Post # 40

It seems like everyday there is some indication of how long I have been down here (now it is going on longer than 9 months). Today's sign is this 40th post of the blog, which finds me in an interesting place. My regular English classes have pretty much been taken away from me - the lack of space as they construct the new classrooms after the fire is pretty much an excuse as I think it has more to do with issues amongst the Secondary teachers and especially how most have some issues with the Peruvian english teacher, Sandra, because she does not have to teach full classes because of me and isn't as involved in the school as most of them are. But we as a community are going to Arica, Chile this weekend for retreat (four days to discuss social justice and spirituality and that excites me).
Before I forget, a fun experience I want to mention from vacations was when I decided to accompany the elder woman who runs the local store we go to in Habitat on her early morning market run. It was my form of a birthday present to her although I was not able to provide much help, but rather mostly just companionship on the early morning chore. I am amazed by her ability every morning to get up at 3 am (yes three in the morning) and go to the big market in town and do all of the shopping for the store. To see this little, elder Peruvian woman running all over this big market to pick up everything from fruit to 800 pieces of bread to lemons to onions to little bags of liquified garlic to the chicken and meat was quite incredible.
Another fun little experience came as a surprise yesterday morning when I showed up to school and found out that the entire school was going to listen to a talk/show about important life values put on by the local municipality government. It was basically a talk aimed for younger kids (complete with a guy on stilts, funny sound effects, clowns and prizes of lollipops), but they did bring the teachers out at one point.
For whatever reason, I was really feeling into the fun and spirit of this whole event and so when they called up the teachers, I was running around getting my students to chant ¨lealtad, lealtad¨(loyalty), I was dancing up a storm during the dance contest and then got really into the prize-deciding contest. As it turned out, this involved one clown pulling out a little frog puppet and making each teacher play a part in this little dialogue:
-¿Te vendo mi sapito? (Can I sell you my little frog?)
-Pero, ¿asusta tu sapito? (But, does your little frog get scared?)
-No, no asusta mi sapito. (No, my little frog does not get scared?)
- Entonces, te lo compro. (Ok, then I will buy it from you)
I got really into doing the acting and having fun with this contest (including asking if the frog was especially scared of gringos). Needless to say, I was a co-winner and just generally had a blast. It was also definitely an ego trip when all the secondary students screamed and shouted when my name was called at the end. I guess in general it just felt like one of those moments when I threw caution or shame to the wind and really entered into the moment and therefore reaped the benefits of the experience. Too bad I did not have a camera.