The cat's got your tongue?

As things keep happening, it is all beginning to seem more normal. Here’s my yesterday:

Breakfast at 7:30 is a peanut butter and banana sandwich which I eat on our patio and the morning heat is already making me pit out my shirt- It will be a good day; freakishly hot and uncomfortable, but good.

The truck is in use to bring my housemate, Tiffany to the airport because she is leaving today after two years of working with Etta Projects. Her end is my just beginning.

I settle for a moto ride to the Centro through busy, law-less traffic and active market streets. We touch the bumpers of a few cars and I lean forward to tell the moto driver that I like the life I have and frankly, I’d like to keep it today. He laughs and I think that means we have reached an understanding.

I am in it-exposed to the elements and the smells. Not necessarily good smells, but smells of garbage cluttering the street, dry dirt and exhaust. As we pass other motos within an arms length of me, I realize that young drivers have faster reaction time. No women drive, they are chauffeured and I appear to be the only one with my legs on opposite sides. Somehow the other women carry two kids and a large bag of food on the back and can still manage to ride side saddle. Oddly, they also don’t look mildly terrified zooming through traffic like me.

I love to see the market in the morning with sacks heeping-full of colorful fruit, grains, vegetables prepared for selling. There are some old man juice vendors looking to sell their fresh squeezed carrot juice or orange juice and they push their carts through horn-honking, wild traffic. When we get out of the town center and market the roads become sand and my sweaty hand holds a little tighter as we bump over the unevenness of these byways, over the railroad tracks, past a school where little kids try to scale the fence and houses with long lines of laundry hanging to dry. I think I mention the laundry because it the clothing brings some color to this otherwise monochrome seen of sand and browns.

I enter the Comedor and say good morning to the women washing the tile floors, to the cooks, to the groundskeeper and walk to my classroom at the end of the row.

I enter and the students are already inside, they chime in unison to wish me good morning, tia Ella and the sound reverberates off the concrete floor. The morning group is full of smiles and we form a circle to being talking about our first and new theme for the week; Values. Flor and I lead a conversation about values and next put in place our new, Golden Rules of the classroom. From their little wooden chairs the kids are eager to raise their hands, but often times do not have an answer in mind. Hey, participation- I’ll take that. We do homework next, have a snack and end the day paint a picture of the values we learned at the beginning of class. The kids are eager to grab for their favorite color construction paper and get their paintbrush first, but once painting the kids were like angels sitting their quietly painting pictures of responsibility, respect, and love.

Flash-forward to the afternoon and ever-patient Ella becomes No longer optimistic Ella with mild heat stroke.

Since I arrived, the afternoon attendance has been sparse at best, but to my surprise more than THIRTY showed up for the afternoon class. Over thirty students of who some ten year olds and carry baby siblings to class, 3 year olds that come to be near the commotion, 12 year-olds that can’t read, 8 year-olds that read well and then there’s my dear friend/bolivian bandit ringleader Carlos and his merry little band that like to stick sharp things in their ears. I repress my visions of beginning a theme for the week and of trust circles and put any rememberence of my angelic morning students out of my head as I try to embrace my new role as a manager of 30 little Bolivian delinquents. I managed to release my tension periodically in the class by freaking out in English with an overly happy face and sweet tone of voice. It was effective, but perhaps made me flirt with the borders of insanity.

The chaos climaxed when the second punching match of the day occurred. And then I unleashed my rage.

Calling out for silence, I demanded that everyone listen and realize that there was to be no fighting in the classroom and that it was unacceptable behavior that it had gone on for to long, that this was to be the end of misbehaving and that above all else we must learn to treat others with respect— and then I stopped…and thought…wait am I giving a lecture in Spanish write now? Do I even speak Spanish?…oh God everyone is silent and starring at me....what do I say? Spanish failing…Can’t find a verb, aaahhh!!!! And that’s when the cat got my tongue.

Overall, I think the impromptu speech started off well and it had the right tone and body language to be effective. Articulate? No, but that’s not my style. Really, one loses the fervor and passion of primate or cave-man-like grunting if one speaks in real sentences all the time.

