Outside the Classroom

One of my duties as a co-tutor (tutoria is best described, in Cara´s apt words, as a beefed-up homeroom/guidance counseling) is to visit the homes of the students. This aspect allows us to better get a sense of the student outside of the school building and to build a relationship and level of communication with the parents for any issues or concerns that arise.

This past weekend I visited the house of a student named Leonardo, who lives on a farm about 10 minutes or so away by bus. On a small side note, his family gave me about 4 kilos of grapes, which I have been eating quite greedily (and suffering the consequences in my belly) for four days now). Leonardo had spent his whole childhood attending Cristo Rey, the elite Jesuit school that is the best in Tacna, on scholarship. At the end of last year, he was asked to leave because of his academics. Over the first few months of this year, I have found him to me an incredible worker and have a spirit to want to suceed, but also to be incredibly nervous and struggle with making connections from practice exercises to other work. Leonardo clearly has some learning and even emotional issues, but the extent to which he suffers from these truly only poured out at the house visit.

As we were sitting in his chacra (farm) and talking with him and his parents, I was trying to broach the subject of how he has been adjusting to Miguel Pro, and so I asked Leonardo about what activities he was involved in at Cristo Rey. This opened the way to Leonardo pouring out about he feels like he has never followed through with what he has started in his life (whether it be an extra taller on making ceramics, helping with teaching catechesis classes, or graduating from Miguel Pro). Additionally, he expressed the disappointment and guilt that his mother had been pressuring on him since the end of last year. He described in detail his last encounters with the teachers who supported him and his few friends, mentioning over and over how he felt like he lied to them by saying he would see them next year and not admitting that he would not be returning.

The tutor who I work with, Lizbeth (who happens to be eight months pregnant, work in three different educational institutions - she works until 5:00 on Sundays!) handled the situation very well, both talking with the parents about how they need to be supportive and help him follow through with his dreams, while also making sure Leonardo felt that he needed to be responsible too for his grades and the path his life has gone down.

For me, this student particularly hits a nerve because he is such a lonely, but good person (and works so hard), but clearly has trouble communicating with others, processing information, managing tension and stress, and just generally handling daily interaction and life. I want the best for him and I want him to become a Jesuit dentist (his two dreams that he adamently told his mother he could accomplish together), but there are so many obstacles and so much that he struggles with.

Anyway, I have some ideas and have undertaken a mission to at the very least help boost Leonardo´s self image. With my compañero Nate at Cristo Rey, we are getting his ex-teachers and his friends from there to write little notes letting him know they still think about him, are not disappointed in him, and that they all want the best for him. In English class, I have noticed that he can apply a rubric or a chart to exercises relatively well, so I make him his own for each new grammatical theme we discuss. And lastly, I am going to try to help integrate him socially into the 4th years as best as I can by bringing him into my recess conversations with the students or including him on different committees or in different activities.

I hope too that maybe, at the least, bringing a little more warmth and interest to his life will lift his spirits a bit. We will see.

Just a Musing

As I sneak a few minutes of internet on the director´s computer (they finally put internet in the teacher´s lounge yesterday but then of course it stopped working), I hear the sounds of students marching outside as they prepare themselves to be policia escolar. Oh Peru.....

Holy Week

Possibly one of the biggest deals of the year, Holy Week came and went here in Tacna with a lot to do. Despite having Thursday and Friday as holidays, I feel like I did more and slept less last weekend than I have all year so far.

It all started last week with a Friday night reconciliation service and then an early Saturday morning hike to climb the nearby sand dune. It was a small pilgrimage of sorts, and here is the evidence (look how tired my homeroom students look at 3 in the morning. If only they were that calm in class.....):

Wednesday with our first volleyball game as Team Habitat Forever in the local tournament. And though it pains me to say it, we are horrible. With all of the neighborhood out en masse to watch, we certainly provided a lot of entertainment with our inability to set each other up and numerous shots to the face. Oh well.

Thursday I took a nice little trip with my goddaughter (I was the padrino of her first communion, so it`s not quite Godfather-like, though she insists on calling me Padrino all the time) and her mother to visit the nearby valley of Tarata. There we did some walking around and for me it was super special to see Leslie enjoy the outdoors and the change of scenery. She had never travelled outside of Tacna before, so it was very special for her. We also ate some delicious fruit and I bought lots of yummy manna - kind of like big, sweet popcorn.

Friday I went to my host family, and since we are in a super Catholic country, there is no meat to be found in the entire country on this day. We feasted on some fried rice with seafood and some fried calamari - all homemade in the house. Then I returned to Habitat for some Viacruces, or stations of the cross. Although it was not as intense as last year, it still involved some scenes of cruifixtion and some carrying around of a big cross (see photo).

Saturday night I participated in an all-night vigil with the kids of the youth group with whom I worked last year. I have not had a chance to work as much with them since it is out in the neighborhood where I taught, but it was great to share this special time with them. We went to the vigil mass and then had some reflections, watched Passion of the Christ, and had a little celebration for the Resurrection. I got very little sleep though, and was very exhausted all Sunday. Easter was a food-filled day as we invited the neighbors over for breakfast and chatting (see below), then I went to my host family`s for lunch and chatted some more, and then I came home to run (to make space in my belly) and nap before a community dinner of quinua risotto (very very delicious creation made possible by Cara).

So, all in all, very busy and very enjoyable - but what more can you ask out of life?