Well things are certainly picking up here in Las Pajas, I have now officially become the community photographer/lifeguard/PE teacher/youth organizer (what my real job is supposed to be)/community documenter.
Let me start off by saying that, as most of you know, I'm not one to sit around all day not doing anything. So although Peace Corps wants us to focus on our “Community Diagnostic” for these first three months, I have decided that it's not going to take up enough of my time, so I have taken it upon myself to find other things to occupy my time. One of those things has become teaching PE at the local elementary school. Previously I had gone and visited several classes at the public school and helped teach some classes at what would be the equivalent to an after school program in the US. It's actually another school run by a community member here; kids from k-4th grade go to this school the first part of the day, and the public school the second part of the day. This school evolved because public schools here only offer 3-4 hours of schooling a day, and adding in recess and settling down time, the kids only get about 2.5 hours of instruction daily. To make up for that, many communities, including mine, have these before or after school programs. When one of the teachers can't make it, I sometimes stand in for them and try to teach a class to third or 4th graders. Believe me, it is NOT easy, I now have so much more respect for teachers anywhere, but especially elementary school teachers! Part of the problem is that these kids are squished into small, hot spaces to learn, and there are so many children that it is hard to keep them under control. They also, understandably, have a ton of energy and nowhere to expend it. That's how I got the idea to teach PE. Two Canadian nuns who are working in the community and I met with the elementary school teachers and told them what our strengths were and asked them where they needed help. They jumped at the idea of giving the kids PE classes, because they have so much built up energy that goes towards fighting and being rowdy. So last week I began giving PE classes, however I ran into several challenges:
1. There are no balls or bats at the school. The other day I asked the kids if they wanted to play baseball and they said yes, they found a little squishy ball and broke a stick in half to use as a bat. It worked fairly well, I must admit, but it would be better to have the real thing.
2. There is no field or court in the school. There used to be a concrete court with basketball hoops, however the hoops have since broken off and the concrete has cracks. There is a field-ish area a little ways from the school, but taking a group of kids over there and trying to keep track of them would be a nightmare.
So my version of PE for these kids (I had 3rd and 4th graders one day and 5th and 6th graders the other) was running around a lot, stretching, playing an active version of “Simon Says” and teaching them some kickboxing moves (only the kicking part, I didn't want to start with the boxing and get them fighting with each other again!). Unfortunately, these things can only entertain them for so long, so after that we played some makeshift baseball. I am going to rack my brain for more activities for next week, but I have one more problem: I still haven't figured out how to say “play tag” en espanol...if anyone knows please let me know asap!
As I mentioned before, I have also become the town photographer. I took pictures of all the kids that go to the local high school 45 minutes away so that we could send the pictures to the Canadian donors who finance the trip. After that, my neighbor asked me to take pictures of her daughter's second birthday party, which I gladly did. Of course, my host family had to jump in on the fun too, so I was asked to take a picture of my pregnant host sister as a “7 month momento” and then, since the rest of the family didn't want to be left out, they had me take a picture of them as well. I have a feeling the picture taking is not going to stop any time soon!
Another job here: Lifeguard. Two weeks ago a large group of us (ranging from 4 year olds to 30 year olds, though I had only announced the event to my youth group) decided to trek to the river, which is about a half an hour away on foot. When we arrived the current was fairly strong, and since I was one of the few who could swim, I was charged with the task of helping other people across the river to the other side where there is a more beachy area. Some people were afraid of the current, but I have to admit that I don't know where knowing how to swim would have been much help—this part of the river was only about 2 feet deep. I was also in charge of making sure the little kids didn't cross into the deeper part of the river.
My real job: Youth organizer. My youth group has been making a lot of progress, and every time more kids show up than I would have ever expected! We can only meet at about 8pm because of all the activities and different schedules the kids have. The problem with meeting so late is that occasionally we do not have electricity at this time, and we can't have a successful meeting. Two nights ago we were going to meet and talk about the different sports they wanted in the community, but the electricity didn't come on until 9pm, so there was no meeting. The next night, when we were planning on meeting and discussing how to clean up the community, there were kids coming at 730 and 745 just waiting for the meeting to start. In the end we had about 30 kids listening to the doctor talk about cleanliness, and then discussing what we need to start a volleyball and baseball team. It's amazing that these kids are so enthusiastic about these activities, and I love seeing them take the responsibility for getting things done!
Last job: Community Documenter. Since I am doing interviews now with different people in the community, we are asking them what kinds of things affect the community and what they would like to see in the community. Almost everybody says that the road leading out of the community is a huge problem; there is only one road and it hasn't been maintained since the sugar cane company was up and running about 12 years ago. Because of it's current state, a 12 kilometer trip to town (a little more than 7 miles) takes 30-45 minutes on a motorcycle, and is incredibly unpleasant. If the road were in better shape, people would be able to travel more quickly and frequently to the nearest town to study and work.
The other main problem that affects the community is unemployment; ever since the sugar cane company closed down there has been no steady employment in the community. Most people live off of their gardens where they grow plaintains, yucca, potatoes, etc... In order to make a little more money people make and sell small snacks, such as pieces of bread or candied coconut. Many people get a little bit of help from the government, but when we went around interviewing people we would ask them what financial resources they depend on, or to put it more simply, “How do you eat or get your food”? A lot of the people interviewed simply said, “Sometimes we don't eat.” So with some other youth in the community we have gone around asking these kinds of questions to community members and documenting their answers. In January I hope to present my findings to the entire community, so that they know they are all concerned with the same issues and from there we can begin working on thinking about what we have in the community and how we can use it to solve some of the problems that exist here.
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