Come fly with me, let’s float down to Peru

I’m currently sitting in the car, driving through soybean fields in Delaware on my way to the beach. There’s an iced tea in the cupholder, Taylor Swift in the stereo, and my sister in the passenger seat.

I’m physically moving in a new direction, and it would be easy to mentally do the same. It’s unthinkable that I was in Peru only three days ago. The transition from third-world living to my house in Bethesda occurred in less than 24 hours, a testament to the power of modern transportation and very short layovers.

If I’d been living one hundred years ago, and I’d taken a six-month ship voyage home, I might have had more time to reflect on the transition. But I guess I might have had the opportunity to get scurvy too.

I’m back in the land of hot showers and fresh vegetables, humid D.C. heat and U.S. Treasury dollars. And it feels good. Eight weeks is a long time to be away from home and morning delivery of the Washington Post. But there are things that I miss.

I miss freshly-squeezed orange juice. I miss Dilmar making a  beeline for my knees in the morning. I miss the Puka Rumi steak sandwich Kelsey is so fond of, and taking a comvi ride with twenty people, plus livestock. I miss my host mother’s horror at my lack of reaction to the “chilly” Peruvian weather or her attempts to feed me endless amounts of soup. I miss Choko Soda cookies. And I’m going to sorely miss attending little Paulita’s baptism in two weeks.

I feel indescribably lucky to have had the summer I had. I’d never traveled to another country before except to Canada. (Which I’m not sure even really counts). I relished the opportunity to live in another culture and work with children so appreciative of my attention and affection for them. I am grateful to everyone who was patient with my poor attempts to speak in Spanish. I can now successfully tell jokes, yell at kids, and deflect comments from sketchy men in another language. I’m basically set.

So this is it. I’m heading off to school in three weeks and back to work at the Daily Tar Heel. Hopefully my compadres will make it back from the Amazon in one piece, and we might even get some more pictures out of Jarrard. Who knows.

I want to thank all of our readers, of whom there are a creepily large number, for following our exploits and my stories so avidly. Really, the ridiculous number of you who visited the site each day gave a huge boost to my self-esteem. And made me want to give up on school and become a professional travel writer.

I realized that I neglected to write about some great stories from out trip, such as the man driving a motorcycle with a broken leg or our friend performing an autopsy on someone in the health clinic while drinking chicha. I guess you’ll just have to come find me in the fall to catch up. I’ll be the one in the corner, drinking coffee and singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in Spanish. Ciao!

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More photos!

I swore I wouldn´t just upload pictures of myself, so I´m keeping my promise. Here are some lovely pictures of my compadres at school and in their homestays. Gracias for the photos, Denise!

Jacob and his students.

Students.

Students raising hands.

Listening.

Two kids in Jacob´s class.

Jacob helping a kid.

A student during volleyball.

Serving.

Bump.

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Ciao niños!

Yesterday was our last official day of school with the lovely niños at our elementary school in Ollantaytambo, Peru. We´ve spent seven weeks teaching them English and P.E., and it´s been quite a ride.

I don´t really know how much English or physical education they´ve actually learned, but I do think we´ve made some sort of difference in their lives, even if it´s small. Most of them just want to be hugged and tossed around and listened to more than anything else. And these things we did.

It wasn´t easy. Discipline in Peruvian schools stems from the whip or the belt, not from much genuine respect. This is how most of the kids are disciplined at home and at school, so coming in and trying to institute time-outs and stern lectures was rough.

Most of them didn´treally want to sit and write things, but they were highly motivated by stickers and words of approval, which they don´t get too often at home or from their teachers.

They´re also motivated by government-issue bread and milk, but we couldn´t give that out as a prize.

But as tough as it was to keep them engaged and unhurt for 90 minutes, working with children was incredibly rewarding. I can´t walk through the Plaza on an afternoon without having a small child shyly come up to me. ¨Hola Eliza, professora. Donde son tus amigos? Cuando vas a enseñarme Ingles?¨ I´ve had parents come up to me in the street, towing a bashful child and thanking me for teaching him English.

There was a group of American high school students doing construction at our school while we were teaching, moving rocks and painting and such. Sometimes, when the kids were going wild, we´d look longingly at the rock-movers and wish we could switch jobs. But alas, rocks can´t give hugs and kisses quite like children can. Even if they are well-behaved.

When I enter the first grade class to teach, the kids cheer and jump out of their seats to hug me. They ask to be carried and swung around my head and tickled. I´ve never encountered such rambunctious and adorable six-year-olds in my life. During duck duck goose in P.E., my favorite, Dilmar, snuggles in my lap and pretends to fall asleep. I asked him if I could take him home to the U.S. with me. He said yes, if there were stickers there. 

