Teaching

            It was highly recommended to all the volunteers in my group to set up summer school classes. The description of how to set these up was different for every volunteer depending on the site, but the general idea was to get approval from the school. I had it a bit easier since there is only one school at my site, and the director is incredibly helpful. So helpful in fact that he is setting things up for me much faster than I can understand his Spanish. I was able to present myself at a parent teacher meeting, and before I knew it I was sitting in front of the director at his desk and he’s handing me the keys to the school, and giving me a classroom for my classes. The school is typically closed during the summer as most the teacher including the director are from the main town near by and thus do not stay here while there is no school. During our key transaction the director kept asking me about where I was living, and then repeated my host mom’s name a couple of times embedded in Spanish sentences that I couldn’t quite understand. I continued to nod my head in agreement assuming what he was saying made since. He told me he would put up an announcement at the school, and I should put one up at the health post, and he promised to come visit at some point during my classes. Pretty soon I was walking out the door, my head held high, feeling full of power with the school keys jingling in my pocket.

            The proceeding weeks seemingly every parent in the street approached me and asked about my classes. They kept using a work that started with ‘m’ that I was quick to assume was another way of saying English classes, and I would tell them the date and time the classes were going to start.  One night my mom approached me after the school graduation and asked me where I was going to hold my classes, and I assured her that they would be in the school. She looked a bit relieved because apparently our neighbor, who rented from us for three months and then one day left without paying for rent I might add, was apparently saying that the classes were going to be held at our house. I said that was ridiculous and we quickly decided that the neighbor was a gossip and not good. For two weeks I assured parents of the day and time of the classes and I was starting to get nervous that I would have too many students. I made plans of how I could divide up the classes in two, and offer more sessions.  At one point I was sitting talking with a local baker and she was telling me that the previous volunteers only had eight students in their classes, she assured me that she would send her kids to my classes so I could have more students then that, and a little part of me felt like I was winning the non-existent competition. I busied myself all week making alphabet letters with accompanying pictures, and posters with class rules on them. I dug up my best leadership games and worked out a progression for the games to build on each other. In other words instead of waking up with no purpose I now had reason to busy myself in my room and it felt good! I was called to the municipality to open up the school for some inspectors, which only built on my feeling of power in the community. While at the school I was surprised to see that there was no sign on the door about my classes, so that night I made one for the school door, and could watch out my window from my house as people stopped by and read it. I was getting excited to get to know the students of Levanto

Heading home one day I passed by my friends at the health post to chat, and they asked about my classes using that ‘m’ word again. Fortunately they can read my face a lot better then the parents on the street, and thus could see the slight confusion so they spelled it out for me. It turns out the ‘m’ word really meant registration and it was assumed that I would have a central place for parent to come and sign up their kids before hand. I laughed this off and said oh no I was going to do that on the day of, to which they responded oh Maddy you are only going to have one student. We laughed about this prospect, but I was pretty confident that since I had told so many parents about my classes this could not possibly true. The Sunday night before I started my classes I had a parent come to the house wanting to sign up her children and pay, so I quickly grabbed the new notebook I had bought and made up a registration list to fill out. I was pretty happy to have someone at the house that was specifically looking for me, it gave me purpose, and I ignored the fact that she was surprised she was the first one to sign up her kids. I went to bed that night a bit restless in anticipation for my classes.

