Thursday, September 11, 2008
10 Septiembre
Yes I know it’s been a while! I’ve been a bit busy doing this and that to write! I don’t remember what I had last written, so I’ll start with Sunday the 7th. All of my family came and my sister Idis made lunch like she usually does it was delicious! Also, I met my brother Caesar and Peter. Please remember that all of my brothers and sisters are the age of my parents and have kids my age so that’s always funny calling them my family. I also did my laundry in the wonderful washing machine we have! Yes, I am spoiled =) (and thankful!) I feel like I do deserve it though since before I came they didn’t know how to use it properly and now they use it!
Monday wasn’t too bad, I had a meeting with the Regidore Julian about starting business charlas for the youth in my communities. Basically the kind of charla I did during FBT in Cajamarca, except much longer than a week and with more detalles and actividades! Then I headed into town to type some responses to my monton of emails and also to take out some money because that night I was going to a concert. Well, not just any concert, Grupo 5!!! I went with 6 girls from my town, it’s my mancha here at site. (Mancha is another word for gut but they also use to describe a group of friends) Anyway Grupo 5 coincidentally is Peru’s version of the cumbia Nsync and coincidentally I got a photo with their Peruvian Justin Timberlake, I think Dennis told me his name is Tommi! And just because that’s never good enough, I got myself a nice shout out that I filmed for all of you to enjoy and realize yes I am an important person. Sorry you can’t understand it just notice that I’m the person he points too, yes I was in the first 2 rows of the concert. Oh, and I wanted to mention just to let you know how VIP I was, I was the first person through the door. Feeling like I need to appreciate the treatment I received a bit more, I vow to learn more than the 3 songs I know and when I return to their concert in October I get onstage =) Good goals I think! (Wonder if I can put that on my tri-annual??) And fyi going to concerts here is pretty serious considering the fact that it started at 8 and didn’t end till 4. I pulled the party pooper card and got convinced them to leave by 2 because I had a meeting at 9 with the artesana’s in the morning and I was supposed to go to the colegio before hand.
Well, Tuesday morning I was exhausted and decided to shelf my visit to the director till his office hours on Monday and sleep in till 8:15. Then at about 8:30 I get a callfrom Karrie who says that she didn’t get the prices for the Tela yet from the volunteer in Cajamarca so we should prob post-pone the meeting till Wednesday. Well, I couldn’t have agreed more readily! Of course we should post-pone… and I went back to bed. Then at about 11 I headed to the municipality to print some papers out I have to go over with my artesan’s for the fair in October at the embassy. I ate some brunch and then my sister and I headed to the market. Food is expensiiveee here. It was really awkward for me to go to the market with her, because when she was buying things I liked and I thought they were a bit expensive I’d always offer to pay or give her moeny, though technically that is why I pay them monthly, its still another thing when you’re with them in the market. After this we headed back and I did some work on my comp and started knitting a scarf. Then I received a call from Karrie, that she was heading back to site with sanding material because she wanted to sand it this week, prime and paint it. Also, that she was with Dennis who came to say goodbye before he leaves for good on the 18th. So to get out the house for a bit, saying no to playing fútbol with the kids in my town, I went to karrie’s and really got some muscles sore in my arms that I have forgotten about. Ate dinner there and on the way back to my town decided to go into Piura with them to get a nice dessert and hot shower!
Wednesday I got back at about 8:30 for my 9am tutoring session with the math kids. Since, I can’t remember a thing of trig, sorry Mr. Guitar, I said I would help the one kid with English at this time while I help the other girls in angles. Then at 10ish I headed to my counterparts house to head to the meeting at Karrie’s site with the artisan’s. That meeting lasted till about 1:30ish… I put up some of the pics, me determining the prices of tax and whatnot. By the end of the meeting I started to feel pretty sick and then of course I accepted the invite to eat with them. Don’t think mashed pot and rice with some chicken was the best thing for my stomach but you obviously can’t turn it down… When I got home I was doubled over in stomach cramps and have been resting since then with tea and saltines. I really think it’s because I ate out I mean my family is the best. Tuesday, guess what I had for lunch, a salad with tomatoes, onions, carrots and broccoli topped with grilled chicken and the dressing was a fresh squeezed lime!! Could I ask for better?? I swear I’m the luckiest volunteer everrrr. It also helps that my sister wants to learn about American culture and is totally accepting to my habits and what I want to eat and don’t want to eat. Okay well that is all for tonight, I’m going to continue with my email writing for all you people I have promised to write back!
