I find that I do the most thinking while on road trips. Unfortunately it is really hard to write a journal or blog entry while on a bus, so normally by the time i get around to writing all of my brilliant thoughts have disappeared :-p
I did manage to remember a few from this weekend that I had been meaning to share.
Before I go on, I'd like to add some more clarification to "the Italian incident" from my last post. In hindsight, a more polite way to describe the "Peruvian whine" would have been to use "accent" instead of "whine," however the latter is more descriptive of intonation. Furthermore, it is present in nearly every Peruvian's speech that I have met - not just the poor. My host mom is very educated and was a teacher for a long time - she did the whine at dinner last night. Rachel, the program director, is not a native Spanish speaker, but she has lived here for a few years (her husband is Peruvian) and you can hear the accent in her Spanish as well. Maybe that is what my friend Fabian meant when he said that I would "mess up my Spanish" if I went to Peru. Anyways....enough about the nasty Italians.
Thought #1
It's nice / weird to be in a place where my last name is common. There are several people running / who ran for political office with the last name Acuña so there are billboards everywhere....and by billboard i mean their names are painted on walls.
It's also nice to be in a place where I don't look like a minority. I know that's kind of a weird thing to say, and it's not really something I ever noticed until now. The women here are dark like me, they are short, and they are curvy. It's nice to see a "norm" that isn't tall, blonde, and skinny.
Thought #2
There are a lot of gutted buildings in Peru. They look like one of two things. Either people started a building project and never finished, or the buildings are abandoned. I'm not sure which, but I feel like most of them are just half started.
Thought #3
Traveling at night has pros and cons. You save a day of travel, but if you can't sleep on the bus (I can't) then you're still losing some of the day because you have to sleep for real when you get where you are going. A con is definitely the fact that you cant see the landscape change in the dark. This weekend we drove through mountains and the moon light reflected on a few rivers and lakes but I couldn't see much because it was so dark.
Thought #4
Ancient cultures worshiped nature, the elements and mother earth. They took care of the land that provided for them. With all of the knowledge and technology we have as, "an advanced and developed civilization" what are we doing to give thanks and to protect the planet that provides for us?
Thought #5
There is a huge difference between the urban and rural poor, and for the life of me I can't decide which group has it worse - or is that one of those things I'm just not supposed to compare? There are a couple of geography majors in the volunteer group. They get pretty annoyed when people just assume that they study "maps and stuff." However, they have a really hard time explaining what they study because it is such a vast, all encompassing field. They said that my question about the rural vs. urban poor is the subject of an entire class in their major. Interesting stuff I may have to check out some day.
Thought #6
My weekend in Cajamarca was an intense lesson in listening / comprehending Spanish. Sometimes I feel like I've made leaps and bounds in my comprehension, but inevitably after hours of near perfect comprehension I'll try to have a conversation with someone and end up understanding absolutely nothing. It's also easier to understand when I'm used to someone's voice. Rachel talks sooooo fast, but her voice is familiar now so it's easier to pick up what she is saying.
Today was my last day at the conservatory. I said goodbye to my students and the orchestra. The director, Francis, thanked me in front of the whole orchestra. It was kind of embarrassing, but it also made me feel good. I don't feel like I did that much, but he said that they really appreciated the fact that I came, and that I worked with so few resources (I didn't have a permanent room and had to constantly move around, I didn't have appropriate music for beginners and had to struggle to find something for them to do...including writing out my own exercises.) I learned that the orchestra doesn't have a lot of funding and that they charge their students little to nothing for lessons and orchestra membership. It is more important to allow kids to have music in their lives than to charge for it....unfortunately that comes with a price....mainly the lack of a flute teacher. Learning that made all the cold showers I've taken seem like a small price to pay for being here and having the opportunity to share my gift. Daniel was really sad that I was leaving and kept asking me not to go. The director, Daniel, and several other people asked me to come back next summer. We'll see. I got pretty choked up when I left the conservatory tonight so I would definitely consider coming back ($ would be the only thing stopping me).
All in all I met with my students more or less twice a week for an hour each. That's a total of 8 hours of individual instruction. If you consider that some professional musicians give master classes that are a few hours....and then you never see them again....I think my students received some quality time. I'm already thinking of things that I could improve upon if I were to come back (like i would leave behind all the shoes I ended up not wearing and bring a printer so I could make copies instead of having to go somewhere to do it.)
And now a plea on behalf of the orchestra. If any of my TMB/ musical friends (specifically flutes) would like to spend a summer teaching in Peru and improving their Spanish let me know! Also.....if anyone has any instruments sitting in their closets collecting dust....you should consider donating them to the orchestra!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Lost in Translation
And now my friends, a tale of Ugly Americans. This is probably one of those things that I shouldn't tell everyone, but I really need to write it out and process it for myself.
We had the morning off so we decided to walk around the downtown area of Cajamarca on our own. Other than dairyland / products, Cajamarca is known for basically being the place where the Inca met their doom. The picture below is known as the "Ransom Room." The Spanish conquerors captured King Atahualpa, he told the Spanish that if they let him go he would fill the room up to the roof with gold and silver. So he filled the room and of course they killed him anyways. The second excuse the Spanish gave was that he had more than one wife, and was therefore a sinner and had to die. Yeah for conquest, people are so wonderful aren't they?
