Missed my post yesterday asswe were driving seven hours to the coast of Peru to spend the weekend. Friday was a much better day emotionally for me. Both Eddie and Wyatt spent time at other placements which gave me the opportunity to concentrate fully on the students without having to help my boys defend themselves. Christin and I stayed up late Thursday night cutting out capital Ms, Ps, Rs, Ls, and Ss as those are the letters the kids are learning right now. I never realized how few capital Ps are used in magazines...I took the letters and a new bottle of paste to the class so the kids could glue the magazine pieces onto appropriate spots on the paper. I purposely made each child their own pile of letters, each with the same number of Ps, Rs, Ms, Ls, and Ss so as to reduce the amount of fighting. The kids did surprisingly well with the project. For the most part, they all sat and happily glued away for a good half hour or so. It frustrated me a bit that la profesora would occasionally come around and shame a child by yelling at them that I had brought this beautiful project to them and they needed to do better work. I really wanted to keep this a positive experience so I tried to get to everyone before she did. I think we ended on a good note so I was satisfied with that.
Besides that, I spent some time stumbling my way through the Wizard of Oz in Spanish, a book I had brought from home. I read the book twice to a small group of interested kids before struggling through my tongue-tiededness wore me out. We also did numbers in English and Spanish and as I brought my camera with me, quite a bit of time was spent taking pictures and then showing them to all the kids. Each student wanted a picture of themselves doing several activities: eating, swinging, gluing, climbing over the eight foot fence to escape from the play yard....stuff like that. La profesora was just as intrigued by the camera as everyone else. She asked to have her picture taken and to see the results several times. I promised that when I got back to the United States, I would send copies of the pictures to her via CCS's homebase.
La profesora asked me to bring some supplies for her next week which I can't do as it is against CCS policy. I know she is aware of the policy, but I really can't blame her for trying. It may seem rude and impolite by our standards, but I can only imagine that if my children did not have what they needed as far as basic necessities go, I most likely would not worry too much about manners either. The CCS policy, at first blush, seems rather harsh. However, the goal of the program is to assist these organizations in becoming self-sustaining and self-improving. If we come in as these sort of saviors that bestow supplies and money, we make them dependent on charity, a position that never improves anyone's self-image.
The first day I was in the kindergarten, one of the little girls had nothing to eat for lunch. When she saw my granola bar, she pitifully asked if she could have some. I couldn't say no, something that I was reprimanded for when I checked with CCS staff later. As our director said, if parents in this poorest of schools got wind of the fact that a gringa was giving out food there, many of them would stop sending lunch to school so that their children could be fed by the gringa too. And as I don't have enough granola bars to feed the whole class for an extended period of time, I instead now don't bring anything to eat. At least then we can both be hungry, though I am sure our hunger is very different from one another's. Disturbingly, Friday, la profesora was "sharing" the children's lunches, explaining when she caught me watching her, that she was "very hungry". Which might be the case, though I noticed she was only hungry for sweet cookies and cakes.
After our placement, we headed back to the house for our final lunch with the Insight group. CCS has several programs of varying lengths to choose from, one of which is a week long trip that gives sort of an overview of the volunteer opportunities by spending time at a different placement every day. The afternoons are packed with tours such as the one we took to the Wari ruins, and lessons in Spanish and salsa dancing among other things. I enjoyed several of the people we met in the Insight program, particularly a 13 year old girl from Alaska and several people from Canada (I now have an understanding of Canadian politics and a renewed sense of embarrassment about my ignorance of world events in general). Unfortunately, there were also some people that I didn't really understand why they were there as they seemed much more interested in vacationing than volunteering. As we were packing for our coast trip, two of them decided to do a very convincing production of the Ugly American. Our guide for this coast trip is also the person who arranges trips for any CCS houseguest if they so desire. He has worked with CCS for nine years and goes above and beyond to give fabulous service. These two women took it upon themselves to degrade and humiliate our guide very publicly over a trivial matter that could easily have been taken care of with a civilized conversation. Every person in the house, all 22 volunteers and six or seven employees, was privy to what was going on. I, as well as just about everyone else in the house, felt terrible about the incident. I just can't believe how incredibly entitled some people feel, so much so that it is nothing to be demeaning and disrespectful (yeah, I said it) to another human being. On the bright side, the Insight volunteers flew back to Lima this morning so though I am disappointed that these women and I will not get a chance to have a philosophical discussion on proper etiquette when visiting a country not your own, the house will be a bit quieter and more cohesive in the coming week.
Jenny
from Marci:
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated with your observations!