Love you all, chaufis **ekh**
Yes I know it’s been a while! I’ve been a bit busy doing this and that to write! I don’t remember what I had last written, so I’ll start with Sunday the 7th. All of my family came and my sister Idis made lunch like she usually does it was delicious! Also, I met my brother Caesar and Peter. Please remember that all of my brothers and sisters are the age of my parents and have kids my age so that’s always funny calling them my family. I also did my laundry in the wonderful washing machine we have! Yes, I am spoiled =) (and thankful!) I feel like I do deserve it though since before I came they didn’t know how to use it properly and now they use it!
Monday wasn’t too bad, I had a meeting with the Regidore Julian about starting business charlas for the youth in my communities. Basically the kind of charla I did during FBT in Cajamarca, except much longer than a week and with more detalles and actividades! Then I headed into town to type some responses to my monton of emails and also to take out some money because that night I was going to a concert. Well, not just any concert, Grupo 5!!! I went with 6 girls from my town, it’s my mancha here at site. (Mancha is another word for gut but they also use to describe a group of friends) Anyway Grupo 5 coincidentally is Peru’s version of the cumbia Nsync and coincidentally I got a photo with their Peruvian Justin Timberlake, I think Dennis told me his name is Tommi! And just because that’s never good enough, I got myself a nice shout out that I filmed for all of you to enjoy and realize yes I am an important person. Sorry you can’t understand it just notice that I’m the person he points too, yes I was in the first 2 rows of the concert. Oh, and I wanted to mention just to let you know how VIP I was, I was the first person through the door. Feeling like I need to appreciate the treatment I received a bit more, I vow to learn more than the 3 songs I know and when I return to their concert in October I get onstage =) Good goals I think! (Wonder if I can put that on my tri-annual??) And fyi going to concerts here is pretty serious considering the fact that it started at 8 and didn’t end till 4. I pulled the party pooper card and got convinced them to leave by 2 because I had a meeting at 9 with the artesana’s in the morning and I was supposed to go to the colegio before hand.
Well, Tuesday morning I was exhausted and decided to shelf my visit to the director till his office hours on Monday and sleep in till 8:15. Then at about 8:30 I get a callfrom Karrie who says that she didn’t get the prices for the Tela yet from the volunteer in Cajamarca so we should prob post-pone the meeting till Wednesday. Well, I couldn’t have agreed more readily! Of course we should post-pone… and I went back to bed. Then at about 11 I headed to the municipality to print some papers out I have to go over with my artesan’s for the fair in October at the embassy. I ate some brunch and then my sister and I headed to the market. Food is expensiiveee here. It was really awkward for me to go to the market with her, because when she was buying things I liked and I thought they were a bit expensive I’d always offer to pay or give her moeny, though technically that is why I pay them monthly, its still another thing when you’re with them in the market. After this we headed back and I did some work on my comp and started knitting a scarf. Then I received a call from Karrie, that she was heading back to site with sanding material because she wanted to sand it this week, prime and paint it. Also, that she was with Dennis who came to say goodbye before he leaves for good on the 18th. So to get out the house for a bit, saying no to playing fútbol with the kids in my town, I went to karrie’s and really got some muscles sore in my arms that I have forgotten about. Ate dinner there and on the way back to my town decided to go into Piura with them to get a nice dessert and hot shower!
