My Community and Family

Since I last posted, we´ve had two days of going to a local school. On Tuesday, we broke up into groups (my neighborhoods) and observed a class for 2 hours. I was in a 5th grade math and then "art" (you´ll see what I mean by that later) class. In the math class, I gave a brief introduction of myself - who I am, what the Peace Corps is, and what I´ll be doing in Peru - and then the teacher got on with class. Some other trainees said they were able to have a brief question and answer session with the kids, but my teacher seemed eager to start class. The class was crazy to say the least. The kids were bouncing off the walls and the teacher had no control over the class. I think she only asked them to be quiet once or twice, but usually she just spoke in a louder voice and talked over them. I don´t know how any learning could have been going on because there were kids running around like maniacs outside (and the classrooms are all off of this inner courtyard) and climbing the walls outside our classroom to peek in the windows - apparently it was Hana´s class trying to show her that I was in there! Haha.

They were learning how to do long division and the teacher was writing on the white board in different colored markers. Apparently the kids have to use the same color pens in their notebooks to copy the notes because they kept asking her questions about what color they should use to write certain things. I felt bad for them because they seemed more concerned about the color of the pen then what they were actually learning and I kept wondering if anyone was even picking up on the lesson. I already know how to do long division and I couldn´t even follow the lesson.

Between art and math class, there was no teacher in the room and the kids swarmed around me. They wanted my autograph and kept asking me how to say certain things in English (mostly names, like Hana or Sara that are the same). They kept staring at me and poking me. I felt like I was on display and barely had any room to breathe because they kept coming closer and closer. It was pretty funny, but very overwhelming. Then the art teacher came in and she was exactly the opposite as the first teacher. She had this huge stick that she´d slap on the table if they were making too much noise and she kept yelling at them to sit down and be quiet. I was even scared of her. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, but I was afraid to get up, but I finally did and she didn´t yell at me! The art class was so weird though because there definitely was no art being done. They talked about a region in Peru and what the climate is like, what the grow, the natural resources, and where it´s located. Then they talked about the local authorities in their town and later reviewed questions for an exam they´re going to have about the Incas. I didn´t understand.

Before we left they gave us a million kisses goodbye and wouldn´t let us leave. Luckily we were coming back the next day so they finally did let go of us. I left there completely exhausted and it had only been 2 hours. We went back today to do a little activity with them about self-esteem. We made little personal flags to represent ourselves. We asked them six questions and they had to draw their answers in the different boxes. Afterwards we shared them in groups and it was to teach them to be proud of themselves and the things they like about themselves and what they want to be when they grow up. We did the activity in two different classes - 4th and 5th grade. The 4th graders were hyper too, but they were pretty well behaved. It helped that their teacher was in there to help us. They were really enthusiastic though and very excited to have us there and ask us anything they could think of. The next class we went into was the class Hana was in the day before. For some reason their teacher never showed up to school today and no one seemed to know why so they were without a teacher. When we got into the classroom, this woman told us she was just in there for a second to try to calm them down, but since we were there now, she´d leave us in charge - oh great! Those kids were of course a lot more rowdy and hyper. We had a really hard time getting control of the class. They too were really fixated on minute details of things and would have spent an hour trying to draw the Peruvian flag perfectly on the board if we had let them. It was really interesting to see this as a repeated theme in everything they did. They were really excited to have us there and were so sad when we said we had to leave that they formed a barricade in front of the door so we couldn´t leave. It was funny for a second, but then we really needed to go and it was difficult. Luckily a parent had come in during the activity and asked them to move. They would not let go of Hana though and we practically had to pull her away from them. It was quite an experience!

