Summer School by Peace Corps

Summer School!

Now we’re in charge of that, now we’re the ones taking that initiative for education during vacation time.

What is Vacaciones Utiles?
Vacaciones Utiles is a project mostly led by “Youth Development” Peace Corps Volunteers where classes are offered during vacation time, that is during our normal Winter Break in the US.
Any volunteer is able to organize Vacaciones Utiles with the classes and time the volunteer is able to offer. Some communities already have summer schools, so sometimes volunteers are mostly asked to teach English.  Most Peruvians also do not work, therefore we don’t have anyone to work with on our goal projects, thus giving us the opportunity to be a teacher for 2 months.

The process is a bit long. In our case, we already had a Youth Volunteer with an initiative on paperwork before we (a Water and Sanitation Volunteer and me) arrived to our site, Santiago de Chuco. It consists of writing many “solicituds” (an official paper letter asking for a favor stamped by them and us) and presenting a written project with an included budget. In our case, the budget was being asked to the Municipality. Solicituds were made for Municipality transportation to our nearby National Sanctuary and National Reserve, for a school to work in, for the auditorium with a sound system (which was crappy) for closing ceremony, among other things. The first solicitud was turned in 3-4 months before we started, and we still had timing and space issues. The process here in Peru is very tedious, and you have to constantly remind of events and favors asked or they will most likely forget.

A few things we prepared on consisted in a few trips to our regional capital, Trujillo. There was about 200 flyers made to post around town, I designed a big ol’ banner to have on pictures and to advertise Vacaciones Utiles, I helped design the t-shirt logo, we got tons of balls for sports (where most were stolen or flattened by the end), and a few classroom materials.

Let’s start with the content of Vacaciones Utiles. Our target limit of students was 100, but we reached 130 (80-90 which came daily after the first week). I wanted more, but we were short on teachers. There were 3 teachers hired too for: language, math, and…math. None of us 3 volunteers wanted to teach that. Eh. We offered classes in: Mathematics, Communication(language), Leadership, Volunteerism, Sports, Art, English, Dance, Environmental Science, and weekly trips to the local river/lake/park. Out of those, I had my fun with: Sports, Art, Dance, and Environmental Science.

Teaching Sports:
THAT was hell sometimes. Mostly because the classes were huge, I had either all of Primaria (elementary) students or all of Secundaria (Middle/High School) students. We had 6 weeks, they consisted of 2 weeks of soccer, 2 weeks of volleyball, 1 week of basketball, and 1 week of “capture the flag”. During soccer none of the girls wanted to play, smh. It is so segregated by sexism traditions here. AND during volleyball week not many boys wanted to play, sigh. Nonetheless, after much persuasion with what I could control, there were many students playing both sports. For the secundaria side, it was pretty cool coaching them, BUT THE PRIMARIA side was a nightmare sometimes. Seriously, kids running around all of the school, with sometimes me running behind them. Most younger kids I just didn’t bother with, they were also intimidated by the size of the rest. It was funny for me and for secundaria kids (whenever they ran out of class and watched) to see the little kids play the most innocent soccer game, or volleyball game where they couldn’t event hit the ball over the net; but I did what I could with coaching. There were times were I owned a few of them in basketball during breaks, my height was a big advantage. Didn’t play too much of the other sports with them, during soccer I goalied their penalty shots for practice. It was cool, they had fun.

Teaching art:
At first, I had planned 3 weeks of drawing and 3 weeks of painting. I have experience with art, won competitions and taken a university painting class. Well, this was very different from art enthusiasts. First of all, my classes consisted of the higher grades in secundaria. During drawing, we started out with the basics, then I printed “cool” pictures for them to draw, and at the end it was free drawing. There was a few kids that had the outlines well done, but needed to work on the shading, so that’s as good as it got. NOW the painting stage, damn that did not work well. I tried introducing them to black and white, but that was a bit hard for them; combining colors and such. Then I introduced colors, that was another obstacle only few could achieve. Then I ended with painting yourself from a picture I took of them, and that turned out like elephants trying to paint flowers. Well, too mean, but to give you an idea. It was a fun class though, I always had music going on, I gave them the liberty to sit and move the chair wherever. It’s fun being an art teacher.