Wednesday I got back at about 8:30 for my 9am tutoring session with the math kids. Since, I can’t remember a thing of trig, sorry Mr. Guitar, I said I would help the one kid with English at this time while I help the other girls in angles. Then at 10ish I headed to my counterparts house to head to the meeting at Karrie’s site with the artisan’s. That meeting lasted till about 1:30ish… I put up some of the pics, me determining the prices of tax and whatnot. By the end of the meeting I started to feel pretty sick and then of course I accepted the invite to eat with them. Don’t think mashed pot and rice with some chicken was the best thing for my stomach but you obviously can’t turn it down… When I got home I was doubled over in stomach cramps and have been resting since then with tea and saltines. I really think it’s because I ate out I mean my family is the best. Tuesday, guess what I had for lunch, a salad with tomatoes, onions, carrots and broccoli topped with grilled chicken and the dressing was a fresh squeezed lime!! Could I ask for better?? I swear I’m the luckiest volunteer everrrr. It also helps that my sister wants to learn about American culture and is totally accepting to my habits and what I want to eat and don’t want to eat. Okay well that is all for tonight, I’m going to continue with my email writing for all you people I have promised to write back!
Love you all, chaufis **ekh**
some pics
just showing some things at the meeting
doing the prices for the new bags
pretty pic of my plaza
this is me
this is me eating arroz con leche
arroz con leche me and my sister made
Saturday, September 6, 2008
5 de Sept
Okay its 9:14 on a Friday night and I bet you can’t guess the amazing fun thing I’m doing at site, yeh well I guess you can obviously because I’m typing, I’m sitting in bed writing my blog!! Woop woop!! I sure as hell say this is a far cry from my previous 4 years and what I spent doing the first weeks of September… Oh Delaware! Shall I continue, I believe so, Thursday was an interesting day, I went to “observe” the English teacher with her class at 9 and within 10 minutes of being there and listening to a celene dion song repeatedly she said she had a meeting come up and she needed to leave, would I mind watching the class. Ah-ha…yes I’m sorry to say I fell into the same trap of previous volunteers and of that I had been warned. The flakey teacher. Although, I did have a great time with the students, I kindly declined the offer from the teacher to return the following week or in the near future. Walking out on a class and leaving it to a volunteer is not called observing a class. But all in all it didn’t bother me that much. Then I spent the afternoon going to the market and picking up a pizera (whiteboard) for my charlas and classes, as well as, some yarn to calm my nerves and other cositas. I did also have a very satisfying talk with my sister about the reasons I was so tired and the need I have to rest often and the difficulties of constantly being wanted in my town to change everything in 1 week. I think at the rate of my exhaustion level I voiced it quite well using the comparison strategy…if you went to my town and had to have meetings all day and talk all day in English your brain would be tired too. Also, that when I go to my room with a cup of tea to read for a bit, no I do not want food or to be disturbed this is my me time and I need it to function, much like my exercise classes. (Which by the way I didn’t have today, so my body is a bit tense with stress and anxiety right now.) I hate this feeling, the one where your stomach is in knots and you feel like you should be doing 5 other things at the same time and nothing you’re doing at the moment is really utilizing your time efficiently. Hence the reason for the past hour I’ve been trying to do different things that I enjoy doing to calm me down, no luck yet hence the reason I’m writing this blog, it’s a more obligatory thing, this way at least I’m accomplishing something.
Today I had a pretty packed schedule, I was up and about because I had my artisan meeting at 10 but I wanted to clean my room first because I was up doing light research the night before. That lasted till about 2:30 just enough time for me to get home and eat something before tutoring at 3:30 till 5:30. After we had exercise or supposedly has it but the guy who promised me a key to the school flaked out and therefore by the time we waited around the estadio was occupado with men playing futbol so we just went home. Then, JT forgive me, I had to translate a backstreet boys song (As long as you love me) for my uncle, because my cousin will be singing it in some talent show…which is another whole story, like how they sing these songs without having a clue about the lyrics. Really funny ejemplo, es in the English class (remember I said something about Celiene Dion song on repeat) yeh it was her song something like …you set my heart on fire filled me with love, made me a woman… yeh well I’m pretty sure that’s not appropriate to sing to 13 and 14 year olds and even worse I didn’t mention she made me sing it …made is wrong asked me to and I hesitantly obliged…and solely for the pronunciation of the words… I just started dying laughing in the middle of it because I knew it was inappropriate singing made me a woman in front of the class. Oh the funny shit that goes on in my life now a days… Okay well that’s about it there’s other things like more about my reunion today I had with my artisans but you can see the pics I put up, its going to be really successful I believe, we came up with a color scheme and now we have prices left to think of which is the meeting on Tuesday and also the names of the bags……… =) (at this moment I like you all to image the part in The Sandlot when it’s the hot summer day and all the kids have the same thought…”THE POOL AT EAST!”) If you can’t understand what I’m saying I feel sorry for you, that you have lived this long and never seen the sandlot. I’m going for the Lizzie Kate Tote and the Posh Elizabeth dama hat with bow…I’ll let you know how that goes!!