Mototaxi that we took up the large hill so we could check out of the hotel after lunch.
The ventanillas were sooooooooo cool. They were carved out of volcanic rock and were a burial place for the upper class. After the bodies were put in, the holes were covered with obsidian. At the end of this tour the seven us were still being goofy and took turns climbing up onto this large rock. Then we headed back down for some quick shopping and got back in the van.
On the ride back we talked about what an amazing trip Cajamarca had turned out to be, how beautiful everything was, and what we would eat for dinner. We also talked about how what we call "the Peruvian whine" was starting to creep into our Spanish. The "whine" is an elongation of certain syllables, you can hear it in nooooooooo, or graaaaaaaacias, or de naaaaaada. The more rural and poor you get, the stronger "the whine" gets. It's a totally natural thing to absorb the language and intonation of the people around you, and we are living with Peruvian families. Two of the girls in our group were native Spanish speaking Mexican-Americans, and they were laughing at themselves because "the whine" was now in their speech. So we were "practicing" our whines, which was really easy to do after listening to the Peruvian children insistently ask us for money. All of a sudden the Italian man turned around and started screaming at us in a mix of Spanish, Italian, and English. The funny thing is that I understood the majority of what he was saying....only I didn't realize he was speaking three different languages because it all registered in my head as English. Then his wife joined in and started screaming at us too. It all happened so fast.
Basically they were screaming that we were awful, ignorant, loud Americans, who had no respect for the poor or for the country that we were in. They called us fascists (which is richly ironic considering Italy has a history of fascism while the U.S. does not) Yankees, cowboys, rich kids and even sluts. The woman screamed that she had been a teacher for 40 years and that she had never met such ignorant, disrespectful young people, and that we need to go back to school and learn something. They were screaming that they had to deal with our disrespect for the last two days. The man also said (to me and the two other Mexican girls) that we were as dark as the Peruvians and that it was shameful that we were making fun of our own people (I missed that part but Brigette told us later).
Apparently they thought that we had been mocking the kids asking us for money. At first Brigette tried to explain that they had misunderstood what was going on (they didn't speak English) but when they started getting nasty with the name calling she just turned away. Deanna just kept asking the man (in Spanish) to stop and just leave it alone. We were all just so shocked and everyone's reactions were so different.
- Brian was "blissfully" ignorant of everything that was said since his Spanish isn't very good.
- Deanna was just shocked that she was being yelled at this way
- I thought it was kind of comical how grossly they had misunderstood us, but I was also really frustrated that we were not given the opportunity to explain ourselves. I was so shocked that I could barely think of the right words in English let alone Spanish.
- Meredith was absolutely pissed.
We were all pretty angry and shaken up and couldn't really talk about anything else for the rest of the night. We did go over to the tour guide to apologize and try to explain to her that we weren't making fun of the poor kids, and she said everything was fine, that sometimes things get mixed up with the different languages.
Some witty things we wished we had said later:
Brigette's friend had taught her how to say (in Italian), "You are a smelly old man get the *eff away from me"
I wished I had said, "You're welcome for our Yankee, cowboy help against the Fascists in WWII"
In the end pretty much the only thing they got right was that we were loud....we had been REALLY loud that day, but only in the van, and only when the tour guide wasn't speaking. They had given no indication that they wanted us to quiet down at all. I have no idea what they meant by two days of our disrespect, we had barely spoken on the previous tour with them. The little Peruvian girl spoke more than we did. We really had to tell ourselves that we knew who we were and that these people knew nothing about us. We felt that it was really unfair to be labeled "ugly americans," especially because that is how most Americans are generally perceived abroad. They didn't know that we were volunteers working in poor communities and living with Peruvian families, and that was the most frustrating part: that we weren't given a chance to explain. The girls thought it was ironic that they were complaining about us being loud Americans while THEY were the ones YELLING at US. It was kind of an unfortunate way to end our trip.
We got dinner and then made our way to the bus station for a six hour trip back.
We had the morning off so we decided to walk around the downtown area of Cajamarca on our own. Other than dairyland / products, Cajamarca is known for basically being the place where the Inca met their doom. The picture below is known as the "Ransom Room." The Spanish conquerors captured King Atahualpa, he told the Spanish that if they let him go he would fill the room up to the roof with gold and silver. So he filled the room and of course they killed him anyways. The second excuse the Spanish gave was that he had more than one wife, and was therefore a sinner and had to die. Yeah for conquest, people are so wonderful aren't they?
The women really do look like this when they sit. Their skirts flare out and their shawls are wrapped around them.
EVERYONE was watching the battle for 3rd place in the America Cup between Peru and Venezuela. We watched a little of it during lunch and then walked around only to see or hear a tv in every little shop we passed along the way.
We headed back to the tour agency for our 3:30 tour. The Italian couple from yesterday smiled and said hello to us as we all got in the tour van. We went to another dairy farm thing, on the way to our next stop (a "botanical garden") we had a ridiculously hilarious conversation about how Brigette thought that cows were secretly an extremely intelligent alien species that had lulled us into thinking they were harmless but would one day take over the world. As this was going on we passed a sign on one of the stall areas that said "bacalandia" (cow-land), which was the perfect name for the new world order of cow dominance. We were laughing hysterically and just being super goofy.
