Peaceful Explorations: Parties and Teaching

What to write about this week? Well last week, my family had a birthday party for my two sisters. They told me about it about two days before, and I already had plans to go to Pana, but they kept hounding me and I was guilted into going. It actually ended up being really fun. It started at 2, and ended at like 6. It was nice just to watch the kids play. I led an awesome game of musical chairs, they really liked it! My host sisters, Andrea and Vivian, each had kids over from their classes, they had their own cakes, and they got some awesome gifts. (I got them each some nail polish!) It was also really nice to be able to bond with the adults in my family. For example, I bonded with my host dad's mom. Who I thought only spoke Quiche. Nope, she speaks awesome Spanish. After an awesome dinner of Tamal and Coke, I crashed into bed.

Let me explain what Tamal is. In other parts of the country and the world, it is called Tamales, but in my family in Santa Clara, it is called Tamal. So you place rice, a piece of chicken, and some sort of sauce inside a big leaf. I can't remember the name of the plant, but I remember what it looks like. (I am being a bad Peace Corps volunteer now, not remembering an important part of Guatemalan culture!) Then they wrap the leaves and cook all the Tamals together. For instance, at the birthday party, they cooked a lot of them. They were put in a very large pot (I probably could have sat in the pot, that's how big it was!). And the pot was placed under the wood burning stove.

Finished product! So delicious!

This week I also had the volunteer leader of Youth Development, Jessica, come and help straighten out my life. She came on Monday, and because of our meeting, I now have a lot of new ideas for the future. Well the reason why I am writing this was I wanted to make a point that I had a great morning, so I can write about my afternoon. So I went to my school here in town, and I had three charlas to give. My charla with Primero (1st in middle school, like 5th or 6th grade) went well, as well as it could go with Primero. Then came Segundo. Ahh Segundo. At this school, there are two classes of Segundo, so I put them together to give them the charla. Well these classes do not like to go into the other room for some reason. Whenever I tell them "Ok, let's go to Segundo B's classroom", they stare at me and each say "No quiero (I don't want to)". This same thing has happened for the past three weeks, so when it happened again this week, I was not going to let it slide. I went into Segundo A's classroom, and told them to come. They didn't. I went back a couple minutes later, and they were just chatting and now staring at me. I told them that "I don't have time for these games" and "I am the teacher, you all are the students" in my strictest, bitchiest voice. I was so mad! And then some of them still wouldn't come to the other classroom, so the director had to come and get them move! The director!

So after 10 minutes everyone was finally in the same classroom, and I could give my charla. It didn't go well. It was a charla on self-esteem, and I was going to do the activity where you have a piece of paper with your name at the top, and you pass the paper around, and your classmates write nice things about you. When I did this activity in middle school, like 12 years ago, I kept it for years. I would look at it when I was having a bad day, and it would help me feel better. Basically, it helped me raise my self-esteem. Because of this, I was so excited to do this activity with my kids. Well the problem was that instead of writing positive messages, some students were writing mean things about one another. I was so disappointed in them and a little in myself. In middle school you already have low self-esteem, now these kids are going to have lower self-esteem, because of what the mean ones wrote, and partly because of me, because this is my activity. I had no way of knowing which kids were the ones writing the bad words, but I would suspect the boys. I had to get some responsible girls to help me cross out words like "Diablo" (devil), and write words like "bonita". At the end of the activity, I gave a small lecture on the importance of being nice to your classmates, and how disappointed I was in the students who chose to be mean. I also said more on the importance of silence and respecting the teacher. It's not like most of them listened, but at least I said it.

This school is my worst, as far as discipline goes, and I have a lot of work to do in that area. Work with the students, teachers, and parents regarding discipline. My time at Catholic school, most notably St. Ann's, is coming back in a major way. While I hated my time at St. Ann's, and I still think that they were way too strict on middle schoolers, it was very disciplined. I want all of my kids from that Segundo classroom to go to St. Ann's and get a lesson in discipline. With homework slips, being quiet, and walking in straight lines. I know that I was lucky to go to St. Ann's, not to say that my Mom and Dad didn't have trouble paying for my sister and I. (It was expensive!) But I did have that opportunity. My parents really cared about my education. Not to say that the parents here don't, but there are different priorities. However, just because I did got to a strict, kind of expensive, Catholic school, doesn't mean that I don't think every child deserves that type of discipline. Especially in this culture, where education isn't has highly valued as it is in the States.

I never would have thought that I would be a teacher in a foreign country. Chelsea, a teacher? The jury is still out on the verdict there. But I am trying my best, and trying to improve my patience with my kids. But it was because of my education and the discipline I have that I was able to get here, and I want all of my students to know that. I didn't fly here with my own money. I flew here because I was qualified, because I had discipline with my studies. (Side note: Whoa, I am turning into my Dad, with the focus on "You need more discipline" and "You need to focus on your studies".)

Here are some pictures from the past week(ish):