Love you all CHAU!!! Ekh <3
Today I had a pretty packed schedule, I was up and about because I had my artisan meeting at 10 but I wanted to clean my room first because I was up doing light research the night before. That lasted till about 2:30 just enough time for me to get home and eat something before tutoring at 3:30 till 5:30. After we had exercise or supposedly has it but the guy who promised me a key to the school flaked out and therefore by the time we waited around the estadio was occupado with men playing futbol so we just went home. Then, JT forgive me, I had to translate a backstreet boys song (As long as you love me) for my uncle, because my cousin will be singing it in some talent show…which is another whole story, like how they sing these songs without having a clue about the lyrics. Really funny ejemplo, es in the English class (remember I said something about Celiene Dion song on repeat) yeh it was her song something like …you set my heart on fire filled me with love, made me a woman… yeh well I’m pretty sure that’s not appropriate to sing to 13 and 14 year olds and even worse I didn’t mention she made me sing it …made is wrong asked me to and I hesitantly obliged…and solely for the pronunciation of the words… I just started dying laughing in the middle of it because I knew it was inappropriate singing made me a woman in front of the class. Oh the funny shit that goes on in my life now a days… Okay well that’s about it there’s other things like more about my reunion today I had with my artisans but you can see the pics I put up, its going to be really successful I believe, we came up with a color scheme and now we have prices left to think of which is the meeting on Tuesday and also the names of the bags……… =) (at this moment I like you all to image the part in The Sandlot when it’s the hot summer day and all the kids have the same thought…”THE POOL AT EAST!”) If you can’t understand what I’m saying I feel sorry for you, that you have lived this long and never seen the sandlot. I’m going for the Lizzie Kate Tote and the Posh Elizabeth dama hat with bow…I’ll let you know how that goes!!
Love you all CHAU!!! Ekh <3
some pics of the ladies
colors that we will use for the scarf material ...nice for september no?
just a fotito
me in a meeting with the ladies from the 5 different groups
one of the displays... this isn´t the material we will use but it was only to show our artesan´s the type of designs we could do
ya know just setting up the display of new line
1st post
4 September 2008
Right now it is 8:15 and I am sitting on my bed a bit exhausted after another long day…I forget where exactly I left off, but I think it is around Monday or Tuesday. Well to just give a small recap, even though realistically I don’t think any of my recaps I have given are quite that small, I only have enough energy for one. Oh yes, I do remember I had a bit about my exercise class as the last comment on my 3rd post… okay so here I go…
Tuesday was a very long day, I was up and out by 7:30… again thank God I am not still using the instant nescafe as my fuel. I had to be at the Colegio before 8 to meet with the English teacher. I talked with her for a bit about my session of tutoring and what exactly I’m doing; I’m not teaching only re-enforcing what the students know and of course help with pronunciation. I was out of there about 8:50ish enough time to run over to my socio-comunitarios house to be ready before we left for our meeting with the other groups of artesanas at 9 in a neighboring community. She was a little late because she was at another artesanas house, dropping off products; this gave me just the right amount of time to change from jeans and a cardigan to a polo and skort bc fyi its freakin hot here. We headed to the meeting and waited a bit for the engineer to show up from Piura. Engineer here is used to describe a professional not necessarily someone who studied mechanical or civil engineering. He was the same man that last week I went with my socio to meet in Piura to discuss the disunity of the groups. Well this meeting lasted a nice 5 hours, which I might say is a bit long to discuss which products were going to make 25 of and which products were bringing to the exhibition in 2 weeks. (Which is in Lima and I’ll be heading too I’m pretty sure) Karrie the volunteer who works with two associations of