I was getting kind of annoyed because the part of the tour I wanted to see was at the end....and it was getting dark. As we walked around the botanical garden the Italian man asked us a few questions (in Spanish) about hiking in Yosemite. He wanted to know when the best time to go was, and if it would be hard for him to find someone who spoke Spanish to show him and his wife around.
We finally made it to the place I wanted to see: las ventanillas de Otuzco, which is a pre-Inca necropolis. As we made the short trek up the hill we were surrounded by yet another group of Peruvian children begging us for coins. They would sing for us in the hopes of being paid for entertaining us. It was part sad, and part annoying because of their persistence.
The wall had cactus on top of it, and the sign said no passing, I found it funny, didn't the cactus fence get the point across (teehee pun intended).
On the ride back we talked about what an amazing trip Cajamarca had turned out to be, how beautiful everything was, and what we would eat for dinner. We also talked about how what we call "the Peruvian whine" was starting to creep into our Spanish. The "whine" is an elongation of certain syllables, you can hear it in nooooooooo, or graaaaaaaacias, or de naaaaaada. The more rural and poor you get, the stronger "the whine" gets. It's a totally natural thing to absorb the language and intonation of the people around you, and we are living with Peruvian families. Two of the girls in our group were native Spanish speaking Mexican-Americans, and they were laughing at themselves because "the whine" was now in their speech. So we were "practicing" our whines, which was really easy to do after listening to the Peruvian children insistently ask us for money. All of a sudden the Italian man turned around and started screaming at us in a mix of Spanish, Italian, and English. The funny thing is that I understood the majority of what he was saying....only I didn't realize he was speaking three different languages because it all registered in my head as English. Then his wife joined in and started screaming at us too. It all happened so fast.
Basically they were screaming that we were awful, ignorant, loud Americans, who had no respect for the poor or for the country that we were in. They called us fascists (which is richly ironic considering Italy has a history of fascism while the U.S. does not) Yankees, cowboys, rich kids and even sluts. The woman screamed that she had been a teacher for 40 years and that she had never met such ignorant, disrespectful young people, and that we need to go back to school and learn something. They were screaming that they had to deal with our disrespect for the last two days. The man also said (to me and the two other Mexican girls) that we were as dark as the Peruvians and that it was shameful that we were making fun of our own people (I missed that part but Brigette told us later).
Apparently they thought that we had been mocking the kids asking us for money. At first Brigette tried to explain that they had misunderstood what was going on (they didn't speak English) but when they started getting nasty with the name calling she just turned away. Deanna just kept asking the man (in Spanish) to stop and just leave it alone. We were all just so shocked and everyone's reactions were so different.
- Brian was "blissfully" ignorant of everything that was said since his Spanish isn't very good.
- Deanna was just shocked that she was being yelled at this way
- I thought it was kind of comical how grossly they had misunderstood us, but I was also really frustrated that we were not given the opportunity to explain ourselves. I was so shocked that I could barely think of the right words in English let alone Spanish.
- Meredith was absolutely pissed.
We were all pretty angry and shaken up and couldn't really talk about anything else for the rest of the night. We did go over to the tour guide to apologize and try to explain to her that we weren't making fun of the poor kids, and she said everything was fine, that sometimes things get mixed up with the different languages.
Some witty things we wished we had said later:
Brigette's friend had taught her how to say (in Italian), "You are a smelly old man get the *eff away from me"
I wished I had said, "You're welcome for our Yankee, cowboy help against the Fascists in WWII"
In the end pretty much the only thing they got right was that we were loud....we had been REALLY loud that day, but only in the van, and only when the tour guide wasn't speaking. They had given no indication that they wanted us to quiet down at all. I have no idea what they meant by two days of our disrespect, we had barely spoken on the previous tour with them. The little Peruvian girl spoke more than we did. We really had to tell ourselves that we knew who we were and that these people knew nothing about us. We felt that it was really unfair to be labeled "ugly americans," especially because that is how most Americans are generally perceived abroad. They didn't know that we were volunteers working in poor communities and living with Peruvian families, and that was the most frustrating part: that we weren't given a chance to explain. The girls thought it was ironic that they were complaining about us being loud Americans while THEY were the ones YELLING at US. It was kind of an unfortunate way to end our trip.
We got dinner and then made our way to the bus station for a six hour trip back.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Coqueta (that means flirt)
I really didn't mean to write another blog today....but this was just too good to not share right away.
Tonight was the semi-final of the America cup between Peru and Uruguay. My lessons ended at 8pm and then I needed to hop in a taxi to go to the mall where a bunch of volunteers (and several hundred Peruvians) were all watching the game in the food court. It took me 25 minutes to catch a cab! I was so annoyed, I swear all the taxis were too busy watching the game. I finally flagged a guy down and asked him how much it would be to the mall (FYI starting from this moment our conversation was entirely in Spanish) he told me it would be 5 soles...I asked if he would go any less and he agreed to 4.50 so I got in the car.
he had the game on so i clumsily asked what the score was and he said 0-0. then he asked who i was routing for....i lied and said i liked both teams (i actually REALLY like uruguays team...more on that later) but that it didnt really matter to me who won cuz i'm from the States. So then we started talking about what I'm doing here, how long I've been here, how long I will be here, how I like it, how it's different from the U.S. blah blah blah and then we finally arrived at the mall.