I woke up early Monday, tidied up my room, and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. While I had told my host mom that I would be going early tomorrow, my earliness and hers did not quite align, meaning she was not quite ready with my breakfast so she served me some soup from the night before, a little disappointing as I was anticipating two rolls of bread, but I slurped it down.  On my way to the school one of our neighbors came running up to me to hand me her money for the classes, I was juggling the materials unable to pull out my notebook, so I told her she needed to bring her parent to the school to register this morning. I got to the school, proudly opened up the door and walked on in. I taped up my alphabet on the wall, and posted up the rules. My biggest anxiety was how I was going to handle helping the parents register and managing the class with the students that were already there. I had nametags for them to decorate hoping this would keep the students busy. At eight I was all set and debated waiting for the parents in the classroom, which was on the second floor or down at the school entrance. The convenience of the table for registration kept me in the classroom and there I waited. At 8:10 I had my first two students, the children of the mother that came by the night before to register. They filled out their nametags asking me what color they should use, clearly needing my approval, and then we waited. I walked out of the classroom, looked around, and then walked back in wondering where all the promised children were. At 8:20 I started to get nervous that the women at the health post were right that without a registration there would be no students. Finally at 8:30 the girl that had stopped me on my way to the school came with her father thus rounding out my class to a total of three students. Together we sang the alphabet song, built a tower to hold a glass of water, and learned the numbers. The nametags felt silly and didn’t stay on, and I didn’t even mention the class rules, as with only three they were very well behaved. At the end of class I told the student that they needed to find one friend each to bring to the next class and the obediently agreed.

Feeling slightly embarrassed I headed back home to my host mom. I dramatically complained to her that there were only three students, and her first reaction was ‘oh but its only the first day’, then seeing how dramatic I was being she changed the response to be more sympathetic. I was in fact comforted that her first response was that it was only the first day and perhaps this was normal.  That night before dinner I heard my host parents talking in the kitchen, and pretty soon my host dad pops his head in my room and proclaims: ‘I heard you had 30 students in your class today!’ I looked at him confused and then realized he was joking to which I laughed and said yes, so many I couldn’t control them! This became our running joke, having to eat a second serving of dinner because I needed to have lots of energy for my 30 students. As I left for my classes the next morning one of our neighbors on the street wished me luck handling my 30 students! Somehow being in on a joke made me feel even better than if 30 students had come to my class.

After only five students come to my class for the older students I decided to take matters in to my own hands. I set out for a walk with my registration notebook in hand, and just walking down the streets children and adults appeared from out of their houses to stop me to register for my classes. I proudly handed them the notebook feeling prepared and excited to have more students. Many students said they were coming but I have now picked up that these students only tell me this to please me, it is the ones that put their name on the paper and paid that mean business. I now have around ten students in each class, which feels like what I can handle, and I’ve taken a huge step forward in understanding how the systems work here.

Bring in America

            Last Tuesday I decided I had had just about enough of this no Internet business so I decided to dip down into the main town for a day. I called up my man Orlando who drives a car back and forth in the morning, to have him pick me up at 6:15am as he only does two trips and the other one is at noon, which for my desperate need of Internet was too late for me. Therefore bright and early the horn blares outside my window, and I stumble groggily down the stairs to the car. We proceed to pick up two large bags of potatoes, one large bag of cilantro, three boxes of cheese, two cartons of beer, and six more people in a five-person car. Satisfactorily full we head down the hill gossiping about who owns the new green car in town that is also now giving rides up and down. As we arrive in town I ask Orlando if he is going to be making any trips in the afternoon, to which he gives me the same response I always get which being no his last return is at 11:00am. However at seeing my desperate look he tells me to give him my cell phone number and if by chance he makes another trip he’ll call me. I then ask him if there is any other way I could get up in the afternoon, thinking of that new fancy green car, but he tells me my only option is a farm truck. I ask him where I could find these trucks and he simply says down there, as if it was obvious. As he drives away I realize that ‘down there’ could me a million different places, but such are the direction giving skills here in Peru.

In town I put on my American façade, took out my pre-written list of things to get done, and started ticking things off, feeling so productive! I drowned myself in the Internet, bought materials for my upcoming English class, ate the delicious apple filled pancake at my favorite café, and most importantly went to the post office. At first the post woman told me that there was nothing there for me, to which I pointed at the large pile of boxes behind her and encouraged her to sift through those, and what do you know she pulls out not one but TWO boxes with my name on them. I sign about thirty different forms for this lady and skip out of there, promising myself that I had to wait until I got back home in order to open them. That afternoon I watched the rain pass from the window of our hostel friends who let me sit in their common area and eat lunch. At the first clearing I jumped up and completed the rest of my errands. I went down to a stationary store, which seemed a bit off of the beaten path, but it turned out the lady that runs it is very familiar with Peace Corps and we had a bonding moment over that. I then got up the nerve to ask her if she knew where the trucks to Levanto leave from, and to my surprise she announced that it was right here from her store. I could not believe my luck. She called up her friend to ask when he was leaving for Levanto that evening. Still with a smile on her face, as if she was still doing me a favor she says that in fact her friend only leaves from her store once a day at 4:00am in the morning. I knew it was too easy to have just stumbled into the storefront, so I tell her thank you very much and I head off to continue my search.