Paja weavers and lives very close to me was there too. That’s when I decided to bring up the idea in front of the engineer and all the groups to add cloth to the hats and purses as decoration. If you recall in a few of my pictures, I have a very pretty colorful scarf that I like to wear with my blouses. I actually bought it from another volunteer’s grupo de artesanas en Cajamarca. Well I brought this along with me to the meeting because I really wanted to make purses with this material since it is more modern and hip. Or you could say that I just really wanted a purse with this material as the handles. Lol either way, when I suggested it Karrie of course backed it up because she had a similar ideas well and even had a picture she took. Then I went around to the products that were at the meeting and started to put my scarf around them and manipulating the scarf to look like handles for the bags and to create different styles. With that much I guess agreement between me and Karrie and the engineer they all said yes to the idea which would have never happened if we suggested this individually to our groups. And at the same time we created a semi-contract for the ladies who were there to work together with this new idea. We also scheduled another meeting which is actually tomorrow at 10 am. Karrie and I are in charge of the price estimates and the material to cut and determine which size for each product and the ladies will bring 3 designs each that they think the material would go with. I will take some pictures (which, unfortunately, is something I haven’t been doing lately) so you can see what I trying to explain. All in all, it was a successful reunion (meeting) and I’m really glad that I was here to go. After the meeting I had to rush back before the municipality closed to print out my plan de trabajo for the math and English teachers, because I had meetings with them the next day. After that I ran to Catacaos to use the internet, hence there were blogs uploaded and emails answered =) That night I was pretty much exhausted but a little annoyed because as always there was some meeting or other going on about what else but the tutoring sessions I was going to have the next day and how there weren’t enough students in the morning and how I should switch it to allow more time, I told them no, I’m not a teacher, I’m a business volunteer, so in reality I’m doing this because they asked me and I felt I should to know the community not because I wanted that as my full time job. I’d rather not go into to much detail because I think you will get a negative image of what is going on and that is not what I want to portray. I must say that having such motivated people is a blessing which many volunteers don’t have, but it is a challenge when it’s your first couple weeks and I simply would like to adjust. Anyway I’m prob getting of topic here, my night ended pleasantly when I received a call from my mom and dad and mr. flemming. lol
The next morning I got to sleep till 7:30 then was up preparing because of course my students were on time at 9 for tutoring there were about 7 of them which is a good number, though they were from all different grades… one from quinto which is like the last year in middle/high school I still don’t understand the system here. But whatever grade it was, they were studying trig. I told him that I would try but prob couldn’t help him and not to worry bc you don’t use that too much in your life… lol I don’t think I should have said that. It was really hard though even without the trig kid because you can’t imagine translating math into Spanish, I mean sure the numbers are the same, but the words they’re hard enough in English. Then we played some fun games so I think everyone had a good time. The class ended at 10:45 and after cleaning up I realized I was late for my 11 o’clock with the English professor. And when I got there she said so and that she thought I wasn’t coming, mind you I was 10 min late which is completely acceptable in the US. And plus it was the 10 minutes it took to walk there!! That meeting was…interesting to say the least. Boy, that woman can talk…and not in English lol. Oh I really shouldn’t say such things but I mean she is an English teacher, I do have some expectations. However, one thing from PC I’ve learned is to not have expectations, so who’s to blame, but of course me!