That's when he told me he would only charge me 4 soles!!!!!!! :-D HAHAHAHAHHAHA I kind of flirted my way into taking off an additional 50 centimos. The money isn't important, it's pennies in the U.S. but just the fact that I did it IN SPANISH. OMG totally made my night.
The game didn't go well for Peru, but I honestly expected that. Uruguay was one of my favorite teams to watch last summer during the world cup. I'm completely in love with Suarez (because he's beautiful....even though he's a big faker on the field) and he scored both of tonight's goals....one of them assisted by the amazing Forlan (who has a talent for scoring from well outside the 18 yard line). Uruguay just had such an amazing game, with some really beautiful plays. I was very happy.
so that's my story. ;-)
Tonight was the semi-final of the America cup between Peru and Uruguay. My lessons ended at 8pm and then I needed to hop in a taxi to go to the mall where a bunch of volunteers (and several hundred Peruvians) were all watching the game in the food court. It took me 25 minutes to catch a cab! I was so annoyed, I swear all the taxis were too busy watching the game. I finally flagged a guy down and asked him how much it would be to the mall (FYI starting from this moment our conversation was entirely in Spanish) he told me it would be 5 soles...I asked if he would go any less and he agreed to 4.50 so I got in the car.
he had the game on so i clumsily asked what the score was and he said 0-0. then he asked who i was routing for....i lied and said i liked both teams (i actually REALLY like uruguays team...more on that later) but that it didnt really matter to me who won cuz i'm from the States. So then we started talking about what I'm doing here, how long I've been here, how long I will be here, how I like it, how it's different from the U.S. blah blah blah and then we finally arrived at the mall.
That's when he told me he would only charge me 4 soles!!!!!!! :-D HAHAHAHAHHAHA I kind of flirted my way into taking off an additional 50 centimos. The money isn't important, it's pennies in the U.S. but just the fact that I did it IN SPANISH. OMG totally made my night.
The game didn't go well for Peru, but I honestly expected that. Uruguay was one of my favorite teams to watch last summer during the world cup. I'm completely in love with Suarez (because he's beautiful....even though he's a big faker on the field) and he scored both of tonight's goals....one of them assisted by the amazing Forlan (who has a talent for scoring from well outside the 18 yard line). Uruguay just had such an amazing game, with some really beautiful plays. I was very happy.
so that's my story. ;-)
Photo Day
Saturday I got up pretty early. I headed over to the beach in Huanchaco with pretty much all of the volunteers. We went to surf, and by we I mean the group - not me. I really had no desire to surf, I think I used up my boarding adventure for sandboarding, I also REALLY did not want to get in the freezing water - wet suit or no. So I hung out on the beach and took pictures, it was pretty relaxing, especially since I wasn't the only one who chose not to surf.
These are called caballitos (little horses). They are traditional fishing boats made out of reeds, and have been used for centuries. When the Spanish Conquistadors came to Peru they saw the natives sitting on them like you would a horse.....which is where the name came from.
It was so cool to see all the men come in on the boats. The women and some children were waiting to help unload the catch (fish, and lots of crabs). The beach was really rocky - not really much sand - and you could tell it was a fisherman's beach because there were pieces of fish, crab claws, and octopus tentacles all over the place (ew).
That would be his "crotchal" region on display. Classic Rock meets West Hollywood gay bar.
me with the caballitos
there were so many!
this photo is for my dad (he hates holes).
after everyone finished surfing we split up into smaller groups for lunch. I had ceviche mixto, it was really good, although a little heavy on the lemon. After lunch the group got smaller still. I stayed a while longer to look around at the souvenirs. Then headed back, showered, took a nap, watched a show, and then got ready to go out again.
I'm pretty spoiled in terms of my international clubbing experiences, and by spoiled I mean I have the ability to say that my best clubbing experiences have been outside of the U.S. - and let's not forget that I spent 6 years living close to Hollywood. I was really looking forward to getting dressed up and going dancing with a small group of volunteers. Unfortunately it wasn't written in the cards. We showed up to the club and the line was ridiculous, we waited for a while and then gave up and went to this rock bar. At first they just showed classic rock music videos and segments from concerts. We got some drinks and just chilled. Around midnight a live band stated playing - words cannot express how amusing our night became. If you have young children in the room I suggest you ask them to leave now, for those of you staying.....prepare yourself for some interesting images.
The band was a classic rock cover band. We mostly couldn't understand anything the lead singer said, even though we recognized most of the songs. We were also highly amused / confused by his choice of outfit.
How did he even get into those paints!?
We laughed so much, and cheered so loudly for like every song. He kept coming over to our table and giving us special attention. We had a really great time.
Group Shot!
At the end of the night we walked out of the bar and saw that THIS was the name the band had chosen for themselves! HAHAHA!
