Physical Education in Peru

So, right now, all the rage in our school is the drill routines that all the classes of secondary and 4th, 5th, and 6th grade of primary have been preparing. Drill is basically rhythmic gymnastics and is absolutely hilarious to watch: http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoYr-p1Y67A. I don´t mean to mock it at all (especially considering I do step areobics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmqZ_okcTfM with Edith - the mother of Jason, the student who died last year - at least once a week), but it is quite funny to watch.

I think the best part of it is how into the kids get. Their final performance on Monday will pretty much determine their physical education grade, but whole classes of students have been out on the streets of Habitat for hours after school practicing. It really has taken over here at school.

On a wider scope, the October 3rd elections have really come to dominate local discussions and local radio. Besides the flags and posters up all over the place, many of the campaign songs (simple remixes of all the current big hits) can be constantly heard and very often their are parades of the different canidates going through the center.

Elections here are very interesting - on the ballot, for example, they do not even put the canidates name, but simply their party´s symbol. These symbols range from a single letter to a number to a characterture of the canidate himself (the guy running for re-election as mayor of Tacna simply runs on his personality and so is known as the Gordito Simpaticon. He doesn´t really have any other platform than a subtle ¨you can´t help liking me, can you.¨ Check out his video, which has many shots of Tacna. Also, the big guy dancing in the background is the canidate: http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=2cJBO8k3QOs).

As a volunteer and foreigner, I don´t take any stance or support any canidate, but it is a little disheartening to hear the way many Peruvians see their political system: as one of corruption, manipulation of the voting procedures, and the buying of elections. Additionally, there is not any stable political party system. One interesting point, however, is that everyone must vote (if you don´t, one of the ways that get you besides a fine is not allowing you to make any bank transactions). I haven´t decided yet if I feel like that is good to make voting obligatory, but I definitely feel that it has wide ranging effects, especially when there is such confusion with a plethora of canidates.

Any thoughts from those out there?

Tacna Day 2.0

This past Saturday was the 81st anniversary of Tacna´s reincorporation into Peru. Down here, each city gets together a big celebration for its day, and Tacna´s is especially intense considering its patriotism and civic pride. In both my years here, it has been a really enjoyable time to share with the people of this wonderful city.

This year, the festivities included a parade filled with dances and floats (my housemate Cara danced the traditional Saylla - she had almost roped me into doing it too, but it is an intense dance, so I stayed away from this one), an actuacion at school that had everything from kindergarden kids dressed as stuck-up, early 1900s folk to a procession with a big Peruvian flag to a marching contest (that my fourth year students were very upset to lose) to a sharing of traditional picante (made with cow´s stomach - not very appetizing, but the dish´s flavor is good), a Daddy Yankee concert (that I attended. Quite simply, it was a lot of fun, even though I am not a big reggaeton fan and they had separate entrances for males and females that meant I had to wait on line by myself for a long time), a parade down the main street with a humongous Peruvian flag (held only by women, since they were the ones during the years under Chile´s rule who celebrated in secret), and some more picante.

Then, as a community, we took a trip down to the beach for a four day retreat on social justice. It was a great chance to relax a bit, talk about issues of justice that we see (particularly the treatment of women in Peruvian society - though we did get into the different cultural and societal contexts that affect our views of such issues too, and how we have and use privilege as white, relatively wealthy Americans) and enjoy each other´s company.

Anyway, I´ve added some photos of the fun to give you all a little more of an idea of all the fun over the last week.

Cara is dancing in the back right of the group. This picture was also right before they grabbed me from the sidelines and pulled me out on the street to dance with them.

Though this kindergardener is a little odd in class (she will randomly scream nonsense), she was absolutely adorable dressed up for the actuacion. I had fun imagining that all the drama of the reincorporation into Peru really went down amongst 5 year olds dressed like this.

My tutoria of fourth years starting their march (very militaristic) for the contest.

The big Peruvian flag going down the main drag. It literally takes up the entire width of the street.

This is one of the ¨alfombras¨ that they make out of flowers and different materials on the morning of the parade. No one can walk over them until the flag passes down.

The Peruvian commandos who later paraded. Can you spot the camo one?

The community on retreat. Relaxed and renewed.