The 16th was a Wednesday, and was therefore a
Pasos Adelante Class day. I got up
far earlier than I enjoyed waking up so that I could catch a ride down the
mountain. On Sunday I had caught a
ride down with this little old couple who keep their little tan Bug parked near
the two stores our town has. They
were sweet and didn’t charge me anything for the ride. I was hoping I might catch them
again. This time, the professors
were slow to get to school (my usual hope for a ride down) and the bug was
already gone. I sat on this little
bench by one of the stores owned by a woman named Soroco and waited. Eventually this really nice truck came
around the corner and I flagged it down.
I got in the back seat – the truck was completely empty, and preceeded
to have a really uncomfortable conversation with the guy driving the car.
“Wow! You have
a really nice truck!” It was true,
he did have a really nice truck.
There was actually upholstery, and it wasn’t ripped or disgusting. All the seats were still in the truck
cab, and where the radio or tape player usually is was completely intact, not
hanging out with exposed wires.
None of the windows were broken, and you could open all the doors from
the outside and the inside. MIRACLE.
“Where are you from?” He asked.
“I’m from the US but I work in Iraca.”
“I knew you were from here, we don’t have women as beautiful
as you here.”
awkward pause
“uhh, thanks.”
“You’re so beautiful. We don’t have women like you here.”
Silence. About this time, I got a little nervous
that I was alone in this truck with this guy.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” He asked me.
“Yes.” I lied.
“I knew you’d have a boyfriend, you’re so beautiful.”
Silence
“Is he Peruvian or is he back in your country?”
I figured given that everyone in my area is somehow
distantly related to everyone else…it would be easier for me to say he’s from
the US.
“He’s back home.”
“Ohhhhh, well you need a Peruvian boyfriend too.”
I really don’t understand why everyone says this when they
find out you have an American boyfriend…how is that ok? Cultural acceptance of
infidelity is a tad worrisome.
“Um. No.”
“Yes!!! You
need a Peruvian boyfriend! One for there and one for here!”
“No. One is enough trouble. We are faithful.”
“Oh, well, that seems good, that seems good…that seems good
to me.”
“mhm…”
We didn’t talk the rest of the ride down the mountain. When he dropped me off, he didn’t ask
me to pay. I had already been
wondering if I had maybe hopped in the truck of a guy on his way to work, and
that was a bit more solidified when I thought about who would own a truck in
conditions that nice. I think he
just gave me a ride to be nice.
Weird beginning to my day.
I spent the morning mailing out some things, sending emails,
and preparing for my charla with my Pasos group later that afternoon. I also made a copy of one of the
self-esteem charlas and activities from my Pasos group for Natalia. I had written up some review sheets and
little quizzes the night before and went with Jennifer to go print them
out. While Jennifer and I were
standing by the printer in the place I usually go, which also has a lot of
computers that people pay a little bit to use the internet, Elly appeared out
of one of the little computer carrols, grabbed Jennifer’s arm, and started
dragging her toward her computer.
She doesn’t know Jennifer.
Jennifer doesn’t know her, and Elly said hello to me so I know she
wasn’t confused about which one of us was me. I also know Jennifer, and knew that being grabbed in Elly’s
death grip would NOT make her happy.
I called Jennifer back over to me, and wondered about what world Elly
exists in sometimes. Just because
she’s a volunteer, and she’s white, and she knows me, doesn’t mean that before
you know who she is, you can grab her and drag her off somewhere. I went to the paradero at 12 to meet up
with Elly. By this point, I wasn’t
sure I was going to make it through the charla because I was absolutely
exhausted from the RONDA meeting the night before and getting up early. I held on to one of the bars in the
roof of the mototaxi and rested my head on my upper arm and closed my eyes,
hoping to pull as much recharge as I could from the 15 minute trip up to the
colegio (high school/secondary school).
Elly started poking me.
“Are you tired?” poke
“Haydee are you tired?” poke poke
SERIOUSLY?
“Yes, Elly, I am tired. I went to the RONDA meeting last night.”
“What?”
“I went to the RONDA meeting last night and got up early,
I’m tired.”
“You went to what?”
“The RONDA meeting.”
“Oh, so you’re tired.”
“Yes.”
And then she proceeded to talk to me about nothing, for the
next 15 minutes up the hill, constantly finishing a sentence and saying “di?”
and staring into my face for a response.
“Di” means, essentially, “right?” but they use it at the end of
sentences even when they are not looking for verification, only a feedback
response from me…or at least Elly does.