Next I ask the lady that I buy my two mangoes from, and she leads me down the street to two guys who say that a truck with a bunch of potatoes was leaving right now just down the hill. At the bottom of the hill there is no truck but a bustling market I never knew existed. I ask some kids at the market, and they tell me to go up a block, where there is a truck and the guys, surprised to see a gringa in this neck of the town really wanted to help, so they affirm that there is a potato truck leaving just down the road. This direction leaves me to the recycling center where some guys are sorting the recycling. I take the opportunity to ask them about what recycling they buy, and I introduce myself as a peace corps environmental volunteer, and that we will hopefully be in touch! This part of the trip makes my wild goose hunt feel somewhat productive and I start to succumb to the fact that I might have to spend the night in town, delaying my packaging opening by a day. One of the recycling guys wipes some dirt off his face, and inquires me about what I was looking for in the first place, and I explain that I am trying to get back to Levanto on a truck. After he wipes the surprised look of me on a truck off his face, he calls up his friend, who tells him where the stop for trucks that go to Levanto is; of course there is an organized stop that nobody wanted to tell me about. He gives me somewhat more specific directions including a store name, and words like corner and blocks. I give my thanks and head back up the hill to find the truck stop. Finally I arrive to the place I think he’s talking about and sure enough there is a truck being filled with potatoes. I ask the women in front who looks vaguely familiar the destination of this truck, and to my great relief she proclaims Levanto. I ask when they are leaving, and they say right now which I am sure means in about 30 minutes, giving me enough time to run up and grab my packages and other goods from the hostel where I had left them. I tell them to not leave without me and speed walk the ten blocks to the hostel.

My arms exhausted from carrying all my acquired goods in very awkward bags, I arrive back to the truck greet the driver who is standing at the back of the truck, and ask if I can get a ride. He hollers at a kid that is in the back of the truck to come and get my things, and then he gets a carton of beer that I can stand on in order to hoist my self into the truck bed. I clamber over the potatoes to the where a family of two boys and a young mom are standing huddled. There is a large canvas covering over our heads, and suddenly I have a feeling that I am escaping from somewhere, or perhaps an illegal immigrant entering America. We get a move on things and make our way up out of town. As we are leaving the city limits the kids tell me there is no more risk of the police and we can go sit up top. Unaware that that’s what we were waiting for, I climb up to sit on top of the canvas with them, where we have an incredible view as we head up into the mountains. I call my host mom and tell her I’m on my way via one of the trucks, and she laughs at me in surprise. Finally I have figured out how to get back to my site in the afternoon when no cars run, a pretty big achievement for the afternoon.

Upon getting back home I drop my stuff outside my door and excitedly bring my package into the kitchen. This is a bit of a risk to open packages in front of the host family, because I will be expected to share everything that is in them, but I am too excited, and I want to share the excitement with my host mom. I first open the package from my friend I worked with this past spring, and who did the Peace Corps in Cameroon recently, in other words a friend that knows just what a Peace Corps volunteer would want! Inside this surprisingly heavy box was full of soup mixes, mac and cheese, easy to make meals that just need water, granola bars, gum, and American magazines; a fresh breath of home! The soups excite my host mom, and we enjoy reading the packages together, and munching on sour patch kids. I fill the kitchen table with American packaging, and she figures out our whole dinner based around the new goods plus some potatoes that were already boiling away. We get started on the minestrone soup and after the three minutes of needed cooking time she asks me to come test it to see if its ready. She holds out the wooden spoon as if for me to slurp up what’s in it so I bend over ready to fulfill this task, but she slowly lowers it down more and more so that I can quite get to it, and find myself slowly taking a bow leading with my lips outstretched ready to slurp up some soup. I immediately feel like I am eight and my bother is torturing me, him thinking the game is so funny. Finally in explanation my host mom shouts out, ‘no it’s going to burn you!’ I assure her that I’ll be fine, for nothing stays hot here for very long, and I finally slurp up the soup in the spoon meanwhile both of us are laughing uncontrollably at what had just happened. My host dad was skeptical of the American speedy dinner, but no one can refuse my host mom when she tells you to eat up, and thus it was a joyous meal all prepared in under ten minutes!

