Kids

Sometimes I want to kidnap all the growth-stunted kids I know and feed them a feast of fruit, vegetables and meat. And bake them banana bread. To my American eyes, they look like starving mouths running around chirping "Feed me! Feed me!", although they´re so used to not eating enough, it´s normal to them. I remember when I was their age eating Chef Boyardi snacks in between 3 bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch or oatmeal breakfasts, pizza tater tot chocolate milk apple lunches, big T-bone steak Chinese veggies dinners and bowls of fruit late at night. I bet they eat about a third of what I did at their age. Sometimes I´ll give them fruit if they´re in my house. Once they asked me to buy them bananas, which I happily did (they didn´t ask for cookies or soda!), but that´s just a drop in the bucket. I still don´t understand what my host family has against me serving the remainder of my dinner to the growing kids. It´s definitely a cultural thing. Growth stunted people are all around me. That´s why it´s so difficult for me to guess people´s ages. I thought a co-worked was 13 but he´s my age. I´m more than a head taller than he is!

It also still pains me when the host family disciplines the children when I don´t think they need to be disciplined. I think it´s so important for kids to be loud and silly sometimes...that´s why childhood is the happiest time of your life. You´re the most uninhibited that you´ll be in your lifetime. You feel free. I don´t think you should make kids stop being happy unless they´re being spoiled or bratty or rude. Yet another cultural thing. Although I don´t think we Americans could ever agree on how or when you should disclipline children.

My host sister, Jenny, is getting married on September 23rd. Every day another issue comes up. Invitations, her dress, the location, the band, etc. This is going to be a huge bash. I guess that´s appropriate since she´s marrying someone relatively wealthy, rich for this community. He even has his own car, and he´s not even a cab driver. Of course, when there´s a pause in the wedding-themed conversations, someone in the extended host family inevitably turns to me and asks, "So when are you going to get married? Maybe you´ll fall in love with someone here in town and you´ll stay. How many kids do you want?" To which I reply with an unanimated smile and, if I´m in a mercurial mood, a wisecrack. Still haven´t been able to drop the "0" bomb. 0 kids I want, 00-00-0000 is the date I´m getting married. Living in Perú has confirmed that even the angelic kids aren´t welcome in my life every hour every day every month every year. Even Mariuliú, who hangs out on my bed with me like we´re best friends, sings me all the songs she learned in school, asks me to sing songs in English, listens with fascination as I read to her pages and pages of my English-language novel out loud, and tells me that tomorrow we should go to my house so we can visit my parents...even she has her demonic moments.

This week is Fiestas Patrias, the Peruvian Independence Day. Of course there have been parades all week. Most of my friends are using our free vacation days. Since I´m going to BRAAAAAASIL with my (biological) family in mid-August I´ve decided to lay low and stay in town. I don´t regret it at the moment since it´ll be nice to just spend time getting to know my host family even better and read and chill out.

it´s a cruel, cruel world out there

You wanna know what breaks my heart? Working in the development field, trying so hard to support the efforts of poor people improve the quality of their lives, watching how slow the process can be and how much is at stake...and then reading about how countries are bombing each other, targeting airports and main roads, and in a few seconds, making an entire country suffer. And for what? And then what does my government do? Say some inarticulate wishy-washy crap that is the equivalent of an endorsement. We like bombs! Go ahead and make more people in this world suffer! We have! It´s great!

My government is a heartless beast.

lookin´ back

So it´s been seven months in site. After spending some quality time with PCV friends in Piura this weekend, I realize that we all have the same thoughts running through our troubled minds: "OK, grace period is over, what will I be doing for the next year and a half??" When we first started, we were reassured by the fact that you´re not supposed to "know what you´re doing" until 3 months in when you start defining your project...but it´s still not definite. After a year, you´re supposed to feel a lot more settled in and understand what your role will be. Now that we´re in between, I feel like I just graduated and now need to decide what to do with my life. Like I better figure it out now before I look back at my 2 years in Perú and ask myself why I squandered my time as well as hard-earned taxpayer money. It´s good to talk to friends and ask ourselves the same questions at the same time so we know it´s normal to be unsure.

For me, I´ve been trying to sipher through what has potential to be a long-term project and what I´d be happy doing. Many people view Peace Corps volunteers as idealistic freaks who just want to be altruistic. Not true at all for most of us. Idealists we may be, but I certainly didn´t come to sacrifice myself nor did I come for purely altruistic reasons.

So what are my plans?
1) I´m going to follow-up with teachers to support them in using an experiential method of teaching that we´ve offered workshops on. It´s called "Enseñanza de la Ecología en el Patio de La Escuela" and the Audubon Society promotes it, in case you´re wondering. I went to one school today to see it in action for the first time. It was cute to see the kids outside playing with ants and presenting findings to scientific inquiries. One thing I definitely want to support the teachers with is the art of graph-making. They are atrocious at deciding what graphs to use to represent data. Not too important, but it pains the nerdy side of me.