Jenny and I had agreed to not be out too late - 2am was quitting time. We ended up staying out until 4am!
Sunday morning was rough, let me tell you lol. I did manage to get up and pull myself together in time for the Women's World Cup final. I had been telling people that i was going to find a way to watch it on my computer....so Sunday afternoon we crammed about 10 people into my tiny room to watch the game. It was really fun and kind of reminded me of freshman year when my friends and I would cram into each other's rooms to watch shows like Grey's Anatomy. It felt nice that I was also kind of the maker of the event.
The game was boring for the first half....and well...I don't really want to talk too much more about it. Afterwards we went to the pizza hut at the mall and ate way too much. I was very thankful to finally get some grease into my stomach. My traditional "recovery" (how's about that euphemism hmm?) food is Jack in the Box breakfast - about as greasy as you can get, and I was definitely hurting most of the morning without the grease to soak up everything I drank the night before.
Closing thoughts for last week. A friend of mine commented that she was happy that I seemed to have made some really good friends here, unlike when I was in Greece. She's totally right. The volunteers here have been really great. I trust them, and connect with them better than most of the kids I studied abroad with. The other important thing though, is that I am in a much healthier (and less depressed post-traumatizing break up) state of mind - so I actually made an effort to make friends here lol.
Things I miss:
* Having a desk to sit at - my back hurts from sitting, laying, and propping myself up on my bed all the time.
* Real milk - I'm convinced people here would be taller (even if by only a few inches) if they drank real (instead of canned / powdered / condensed) milk.
It's All Relative
Thursday I went right back to sleeping until noon, and it was beautiful.
I headed over to the conservatory in the afternoon to meet with my flaky kid for the first time. This was the kid I had scheduled at 9am - who didn't show up. I made him change his time to the afternoon and he finally showed up. We didn't get much done, but it was nice that after two weeks with my other students I knew what questions I needed to ask, and what I wanted to have him do. Juan's lesson went from 4-5 and then I had an hour before Elizabeth was supposed to show up, so I just did my own practicing. I waited, and waited, and Elizabeth did not show up - which has never happened before. So I just waited until 7 when Ester was supposed to show up.....only she didn't show up until 7:25. It was kind of annoying, but at least I was out of the house, and I got to do a lot of reading (currently reading: Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks). When Ester finally showed up I apologized and explained that I had to leave at 7:30 that night. There was a ballet show that I and a bunch of other volunteers were going to, which started at 8.
I met up with everyone and we headed over to the theater for the ballet. On our way there we found out that the star of the ballet had been robbed that morning and was injured, so they had canceled her appearance. We learned that we were now going to a children's dance recital.....ugh. We got there and saw all these little girls running around in tutus and sequins, they were actually all adorable. We watched a little of the recital, they always remind me of my best friend Amanda's recitals that I went through from elementary through high school, so that was kind of nice. The theater was a really cool venue too. Intimate setting, but way to small for this kind of event - people were standing - but it was cool to see an old style theater - complete with private boxes (think Phantom of the Opera). Most of us didn't stay long, we ended up going to a bar, grabbing some beers and just hanging out.
Friday I had nothing to do all day. I had originally had only one student on Friday, but I made him change in case I wanted to travel and leave on a Friday. Since I had nothing to do I decided to go with the teaching and social work volunteers to the social work campaign that afternoon. We drove over to a super poor neighborhood - I'm talking unpaved roads and thatched roofs over brick buildings kind of poor. Our mission for the day was to hang up posters about the medical campaign we are doing next week, and to be a presence in the neighborhood. As soon as we got there kids started coming our of the woodwork to look at the gringos. The kids were pretty dirty, kids are normally dirty, but add in all the dust from the unpaved roads and well....enough said. Some of them were walking around barefoot over the rocky ground with pieces of broken glass here and there.
I immediately went into that neighborhood with a Westerner's / American's eyes. I felt sorry for the people living there and tried to imagine how hard their lives must be.....and then I mentally slapped myself. The worst thing a volunteer can do is pity the people they serve, that feeling gets you no where, and quite frankly I think it is disrespectful to pity the people you are trying to help. They are people, and this is their way of life, and they are doing the best they can, and they don't want my pity. The best thing a volunteer can do is respect the human dignity of the people they serve. Freshman year of college I took two general education classes, one in sociology and the other in anthropology. The thing that stuck with me the most from these classes is the idea of cultural relativism, which states that that an individual's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture (for more info see the wikipedia page on cultural relativism). I think arranged marriage is a good example. For those of us in the West an arranged marriage would be a horrifying situation, but imagine it the other way around. If you grew up in a culture that only did arranged marriages, and then met a Westerner who got to choose.....how weirded out would you be? Serving others means constantly keeping things in perspective. With that in mind I focused on other things.
The kids were all amazingly well-behaved this day. They didn't fight over crayons or paper. Older kids took care of younger kids. Everyone was included in the soccer game regardless of age and ability. They seemed so different from American kids more community oriented as opposed to focused on themselves....and they were all OUTSIDE. There were no video games or indoor distractions, all these kids had to do was outside.