My Community and Host Family
So to tell you a little bit about where I live, the town where our training center is located is called Santa Eulalia and is about 45 minutes or so outside of Lima. I haven´t yet been to Lima since we landed there at 11 pm the first night, but we´re going this weekend with our Spanish classes and I´m really excited. The climate here is pretty mild. It´s very dry here (sand and dirt everywhere and it gets really dusty by the afternoon) so it´s cold in the mornings and at night and heats up a lot during the day. This is really gross, but it´s so dusty and dirty here, that underneath your fingernails it´s always black and when you blow your nose, it´s also black. The sun is very strong so you could be wearing a fleece jacket and long sleeves in the morning and a tshirt by lunchtime. It´s been getting progressively colder at night though as we move deeper into winter. They had to give me another blanket the other night, but it´s not much of anything so I´ve been opening up my sleeping bag (one of the BEST things I brought) and putting that over me. It gets REALLY cold in our houses at night because they are open to the outside. The first few nights I remember thinking it felt like I was walking outside when I left my room and then one day I realized that I was because the roof doesn´t cover the whole house. They were telling me the other night about all of this flooding they had in the late 80s and early 90s and how all of this water came in the house since it´s open at the top! Please God don´t let that happen while I´m here.

Judging by the houses, it looks like there is a lot of poverty here, but we had a presentation the other day, and we learned that we´re actually living in mostly middle class neighborhoods (some a little better than others). On the inside, the houses are much nicer than you´d imagine them to look. Some of them are even comparable to houses in the states. Many are 2 stories, but don´t have carpets since it´s so dusty here. My house is really big, but barely has any decorations on the walls and very sparce furniture. Others I´ve been to though, are very well decorated (many with Catholic figurines) and even have entertainment centers with TV, VCR and DVD players and many have stereos too! I was very impressed. My host family keeps telling me I´m being spoiled here and I believe it. This is not what I was expecting at all. I´m so spoiled to have internet. We don´t have cable TV so they must have decided to spend their money on internet instead (works for me!).

The people here in Santa Eulalia are really friendly and seem to be very accepting of us. However, my host mom said the people on our block aren´t that friendly towards one another, but they used to be. She said politics divides them a lot. I actually found out that one of the houses on the block got robbed around 10 pm the other night and nobody claims to have heard or seen anything so that´s pretty scary. We were still awake in my house. My host family told me that our house has never been broken into so I hope that´s true and stays that way. Our neighborhood is very loud. People play their music at extremely high levels at all hours of the night. We have these three guys living on the third floor of our house (a father and his two sons - they were abandoned by their mom) that make so much noise and always have people over when I´m trying to go to bed. Luckily I´m a deep sleeper or that would drive me crazy. It´s also incredibly noisy from all the dogs in the neighborhood. Half of them are stray, street dogs and the other half are pets. Some people don´t let their pets into the houses, but we do so I can´t even imagine how dirty he is. The dogs bark incessently, but no one seems to care because they never tell them to be quiet. It drives me crazy because our dog has a really high pitched, squeely bark that is piercing to my ears and he just barks and barks and barks!!!

I don´t have too much more to say about my family because I´ve already told you a lot of stories about them. I really like living here and they make me feel very comfortable. Sometimes I feel like I don´t have any privacy because the little kids always want to know what I´m doing, but for the most part, they´re good about it. In some ways I feel like a celebrity with the kids because they´re always so excited to see me and they follow me around a lot. It´d much rather that though than to feel so lonely all the time. They help me with my Spanish too so that´s really helpful.

My host mom is so sweet and such a happy woman. She loves to talk with me even though she´s extremely busy. She told me she loves having people stay at her house because she feels like she has so much to give and also wants to learn a lot from us. She is a really strong and independent woman. She is very hard-working, but also finds time to spend with her kids - helping them with homework every night and spending time with them on the weekends. She seems to be a very involved parent and have a great relationship with her kids and I really admire that. She talks to me about a lot of different things and I always really look forward to our conversations. Last night I sat down and talked to her and my host grandma for two hours! It´s really interesting because a lot of topics that are taboo in the States, are public knowledge here. For example, one of the first nights I met her, she told me all about her marriage and all of the problems they had in the beginning. People are really open and honest about their personal lives (which also means they´re not afraid to ask you and it´s not considered offensive).

My abuelita is adorable. She works so hard around the house all day, cleaning, preparing all of the meals, and washing the clothes. She´s only going to be 70 this year, but she looks much older for all of the work she´s done in her life. She is also a very strong woman and very dedicated to the family. She has these beautiful eyes that are very expressive of her emotions and you can´t help but smile when you´re around her.

That´s it for now....I´m sure I´ll have more stories soon. Thanks for being so interested in my life!