, but I am also really enjoying the vacation time and meeting new people. I did go into a giant supermarket they have here the other day and was pretty overwhelmed. I am growing much more accostumed to the little corner stores and markets (where I could spend hours just looking around). The other day I almost bought frog juice (they literally just have live frogs in a tank that they are ready to plop in a blender and serve to you. It´s supposed to be good for the brain), but decided instead on a coca-cola zero. I felt pretty boring afterwards to be honest, but I swear one day I will take the plunge.
Thinking back on Mes de Mision, I think it was just very tough mentally for me to be 24/7 with these kids and especially having them constantly complaining (and constantly comparing their food, work, priveleges with other groups) and mocking my Spanish. One lesson I will try to take out of it is definitely to be able to constantly laugh at myself. Some of the best moments were definitely when I could share in a hearty laugh with them (and make fun of myself). By the time next January comes around, I will be looking forward to it again, I think.
Just as an update, I will return to Tacna tomorrow, begin going to meetings at my school (though there is so much up in the air there that we will have to see how things will play out for the new school year - which is part of the reason I am not rushing back), and then the school year should start in early March (it is summertime here and the year begins in March and ends in December). Keep checking in for some neat picture updates!
The last couple of weeks I traveled with my community mates to Puno to see the fiestas de la Virgen de la Candeleria - which is quite an experience as everyone is dressed up in interesting clothing and dancing in the streets and the beer is absolutely flowing (I will put up some fun pictures when I return to Tacna) - then I took part in a five-day silent retreat here in Arequipa (which after a month with the adolescents was quite nice. I spent a lot of time just reflecting on life - deciding I am very happy and ready for the new school year, but must enter it with more patience and willingness to not have as complete control of my classroom as I had in Harlem at St. Al´s), and am now visiting some of the sites and eating well with the extended host family. Yesterday I had ricotto relleno - which was absolutely amazing and had peanuts in it, which I adore - and shared much good conversation, Cusquena Malta beer (my favorite), and Pisco. I also helped them make a cake, but had my self-esteem as a cake baker shot down when I learned that one of the family used to work as a bread/cake maker. Oh well. The family is super interesting though because there are 11 brothers and sisters in total and are very proud and long-established Arequipenens. They are very gregarious and four of the families still live in this big old house (with a new wing) in an old part of town that couldn´t help make me think of ¨One Hundred Years of Solitude¨.
Anyway, Arequipa is beautiful and has this volcano that overlooks the city. I am a little ready to get back home to Tacna, but I am also really enjoying the vacation time and meeting new people. I did go into a giant supermarket they have here the other day and was pretty overwhelmed. I am growing much more accostumed to the little corner stores and markets (where I could spend hours just looking around). The other day I almost bought frog juice (they literally just have live frogs in a tank that they are ready to plop in a blender and serve to you. It´s supposed to be good for the brain), but decided instead on a coca-cola zero. I felt pretty boring afterwards to be honest, but I swear one day I will take the plunge.
Thinking back on Mes de Mision, I think it was just very tough mentally for me to be 24/7 with these kids and especially having them constantly complaining (and constantly comparing their food, work, priveleges with other groups) and mocking my Spanish. One lesson I will try to take out of it is definitely to be able to constantly laugh at myself. Some of the best moments were definitely when I could share in a hearty laugh with them (and make fun of myself). By the time next January comes around, I will be looking forward to it again, I think.
Just as an update, I will return to Tacna tomorrow, begin going to meetings at my school (though there is so much up in the air there that we will have to see how things will play out for the new school year - which is part of the reason I am not rushing back), and then the school year should start in early March (it is summertime here and the year begins in March and ends in December). Keep checking in for some neat picture updates!
Monday, February 2, 2009
Mes de Mision Part 1 - ie, I´m Alive
It´s true - I survived the month of cleaning plazas, shoveling rocks and dirt, cleaning out mud, grass and debris while shoeless in canals, managing 8 kids on my own and, in general, being one of 8 adults with the responsibility of handling 53 15 year old, kind of spoiled brats. I learned a lot about picking my battles, about having patience, about laughing at myself, about my own self-esteem, about where my limits are , and about Peru.
The best way to describe the whole experience is an emotional rollercoaster. The stress of working like this and dealing with these kids 24/7 (and their constant questions, their constant complaints, and their constant mocking of me and my Spanish), along with the frustration of plans and decisions always changing (one of the things my kids mocked about me was that I always said ¨Todo puede cambiar¨in response to their questions because I never really knew what was going on or what would be happening next), made me break down a couple of times during the month. Other times, I just felt extreme extreme depression - and I think I only got through those moments by writing letters and talking with the other American volunteer Nate.
I really don´t quite know how to process the whole experience yet - I am hoping that the five day silent retreat in Arequipa will help me think about all that I lived and dealt with - but wanted to at least put an update up with some information. This pueblito is home to 350 people and is a tiny, humble place in a valley, surrounded by high mountains (me and three of the asesores - the adults - one day just left early in the morning and climbed one of these and the views from there were just incredible). The people mostly raise cows (the area is famous for its cheese), grow zapallos (which are kind of like pumpkins) and aji (hot peppers), and generally are very poor. The municipalidad of the region only recioeves 3000 soles per month to run everything of the government (and that is equivalent to about 1000 dollars). It was a pretty beautiful place, and very very tranquil, but I very seldom got to experience that because I was trying to deal with these kids and getting them to listen/work/become involved in the experience of living simply and for others for a month. Also, the area is known because there is a lagoon there and they use the water both to irrigate a lot of the crops in southern Peru, but also for electric power that covers the entire area of Southern Peru from Tacna even up to Lima.