So even though I had days where I was tempted to borrow the belt from the teacher, I was sad to say goodbye to them. All schools in Peru are closing until August 3rd to prevent the spread of swine flu, so this is it for formal schooling for a while. 

We´re going to hold morning English classes for interested students next week in the mornings, along with our usual frisbee games and art classes in the afternoon. When the kids learned there would be singing and stickers and cookies at English class, there were many interested faces.

The nicest goodbye was when I bid farewell to the second grade teacher. He has to be at least seventy years old, and Jarrard and I tried to teach his class P.E. and English. He was awesome.

He profusely thanked us for our efforts after each attempt to teach his hellions anything, explaining to his children that they were incompetent fools who needed to learn English because soon ¨todo el mundo,¨or the whole world, would speak English. He told stories of his childhood and education while his kids made faces behind his back. He once invited us to have a drink with him, and we would have complied if he´d given us a time and place. We think he´s a little forgetful.

When I bid him farwell, he actually bowed to me so low that his hat fell off. He asked for my name and address so he could send me a letter, and I asked for his in return. Then I asked to take a picture with him. I´m definitely sending him a copy.

Hanging out at recess with the second graders.

As usual, I´m telling the kids to be quiet and follow directions: thumbs up.

The hellions are waving.

They are fascinated by the camera.

My first graders and I, posing for a class picture.

Two friends.

Posing with Grimaldo, the second-grade teacher, on the last day. I feel tall.

Hands-down favorite kid, Dilmar, formerly known as bucket boy.

Wendy, one of my first-graders.

 

 

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Pictures from Denise

Denise McCarthy, another Awamaki volunteer, came to school with us last week and took pictures of us teaching, playing volleyball, and clowning around with the kids. Below are some of her photos. There are more of Kelsey and Jarrard and Jacob, but the internet is slow, and the pictures of me downloaded first. I swear I´m not totally egocentric. I´ll try to download the rest later. Thanks for the photos, Denise!

Looking at the camera, not at his paper. Great.

Explaining the colors.

When you finish, you get a sticker and a circle drawn on your paper.

Writing an example for them.

Listening to me? Maybe. Maybe not.

Toiling away, in hopes of getting a sticker.

No, that´s not quite right. Yellow is not blue.

This is so typical. The kids are cute and I am annoyed.

Trying not to let the sixth graders show him up.

Volleyball, getting intense.

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Learning from Lucho

Yesterday we spent the morning with a master potter named Lucho, learning to craft hand-built clay pots. As with our basket-weaving escapades, we realized that you can´t learn a craft in one morning when people devote their lives to perfecting the art. But we had a good time getting our hands dirty, and learned a lot more from Lucho than we´d expected.

We arrived at 9 a.m., wearing dirty clothes and ready to make some pots. Lucho met us in his workshop, which is an open-air structure with a roof under which he completes every step of the production process, from washing dirty mountain clay to selling finished works of art.

Before we even looked at raw clay, we admired Lucho´s finished pots, gleaming in rows on shelves in the shop, where they retail for a couple hundred dollars. They came in all different colors and shapes, although most were smaller than a basketball, as he caters to tourists passing through on their way to Macchu Picchu. They were all beautiful.

It was an intimidating way to start, but Lucho quickly put us at ease, handing us hunks of gooey, wet clay to play with. He explained that he dislikes throwing pottery on a wheel: he thinks hand-building is simpler to teach and more authentic in the Peruvian pottery tradition.

It wasn´t exactly simple. Kelsey´s pot almost fell over a few times, and Lucho had to do some major ¨surgery,¨as he called it. But with his help, we created fairly decent-looking vases that we plan to return to later in the week to finish. 

When we made baskets with Pancho, he spoke very little English, so we spent a lot of time laughing at ourselves and our pathetic baskets. But learning ceramics from Lucho was very different. He speaks English almost as well as we do, and he spent several hours talking to us about every aspect of his craft, as well as his own relationship with ceramics over the years.

Probably in his fifties or sixties, he was born in Peru and taught himself the basics of ceramics at age ten. He moved to the United States in the 1980´s, where he lived briefly in San Francisco and for many years in Santa Fe. There he learned from Native American traditions still in use on reservations. He produced pottery for museums and private ownership, before returning to Peru shortly after 9/11.

He was determined that we learn more than just how to coil a pot, and learn we did.

He got out a pen and paper to diagram the chemistry of clay, which he learned while studying at Berkeley for a short while. He talked about the impact of tourism on his trade and the degree to which Ollantaytambo has changed in recent years. He talked about the difficulty of making a living in the United States as an artist. He explained that by using local, cheap products, he can create his works of art for almost no cost and make a decent profit. He showed us an original Inca pot and explained that the Incas were more focused on stone than clay, as evidenced by their relatively rudimentary pottery. He explained the difference between earthenware and porcelain. He described the evolution of pottery throughout world history, and regional differences in technique.