Around playtime I left with my morning partner-in-crime, Flor to visit with teachers about 8 students from our morning class. In my head I imagined the visits to go a little something like this: We would walk to the principals office and ask permission to converse with the teachers, we would sign a guest book and walk to find the teacher at which point the teacher would excuse him or herself from the classroom and we’d sit in chairs while over coffee and a cookie we’d talk about the areas of improvement for our students. Here was the real picture. At an outside school during what looked like recess for all grades we were followed by swarms of little kids who led us to the director. She shook our hand and pointed at the only building containing all the classrooms. As we asked to see the teacher the student we were talking about was pulled into the middle of the swarm as we discussed the child in front of all who wished to hear. Then, the swarm of children would lead us to the next classroom and would yell for the students’ name together. Not so private, but I guess it was effective.

After our walk back to the Centro Flor and I joined in on a group of younger students playing a game on the soccer field similar to Red Rover, but involving an angry mother hen and a lot of eggs. As the sun was setting, I waited for the others to finish-up their work and had a tumbling match with the driver of the red truck, Mariano and three little girls. It was all going well, until Mariano attempted a back flip and threw-out his back. He explained that at 40 he weighs more than he used to and for that reason couldn’t complete the dismount. I laughed even harder knowing that all the women have been teasing me that Mariano has a crush on me because I look like Barbie Doll (which is hilarious) and for that reason is more punctual since I’ve arrived in Montero to pick me up in mornings because he is eager to impress me. Nothing like a sweet back flip to make me weak in the knees.

After work, Mariano all of us home, I prepare large meal for myself and drank a glass of wine before passing out in my bed from a long and involved day.

One Week

Alright. I believe that I have figured out the functioning of Etta Projects enough to paint for you a picture of what this thing is that I am doing down here. This will be exciting if it comes out at all clearly because it hasn’t quite been a week yet.

Etta Projects is the name of the organization which encompasses many distinct programs, such as the children’s program of which I am in charge. In Montero are two centers of operation; Etta I & Etta II. By and large these centers offer the same programs: a comedor or dining hall to serve nearly 100 children one, well-balanced mid-day meal (today it was liver, a treat), a before and after school program and workshops covering pertinent nutrition and business skills for the community’s mothers.

I work at the second center and newer center which services a population in a rural and impoverished area of Montero called La Pampa. The challenges specific to my center relate to the less-developed structure of programs as well as the poorer, less literate population of women and children which occupies La Pampa. Until the last year or two, the Comedor that is now operated by Etta Projects was under the control of Padre something or another and his Parish as charity. As one might guess, the long-term functionality and sustainability of this Catholic charitable meals project was limited given the community’s total lack of disposable funding.

I explain this because I perceive it to be significant in the history of this organization because of a pattern of dependency without accountability or commitment that formed. Etta Projects now struggles to overcome the scars from the previous system in terms of engaging the mothers as active players in the well-being/nutrition of their children--For example, how to hold mothers accountable, how to engage interest and explain the long-term benefits of the children’s nutrition and the mothers’ continued learning. While Etta projects feels as though its created unique, accessible and beneficial opportunities for this community through its program for nutrition and soy in their protein-deficient diets, tutoring and application of learning for their kids and practical skills for making products to sell- few women lack the personal incentive to seize these opportunities perhaps because, on a day by day lifestyle, the mothers are not geared to think in terms of long-term benefit.

Because the organization is small, it is great to get a read on the procedures and outcomes of the administration’s actions and to learn more about the trials and pitfalls of larger concepts of international development and poverty reduction. But all this just makes up the background and is only one layer of the difficulties it faces.

And so, for me day to day it is a little different. I face quite challenging decisions daily about which book to read aloud to the kids, do I show the pages while I read or after and is a side-hug or a high five is a better method for validating a 10 year old. Yes, today we did self-portraits with construction paper and talked about our interests-a common group interest was ice cream. It’s pretty comical and refreshing to see that they are just normal kids that want fight over chairs, pencils, whose turn it is. It’s also hilarious that when I try to discipline I give a stern face and nearly go cross-eyed while I search for the correct verb and conjugation and by that point they stare blankly at me and then we’ve usually forgotten what it was we all were upset about. Maybe that’s what it will feel like to be 90, too. The funniest part is that the kids are always intrigued by the tall white girl that leads their classes and I just have to smile a lot while they stare. I find myself leaving rooms with a swarm of 8 little girls where ever I go. This becomes a fun game when I just walk in circles, but less fun when I want to use the bathroom. It feels great to be in a role that feels rewarding and pretty natural (I’m not referring to speaking Spanish, which on the whole still feels awkward) but rather to able to be with the kids all day and just slather them with love and support. Can you say that, slather…as if love and support are butter?

