16 diciembre 2011

Sometime in June….Round one of English classes: Almost complete.

I am sitting under my mosquitero, listening to some women argue, which might legitimately turn into a machete fight, vamos a ver. I am feeling the nice breeze of my fan, which is a welcomed relief because we now have luz for nearly 20 hours a day. Gracias a Dios. Also, I keep hearing riffs of an MGMT song. I think it must be on a commercial because I am not sure why else I would be hearing it multiple times throughout the day. Maybe it is being played for a political campaign, in which case I will be blessed with hearing it for the next year, similar to llegó papá. My first group of English students graduated Tuesday, and I had a mini fiesta filled with refrescos, crackers, mentas (which are actually Halls cough drops that they sell like candy here), certificados, and dinámicas. Mi fiesta fue bien. I took a lot of photos, and they are eager to start the next class. I had 22 jóvenes graduate. We will start again in a few weeks, si Dios quiere

My life here, similar to winterless (and seemingly seasonless) Phoenix, is not measured in terms of weather or seasons, but rather the activities of the children and the fruit bore on the trees. Also, as the time of mangos continues to grow, the time of chichiguas has ended, presumably because the stifling heat allows for no wind, which takes the fun out of much kite flying.  Por ejemplo, the time of chichiguas was followed by the time of by  the time of tops, followed by marbles ahora. These toys or pastimes seem to ripple through our lives rapidly, but in the short shelf lives of these entertainments, bring enjoyment to all in their vicinity. The new rage is marbles, which remind me of the fishtanks I had as a child (RIP countless goldfish that I never could keep alive). Summer has arrived. Along with the stifling heat, my energy has dwindled. My projects have all but disappeared, and people seem lethargically content doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING all summer long. One mother asked me if I could restart my English class in the fall because her son really preferred to have his vacations without doing anything. My guttural reaction of f*$% no! was replaced with an understanding nod, and gently said, no, my love, if he cannot come for two hours out of one hundred sixty-eight, I cannot help him this summer. I withheld the urge to throw in an “oiste?” One project that is doing well is my group of Chicas Brillantes. After having about 3 months of just hanging out, the direction of our group changed overnight. One meeting, we were all chatting. The girls were chatting about our summer plans, and the discussion went into the direction of helping the barrio. While I live in an extremely poor barrio, and the girls in my barrio are themselves extremely poor, they still realized that there are others less fortunate and they decided they wanted to help. So now, we are still Chicas Brillantes, but we are organizing a cleanup of the barrio, and are going to start going to the houses of people who cannot afford to “do their hair.” And we are going to wash and braid their hair  (apparently this is something fairly common here). It definitely still has a glittery, sparkly, “chicas” ring to it. They also want to help a particular family in my barrio that has a lot of problems. None of the kids are documented, and none are in school. The 13-year cannot write her name and the 5 younger kids do not go to school. Their mother is not documented and as of right now, their future seems rather dim. They want to start helping this family and others in the community. The discussion was so selfless and amazing. I get so frustrated with the “gimme, gimme, regalome” culture, that this was a breath of fresh air. I am constantly reminded that the children truly are our future, and their potential and limitless limitations is beautiful. To see the kids with nothing try to pool together their limited resources to help others is pretty rad. They promptly decided to make our club more official. They elected a secretary who started writing down our ideas, and also the president. We have made a couple of trips to the ayuntamiento (city hall) to see if there are any funds or anyway they can help us. We have also been bringing letters to the local stores to see if they.  

There was a fire in our community. It sounded like a parade at first. I heard sirens for a short while as they approached our barrio and then our street. As soon as the first siren passed, it was as if the president had approached. Tons of motors scurried behind the truck, with people running behind it cheering. From what I saw, it seemed as though there were more people chasing the trucks than there are people who actually live in our barrio. It was like lifting up a rock and seeing a million bugs scuttle away from the rock. That is what it looked like. This same day, I had an intercambio with my Chicas Brillantes group. Seven of us met up with 2 other volunteers and some of their girls. We had a lot of fun! I forget the little things I take for granted having grown up in a non 3rd-world country (I know this is not p.c. terminology, but you get the point). We went on a cultural/ educational excursion to some neat caves not too far from our site. Before entering the caves, we made a final pitstop in the bathrooms, which turned out to be an event in itself. I was leaving my stall, a couple of girls were waiting outside the stall door peering in, which I thought was odd. I asked them if everything was alright, and they asked me how I flushed the toilet. O Dios Mio. These chicas had never used a toilet (outside of a latrine/ outhouse). I showed them how to flush the toilets. I also had to demonstrate how to lock and more importantly, unlock the doors, as I watched a girl shimmy under her locked stall to exit. They were excited by the soap dispensers, and loved the rolls of paper towels. After the bathrooms, the rest of the event went smoothly, and my girls had an amazing time. Everything is going well with the group, thankfully, as everything else is going really slow this summer. Really slow.

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