Problems, Solutions, and Working with Kids

The first day that I came to my community, I went straight to the school with a formal letter of introduction, and an offer to hold summer camp for the kids (our summer is between December and March) with classes from environmental science, geography, naturalism, English and self esteem workshops. Since that day on November 24, I have had endless amounts of trouble with the principal, because she will not let me teach in her school. After a month a pressing and pushing she finally agreed to have a meeting with me to at least discuss some sort of class I could hold. The first meeting we had scheduled she did not come up the mountain, and the second, third, fourth and fifth meetings we had scheduled she did not show up to any of those either. Conveniently, the last meeting we had scheduled was the day before vacations, and, since she did not come, she has been on vacations ever since. Since then, I have been trying to find another space where I can teach, whether it be the health post, the meeting hall, or the community locale, anything will do. Last week I had a meeting with all of the local authorities of my community, including the mayor, health post official and the presidents of the different local committees. It was brought up in our meeting that my presence here is beneficial to the children, and that the community should take advantage of me giving classes. After this was brought up, I voiced that I had been trying endlessly to work with the school, to no avail, and that I was in the process of finding a space that would allow me permission to teach classes. After the community heard that the school director would not cooperate with me, they were livid and disappointed that she had refused my classes without speaking to any of them. The conclusion of the meeting was that the community authorities were writing a letter of support in my favor, and were all going to sign it and hand it in to the school director to go forward with my classes. I am absolutely grateful to my community for all of their support and help, because without them I would still be battling with the school director. Yesterday as I was organizing a work plan with the health post doctor, the school director happened to be up here on the mountain, and she just so happened to enter the health post. A discussion ensued, and the school director apologized to me for missing all of our meetings and failing to cooperate with me in the past. I accepted her apology, and she offered to meet with me today, in order to give me the key to the school communal, in order to begin teaching classes for the duration of vacations. She has also agreed to allow me to work with the English and science teachers, in order to support them and their classes for the upcoming school year. Hopefully, she will actually come to our meeting today, as scheduled, and I will be able to start teaching my own classes next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other than battling the principal of the local school, I have been working with an organization called World Vision, and we have been coordinating activities with children and adults alike. World Vision is a Christian NGO that finds children in communities and connects them to a donor in either the U.S. or Switzerland. Each donor is assigned to a specific child, and they exchange letters and pictures. World Vision has a lot of money for projects, and unlike the Peace Corps, they give out a ton of stuff to the community.

Gifting and hand outs are something that I am prohibited from doing in the Peace Corps, because our goal is to begin sustainable projects with the community. Rather than act as leaders of projects, we are facilitators, encouraging full community participation and ownership. My first activity working with World Vision was before Christmas, when they arrived for their Christmas campaign to give out sweatshirts to the children of my community. My role for this activity was to lead different activities and games for groups of children that waited for their sweatshirts.

This past week, I helped coordinate and facilitate a three day workshop with World Vision for both the adults and the children. For the past three days, I have been teaching children every morning with workshops about self esteem and values. In the afternoons, we have been running workshops with the adults on community leadership, family violence, and the differentiation between discipline and abuse. Working with children is a rewarding and difficult experience. At points, the students are extremely interested and are respectful and attentive. At other times they are throwing water at each other and yelling obscenities in Quechua.

Along with teaching, I have attended all of the closing ceremonies of all of the schools in my area, which include 2 preschools, and 2 secondary schools. At all of these ceremonies, called clausuras, the children lineup and are spoken to by their teachers and principals to end the school year. At the clausura for the secondary school in Humacchuco, which is only about 15 students, the school received a gift from the department of education and the ministry of health for participating in a healthy schools campaign. For this ceremony, the women of the community prepared Picante de Cuy (fried guinea pig with potatoes covered in a pepper sauce) and a soup they prepared from sheep (we slaughtered a sheep from the wool and weaving program that the school runs). At the ceremonies for the two preschools, we were also served Picante de Cuy. Needless to say, that particular week I ate alot of guinea pig. The clausura for the school here in Huashao did not serve food, thank goodness, because there are many more students (the robust number of about 65).