We set up a coloring station, and a bracelet making station, and then got a game of soccer going - which I was very happy about. A couple of the neighborhood men and women watched our game and cheered along. At one point during the day Rachel explained to me why the roads were unpaved. Apparently the land belonged to a man who then sold the land to the individual families....only there were no official documents to prove the sale....so occasionally the man would come back and demand more money from the people and would threaten to kick him off "his" land if they didn't pay. Corruption is a major problem in Peru. This situation has been in the courts for like 20 years, and in the mean time people are living on the land and being exploited. It's just awful. Despite all this it was a nice day being outside and moving around.
After dinner I met up with a bunch of people at the mall to see the final Harry Potter movie at 10:30. The only English version they had was in 3D. I don't really like 3D movies - they make me dizzy - but I had to deal with it. I thought the movie was really great. I haven't read the 7th book since it came out, so that helped because I didn't notice all the details they left out. I pretty much started crying when McGonagall took back the school and started putting up the protective charms. Some people don't understand why/how I get so emotionally invested in books and movies, but I feel like that's what they are for. There are universal themes and books give us insight into the human experience, things that we all share. People are capable of terrible destruction, but I get choked up when people work together to do something amazing or brave. I love the idea of people believing in and wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves, which is what all the kids did when Slytherin House wanted to hand Harry over. Sometimes people can be really beautiful.
I did briefly think about the last movie being the end of an era. I received the first three books from my Uncle Donald (most of you know about my "book uncle") for Christmas back in like 6th or 7th grade. I had no idea who Harry Potter was, but when my cousins saw the books they all excitedly freaked out....and the rest is history. I found myself thinking about what it might be like to share Harry Potter with my kids someday. I think I've decided to hide the movies until after they have read all the books (or I have read the books to them). Part of the fun was the anticipation of the movies...wanting to know if it would be how I had imagined them...and I think that is important.
I headed over to the conservatory in the afternoon to meet with my flaky kid for the first time. This was the kid I had scheduled at 9am - who didn't show up. I made him change his time to the afternoon and he finally showed up. We didn't get much done, but it was nice that after two weeks with my other students I knew what questions I needed to ask, and what I wanted to have him do. Juan's lesson went from 4-5 and then I had an hour before Elizabeth was supposed to show up, so I just did my own practicing. I waited, and waited, and Elizabeth did not show up - which has never happened before. So I just waited until 7 when Ester was supposed to show up.....only she didn't show up until 7:25. It was kind of annoying, but at least I was out of the house, and I got to do a lot of reading (currently reading: Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks). When Ester finally showed up I apologized and explained that I had to leave at 7:30 that night. There was a ballet show that I and a bunch of other volunteers were going to, which started at 8.
I met up with everyone and we headed over to the theater for the ballet. On our way there we found out that the star of the ballet had been robbed that morning and was injured, so they had canceled her appearance. We learned that we were now going to a children's dance recital.....ugh. We got there and saw all these little girls running around in tutus and sequins, they were actually all adorable. We watched a little of the recital, they always remind me of my best friend Amanda's recitals that I went through from elementary through high school, so that was kind of nice. The theater was a really cool venue too. Intimate setting, but way to small for this kind of event - people were standing - but it was cool to see an old style theater - complete with private boxes (think Phantom of the Opera). Most of us didn't stay long, we ended up going to a bar, grabbing some beers and just hanging out.
Friday I had nothing to do all day. I had originally had only one student on Friday, but I made him change in case I wanted to travel and leave on a Friday. Since I had nothing to do I decided to go with the teaching and social work volunteers to the social work campaign that afternoon. We drove over to a super poor neighborhood - I'm talking unpaved roads and thatched roofs over brick buildings kind of poor. Our mission for the day was to hang up posters about the medical campaign we are doing next week, and to be a presence in the neighborhood. As soon as we got there kids started coming our of the woodwork to look at the gringos. The kids were pretty dirty, kids are normally dirty, but add in all the dust from the unpaved roads and well....enough said. Some of them were walking around barefoot over the rocky ground with pieces of broken glass here and there.
I immediately went into that neighborhood with a Westerner's / American's eyes. I felt sorry for the people living there and tried to imagine how hard their lives must be.....and then I mentally slapped myself. The worst thing a volunteer can do is pity the people they serve, that feeling gets you no where, and quite frankly I think it is disrespectful to pity the people you are trying to help. They are people, and this is their way of life, and they are doing the best they can, and they don't want my pity. The best thing a volunteer can do is respect the human dignity of the people they serve. Freshman year of college I took two general education classes, one in sociology and the other in anthropology. The thing that stuck with me the most from these classes is the idea of cultural relativism, which states that that an individual's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture (for more info see the wikipedia page on cultural relativism). I think arranged marriage is a good example. For those of us in the West an arranged marriage would be a horrifying situation, but imagine it the other way around. If you grew up in a culture that only did arranged marriages, and then met a Westerner who got to choose.....how weirded out would you be? Serving others means constantly keeping things in perspective. With that in mind I focused on other things.