Oh forgot to mention that that morning I went to the muni to drop of my full plan de trabajo for September to the mayor. I was kinda impressed with myself for that; a full work plan, in Spanish, in official Peruvian format. I may hold the title of a volunteer, but in that moment I felt like a person from corporate America. Going back to my reunions with the teachers… I had my meeting with theEnglish prof till about 1ish which is when I had my other reunion with the Math professor. She’s really sweet and only took about 50 minutes because she understood what I was doing and was very matter of fact about everything. I got back to the house at about 2:30ish and just wanted to pass out. My brain was full of Spanish and I think I was in overload, but instead I had a meeting with my artesanas but she was understanding and could see the exhaustion in my face, so she let me go home and rest. I was really grateful for that. Though she did make this unnerving comment about how that whole tutoring thing wasn’t my job and I needed to focus more on them, which would be the truth if I was in one of the past business groups, but fortunately or unfortunately, depende, for my group (Peru 11) we were trained to help youth as well and to have 3 socios with 3 organizations instead of just 1. Therefore, yes it was my job as well, yes not tutoring math or English, more like starting youth business classes, but I figured this is a way into the community to spread my name and what I’m doing here as well as getting to know the kids who will be in these groups in the future. And plus, it’s a hell of a lot easier to tutor school kids then to teach accounting to artisans in your first month =)
At about 5ishIheaded to the estadio for my exercise class, this time even more people showed up which was good because, my “faithful” and “supportive” friends didn’t come lol… conveniently all had really important obligations to attend too and at 5 o’clock exactly lol. This time we did running, I did yoga with 2 other woman then we did abs, then we played a game of soccer with a bunch of the neighbor kids so it was just massive mayhem, however the gringa prevailed, my team won with in a demolishing 10-0 victory! WHOO RA! Another thing that I like to say I started which I’m really proud of is high fives and fist pumps (not north jersey style, the one that’s like a cool handshake with the touch of fist and explosion). Taught them that, who would have thought they didn’t have high fives and cool handshakes. I think that’s a sustainable project if not for anything else except to remember how cool I am.
Okay that’s enough of my “small” entry for tonight… plus I’m only a day behind…
Sweet dreams <33 elizabeth
Right now it is 8:15 and I am sitting on my bed a bit exhausted after another long day…I forget where exactly I left off, but I think it is around Monday or Tuesday. Well to just give a small recap, even though realistically I don’t think any of my recaps I have given are quite that small, I only have enough energy for one. Oh yes, I do remember I had a bit about my exercise class as the last comment on my 3rd post… okay so here I go…
Tuesday was a very long day, I was up and out by 7:30… again thank God I am not still using the instant nescafe as my fuel. I had to be at the Colegio before 8 to meet with the English teacher. I talked with her for a bit about my session of tutoring and what exactly I’m doing; I’m not teaching only re-enforcing what the students know and of course help with pronunciation. I was out of there about 8:50ish enough time to run over to my socio-comunitarios house to be ready before we left for our meeting with the other groups of artesanas at 9 in a neighboring community. She was a little late because she was at another artesanas house, dropping off products; this gave me just the right amount of time to change from jeans and a cardigan to a polo and skort bc fyi its freakin hot here. We headed to the meeting and waited a bit for the engineer to show up from Piura. Engineer here is used to describe a professional not necessarily someone who studied mechanical or civil engineering. He was the same man that last week I went with my socio to meet in Piura to discuss the disunity of the groups. Well this meeting lasted a nice 5 hours, which I might say is a bit long to discuss which products were going to make 25 of and which products were bringing to the exhibition in 2 weeks. (Which is in Lima and I’ll be heading too I’m pretty sure) Karrie the volunteer who works with two associations of Paja weavers and lives very close to me was there too. That’s when I decided to bring up the idea in front of the engineer and all the groups to add cloth to the hats and purses as decoration. If you recall in a few of my pictures, I have a very pretty colorful scarf that I like to wear with my blouses. I actually bought it from another volunteer’s grupo de artesanas en Cajamarca. Well I brought this along with me to the meeting because I really wanted to make purses with this material since it is more modern and hip. Or you could say that I just really wanted a purse with this material as the handles. Lol either way, when I suggested it Karrie of course backed it up because she had a similar ideas well and even had a picture she took. Then I went around to the products that were at the meeting and started to put my scarf around them and manipulating the scarf to look like handles for the bags and to create different styles. With that much I guess agreement between me and Karrie and the engineer they all said yes to the idea which would have never happened if we suggested this individually to our groups. And at the same time we created a semi-contract for the ladies who were there to work together with this new idea. We also scheduled another meeting which is actually tomorrow