First Blog, First Impressions

News from Bolivia: So far, so very good

After the first day in Montero, which if measured in terms of internal chaos and intensity, felt like 10 days things have certainly settled down enough for me to settle in nicely. Yes, first days become funny on the second day after there has been sufficient sleep and food which allow me to feel somehow stable when nearing potential moments of involuntary, emotional melt-down. There is something special about how sharply sensitive one’s senses are to a first day. But of course, life is full of trade offs and for me my razor-sharp intensity is unfortunately coupled with mild, but prolonged hyperventilation.

Day two: I took a stroll by myself to Montero’s central plaza and next to the market. Although
this may seem like routine deal, at the time I was quite proud of myself to have navigated all the way by my lonesome, purchase vegetables and return home safely and 4 green peppers richer.

That afternoon I rode in Etta Project’s trusty pick-up to the Apoyo Escolar (where I work) and had my first real class with the older kids. I was a bit nervous for the afternoon class because all I’ve heard from others is that they are wild, averse to learning and dictate the class schedule. In actuality, this is only partly true. I did have to jive with the chaos a bit, but I was pleasantly surprised to find their willingness to help me learn names, their curiosity of me and interest in answering my questions about their interests and things. Friday is said to be clean-up day—here’s how it works. The boys conveniently leave the room at nearly the exact moment as the girls begin putting a lot of water and soap on the counters. After the counter is cleaned the girls walk with their bare, dirty feet on top of the counters to clean the windows with a lot of soap and water. I chose not to participate in the cleaning for fear that my method would not be as effective. Instead I looked through the recently arrived books and was enthused to find Harry Potter translations.

After the kids finished “cleaning” I told them about Harry Potter in an effort to spark interest in him and the other books in the brand new library/book shelf. To my surprise the kids ate it up. Harry Potter wasn’t exactly the big ticket item because it didn’t have pictures and the majority of the kids, on account of their mother’s illiteracy, the public school system and their malnourishment are not able to digest novels yet. Even still the kids crowded around Victor and I as we alternated reading a book about the 5 senses and I tried to really make the book come to life for them. It was like dominoes as the kids asked my permission and each grabbed a book and sat down to read it aloud. It was pretty great to hear nine different stories being read aloud at once and have the kids summon me to their table in order to see their book’s pictures or to ask me to read aloud. It was for sure a moment. I plan to close my eyes and return to this moment or my teaching “happy place” when I’ll surely want to strangle the kids after difficult days in the weeks to come. To wrap up the school day we played soccer. This provided me with a great opportunity to stretch my legs and show off my mad soccer skills. Mostly, I liked cheering melodramatically after scored goals and encouraging high-fives.

Then it was back into the back of the pick-up truck with the cooks who yelled things to me over the sound of the truck and the wind whipping through the burnt-garbage smelling air. Even though they raised their voices, I could still hardly understand them. Luckily, my misunderstandings are still endearing at this point.

Once at my home, my housemate, Christina invited me to Santa Cruz for the weekend to meet her Peruvian friends, Alex and Josef. It was a toss up between choosing a night alone in my room or a night in the big city with new friends, but I went anyway. Santa Cruz is the most important city to Bolivia’s economy, but affords little cultural richness. Since Evo Morales has started calling the shots, Bolivia’s new political landscape has changed giving the wealthy department of Santa Cruz much to gripe about as its generated income is sent to La Paz, equally distributed to the remaining departments and returns only 20% to the said powerhouse of the nation’s economy.

It was quite a contrast to drive from the impoverished area of Montero into Bolivia’s most affluent, but lesser culturally rich city.

I felt almost guilty that I was able to escape away. Guilty or not, it was relaxing to see a movie and stroll with new friends around the main plaza of the beautiful city…and also to discover that my social life might amount to more than reading before bedtime.

My guilty complex formed from either having the option to leave town or because there was a little, caged monkey in the car seat beside me. Yep, the monkey belongs to my housemate Christina; its cared for by so and so’s mother-in-law and was purchased by my new Peruvian friend Alex-most likely on the black monkey market.

The monkey gave new excitement to our weekend plans when it created a spectacle in the plaza Saturday morning as it broke its leash and frolicked about in the top of a tall tree. The little kids loved it and the security guards didn’t know what to make of it besides the fact that we would be forced to leave the plaza with our circus pet.

Later that day, we rode horses along the river and returned to Montero in time for a grand birthday celebration in honor of my housemate’s friend Fabi.