The kids were all amazingly well-behaved this day. They didn't fight over crayons or paper. Older kids took care of younger kids. Everyone was included in the soccer game regardless of age and ability. They seemed so different from American kids more community oriented as opposed to focused on themselves....and they were all OUTSIDE. There were no video games or indoor distractions, all these kids had to do was outside.
Hopscotch
coloring table
i thought this dog kind of looked like Dobby with his floppy ears. there are stray dogs everywhere.
this girl was good. i always had to tape my bracelets to a table, or pin them to my pants. I wasn't coordinated enough to do it this way lol.
We set up a coloring station, and a bracelet making station, and then got a game of soccer going - which I was very happy about. A couple of the neighborhood men and women watched our game and cheered along. At one point during the day Rachel explained to me why the roads were unpaved. Apparently the land belonged to a man who then sold the land to the individual families....only there were no official documents to prove the sale....so occasionally the man would come back and demand more money from the people and would threaten to kick him off "his" land if they didn't pay. Corruption is a major problem in Peru. This situation has been in the courts for like 20 years, and in the mean time people are living on the land and being exploited. It's just awful. Despite all this it was a nice day being outside and moving around.
After dinner I met up with a bunch of people at the mall to see the final Harry Potter movie at 10:30. The only English version they had was in 3D. I don't really like 3D movies - they make me dizzy - but I had to deal with it. I thought the movie was really great. I haven't read the 7th book since it came out, so that helped because I didn't notice all the details they left out. I pretty much started crying when McGonagall took back the school and started putting up the protective charms. Some people don't understand why/how I get so emotionally invested in books and movies, but I feel like that's what they are for. There are universal themes and books give us insight into the human experience, things that we all share. People are capable of terrible destruction, but I get choked up when people work together to do something amazing or brave. I love the idea of people believing in and wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves, which is what all the kids did when Slytherin House wanted to hand Harry over. Sometimes people can be really beautiful.
I did briefly think about the last movie being the end of an era. I received the first three books from my Uncle Donald (most of you know about my "book uncle") for Christmas back in like 6th or 7th grade. I had no idea who Harry Potter was, but when my cousins saw the books they all excitedly freaked out....and the rest is history. I found myself thinking about what it might be like to share Harry Potter with my kids someday. I think I've decided to hide the movies until after they have read all the books (or I have read the books to them). Part of the fun was the anticipation of the movies...wanting to know if it would be how I had imagined them...and I think that is important.
La Vampira
As I've said before, I work in the evenings. This naturally means that I fell into my normal sleep schedule of staying up late and sleeping until noon. (My dad calls me a vampire/vampire bat/bear). I did this on Monday and Tuesday last week and then started to feel guilty. I felt like maybe I wasn't making the most of my time here, and that I should be out attempting to use/learn/absorb as much Spanish as possible. I also felt bad because my medical and English teaching roommates have to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6am (I'm still not sure how I plan on being a teacher sometimes).
So Wednesday I decided to brave the light of day (it's mostly cloudy here so i didn't have to worry about sparkling in the sun - yes that is a Twilight joke) and go to work with my roommate Julia. I got up early and we went to her school. First we worked in a third grade classroom. Julia lead a lesson on vocabulary words for the kitchen, living room, and bedrooms. Each kid was given a handout / drawing of each room and was asked to copy down the English word above the Spanish equivalent that was already on the handout. At first the kids were really well behaved, quiet, cooperative, receptive. About half way through they started getting restless - and then the teacher left and all hell broke loose. I found it really interesting how my training for the last year turned on as soon as I stepped into that classroom. I observed that the walls were bare, there weren't a lot of resources or teaching materials. There were several images of Jesus (weird to see that in a public school). All of the desks were in three rows facing the front of the classroom - which immediately told me that these students are likely passive learners - little receptacles that the teacher is "trying" to fill up with knowledge - instead of active participants. As soon as the kids started getting out of hand I went into teacher/leader mode. When you enter a classroom you need to bring your A game or you will quickly lose control of the situation. I was easily able to call the kids back to attention - but I lacked the language to take the next step and my attempt basically fell apart.
The next class we went to was 2nd graders.....and there were 34 of them!!!!! It was actually really sad and super frustrating. They were packed into the room like sardines. The kids in the back couldn't see the board, and between the distance and the constant talking, they couldn't hear either. "Naturally" the children who were slower in general and needed more attention were seated in the rear of the room...where they could receive the "benefits" of not being able to see, hear, or be close to the teacher. Poor Julia was basically screaming over the kids trying to teach them these English words. It was at about that time that I turned off and decided I wouldn't be going back, I would go crazy having to deal with that every day. That class in particular would have benefited from being divided into three smaller groups - with a volunteer teaching the lesson to each group of 10-12 students - instead of trying to scream it to the whole group. It's hard with little kids anyways. They need to move, it's hard to sit still for more than ten minutes without a break. The attempt to teach English was basically futile, and I was really glad that I was placed as a music volunteer, instead of as an English teacher (which I also applied for). I think it may have even been better if volunteers were placed in the classroom as teacher's aids or tutors. That way they could help the teachers control their over-crowded classrooms and help real learning to actually occur in a smaller teacher-student ratio. The kids would benefit from more quality attention.
