Photos from October Site Visit

Now you really get to see my reality of teaching in Viñani - so feast your eyes. This is the ¨classroom¨ that until yesterday I was using to teach secondary.










Here is me working with some primary students (fourth graders)












Me with some spellbound fourth graders. I like how it even has a girl nicely raising her hand in the corner. Beautiful teaching picture.











This is me with Meghan (the director, duh duh duh) on the way to my school. This is just outside our house in Habitat.











The COMMUNITY on retreat at the beach. It was a great, relaxing, and enlightening time.

Photos!

This is the cake that they bought for the occasion. I don´t know about you, but I love the taste of the Bible....

















Here is my ahijada with her aunt, Edith. Christa and I were the godparents.

A celebratory reception lunch at the restaurante campestre El Patroncito, with the ¨poor girls¨dancing with the band in the background.

Whirlwind Weeks

This time of the year is notoriously crazy down here and it is living up to the billing. I feel tired (but not down or depressed) and like there is much that I am not finding time to do (my laundry has piled up more so than at any other point in the year and my room could use a very good sweeping).

Nevertheless, I am enjoying life and taking advantage of all the interesting opportunities of life down here in Tacna. The school I will teach at next year, Miguel Pro, is having a camping trip with its third year of secondary students (who I will be going on Mes de Mision with in January) and I am excited to do that with them this weekend and travel to a part of the Tacna province that I have never seen. The school is also having the celebration of their dia familiar on November 29th and I, along with my housemates, am going to take part in the teacher´s dance presentation. We will be dancing this huayno (a traditional type of dance here in Peru): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTbtQG3o2kA

Simply fun.

A Little (Normal) Craziness

The new volunteers (Seamus and Maureen) arrived here in little ole Tacna, Peru on Friday and we spent a fun weekend with them that included going out for a welcome lunch, going to a birthday party, and then capped it off with an introduction to Miguel Pro yesterday morning. I was included in that as that is where I will be next year, and it was very exciting to feel part of something new and all the energy around having new faces and new possibilities.

I also had a wonderful weekend because I was the godfather for the first communion of a close neighbor of ours. During the lunch that we ate at their house after, I felt very calm and relaxed and enjoyed sitting there for hours just talking. I spent quite awhile in the kitchen discussing everything from love to family to cooking with Edith (the neighbor, who also offers the step classes in her house that I go to). She made some chicken in a pineapple sauce (chinese food style) and kept talking about how many calories it had and joking about it being a ¨pecado.¨ She is a wonderfully kind and humble women, and at times it definitely pains me to see these effects of, what I interpret as, low self-esteem. It is quite fun though to go to her classes because when she is leading an exercise class, she turns into a much more self-assured leader. Maybe that is partly why she focuses so much on that part of her life.

Well, the craziness arrived yesterday when I returned to school after having missed some time there on Friday to welcome the new arrivals. I found out that a student (actually, whose name is Jesus, had played Jesus in the stations of the cross that we did, and generally is known as a humble, but good kid around the school) was found to be dealing drugs. The whole story is a long he-said-she-said rumor mill, but basically it seems like he was dealing drugs and one baggie was confiscated from a second year (equivalent of 8th grader) and then the police were called in.

The whole aspect of drugs being dealt within the school and this particular adolescent falling victim to it is sad, but to me the greater issue was in how the school handled the whole issue. I believe it was right to call in the police, but in the impromptu meeting we held yesterday for an hour (while the students had no one overseeing them) was basically filled with accusations, shouting, crying, and at the end, maybe some positive decisions about how to go forward. But there was no discussion about the fact that there is no structure of discipline or plan of what to do in such situations. There was discussion about some of the greater issues we have with letting the students be relaxed (arriving late, entering the school grounds after hours and hanging out in the classrooms, not doing homework, etc), but no progress was made on that front. Also, many of the secondary teachers simply used the meeting to launch personal attacks on others or defend themselves.

I felt moved a number of times to speak, but my opinion is definitely not valued in such situations (even though I have a number of ideas, especially because of the at least semi-successful discipline setups I see at Miguel Pro and Cristo Rey), so I kept quiet. I was also going to make my big announcement yesterday that I would not be coming back next year, but I decided to leave that for another day.