A new photo feature

The idea came to me the another day while walking through the forrest looking for a perfect place to put up my hammock; I am going to start theme photo blogging. In other words each month or so I am going to choose a theme and take photos of just that. Then when internet presents itself I will post these photos for your enjoyment, or perhaps for me to have more meaning behind the pictures I'm taking. This months theme is gates so enjoy all these pictures of gates!

The Truth of the Bean

I may have hinted at it in pervious posts but I’m just going to come out and say it, I am a closeted coffee drinker. It started my second week in site when I went into town to buy a mattress with our regional coordinator in his fancy Peace Corps car. While in town he kindly drove me around to the different stores to collect the accessories that I wanted for my room. This literally entailed us driving a block, lurching to a stop, jumping out running in the store, negotiating prices, jumping back in the car and driving a block more. In total all the stores were within seven blocks of each other but we made the most of that car. The point of this being that at one store I did buy fixings to make coffee in an improvised dripping system, and a block away I bought ground coffee so that I was set to be infused with more caffeine confidence, which I believed would allow me to speak Spanish fluently.  Coming into my site I crouched down out of view as the whole town poked their heads out the window to see what unknown car was driving through with such a fancy deluxe mattress. Upon arriving at my house my host mom oohed and ahhed at my mattress and it felt like too much to show off all the other things I had bought. So I slid the mattress in and tucked the coffee fixings into a corner, feeling a bit guilty at the luxuries I could afford.

I’m not quite sure how to put into words why I continued to hide the fact that I was making coffee in my room with a hot water boiler, and a contraption meant to brew tea, but was now brewing coffee. Maybe it was shame at how many material goods I own, maybe it was embarrassment that after drinking the Nescafe my host mom served me I would go into my room and brew up another cup of slightly more satisfying coffee. Maybe it was because the caffeine hadn’t made me fluent yet so I couldn’t quite put into words that I was making my own coffee, or maybe I simply like the thrill of it.  Whatever the case may be I would return from my run, eat breakfast with my host mom, and then go into my room, close the door, and whip up some more coffee, and thus I became a closeted coffee drinker.  Some obstacles to my secrecy were that I forgot to buy a mug, so I would wait until the kitchen was empty so I could sneakily run in and grab one.  Once my host grandma caught me in the act of cup borrowing, but she doesn’t have much hearing and already thinks I’m crazy so we just looked at each other and laughed. I continued this habit for weeks, dumping the old beans out into a plastic bag, trying to figure out how I could spread them in my host mom’s garden for fertilizer with out her knowing that I was adding nutrients. I would wait until she was busy in her room, then I would sneak out spread the coffee beans into the dirt, then smoosh them into the ground until they blended in.  At one point my host dad returned as I was finishing up my last rubbing in and gave me a puzzled look, in which I stumbled through some Spanish of dumping organic waste, to which I am sure he didn’t understand any of. To clean out the cup and pot I would wait until my nightly bathroom run and use the outdoor sink by the bathroom. It was dark by this time so about two weeks in I found a little mold on the pot, and had to work on my thorough cleaning technique. The funny thing is one day when I was making cookies in my room my host mom was helping me and she moved everything off my desk including the coffee pot (full of molding coffee) and the water boiler, so clearly she knew that I was making my own coffee, and she didn’t really care, but still I felt the urge to hide my actions.