The problem with this, is that I can’t fully tune her out and pretend
like I’m listening while she rambles…I have to put the effort in to listen for
the “di”s so I can nod (which isn’t always enough) and she can continue
talking. When I don’t do this, she
will grab my arm in a totally unnecessarily tight grip or nudge me with her elbow.
Elly ended up turning to the topic of, as she said,
“scaring” my friend at the computer place that morning. I attempted to clarify, by telling her
that we in America, don’t really like being grabbed by anyone, and especially
people we don’t know. The rest of
the ride was her saying, “I scared your friend, hahahaha, I scared her, di
Haydee?” and I just nodded like she wanted me too. I feel bad, so often about my impatience with her, and
sometimes I’m worried she has more social consciousness than I give her credit
for, and that she can sense my impatience or irritation with her. I don’t want to make her feel bad,
because she is an extremely kind-hearted woman and I really appreciate all the
support she’s given me with the Pasos group. I think she is probably hands down one of the hardest working,
and most willing Peruvians that I have met. However, she is sandpaper to my patience and all her
communication and social habits drive me absolutely nuts. I wish they didn’t, I wish that didn’t
repeat herself constantly and force me to respond to the same statement twelve
times in 10 minutes. I ultimately
just end up screening my irritation with a thin veil and feeling horrible about
it later.
We ended up at the colegio and went into the Director’s
office per usual to say hi to greet him.
This guy makes me laugh every time. I always walk in and say pretty much the same thing:
“¿Buenas Tardes, Director, como está?” (Good afternoon,
Director, how are you?)
He always stands up and offers out his hand and says:
“Hola, buenas tardes, como está? Que dice, como está, como
está, que dice, que dice, como está?”
He always says all that in this rapid fire as if he’s going
through a line of people and greeting them…but it’s just me. He talks so fast, I'm pretty sure he can't hear my response.
We went in to prep for the class in the computer room, which
is where we always have class. We
set up music for musical chairs (use it as a review game), wrote words on a
bunch of limes with a sharpie. The
kids came in, and we played the review game. I asked them questions about values and self-esteem and
where it comes from among other things.
The kids really liked playing musical chairs. I love how it’s one of those games that never really
dies. After that, we talked about
decision making, what things inform our decisions, the importance of thinking
about the pros and cons of a decision, and then we played a game with the
limes.
Everyone stood in a circle, and I did a practice run, where
each student had to say the name of the person and throw the lime to them and
we continued until everyone in the circle had caught it and thrown it. We started with three staggered limes,
which had words written on them: studying, eating, bathing – things that are
necessary in our lives. They did a
horrible job throwing it the first round so we did it again and it was much
better. After that, we added in
four more staggered limes so we had seven going at the same time and they had
things written on it that we elect to do in our lives: go out dancing, play
sports, watch TV, hang out with friends.
It got a little chaotic but they did a good job. Then we did it again, but I added in my
GIANT bulky computer case and told them that it signified having sex. Trying to juggle 7 limes in a circle of
13 people and a giant computer case was not easy, which was exactly the
point. When we finished, I wrapped
it up by explaining that deciding to have sex makes everything else in your
life that you’re trying to juggle a little more complicated, and that
sometimes, important things can fall by the wayside. I’ll be honest with you, I really didn’t like the idea
behind this activity. I
appreciated the game part of it because the kids had fun with it, but I don’t
like all the preaching I’m doing about abstinence. The kids are going to have
sex if they are going to have sex, and the only real thing I can do to help
protect them is teach them about self-esteem and decision making, while also
teaching them about how to protect themselves from STIs and pregnancy. I don’t like putting more pressure on
them to say abstinent because I don’t believe it will actually help, and their
culture is saturated with that sentiment as evidenced by the fact that on that
pretest there was the question: “Write two consequences of having sex.” And one
girl wrote, “they won’t love me.”
I’m pretty sure they were talking about their family or their
community. I don’t like forcing
abstinence.
What ultimately made it way worse, was that in the wrap up
about decision making and the activity’s relationship to the choice to have
sex, Elly got on her soap box and started preaching about abstinence, which
initially made me uncomfortable, but when she started saying, “If you have sex
you’ll make your parents really really sad.” I had to cut her off with a – “It’s
not that you’ll upset your parents…what is more important is that…” I felt bad
about cutting her off, and worse about pretty much telling her and everyone
else that what she said wasn’t important.
However, I did not want my charla
going down Catholic Guilt Lane.
Makes me so uncomfortable how much we use abstinence and how much the
health post workers want to emphasize it.
We finished without getting to complete all the things on my class to do
list for the day.
Ricardo and I had a nice chat on the way down the mountain,
and I headed back up to site a little bit later.
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