After a LOOOOONG wait...(so long I feel like "wait" should have a couple extra letters on the end)

I woke up and got ready for class.  Mishel decided to come.  Subject of today’s class was family members and months of the year.  We started with Bingo because they begged me, then we learned family members.  I had each kid draw a picture of their family and label them with the correct word in English.  Then they had to come to the front of the class and say, “I have a ________, __________....” and fill in the blanks with the words for family members.  The kids are so shy about showing their drawings, which I don’t understand at all, and they all beg me, “Noooooo, Teaaaaaaacher”.  But it’s whiny, like Silvia and Violeta say “Jefa”.  Makes me crazy.

            I asked Gladis to come up and she said no.  Little five year old Yeni had just come up and she was refusing.  I asked her again and she said no, so I just waited.  She didn’t do anything.  I told the students that when I give instructions, you need to do what I ask, and to refuse is to disrespect me as the teacher of the classroom.  All the kids started chanting “punishment” in Spanish, which freaked me out a little bit.  Kind of reminded me of Silvia, throwing their peer under the bus for absolutely no personal benefit.  I didn’t understand that at all.  I asked Gladis again to come up and she did.  The crazy thing about Gladis is that she has absolutely no self-confidence, but she is smart and she can remember English words better than most.  I wonder if having the four boys around is bad for her, because she was doing much better and was less shy when it was just Samer. 

            We all drew family trees too, which was a nightmare, they couldn’t figure it out, and it didn’t really work anyway because none of them knew how many brothers and/or sisters their parents had.  They kept saying they had never been told.  That was a little crazy. 

            I taught them the months of the year, and then we played musical chairs, where the person without a seat needs to answer a question to stay in the game.  The kids who get out I let start and stop the music on my laptop, which they fight over.

            After class, I headed over to the health post to see if Natalia was there.  She was, and we hung out for a while.  She asked if I wanted to go to a RONDA meeting in Sacasacas.  RONDA meetings are town meetings, where all the town authorities get together and talk about things.  Apparently, Natalia wanted to set up a health promotion committee with the RONDA authorities.  Sacasacas is one of the three parts of Iraca Grande.  There is Tijeras, Iraca Central (where I live), and Sacasacas, which starts a house away from mine.  I told Natalia I would love to go.  The meeting was going to be in their casa comunal, or Communal House.  It’s a meeting house for the district.  It sits up on top of a steep hill but didn’t look that far away.  I thought it would be a walk across a big field and then up the steep part.  What you can’t see is that there are about four hills and valleys between here and there.  Natalia and I went trekking out there in our rain boots through mud that came halfway up my calf.  We got there 45 minutes later.  On the far side of the hill that looks over San Antonio and not Iraca, there is this big grassy hill and a gorgeous view.  The sun was out so I plopped down and enjoyed the sun and view. 

We got there about 1:45 p.m., and the meeting was supposed to start at 2, but there was no one there.  Natalia came and sat by me, and I interviewed her more about the community.  At 2:30, there was still no one there.  At 3 p.m., a woman I’ve seen before showed up and we hung out. Natalia called someone and pretty much demanded they come.  They showed up twenty minutes later.  By 3:30, an absolute downpour started and the air turned frigid.  I was shaking, sitting inside the little adobe house, bare but for a few benches and a glaring light hung precariously from a rafter.  By 5 p.m., we still hadn’t started.  I was freezing and hungry.  At 5:15, we finally got started but it was slow going.  No one wanted to be part of it, and Natalia had to force people into it.  I was trying not to zone out, but I was so uncomfortable and had lost my ability to listen to Spanish.  At one point, Natalia asked me if I wanted to say anything and I said, “Not right now.” 

In hindsight, I can’t believe I did that.  Why would I pass up that opportunity?  Natalia had introduced me and my work to the Sacasacas community and authorities already, but had I been in the States, I would have taken that opportunity to say something about being happy to meet them, about how important health promotion was, about how I hoped for support from them in the future with projects to help the community.  But no, my lack of confidence in my ability to communicate lost me an opportunity.  I felt so stupid afterwards.  BUT, we were successful in setting up the committee, and now every 15^th of the month, we’re going to give charlas, or chats, to the mothers in Sacasacas at that meetinghouse.  Natalia was giddy she was so pleased and that opens up a great opportunity for both of us to work in health promotion in that sector of Iraca.  Despite being upset with myself for my stupidity during the meeting, I was really pleased and felt like it had been a productive day. 

On the walk home, we walked by a house, and this woman rushed out with two giant plastic bags full of potatoes and handed one to both of us.  The last thing I wanted to do was try and trek through the rain with a 20lb bag of potatoes, much less deliver them to Celina so we could eat more potatoes, but I thanked her a took it.  Natalia asked her to bring it to her at the health post the next day because she was afraid of falling.  I schlepped my potatoes home and delivered them, reluctantly, into the arms of Celina.