Hyun Mi Unni: OMG, totally. What can I say, I'm Korean. Peruvian food is amazing, but I'll take kimchi with it please! Hehehe ~
and secondly,
What up, damas y caballeros?
Hope all y'all are being awesome out there because it's time for me to tell you what's happening here lately.
Let's start off with the thing that's sticking in my mind, an event that happened not too long ago. It was the day before the official anniversary date of one of the colegios here and a chocolotada was being held at the school.
Usually, a chocolotada is held around christmas time. Students and teachers show up to a place (i.e. the school) and get free hot chocolate and sandwiches. They share these in the classroom and then go outside, to the open space to party it up. There's a stage, a band, live music and lots of dancing.
Sounds great, huh?
Yea, well, it probably would have been were it not for all the underage drinking and smoking.
Yea. I was standing around and watching kids, mere babies really, trying to enjoy alcohol and running around with lit cigarettes dangling from their lips.
What. The. Eff.
Mind, there were a greater number of students who were not partaking in the drug abuse, but I was shocked because there were tons of adults around who were just watching all of this happen and not saying anything. Many of these adults were teachers from the school.
I left, disgusted, after apologizing to my sister because she wanted to stay and I could not stand being there.
Thankfully, the day after, my host dad was eating breakfast with me and the other 2 kids and he mentioned how awful that even had been, due to the smoking and drinking. There is talk about precautions being made, and the director will be meeting with the professors to discuss what had happened.
Hurrah for adults who care. Too bad it was the day after all of this had gone down, and not during. Still, it's better than nothing and my heart feels better because at least something is going to be done (hopefully).
In other news, I'm getting the ball rolling on the world map!
The world map is sort of like Peace Corps' mark in every site. It's a good way to get myself better known in the community, plus it's fun. I'm taking this opportunity to teach a group of youth I have about different cultures in the world. Sadly, geography is no longer taught in the schools and when I gave my kids a map and asked them to identify a few places, they could only name Peru, Chile and Brazil (they got the U.S. after some discussion). However, they did not know the names of the oceans or any part of the world outside of their own. Last Saturday, I had them all learn about passports. They then created their own and I took a picture of each of them to print and post onto each of their "passports."
It was really interesting to see how much verguenza (or embarrassment/shame) they felt when I told them we'd be taking their pictures. It took almost 30 minutes for all of them to finally gather enough courage to smile for the camera, and that was after much prodding and poking done by the other students.
I'm going to be using these passports as a way to measure how many of the next few charlas they show up for, but what I'm going to be doing is teaching them more about the world: the cultures, the locations, the geography, and so forth.
Hopefully it's fun and they enjoy it.
I'm also going to be including art lessons, in prep for the mural. It's exciting to know that things are starting to move forward and I'm getting something done!
Speaking of getting things done, I still have to work on my community diagnostic. I sent the alcalde my first solicitude for a mini camp VALOR that another volunteer is doing. We're hoping that the muni here can help us cause we're a bit strapped for cash, and I'll be talking to the alcalde tomorrow morning. I have made plans to talk to directors of various schools next week, in which I will be presenting my surveys and asking if I can have permission to pass them out to the students for their parents to complete and return to me. So far, this will only be happening in 3 of the schools that I know of, predominately because I still haven't figured out how to get into the other schools. Still, I think that'll do for now.
I've also talked to some english teachers who are very enthusiastic and have asked me a number of times if I have time to just talk to them so they can practice speaking in english. I mentioned my idea of forming a club for english teachers and there definitely seems to be enough interest that this may well definitely become a reality. I don't know where we'll have it, when we'll have it, or if anyone else outside of my site wants to join, but that's something to think about for another time.
Oh, and on a final note, I've decided to stop eating rice, noodles and bread. Talked to my host mom and it's not a problem, thank goodness. We'll see how this goes! And tomorrow I'm going to go running with my host sis! After weeks of her talking and talking and talking about how she's so going to join me, she finally is (because there's no school tomorrow, and no one knows why. Not even the teachers. My host dad is a prof at the school and he didn't even know that there was no school. Jebus.)
My only goal for tomorrow is to find the gym! Woo!
Now, I'm going to go boil me some water and maybe eat a spoonful of peanut butter before I got study some more español. That or finish reading book 1 of Lord of the Rings, which is much slower than the movie and though the details are interesting, I'm hoping the pace picks up by book 2.
Love and Peace.
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