23-7-2010

Alondra and Lemar´t led the way! They are just the cutest!

José Luis with his chubby cute classmate.

Marcos happily showing the flag of Perú.

Jhonatan paired with Jhosmelyr.

While I decided to take a stroll in the village and tried to get online, I realized that internet has not been available for a few days. Of course, the power cut affected the network and it had not totally recovered yet. So I just wandered around, got myself some snacks and waited for kinder to be off school at noon and pick them up. Surprisingly, they were parading in the village, holding the Peruvian flag. Of course, it is going to be las fiestas patrias (a 2-day celebration of Peru´s Independence Day) next week, and the teachers told them out for a parade/walk while singing a patriotic rhyme. Lemar´t and Alondra led the way, and they were super super cute. Then followed them were José Luis with his classmate, Jhonatan with Jhosmelyr, and the rest kinda scattered around. They were so excited to see me too, and it created a little chaos, as they were supposed to be in line but some ran off to me. So I helped with the order a bit and walked along with them. When they were about to return to school, I said goodbye to them but they looked a bit insecure and almost as if they didn´t understand why I had to go. Separation is definitely hard for them to deal with, and actually for me too.

There is a new activity the volunteers has been doing that we take the nuclear family members (of course exclude the parents) out for an hour, either it be a walk by the river or playing game with them together. The point is to get them together to do something fun as they don´t do so often. The first group I had was a group of 4 sisters, whom are a bit of a problem always. The eldest two were really fussy and kept making negative comments about it. In fact, some of the kids reacted in similar ways. We ended up canceling the session. So I had a talk with Tía Catalina about it, as it was getting a bit out of hand. In the evening after dinner, we had a talk about it with all the kids, and of course I had to use some behavioral technique to make them feel regretted. And we were harsh too as some of them don´t seem to appreciate the things we plan for them. The ambience was a bit tense and many of them looked really shocked the way I reacted as usually I am docile, but somehow we need to make them realize that they need to be considerate to other people´s feelings. Afterwards, an older kid, Alcides, came up to me and made a humorous comment, ¨Tío, tell me who bothered you, and I will go kiss his ass!¨ Of course I said it´s ok. I really hope that they do change their perspectives when looking at things, because they need the right and positive kind of thinking to move on in their lives.