Oh, and then in my after school, extra English class, a fourth grade girl just collapsed on the floor and began to pee her pants. She had not indicated any previous need to go to the bathroom and I just thought she was playing around. I felt really bad for her and for her older brother, but I tried to just help her find a way to the bathroom and then push on to minimize the embarassment.

What a day.

Post Birthdays (Not mine) Update

Yesterday was both the birthday of Cara (my community mate who came down with Nate and I) and my mom. Even though it is a day late, I will officially wish them happy birthday here on the blog (don't worry, I did also do so yesterday).

On of the most striking aspects of celebrating these two birthdays yesterday was how I was struck by the fact that this is the second time I am doing so down here. I realized concretely that I have been down here for over a year. While it has passed quickly - especially when I start to think wow, it has been over two years since I first started teaching, it has been two and a half years since the end of college, the decade is just a couple of months from being over - obviously a whole lot has happened.

As a quick recap for those who have been following my progress this year:
November: Arrive, move in with host families

December: Celebrate birthday and Christmas, old volunteers (I love calling them voluntarios viejos in Spanish because obviously we are so young and viejo is quite a harsh word for someone old here, so it adds a fun bit of sarcasm) headed out, moved into the house

January: New Year's customs and celebrating on the beach, Mes de Mision. Enough said I think (or at least in my mind)

February: Vacation time and seeing lots of Peru, silent retreat in Arequipa, whole community adventure to Puno, going to Lima to get visas, getting excited for school year

March: Beginning of school year

April: Hearing that Father Jorge was being asked to leave Tacna for Lima, Holy Week with Viacruces and solemness (bloody Jesus' everywhere)

May: Hmmm, don't remember much right now about this month except that it was Nate's birthday

June: Waiting for vacations I guess.....but no, I think we had a good retreat in here and otherwise I remember reading a lot of news about it being summertime up there in the States and being jealous.

July: Worries about Swine Flu and early vacations, Jayson's death, getting ¨Typhoid,¨ fire at my school that burned the estera, Peruvian independence day, trip to Curahuasi and Cusco.

August: Extended vacations, time in Colca and Arequipa with Nate, coming back to school and having my classes taken away because of post fire lack of direction at school, day of Tacna.

September: Another bit of a blurry month, but I did return to teaching my classes in a open-aired room with dirt for the floor, the school's anniversary and afro-Peruvian dance classes

October: Reo-Diso retreat at the beach, thinking and deciding about next year, a Halloween haunted house extravanganza, Cristo Rey dia familiar


Obviously, other things happened in here - from trips to Arica (Chile), other very life-giving retreats, and long cold winter nights and days - but I like the idea of doing this exercise and sharing this with you simply based on what I remember. It must mean these specific events impacted my mind and my time here in a particular way, no?

Who knows what this next year will bring, but at the least, I am sure it will be full of similar experiences I will remember for the rest of my life.

ONE YEAR - WOOHOOO

Well, yesterday passed my one year anniversary of stepping off an airplane in the early morning sun of a quiet, humble, patriotic and southern Peru city of Tacna. Actually, I did not feel anything particularly special yesterday. If anything I was definitely having one of those days in which I was yearning a bit for home and the organization and structure of schools (in general) in the states.

I did, however, give myself a little one year present and I went to get my teeth cleaned. The dentist also told me I have three little cavities! I have never had any before in my life, and I most certainly blame eating habits down here. Well, if I were to be honest with myself, obviously it is partly my fault, but the do love their sweets down here and you really cannot say no to anything offered to you. For one thing, it is a bit offensive to refuse whenever anything is offered to you. Also, if you turn down any sweet or food, people automatically assume you are on a diet or are worried about getting fat and will not stop talking about it. But, I must admit, that is a pretty endearing part of the culture down here.

I just wanted to update everyone that it has been one year and that I am still alive and well. The most exciting thing to happen lately was a trip I took with the youth group to do some volunteer work at a retirement home run by some nuns. I really enjoyed talking and interacting with the elderly and I think they appreciated the energy the kids brought, even if the kids were pretty much having a dance party since they had not planned out well what they were going to do to entertain the adults.