We got home around noon and I managed to find the Women's World Cup semi-final between USA and France online. I watched that until lunch - great game! After lunch I had to get ready for my actual work and then made it down to the conservatory. I had a student from 4-5 and then I practiced from 5-545 and then I read until orchestra rehearsal started at 6:45. It was about that time when my fear became reality. In addition to wanting to sleep until noon, the other reason I hadn't volunteered to do anything in the morning was that I was afraid of over loading myself and then being too tired to do my real work in the evening - which is exactly what ended up happening. We sight-read a famous Strauss waltz. I had to play these super high notes - very quietly. For those of you who don't know - the higher up you get on the flute, the harder it is to play quietly. Between my busy day and the fact that I had practiced before the rehearsal - my chops were basically dead the entire rehearsal. I haven't been practicing enough and my endurance is gone. As I've said before, I'm not a great sight-reader, and it didn't really help that the director didn't really map out how we were going to make it through the multiple endings and repeats between waltzes, so I got lost a lot, and I basically missed all of my solo entrances - he had to sing my part a few times. Over all it was pretty embarrassing, but not at all unexpected. At least my fears coming true about overloading myself proves that I know myself, my body, and what I am capable of doing.
I made it home for dinner and then the girls and I went out to this place down the street, Buena Pulpa, for some fresh juice. It's kinda like Jamba Juice, but not cold. It was nice hanging out and getting out of the house. I also finished reading Twilight that night....and bought the movie.
So Wednesday I decided to brave the light of day (it's mostly cloudy here so i didn't have to worry about sparkling in the sun - yes that is a Twilight joke) and go to work with my roommate Julia. I got up early and we went to her school. First we worked in a third grade classroom. Julia lead a lesson on vocabulary words for the kitchen, living room, and bedrooms. Each kid was given a handout / drawing of each room and was asked to copy down the English word above the Spanish equivalent that was already on the handout. At first the kids were really well behaved, quiet, cooperative, receptive. About half way through they started getting restless - and then the teacher left and all hell broke loose. I found it really interesting how my training for the last year turned on as soon as I stepped into that classroom. I observed that the walls were bare, there weren't a lot of resources or teaching materials. There were several images of Jesus (weird to see that in a public school). All of the desks were in three rows facing the front of the classroom - which immediately told me that these students are likely passive learners - little receptacles that the teacher is "trying" to fill up with knowledge - instead of active participants. As soon as the kids started getting out of hand I went into teacher/leader mode. When you enter a classroom you need to bring your A game or you will quickly lose control of the situation. I was easily able to call the kids back to attention - but I lacked the language to take the next step and my attempt basically fell apart.
The next class we went to was 2nd graders.....and there were 34 of them!!!!! It was actually really sad and super frustrating. They were packed into the room like sardines. The kids in the back couldn't see the board, and between the distance and the constant talking, they couldn't hear either. "Naturally" the children who were slower in general and needed more attention were seated in the rear of the room...where they could receive the "benefits" of not being able to see, hear, or be close to the teacher. Poor Julia was basically screaming over the kids trying to teach them these English words. It was at about that time that I turned off and decided I wouldn't be going back, I would go crazy having to deal with that every day. That class in particular would have benefited from being divided into three smaller groups - with a volunteer teaching the lesson to each group of 10-12 students - instead of trying to scream it to the whole group. It's hard with little kids anyways. They need to move, it's hard to sit still for more than ten minutes without a break. The attempt to teach English was basically futile, and I was really glad that I was placed as a music volunteer, instead of as an English teacher (which I also applied for). I think it may have even been better if volunteers were placed in the classroom as teacher's aids or tutors. That way they could help the teachers control their over-crowded classrooms and help real learning to actually occur in a smaller teacher-student ratio. The kids would benefit from more quality attention.
We got home around noon and I managed to find the Women's World Cup semi-final between USA and France online. I watched that until lunch - great game! After lunch I had to get ready for my actual work and then made it down to the conservatory. I had a student from 4-5 and then I practiced from 5-545 and then I read until orchestra rehearsal started at 6:45. It was about that time when my fear became reality. In addition to wanting to sleep until noon, the other reason I hadn't volunteered to do anything in the morning was that I was afraid of over loading myself and then being too tired to do my real work in the evening - which is exactly what ended up happening. We sight-read a famous Strauss waltz. I had to play these super high notes - very quietly. For those of you who don't know - the higher up you get on the flute, the harder it is to play quietly. Between my busy day and the fact that I had practiced before the rehearsal - my chops were basically dead the entire rehearsal. I haven't been practicing enough and my endurance is gone. As I've said before, I'm not a great sight-reader, and it didn't really help that the director didn't really map out how we were going to make it through the multiple endings and repeats between waltzes, so I got lost a lot, and I basically missed all of my solo entrances - he had to sing my part a few times. Over all it was pretty embarrassing, but not at all unexpected. At least my fears coming true about overloading myself proves that I know myself, my body, and what I am capable of doing.
I made it home for dinner and then the girls and I went out to this place down the street, Buena Pulpa, for some fresh juice. It's kinda like Jamba Juice, but not cold. It was nice hanging out and getting out of the house. I also finished reading Twilight that night....and bought the movie.
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