The morning began with quite a loud racket in the street at 7 am. We peered out the front gate expecting to find a 30-piece high-school marching band but it turned out to be 3-4 dudes with random instruments out for a morning walk. Of course.
Breakfast was equally interesting. Since today is Maren's and my last day here, Richard bought a duck in town and the host family donated two guinea pigs for today's lunch. The guinea pigs were toast by the time I crawled out of bed, but Yrene killed the duck during breakfast. I really didn't want to watch but it was like a trainwreck. You couldn't not look. My legs were shaky for an hour afterwards, which maybe explains why I had trouble getting going at the job site today.
Sleepy crew
About halfway through the morning, a lady stopped by with some homemade jam for us to try. We found a nice stick to use as a spoon and we all sampled the sugary deliciousness. Gilberto also brought us a bottle of chicha, which really does help when you're working in the hot sun.
Brendan fixes a broken shovel, Ralph tries the jam
Gillie pours chicha for the group
We worked a little longer than usual today and were very ready for lunch, probably because we knew it was going to be fantastic. :-) Yrene had fixed the following for us to eat:
Duck (had duck at our opening meal, quite excellent)
Guinea Pig (my first time, a little greasy but very tasty even though it still had a paw attached)
Stuffed Peppers
Fried vegetable? patty things
So good. What I really wanted after lunch was a nap, but Maren and I were teaching at 2:30 and still needed to plan our lesson. We decided to go for simple repetition today, since many of the kids seemed to speak English but weren't comprehending. For instance, they could do numbers up to 50 but couldn't tell you what 13 was. They were just memorizing and repeating. We also decided that having them draw pictures might help with retention as well, so the lesson plan then became having them draw one red apple, two brown pineapples, three green limes, etc. This way we could kill three birds with one stone: numbers, colors, and fruits.
It took a while for the class to trickle in but we ended up with about 10 kids including a few boys. They loved drawing the fruits with colored pencils, and afterwards we brought out a blow-up globe and I tested them on finding countries, oceans, etc. They really knew their geography! We still had a bit of time left, so Maren drew pictures on the board of things around town: house, tree, bike, articles of clothing, etc. Then I wrote the words in Spanish/English for the class to repeat. Once they seemed to have it down, I erased the words completely and had them repeat back again, without help. Yes, I am a mean teacher. The kids did great! After the lesson ended, they went up to the board by themselves and wrote the words out in English to show Maren and me. I was really proud of them. They are so eager to learn.
Our awesome students
Our lesson ended at 4 pm, which is when Brendan and Claire's class of teenagers was scheduled to begin. The class for very young children didn't start until 5, but many had arrived early with their older siblings, so the community center was quickly turning into chaos. Instead of letting the kids disrupt the next class, Maren and I took everyone - our class and the little ones - outside to learn a game. We taught the kids...duck, duck goose!
I had a rough time explaining the game since I don't even know the Spanish word for goose, but the kids caught right on and had a blast. Actually, so did I. It was so much fun chasing each other around, and the local adults were watching and having a good time as well.
Duck, duck, goose!
Maren and I stayed to help Parker and Gillie teach the 5 pm class. Their lesson plan involved parts of the body, so we taught the kids to sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". I like teaching the kids songs. This is perhaps the one audience that doesn't care that I can't carry a tune in a bucket. :-)
Dinner was on the table when we got home and right after we ate, music started across the courtyard. Carmen, our housemate, turned 13 today and brought over some of her birthday cake to share with us. Awww. Once dinner was over, we decided adult beverages might be in order so Parker and I walked to the store and came back to find a dance party party at the house. I got to dance with the birthday girl! I have noticed (and should have already known this) - people are the same no matter where you go. Thirteen-year old Peruvian girls like to dance and be silly and sing bad pop music, same as American girls. It was really cool to be part of the celebration.
"Senor Brendan" entertains the giggling girls
The whole house gets into the groove
Eventually we let the girls go back to their own party and the volunteer crew hung out around the kitchen table talking and sharing beer. We ended up hanging quite late as Richard brought out his iPod speakers and kept finding "favorite" songs to share with us. He has great taste in music, if not somewhat eclectic. :-)
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