In short, it was an education in the art, history, and science of ceramics as much as a lesson in the technical process of creating a pot. Which is just as a lesson from a good teacher should be. 

Kelsey and me chatting with Lucho´s apprentice.

Lucho´s pot is looking good, even in the early stages.

Jarrard made a mushroom before abandoning clay for his camera.

Jarrard chilling next to my pot.

I made a face out of clay. It was fun, but turned out creepy.

Kelsey working on her pot, as Lucho spins away in the background.

The finished pots in Lucho´s shop that are for sale.

Toiling away in Lucho´s workshop.

Lucho kindly fixes Kelsey´s pot.

My pot from above.

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Why you should double-check your markers

Today my battle with the third grade teacher reached epic proportions.

I teach English to first, third, and fifth grade classes. The first-graders are animals, the fifth-graders are angels, and the third-graders are somewhere in between. But their teacher is weird as all get out. And we do not get along.

For starters, she is probably about forty years old and has a moustache that would make adolescent boys jealous. She is also the most dour-looking woman I´ve ever set eyes on, especially one in the business of teaching small children.

She has now showed up to school several times wearing a shirt that a blind person could see straight through. It could be kindly described as a lace shirt, although this might be too generous. It´s black and leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. Sitting in class one day, she removed her jacket, and I swear several of the third grade boys fell out of their chairs. Really freaking weird.

She also seems to harbor an intense hatred toward me and my lesson plans. Remember, when I teach her class, she is being paid to do absolutely nothing. Granted, we´ve seen her sitting outside her classroom even when we´re not teaching her kids, so I don´t think she´s too concerned about doing her job. But she can still kick back when I teach and enjoy herself.

But every time I come into her room to teach, the kids cheer loudly and she gives me always gives me a huge scowl. I don´t think this is a coincidence. I´ve asked the kids if they like her, and they say yes. But one kid told me today that his parents are cows so I know how trustworthy they are.

Usually, when I´m teaching, she sits at a table with the boys and kindly completes all of the work I assign to the class for these lucky individuals. I couldn´t figure out how these kids seemed to know so many words in English and complete their work so quickly, until I saw her chubby hands drawing their pictures and letters for them. Nice.

I had several feeling about this. For one, it pissed me off that she was actively trying to mess with my lesson plan. It put me in the awkward position of having to either reward kids for work they didn´t do or confront her in front of the entire class. But I also felt kind of sorry for her because it was so pathetic. She actually looked pleased when she copied the notes correctly. 

But mostly I´ve just ignored her and quizzed the kids on the words on their paper to see if they understand what she writes for them. Usually they do, so I figure they´re learning something and move on.

But today, when I told them to draw pictures of their family members and label them, and a child brought me a clearly adult-drawn family, complete with the unnecessary ¨My Family¨ label, I´d had enough. The kid whose paper it was couldn´t even pronounce ¨My Family.¨

I told the boy that since he hadn´t drawn the picture himself, he couldn´t have a sticker. In case you didnt´know, stickers are the greatest things on earth, second only to peace in the Middle East, finding a cure for AIDs, and snow days.

The kids got the picture pretty quickly and demand for the teacher´s drawing and writing services rapidly declined. I was feeling pretty good about myself, not going to lie. I considered doing a victory lap around the room, but decided that might be a little excessive.

But when I went to go erase the chart of English and Spanish words I´d written on the board, swiping the big eraser over the shiny black letters, I suddenly realized they weren´t going anywhere.

Uh oh.

Apparently I had mistaken the dry erase markers with a regular black marker from the teacher´s desk.

Uh oh.

I´m fairly certain I felt my heart stop as I imagined her wrath descending on my sorry self, firing me from my volunteer job and hitting me with her cane usually reserved for the children. I scrubbed madly at the letters and noticed they faded a little. Thank god.

When she realized what I´d done, she informed me that I´d used the wrong marker. She then graciously handed me the correct marker, and resumed her place in the minuscule chair sitting with the eight-year-old boys. Thanks a lot.

I spent the next thirty minutes madly rubbing at the shiny black letters, bringing them down to an ugly gray blemish on her previously pristinely white dry erase board. She didn´t say anything to me, but I didn´t want to think what would have happened if I hadn´t been able to get the letters off. When the bell rang I told her I was sorry about the board, and exited pretty quickly with the kids.

So I figure now we´re about even, although I don´t plan on wearing a lace shirt to school.

My more successful and less permenant family diagram for the fifth-graders.

My fifth-graders. They were pretty excited to have their picture taken.

The fifth-grade boys trying to be cool.

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