2) I´m going to work with a school to create a garden where they can do all sorts of lessons about the environment, the hard sciences, language, values, math, nutrition, culture, etc. It´ll be fun working with the kids and rewarding to see things grow. It will definitely be an organic garden. I like this activity because there is a lot of room for creativity and ingenuity. Plus, I like working with this school. The director, teachers and kids are great (even though this is the failed recycled paper project school). My dad thinks it´s funny I´ll be doing a garden, probably because I didn´t show any interest in his garden growing up...well, except to eat fresh tomatoes and strawberries.

3) Creating a youth environmental leadership club. Working with youth will be much easier and rewarding than working with adults. They have more time and energy, and are more easily molded. Again, there are a trillion things I can do with them, so I´m excited about it. TV or radio shows, mural painting, kids clubs, public awareness campaigns, community service, advocacy, educational plays, etc. And if you were wondering about this right after reading my last entry about how I hate adolescents...well, the kids in my town are different from the kids I´m working with now. They are more confident, there is more gender equality, and I´m going to work with a slightly older crowd. I´m going to start a "leadership day camp" during their week-long school vacation in early August.

4) Working to improve management of the Mangroves with the Municipality...and an NGO I´ve been working with that has extremely limited capacity and needs a lot of help. Unfortunately for them, they don´t recognize it. Why do they lack in capacity? Poorly defined leadership structure, poorly defined vision or mission, activities are determined by funding rather than what´s needed, extremely weak links with the community they are trying to help, no concept of civil society participation, very little technical background for the work they´re doing, lack of group cohesiveness except among the group of friends who started the NGO, and in my opinion, they even lack passion for the community. It seems a bit paternalistic, perhaps because they are relatively richer folks who live in Piura, the city. I´d prefer not to work with them, but that would be irresponsible since I think this would be part of my job definition. Besides, they are doing work here and they have funding. Plus, I studied the world of NGOs...I should probably utilize my background in it. It will be difficult since I don´t particularly like the "leadership", so it´ll be an interesting personal experience I guess.

That´s probably a lot already, but there´s some other stuff I want to do, such as making that book about birds of the Mangroves with a teacher activity guide. It seems badly needed. And figuring out possibilities of alternative incomes for fishermen...especially the artisinal ones. My counterpart wants to start aquaculture activities, but that is a very bad idea. If we raised shrimp, we´d cut down the mangroves. If we did freshwater fish, we´d be using up badly needed water here in the desert. I´d also REALLY like to figure out how to work part-time in La Tortuga, the artisinal fishing village on the beach an hour away that is still part of my Municipality (see one of my previous entries). OK, so obviously I still haven´t figured it all out. But at least I´ve given up on trying to work with teachers at every single school to develop their environmental lesson plans.

OH, and of course many people have been asking me about what World Cup Fever has been like here in Perú. It´s been relatively tame, but there is definitely still a Fever. I´d say it´s like a 99 degree F fever. For example, when I met the mayor of La Tortuga, he had us finish our conversation in a room that actually had the games showing. Everyone tried watching the finals, or at least listening to them on the radio. And of course some lucky kids got new Argentina or Brasil jersies. Although South America didn´t advance to the finals, everyone still watched excitedly...for the love of the game. The "Cerveza (Beer) de Perú," Cristal, had a huge campaign about how they will be donating money trying to build up Perú´s fútbol team so in 4 years, we can live the dream...so drink more beer, make Perú proud. Great message.

what´s goin on

1. I hate adolescents, but then again they´re so funny and predictable. What are they most excited to learn about during my program? Duh, "HABLAR DE SEXO" in big letters on their journal entries. And in small letters "I don´t know a lot about it." Hm. Wonder what they think I´ll actually be talking about. Makes me think I actually have to have sex ed class instead of just What Will Happen If I Have Sex Now class.

2. I hate adolescents. The boys don´t even want to hold the hands of the girls so we can do the human knot. Although eventually, they did it in a half-assed way.

3. I hate adolescents. They can´t even say their names to a rhythym during our warm-up activity. They´re too shy! I have a lot of work to do with these campo kids.

4. Some adolescents are so cute. Then again, one girl had to leave early to cook dinner and wanted her friend to walk with her (in this society, no girl wants to ever be in public alone), but her friend didn´t want to leave. And I´ve started to realize that even though they pretend they´re not listening to what I´m saying about passive, agressive and assertive behavior, they actually are paying attention...with their right ear.

5. You want to know why the Peruvian education system sucks? Let´s start by counting the number of weekdays there is no school because of holidays. Then count the days when they´re just getting read for parades and doing arts and crafts projects. Then consider that every teacher gets one day off a week, in addition to weekends. Then count the days the teachers decide not to come to class. Then count the days students decide not to go to class. Then count the days parents keep their kids home to work or for some reason that shouldn´t keep them away from school. Then count the hours when the teacher leaves to talk to someone. Hmmm....