It's hard to call my volunteer experience "work" because I'm having so much fun. I spend my afternoons at the Telecentro (the after school program) helping children from the ages of 5 to 16 with their homework. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I definitely didn't expect that I was going to need to brush up on my algebra and calculus skills! Some of these kids are quite small for their age so imagine my surprise when I sat down with what I thought was about a 10 or 11 year old girl and she hands me her calculus homework. My Spanish is pretty good but I definitely didn't learn the appropriate vocabulary for quadratic equations.
On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach a "Play in English" class. The kids all have English taught at school but in order to reinforce what they learn in school, I play games with them for about an hour. Their favorite is bingo. I call out a number in English and they have to guess which number it is before I write the number on the board. The older kids are usually the ones that can shout out the correct answer but even the littlest kids have a shot at winning. I bring stickers with me as prizes. I made the mistake of once calling out every last number so that all of the kids would win and I was mobbed like I was in a mosh pit at a concert by children wanting their bingo prize.
Some of the other games we've played are charades (which basically consists of me acting like a fool, running around acting out various verbs while the kids try to tell me what I'm doing in English), Go Fish! and Splat (I put up hideous hand drawn pictures of a various category- animals, colors, foods, etc. and two teams of kids compete to guess which photo I am describing. Whichever person hits or "splats" the correct photo wins a point for their team).
There is a lot of need at the Telecentro, so I'm happy to be volunteering there. I'm amazed at how nonchalant things can be. Technically the after school program starts at 3 and ends at 6 but very often none of the other teachers will arrive until 4:30 or 5!! This means that there are mobs of children running around unsupervised. Just yesterday a girl was playing pretty roughly with her friend and ran smack into a wall! I checked to see that she still had all of her teeth and that she wasn't bleeding but the other teachers were no where to be found. In general you will find even very small children wandering streets alone in Ollanta, even late at night without adult supervision. Children are very much on their own.
Awamaki runs a lot of programs to teach basic hygiene and health issues as well. Every Wednesday at 4pm volunteers will teach a health class to the kids. They teach things like nutrition, exercise and the need to WASH HANDS. It's very common for kids to come in to the classroom with their faces caked in snot and coughing without covering their mouths, sneezing on each other and wiping their noses on their sleeves, that is if they wipe their noses at all. I know these issues are ones that teachers in the states deal with as well, but teachers in the states are more likely to reinforce in their classrooms what parents are teaching their kids about basic hygiene in their homes, whereas here, parents and teachers alike will neglect to teach this type of etiquette.
Now, I realize I may have some worried parents reading this blog who are concerned about the amount of germs this person who is carrying their grandchild is exposed to, so I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that I do in fact carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with me at all times. In fact I have a bottle attached directly to the outside of my backpack for quick access (thanks Anna and Caitlin! This was included in a little birthday/travel gift they gave me). It has a little clip attached and has a wonderful lemony alcohol smell to it. In fact, Peaps, Mare and I have been joking that every time I use it, it reminds us of the way a margarita smells, so people around me tend to crave margaritas each time I use it. The first time I used it in the classroom, I almost got some poor kid in trouble because Juana, one of the other teachers stopped class and said very loudly and sternly, "Quien tienes alcohol?!!!" , which means, "Who has alcohol?!". I blushed and had to admit that in fact it wasn't that some poor kid was drinking booze in class, it was because the germ-conscious American was sanitizing her hands after sharing a pencil with each snot-encrusted child. It must be working because I still haven't come down with anything. Cough or cold.
The other interesting thing that I've found about these kids is that although we have the regular range of Marias, Ricardos and Joses, many of the children have very American/English sounding names. Jeremy, Nancy, Rosemary, Bruce, Bryan, Alex, Jessica, etc. etc. It makes me wonder if this is yet another thing that the tourism in this area has influenced. In fact, Peaps (who is actually named Alison for those of you who don't know) came home earlier this week to tell us that while she was working in the health clinic, a family who had just had a little baby girl was trying to decide on a name and they decided to call their baby Alison!!! Granted their pronunciation is a bit different (Ah-lee-son) but I think Peaps was pretty flattered that there is now a little baby girl in Ollanta that is named after her!
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