Hola,
Today, (after waking up really early) I went with a reporter from Peru.com to the town of San Bartolo, which is about 45 minutes south of Central Lima.
As I explained in the post for Saturday, the Peru Crew (New England Students) have been living in this oceanside surf town for the past two weeks while helping the tight-knit community.
We arrived at their hostel bright and early and were greeted by the understandably tired crew.
After a short breakfast we headed out for an elementary school close by where we were to teach English. I didn't exactly have a lot of experience in teaching but I was willing to try it out and just help any way I could.
As we entered the classroom to be introduced, we were greeted with a roaring "buenos dias" from the class of about 30 all in unison.
We then separated into groups to teach the different classes, I taught with Cary and Patrick.
We began with "Hi my name is.." and proceeded to cover animals, parts of the body and the object in the classroom. The kids picked up everything so quickly!
It was so rewarding to see the look on a students face when they had remembered a word. At their age, they will definitely never forget this experience and neither will I!
They were so happy to have us in the classroom that when recess came around, they reluctantly went out to play. They pulled us into all their games including a circle game, tag and many more that I do not know the names of. After saying goodbye to the bumbling kids, we headed for our next destination, a school for the mentally challenged.
We brought the group snacks and drinks, which they accepted appreciatively. The school helps mentally disabled locals of all ages, so we were with kids as young as 4 and adults as old as 50. The principal told us about the history of the program and how they assist the disabled. I really admire this man who has devoted his life to helping these people who were greeted us with smiles and were so happy to have visitors.
We then went for lunch at a local place in the "downtown"strip.
After lunch and just hanging out for a while, the Crew had a meeting in which they discussed their goals for the remaining two weeks of the trip.
The group would like to inspire and develop youth leaders in the San Bartolo community and give these leaders confidence in their initiatives.
The Peru Crew will spend their afternoons with the students of the local high school. The main theme of these meetings will be leadership and solving the most important problems of the San Bartolo Community. At the beginning of today's meeting that I attended; the San Bartolo students were asked to write down seven problems that exist in their community. (On seven different note cards.) Then they were asked to pick the most important, least important and the toughest problem to solve. The chosen problems were then put on a board so everyone could compare the choices of the different members of the group. This made it easier for everyone to decide which problem’s should be focused on and addressed first. This is called the “Seven Problems System.”
Both the crew and the local students were incredibly enthusiastic and stimulated when discussing which problems were most important in the community and how to solve them. The kids are open to everyone's opinions and ideas, and this openness will be key when trying to find solutions. I wish the crew and the native students the best of luck in making their community a better place!
Chau
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