Our work mostly consisted of using picks, machetes, shovels and assorted other things to clean out the canals. I had a lot of fun at times with the work, although it could be exhausting. One of the best stories (or funniest) came out of one day when I cut my pinkie with the machete. I was shoeless in a canal and covered in mud because I had been trying to use the pick to get all these roots out of the middle of the canal. I was cutting some grass along the edge and badly cut myt pinkie. I screamed ¨mierda¨and grabbed my finger. I jumped out of the canal and began to run toward the little medical outpost of the town. But since I was a little frightened, I didn´t put my shoes and was running through rockey fields of alphalpha and short cornstalks holding up my left hand and screaming very quickly, ¨f*ck, f*ck, f*ck¨and trying to step really lightly. Since I was descending, my group of eight kids were up in the canal laughing and laughingat the crazy gringo. About ten minutes later, I arrived at the medical outpost with my hand covered in blood, shoeless and with my legs and body full of mud. The nurse there gave me the strangest look - like I was absolutely insane. Needless to say, it turned into one of the kids favorite weays to joke about me (to mimick the way I was cursing and high stepping it through the alphalpha fields).
There are a million other little stories and for all the bad moments and couple times I even broke down in tears, there were some real good one-on-one conversations with kids and times when I just realized how much I value certain things (like talking with my mom or being able to sit and drink a cup of coffee and do a crossword puzzle). I learned a lot about how Peruvians operate - and everything truly can change from one moment to the next here - and about the things that Peruvians value (it was pretty touching to see these 15 year old punks break down in tears when they recieved letters from their family or met up again with their family at the end). I will try to write some more about everything I went through and post some more photos, but for right now, here are a couple I took at the end of the experience showing some of the physically changes I went through (losing a bunch of weight, getting my legs and arms all cut up, and growing an ugly ugly beard). Later I will get up the more interesting ones showing what the area was like, who the kids were, and what not.
The best way to describe the whole experience is an emotional rollercoaster. The stress of working like this and dealing with these kids 24/7 (and their constant questions, their constant complaints, and their constant mocking of me and my Spanish), along with the frustration of plans and decisions always changing (one of the things my kids mocked about me was that I always said ¨Todo puede cambiar¨in response to their questions because I never really knew what was going on or what would be happening next), made me break down a couple of times during the month. Other times, I just felt extreme extreme depression - and I think I only got through those moments by writing letters and talking with the other American volunteer Nate.
I really don´t quite know how to process the whole experience yet - I am hoping that the five day silent retreat in Arequipa will help me think about all that I lived and dealt with - but wanted to at least put an update up with some information. This pueblito is home to 350 people and is a tiny, humble place in a valley, surrounded by high mountains (me and three of the asesores - the adults - one day just left early in the morning and climbed one of these and the views from there were just incredible). The people mostly raise cows (the area is famous for its cheese), grow zapallos (which are kind of like pumpkins) and aji (hot peppers), and generally are very poor. The municipalidad of the region only recioeves 3000 soles per month to run everything of the government (and that is equivalent to about 1000 dollars). It was a pretty beautiful place, and very very tranquil, but I very seldom got to experience that because I was trying to deal with these kids and getting them to listen/work/become involved in the experience of living simply and for others for a month. Also, the area is known because there is a lagoon there and they use the water both to irrigate a lot of the crops in southern Peru, but also for electric power that covers the entire area of Southern Peru from Tacna even up to Lima.
Our work mostly consisted of using picks, machetes, shovels and assorted other things to clean out the canals. I had a lot of fun at times with the work, although it could be exhausting. One of the best stories (or funniest) came out of one day when I cut my pinkie with the machete. I was shoeless in a canal and covered in mud because I had been trying to use the pick to get all these roots out of the middle of the canal. I was cutting some grass along the edge and badly cut myt pinkie. I screamed ¨mierda¨and grabbed my finger. I jumped out of the canal and began to run toward the little medical outpost of the town. But since I was a little frightened, I didn´t put my shoes and was running through rockey fields of alphalpha and short cornstalks holding up my left hand and screaming very quickly, ¨f*ck, f*ck, f*ck¨and trying to step really lightly. Since I was descending, my group of eight kids were up in the canal laughing and laughingat the crazy gringo. About ten minutes later, I arrived at the medical outpost with my hand covered in blood, shoeless and with my legs and body full of mud. The nurse there gave me the strangest look - like I was absolutely insane. Needless to say, it turned into one of the kids favorite weays to joke about me (to mimick the way I was cursing and high stepping it through the alphalpha fields).
There are a million other little stories and for all the bad moments and couple times I even broke down in tears, there were some real good one-on-one conversations with kids and times when I just realized how much I value certain things (like talking with my mom or being able to sit and drink a cup of coffee and do a crossword puzzle). I learned a lot about how Peruvians operate - and everything truly can change from one moment to the next here - and about the things that Peruvians value (it was pretty touching to see these 15 year old punks break down in tears when they recieved letters from their family or met up again with their family at the end). I will try to write some more about everything I went through and post some more photos, but for right now, here are a couple I took at the end of the experience showing some of the physically changes I went through (losing a bunch of weight, getting my legs and arms all cut up, and growing an ugly ugly beard). Later I will get up the more interesting ones showing what the area was like, who the kids were, and what not.
Please continue to read up and email and write me - I miss having regular contact with a lot of you and am feeling like I am losing contact with a lot of the people who are important and who I value in my life.
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