Teaching Environmental Science:
Ok, so I have a big passion for Earth science (I have a minor in it) I decided to give it a week to different kinds of sciences: Ecology, outdoor skills, biology, oceanography, geology, and caring for earth. I tried being as visual as possible by having borrowed a projector from the hospital and showing a documentary for half of the class. There were many kids that didn’t attend my class, but did attend my sports class. My goal for the class was to “show them the world” in terms of visual sciences. I enjoyed it, but I hope they learned a little more than general science from their schools. No, I didn’t test them, I figured Vacaciones Utiles was just to support and add on to what they already know. I should next time though, I learned that I should teach more to the level of a normal teacher like what they’re used to.

Teaching Dance:
Well here comes one of my slowly developing hobbies. At first I wanted a side time to interested dancers, but the Youth Volunteer (Brittany) made it into a complete class for everyone. At the end, I got what I wanted though. :D The dancing style was freestyle or modern dance. Brittany started out with moving too much hip and chest, like NOT a guy’s thing. So I had to separate and get all of the boys to follow me on my moves on the back of the court. To start off, I was in a breakdancing/freestyle club for my last two years in college (but wasn’t consistent). The method is getting into a circle, and EXPRESSING YOURSELF THROUGH THE MUSIC. Yeah, that’s what pretty much movies me. Enjoy the music with your body, with movements that flow with it. But knowing that it actually looks good too, not just crazy arms going everywhere. I told them about battles, and I also showed them videos of professionals. Yeah, that made me look bad because I’m not that good yet. Weeks passed, and the group of interested boys got smaller; big plus for me, I only wanted a small group of interested ones. At the end for the closing ceremony, I got a group of 8 boys to choreograph a dance of 5 minutes. Well, it was 3 dances that we put together. I was very proud of them. Even if their moves weren’t sharp, for their first time, that was great. I felt happy for my first organized dance group. J

Teaching in a public school style for the duration of two months was perfect time for me. It was hard to have good classroom management and to control like 80 by Brittany and I a few days a week. They didn’t listen and ran out, we had mothers complain and new rules to implement. On the other hand I had tons of funs with the little kids when they climbed all over me, and when I chilled with the teenagers. They loved the weekly trips. To this point when they see me in school, they yell out “Mister Carlos” (mostly kids) or “Professor Carlos” (mostly little kids) and ask about next time we’ll be doing Vacaciones Utiles.

At the bottom you will see a Vacaciones Utiles video I made for advertising purposes. I had shown and given out to the students a longer video I had made. Hope you enjoy my video at least, if my style of writing isn’t that eloquent. 

Click here to see the video!!!

Celebrating Earth Day! Dia del Planeta Tierra en Peru!

EARTH DAY!!!!!!

My favorite environmental day!!

Hope everyone had a happy Earth Day wherever it might have happened, and did a small environmental positive action. I used to remember Earth Day because of all the Disney Nature movies that usually come out during that time, April 22. Love those movies.

Well to start off, I wanted to celebrate Earth Day in my community by doing something a bit bigger, but I had timing issues and went with the most effective and simpler. The week before Earth Day Semana Santa happened, that is a big week for Latin American countries. My group of Peace Corps Peru 22 had planned our first vacation to Mancora, one of the nicest beaches in Peru. Thus, it didn’t give me enough time to coordinate with schools or other organizations and create something bigger.

I thought about it, and I came up with something effective. I wrote out solidituds (the official papers to ask favors) to borrow the municipality auditorium and to borrow the hospital projector. They approved, except the municipality projector because the guy wasn’t there and didn’t remember about my event (I had planed to use two projectors so they don’t overheat and burn the bulb). Anyways, I designed a small tag (which later became a bracelet) with a front representing Earth Day and the back showing a list of things they could do in their community to help out the planet locally.

Ok, now I’ll tell you what I did. I did a whole movie day, pretty much showing 7 movies every two hours starting at 8am. It was a long day. I showed the following movies:

Before they entered, I signed them up and gave them a tag with the following in front and back:

I printed out 20 pages with 8 tags on each page. I ran out of pins, so after giving them out they just started opening them and using them as bracelets.
So in total there was around 180 attendants throughout the day.

Here is some kids that were helping me at the entrance

talking to them about the tag, this is after Wall E

Showing a SERNANP clip, that is NPS for US

in the afternoon they started coming more

my vest with the tag

there was numerous people standing outside of the door looking at the movie, they were intersted

Host Families

Hola Mundo!

