Work in Progress

One day I felt like I was ready to get to work.  The first week or so was mostly dedicated, as it is supposed to be, to not throwing all my stuff in a bag and getting the hell out of there.  Once I felt like I had sufficiently suppressed the desire to run, it was time to settle down to progress - making it worth it.  In true Duffus woman fashion, I started making lists and plans and due dates to get myself going.  The next day, I went to the school to ask the Director if I could interview him about the school and also get a key to one of the classroom to teach during Vaccaciones Utiles, or summer vacation.  Violeta, a technical nurse from the health post and one of my community partners came with me.  She very sweetly asked Director Chavez to spread the word that I was to be called Señorita or Hayden, so as not to lack respect.  I was offered a frozen yogurty milk thing that the Director of the Kindergarten was selling to kids and managed to pass that off to Violeta when no one was watching.  It didn't appear delicious enough to be worth a day or two of vomiting and excessively frequent and unpleasant trips to the latrine.

End result of my meeting with Director Chavez was that I should come back the next day for the interview, and to talk with the kids about Vaccaciones at Forma - which is when they all line up outside by class and do weird military standing at attention and at ease stuff (it's a little terrifying to watch, always makes me think of WWII movies for some reason).  I spent much of the afternoon at the health post, teaching small words in english to Violeta and Silvia.  It's kind of satisfying to watch them struggle with English, not in a mean way, just that after being laughed at and looked at like I'm an idiot it felt nice for two seconds to feel like I possessed any kind of knowledge, or was good at anything, even if it was just speaking my native language.  It felt good to teach a little bit too, and I felt like maybe my health workers would gain a little insight into how hard it is to speak another language.  I have a hard time trying to explain to people why Barbara can speak spanish better than I can.  She grew up speaking Spanish, her parents are from Ecuador and Columbia, but to Peruvians, she's still American, so they can't figure out what is wrong with me and why I can't speak fluently.  That can be a touch frustrating.

The next day, I went to the school for the forma and chatted a bit with the kids.  I'm starting my class on the second Monday on January and I'm totally freaked out.  I'm going to be in charge of an entire class of kids, Spanish-speaking kids, and I'm going to somehow have to teach them English.  For whatever reason, everyone in Peru wants to learn English.  I had a random shopkeeper ask me if I would teach his kids English while I purchased some thumbtacks from him.  I am hoping to include some health promotion activities with the kids, like maybe building tippytaps (handwashing type things made out of recycled plastic bottles) and other games and arts and crafts.  I just want the kids to get to know me and get comfortable with me.  I'm nervous, have less confidence than I wish I did, but hope that it will all turn out well in the end.  I haven't decided how often I'm going to teach, it's going to depend on how many people show up the first day.  All the kids raised their hands when Director Chavez asked how many of them were going to show up.  I'm going to post some signs around town and hopefully people will show up!

My interview with the Director went well, though it was a bit awkward to have people running in and out of the room and interrupting.  I also had two teachers standing behind me, reading my word document with my questions written on it.  They were discussing my typing and the format of my interview (I had questions written out in English and Spanish, just in case there was an issue and I had to rephrase, I didn't want to be caught unprepared).  School ended the next day, so I was glad that I got the interview in - they wouldn't be back in time for me to interview before my Community Diagnostic was due.  I was proud of myself for thinking to record the interview on my computer so that I could listen to it over again and ensure I got all the information I could from it.

I also had an initial interview with the health workers at the health post to help me start thinking about potential projects in the community.  I thought it was a good idea to design my community survey with a couple projects in mind so I could ask any necessary questions.  Things I'm thinking about are some kind of waste disposal system, because at the moment, everyone throws their trash on their farm land, or burns it.  I've been carrying my trash down the hill into Chota because I refuse to throw it in our yard - I can't stand watching the ducks and chickens eat trash, and I don't like the feeling of living in a landfill.  My house is surrounded by stray trash that occasionally gets raked up and thrown over by the farmland, but it gets to me sometimes.  I'm thinking about creating a public library, building latrines for families who either don't have one or have latrines that are falling apart, training health promoters (though I've heard there is no one willing because people refuse to come to meetings to train the health promoters), nutrition charlas (chats), creation of biohuertos (gardens to plant vegetables and fruits to supplement diet of rice and potatoes), creation of a women's group to give them a voice and maybe teach them how to read, and a project on early childhood stimulation for kids under 5 in my town.

Starting in January, I'm going to start doing surveys with people in my town.  My health workers have offered to help me out.  I'm not sure what form that will take, whether or not they will help me do the encuestas (surveys) or if they might come with me.  We'll have to see, but I'm currently working on writing my survey so that I can begin in January.  It's quite the little time sink.

I let little things, one thing, that happens in a day make my whole day a success.  I was walking down the road the other day and these two little boys were in a bush and they called out to me.
"What's your name?" A little squeaky boy's voice called, straightening up as his smaller friend peaked over the bush.
"My name is Hayden.  What are your names?"
"I'm Julio and this is Daniel!" He giggled.
He was so cute and it was so sweet and genuine, as I turned to walk back to my house, I thought to myself - "That totally made my day."

Walking down a street and a couple little kids called out my name - totally made my day.

A little boy called me "Profesora" the other day, totally made my day.

A woman stopped walking in the street to come greet me and ask about how I was adjusting to living in town.  Instead of saying "how fat you are", she said, "how nice you are," and asked me to visit her at her house.  Totally made my day.

Little by little. :)