It wasn’t until the other day on one of my daily walks through the mountains and farms that I realized I was being a little ridiculous. So I’ve decided that when I receive the package from my mom coming to me in the mail, with an actually coffee dripper and filters in it, I am going to make a point of showing it to my host mom, and then include her in my coffee making ceremonies. I would invite her to the coffee as well but it turns out she is trying to get pregnant (with my host dad) and has been told that during this time she cannot drink coffee or milk, or eat fish, chocolate, or pig. But for now I will continue making my coffee behind a closed door, and sneaking off to clean the pot in the middle of the night.

Si Se Puede

It’s been a month in site and there are continuous moments of ecstasy and bliss at living here countered with moments of floundering; lost in a new culture, always feeling like an outsider. However, I have proudly gotten used to several things being part of my daily life, which I would like to share:

1. I can now walk by a cow or a horse in the road without the deathly fear that they will turn on me, and trample me to be as flat as a pancake. I even had a moment where I wanted to own a horse to ride, my very own, and then I laughed remembering deep down I am afraid of all animals taller than me.

2. I can call someone over by lifting my arm straight out in front of me with my wrist limp and my hand hanging down. I then proceed to flop my hand up and down at the hinge of the wrist, and soon enough either a car will pull over to pick me up, or someone will come walking over to me. Works like a charm

3. To refuse a drink, an offer to dance, or a ride I can now with confidence simple avoid eye contact and wag my finger back and forth, giving the clear signal that I have no interest. With no hurt feelings the perpetrator is gone.

4. I can eat two rolls of bread with some queso fresca squeezed in the middle, and a cup of hot water with a packet of Nescafe and sugar waiting to be dissolved into it and feel like this is a pretty good breakfast. And when the bread is stale I enjoy dipping it into my water with dissolved powders to re-hydrate it.  It is when they try to feed me a mounding plate of rice for breakfast that I know I am in trouble. I then put on the look of ‘huh no bread?’ which my host mom is now used to, and she sends someone to run to the store to appease the gringa.

5. I can confidently wake up in the morning at 8:30am and walk out my door to the bathroom. On the way be called a ‘free woman’ since I have just awoken and it is already 8:30. I then run back to my bed after using the restroom and lay in my bed for another hour, looking up at my ceiling and realizing that I have no plans what so ever for the day, and I am totally ok with that.

6. I can shuck green peas with my host mom, all the time watching as she pops out four times as many peas as me in the same amount of time, and not feel like an un-contributing member of society. This also goes for my rate of pulling potatoes out of the ground, putting cheese into molds, knitting, and peeling a mango.

7. I can wait patiently in a store for my turn, unbothered by the fact that the person who was clearly behind me has somehow been served before me, not even a speck of disapproval passes my face. Nope I have no plans what so ever for the day, so there is no reason why I need my bananas to make my banana bread quickly. That woman behind me clearly had someone urgent to call on her phone and needed to buy credit real quick.

It is by reminding myself that these achievements are no small feat that allow me to feel ok about not having a full daily schedule. I can fight the ever-persistent American urge of needing to put my head down and speed walk from one thing to another, thinking that satisfaction comes from double booking myself.  I am able to appreciate the slow speed and the opportunity that these two years are for me more than anyone else, so thank you American government!  I have also been reading too many Peace Corps memoirs, and I think that’s what gave me the urge to right this semi-reflection piece!

A quick note on my Peruvian New Years, which proved to be quite entertaining! They have a custom here of taking old clothes and stuffing them with trash, and other old clothes creating scare crow type dolls. Each family makes their own life size doll, and then when the day becomes dark they burn them. As an environmental volunteer my first gut reaction was a bit of dread as part of our goal is to try and stop the burning of trash, but as the smell of burning plastic and clothes filled my nostrils, the delighted looks on the faces around me made me really enjoy the tradition. We burned two dolls, and then strolled through the streets joining the neighbors in their burning of dolls, which represents getting rid of the bad luck for the next year. At one neighbor’s stoop I was offered twelve grapes. I told them I don’t usually eat grapes on new years but thanks, I was then quickly informed that I was supposed to make a wish with every grape representing each month, and if I really wanted to go crazy I could eat 24. I stuck with the 12 but I’m not going to lie I got lost in the wishes.  I was advised that most of my wishes should be about getting good Peruvian boyfriend, one of the few jokes that I can get and laugh at in Spanish.