And tonight’s topic will be….tum tum tummmm…Host Families!

Let me start from the beginning. During our 27 month period in Peace Corps, we are assigned two host families. One during training in Chaclacayo, and another one in our site for 24 months. They help us integrate in the community and culture. They make you their family, and you make them your family. They can range from an older couple taking care of you, to a big family of many host siblings with kids, to a young family. Our Regional Coordinators do their research with families in a community for a volunteer and introduces rules to abide by for the host family.

You are assigned a room with a good door lock. During training, the room will be furnished, so you wont have to worry about buying anything. On your assigned site, it varies. You might get an unfurnished room, a partially furnished room, or an empty room. Peace Corps will give you a settling in allowance to buy some stuff depending if your room was furnished or not. Room sizes may vary, location of the room may vary, roof conditions of the roof may vary, “insulation” of the room may vary, and privacy may vary. You are also given an allowance to pay rent to your family, during training and in site (rent varies depending on different factors).

During training, families are, let’s say, recycled. Because Peace Corps groups get trained in the same community, a family may volunteer to do it again. Some families, in my case, have had like 8 volunteers. In my family I was the first volunteer to be a guy. At about the second day of training in Peru, we were received by our host parents in the training center and went away with our luggage; it was pretty exciting seeing all the volunteers meeting their new family. ...just lovely!
As people kept getting going with their families, I was just smiling, and thinking I was left orphan (not) but then all of a sudden she calls my name, I run towards her and give her a hug…to my new tiny mother. We then took my stuff and went home in a mototaxi, classy, hehe. I started meeting the rest of my family after I put the stuff in my room. I had two sisters, one 7 and another one 13. They were great! I had an older brother of around 30, and mom and dad of around 50. My room was pretty cool. Well, it was spacy. The BONUS side of my family is..that…they had an internet café there! WOOOT!! And a corner store (not too big). I was able to borrow some internet to upload the first YouTube videos I did for training. But after training, It has been pretty slow.

At home, everyone called my host mother “mom” including the granddaughters.  There are 2 dogs (one that got lost or died), 2 cats (one that got lost or died), a peacock, and a rooster. Outside, around 30 feet away, there was the central sports court. Where I sometimes played soccer (this got them to know me and always call my name when I was walking home). In that small community of “3 de Octubre” there was 7 more volunteers, 2 of them neighbors. I hanged out with 2 of them mostly, from that community. There was also a foothills nearby, and I liked going up in them. I didn’t want to run on flat roads. And there was also a lot of fog in that valley, at first I thought it was dust flying in the air…but I don’t think so.

NOW in my new site of Santiago de Chuco, I have had my other adventures. This was more of a first time for my families to have a volunteer, so they had to get adjusted to adopting a son. We had a site visit for a week before we fully moved in (we took some luggage though).
During that week, I got pretty sick. With food, elevation, the cold, blahhh. Elevation is 3,100 meters (~10,000 ft), makes it chilly and makes me have headaches for the first days. Food was a bit different (I love my family’s food though, it varies. Mom also takes in mind stuff I don’t like). BUT, they took care of me. It was sweet. They kept asking about my condition and giving me teas. At first, it felt I was the center of attention, but after the first months, you become more part of the family, I like that, I don’t want to be too special. It has slowed down, but for the first month and a half, they were always saying “carlitos” or “carlitos carlitos carlitos” out of randomness, after me talking to them, or after I made them laugh, my guess is they’re happy to have me there, and the feeling is mutual.
For the first week, they had given me a suuuper tiny room, as you noticed in my site visit video. After that, they had mentioned they had a living room that wasn’t in too much use, they were just worried it was too cold because of the cemented floor. But I didn’t care, and I moved in…yes, in a big room! From tiny to giant!  :D I loves.
They had a partially furnished room. I bought a few things. For the house, we have cuys (guinea pigs) and ducks on the roof of the 2^nd floor, to eat later. 2^nd floor has my old tiny room, my mom’s room, my brother’s room(18), and my sisters’ room(27, 31). 1^st floor has the kitchen and a small store, oh and me. :D  I wont talk about the town just yet, I’ll leave it for another blog. That’s pretty much about my families. They are respectful, sometimes religious, they have their traditions, they are fun, they are…my family.