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.