at 10 am. Karrie and I are in charge of the price estimates and the material to cut and determine which size for each product and the ladies will bring 3 designs each that they think the material would go with. I will take some pictures (which, unfortunately, is something I haven’t been doing lately) so you can see what I trying to explain. All in all, it was a successful reunion (meeting) and I’m really glad that I was here to go. After the meeting I had to rush back before the municipality closed to print out my plan de trabajo for the math and English teachers, because I had meetings with them the next day. After that I ran to Catacaos to use the internet, hence there were blogs uploaded and emails answered =) That night I was pretty much exhausted but a little annoyed because as always there was some meeting or other going on about what else but the tutoring sessions I was going to have the next day and how there weren’t enough students in the morning and how I should switch it to allow more time, I told them no, I’m not a teacher, I’m a business volunteer, so in reality I’m doing this because they asked me and I felt I should to know the community not because I wanted that as my full time job. I’d rather not go into to much detail because I think you will get a negative image of what is going on and that is not what I want to portray. I must say that having such motivated people is a blessing which many volunteers don’t have, but it is a challenge when it’s your first couple weeks and I simply would like to adjust. Anyway I’m prob getting of topic here, my night ended pleasantly when I received a call from my mom and dad and mr. flemming. lol
The next morning I got to sleep till 7:30 then was up preparing because of course my students were on time at 9 for tutoring there were about 7 of them which is a good number, though they were from all different grades… one from quinto which is like the last year in middle/high school I still don’t understand the system here. But whatever grade it was, they were studying trig. I told him that I would try but prob couldn’t help him and not to worry bc you don’t use that too much in your life… lol I don’t think I should have said that. It was really hard though even without the trig kid because you can’t imagine translating math into Spanish, I mean sure the numbers are the same, but the words they’re hard enough in English. Then we played some fun games so I think everyone had a good time. The class ended at 10:45 and after cleaning up I realized I was late for my 11 o’clock with the English professor. And when I got there she said so and that she thought I wasn’t coming, mind you I was 10 min late which is completely acceptable in the US. And plus it was the 10 minutes it took to walk there!! That meeting was…interesting to say the least. Boy, that woman can talk…and not in English lol. Oh I really shouldn’t say such things but I mean she is an English teacher, I do have some expectations. However, one thing from PC I’ve learned is to not have expectations, so who’s to blame, but of course me!
Oh forgot to mention that that morning I went to the muni to drop of my full plan de trabajo for September to the mayor. I was kinda impressed with myself for that; a full work plan, in Spanish, in official Peruvian format. I may hold the title of a volunteer, but in that moment I felt like a person from corporate America. Going back to my reunions with the teachers… I had my meeting with theEnglish prof till about 1ish which is when I had my other reunion with the Math professor. She’s really sweet and only took about 50 minutes because she understood what I was doing and was very matter of fact about everything. I got back to the house at about 2:30ish and just wanted to pass out. My brain was full of Spanish and I think I was in overload, but instead I had a meeting with my artesanas but she was understanding and could see the exhaustion in my face, so she let me go home and rest. I was really grateful for that. Though she did make this unnerving comment about how that whole tutoring thing wasn’t my job and I needed to focus more on them, which would be the truth if I was in one of the past business groups, but fortunately or unfortunately, depende, for my group (Peru 11) we were trained to help youth as well and to have 3 socios with 3 organizations instead of just 1. Therefore, yes it was my job as well, yes not tutoring math or English, more like starting youth business classes, but I figured this is a way into the community to spread my name and what I’m doing here as well as getting to know the kids who will be in these groups in the future. And plus, it’s a hell of a lot easier to tutor school kids then to teach accounting to artisans in your first month =)
At about 5ishIheaded to the estadio for my exercise class, this time even more people showed up which was good because, my “faithful” and “supportive” friends didn’t come lol… conveniently all had really important obligations to attend too and at 5 o’clock exactly lol. This time we did running, I did yoga with 2 other woman then we did abs, then we played a game of soccer with a bunch of the neighbor kids so it was just massive mayhem, however the gringa prevailed, my team won with in a demolishing 10-0 victory! WHOO RA! Another thing that I like to say I started which I’m really proud of is high fives and fist pumps (not north jersey style, the one that’s like a cool handshake with the touch of fist and explosion). Taught them that, who would have thought they didn’t have high fives and cool handshakes. I think that’s a sustainable project if not for anything else except to remember how cool I am.
Okay that’s enough of my “small” entry for tonight… plus I’m only a day behind…
Sweet dreams <33 elizabeth
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