18 May 2007

Skippers

Howdy to All,

What a week and what a month it has been. I wish a few times a day that a good chunk of you could be here to experience some of these things with me, shared experiences always make for fuller ones. that being said, there are about a million things I would like to share with yall but I will limit it to a few stories mixed with wandering thoughts, otherwise I would have to leave my watch behind as collateral to the man charging me to use his internet café. so first on the good news list. April was amazing, all sorts of good stuff happened, first among them was a new program that happened with the SKIP program.

An absolutely amazing opportunity came our way in April. We made a deal with a major English teaching institute here in town called El Cultural and got 7 of our kids accepted on a full scholarship for 1 to 2 years. Choosing the kids was quite difficult, we have a population of about 178 kids. After i presented the opportunity to the SKIP team, we all sat down together and read through the list of kids, choosing the ones who repeatedly do well in their studies, then we narrowed it down by choosing the ones who are consistent and have good attendance, then narrowed it down again by ones that we thought would have positive attitudes . Even after the last time that we narrowed it down we still had quite a few kids that would be a great fit. Talk about tough choices. The good of all of it, is that this is a test year of sorts. Assuming all goes well, we will probably be receiving scholarships for another group of kids in the year to come.

Back to the details of the program. During the school year the kids go on Saturday for two and a half hours a day and during the summer they go 5 times a week for 3 hours for about three months. The goal the institution sets is to have them capable of conversation by the end of year 2. my goal is to have them as the English teachers at SKIP by the end of year 1 for the rest of the kids. we will see what happens.

Anyway so this Saturday class of their starts at 8 in the morning. not too early, other than the fact that 1. we are reliant on public transportation to go from one side of Trujillo to almost the extreme other (it´s about a 45 minute ride) and 2. my beloved Peruvians are beyond notorious for being unfashionably late. that being said, i told all of their mothers and the kids, to their face, and about 5 times apiece, that they have to meet me at 6:30 in the morning in front of the bus stop. -a bus stop in Peru is anywhere that a passenger happens to be making hand motions at the bus- on that note i specified the bus stop as between the high school and the health clinic. i figured that 6:30 would be early enough to avoid any bad mishaps on their first or any day. Someone from SKIP always goes with the kids to school as well as one to two of the mothers. The 45 minute bus ride there is bumpy at best but the 5 block walk from the bus stop where we get off to school is great. For the most part the kids are really shy (I am working on changing that with everything I have) so they don´t say a lot. But man they are good kids. As soon as we get off the bus everytime one of the little girls -Erika- from primary school grabs my hand and we walk hand in hand with a few in front and a few in the back of us. It has to be one of the most amazing feelings in the world, it's like having 7 little brothers and sisters.

I was talking with one of the mothers a few weeks ago and she was telling me about her child's (Anthony) weird behavior. She said every Saturday since the program started Anthony gets up around 5, is ready by 5:30 and has his backpack on waiting for his mom to let him out of the house so he can go. --don´t know about yall but I was on the far opposite end of that spectrum when I was 12 years old-- Seeing their faces the first few saturdays was fantastic. There is nothing quite like seeing the look on someone's face the first time they are in a new environment and get to see and hear things that they have never seen in their life.

Keep in mind that the kids that we are taking to El Cultural come from the poorer side of town, all of their homes are made from mud bricks, maybe 2 of the seven have running water in their homes, and that for 2 hours a day a few times a week. El Cultural is a 7 story building with glass encased elevators, computer labs, and modern Peruvian art from the locals as well as reprints by Salvador Dali scattered on the walls. A wee bit different from what they are used to.

The first few times when they walked into the school it was spectacular to see their faces, their heads were cocked back looking up and soaking it all in. I was busy trying to keep them on track and find their rooms, their minds were more on the exploration mode though --and due to the fact that we were some the first ones there then it was ok to let them explore for a bit before classes started. Oh, and when they saw the elevators they about flipped. Then they wanted to start playing on them. I said no. WOW, what a butt i was! talk about the bad part of the 'adult' coming out - and me of all people to say 'no' to exploration, it was borderline hypocrisy.

Well I had the entire time they were in class to mull over my bad decision and as soon as they got out of class i quickly encouraged them to go play on the elevators and do some more exploring. I even got on one of the elevators and played for a while with a couple of them.

On the way home as we were walking I was curious as to what they had learned in class so I asked them how their time in school was. The response 'good'. it was an immediate flashback from my elementary school years when my grandmother or aunt Judy would come and pick me up, they would always ask the same question and my ever so detailed response was usually the same length but I had the depth of vocabulary to throw in the occasional 'fine' as a response. Their response was yet more proof that kids the world over are the same. But I was curious and am notorious for playing the question game, the one that bothers people till they shout or actually start to talk, and talk they did. They started going on about all they had learned and the kids I sat next to on the bus on the way back over to their side of town reviewed their new English vocab. words with me for the length of the ride.

Fantastic and a half would be a good way to describe the experience. Due to my amazing typing speed I do believe that I have run out of time before I could share more, I'll make it back around to bother yall with some more stories some time soon. In the mean time I hope yall have a great rest of the week,

Joshua