“¿Vives en Huaraz?”

When the owner of the restaurant asked me if I lived in Huaraz this morning, I responded saying yes. After three weeks being here, I have moved beyond the stage of being a traveler.

Now, I live here.

It is not easy to get to know a new city, much less adapt to it. However, in my stay in Huaraz, I have really begun to settle in. I have friends here; I have seen much of the surrounding areas; and I have developed a daily routine. After drinking a coffee at Continental Café, I head to Seeds of Hope for the morning, where I work with twenty students, who are mostly in primary school. Then I take a lunch break, where I typically eat menu at a restaurant somewhere in town, which is a multi-course meal with a drink that usually costs around a dollar. Then I head back to Seeds for the afternoon with another fifteen students that are in secondary school.

The activities Seeds differ depending on the day, but a typical week consists of lessons such as geography, language, math, and science. My role as a volunteer is to work with the students, especially in math and science. I came to Seeds hoping to implement a science curriculum developed by a friend of mine. So far, I have taught two of the ten science lessons that she developed, which include background information, activities, and experiments to explain topics such as static electricity and polarity of water. During the lessons, the students have been able to practice forming hypotheses, doing experiments, filling out worksheets with data, and coming to conclusions. Bringing science lessons of this kind to Seeds is especially important because the kids rarely have contact with hands-on activities that challenge them to use their minds to solve problems. It is true that they may not remember what “atoms” or “molecules” are, but at least they are gaining contact with some scientific concepts and the experimental method, which will surely show up later in their education.

Working at Seeds is very fulfilling, even though it is frustrating at times. Some of the kids are so behind that they have trouble with things like adding and writing, even though they are over ten years old. Linda and Estefani struggle greatly with multiplication, and even though we have tried playing “Bingo” with multiplication charts and using paper cutouts and writing times tables over and over again, they still ask day after day, “What is 5 X 2?”

Other students excel greatly in some subjects and struggle in others, like Marcos, who is incredibly creative, but cannot form complete sentences or use punctuation marks. Then there are kids with family problems that impede learning. For example, yesterday, Yeni showed up at school with a black eye and multiple cuts on her face. After asking her what happened, we realized that she had been hit numerous times with a beer bottle by her drunken father over the weekend. She swore it was an accident, but it was not the first time that she has showed up with similar wounds.

Despite the difficulties we have working with the kids, we feel that we really do make a difference. Sometimes it is hard to see the results of the work, but we know they are there. Communication is a key aspect of my work here, and I have begun to truly appreciate what it can do in helping me learn about the culture. I am speaking Spanish, teaching in Spanish, and getting to know kids in Spanish—I am living my life in Spanish. In the United States, I have held teaching and tutoring positions before, but for the most part I have taught in English. Here, I am experiencing teaching in another language, which is very challenging. Yet because it is challenging, I have had lots of fun because I am constantly learning new words and forms of communicating in order to assure that the kids understand what I mean. The most significant difference about teaching in Spanish rather than English is that I no longer beat myself up over my mistakes. With the kids, I make mistakes on a daily basis. However, they are non-issues—we just laugh and move on.

The most important form of communication here is not verbal communication, but rather non-verbal communication, which happens when I play Ultimate Frisbee with the students or give hugs to kids who never get them in their houses. Also, non-verbal communication is a main component of getting to know a new culture, and in Huaraz, I have learned culture from my communication with the kids. When they want to share their culture, they invite me to city-wide beauty pageants; they invite me into their “gang” for the “water wars;” or they invite me to see them wearing masks and costumes and riding on floats.

While I am here providing lessons in science and math for students with few resources, the students are here providing me with lessons about life in Huaraz and culture in Peru. The relationship I have with the students is reciprocal—we teach each other, and together we are always learning new things.

Until next week,
Anne Marie