My sincerest apologies to all my loyal blog followers, I realize it's been an embarassingly long time since my last post. You're all either dying to know what I've been up to the past 3 months or you've given up on me completely. Well in my defense we were without Internet at school for most of March and April, and since then my only excuse is I was busy...but I'll do my best to fill you in briefly on all we've been up to lately.
Tacna Highlights March-June:
1. Right before Easter we got to do a really cool caminata (pilgrimage-type walk) from Miguel Pro up to the top of one of the sand dunes that surround Tacna. They do this every year to start off Holy Week, and I thought it was a really cool activity. So on Friday night we all met at school (5th graders up to 5th years of secondary) for a group reconciliation service that ended in a school-wide singalong of "We Are the World" (in Spanish of course). Then we spent the night at school (aka napped for 2 hours on the floor of the teachers lounge) and met up again at 3am to start the caminata. We walked in the dark for about 2 and a half hours, stopping several times for readings/reflections. We reached the sand dune just before 6 and climbed it as the sun was coming up which was pretty cool.
For Easter the following week we had a really nice brunch at our house with our Habitat family (all of our closest neighbors and friends). We don't have guests that often so it was fun to open up our home and share that day with the people who have taken such good care of us down here.
2. I don't know if I should call this a highlight, but on May 5th we experienced a small earthquake. Actually it was a 6.4 but it was short so it didn't really feel that strong. There was no damage but school was canceled for 2 days just as a precaution which meant that we watched all 13 episodes of Glee that are out on DVD and are now OBSESSED. We've downloaded all our favorite songs and have frequent singalongs in our house, and we're already anxious to get the rest of season 1 when it comes out.
3. On May 22nd one of our Mes de Misión students asked us to do a surprise dance performance at her quinceñera party. Cara choreographed a whole mix of songs and we spent weeks practicing in secret for the big performance. It turned out pretty awesome and the kids loved it. I have the whole thing on video so someday whenever I have the time and patience I'll try to post it on here. We've whipped it out at several parties since then so the JVs are becoming quite renowned for our dance moves...
4. For the first 2 weeks of June we had delegates here from USF doing a couple different projects at school. A group of dance students taught lessons in primary using movement/dance, and also organized a little performance at the end of the week for the kids to show the community what they'd learned. They also sent a group from the School of Ed (as well as a professional muralist from San Francisco) to help paint a mural on the outside wall of the school. We had all the kids draw pictures of what service means to them, then the artist helped arrange all the best images on poster paper. A small group of kids colored it all in and put the images on the wall in charcoal, then we all got to help paint it. It turned out really cool, and it was a lot of fun seeing the whole community get involved in the project. They left us with a whole bunch of materials too so hopefully we can paint another one to cover up some of the graffitti around Habitat.
5. We finished our first bimester (quarter) at the beginning of May and now we're already halfway through the 2nd. Teaching is still hard and I have lots to learn, but it definitely feels good to have one quarter under my belt. Everyday I feel a little more comfortable in the classroom and I've learned a ton about what works with different groups of kids and what doesn't. They test my patience all the time (especially my very special 2nd graders) but despite all of the stupid and annoying things they do I really am growing fond of these kids and love working at Miguel Pro.
6. Next week we're going to a big English teacher conference at one of the private language institutes in Tacna and the US embassador is going to be there! We've been invited to a fancy dinner in his honor so hopefully we'll get to talk to him. I'm looking forward to meeting some other English teachers in the area and learning some useful teaching strategies and activities.
So I think that's about it for now. The only other big news around here is World Cup fever. Everybody's talking about the Mundial and the kids try everyday to get us to turn on the TV at school so they can watch (which we did yesterday when the US played). We're using it as an opportunity to teach them our national anthem which Cara and I are hoping to sing at lunes cívico on July 5th (that's the all school assembly we have every Monday morning where we always sing Peru's national anthem). We've got vacation coming up at the end of July after the 2nd bimester ends so I'm hoping to do some traveling, and there will be lots more gringos passing through (family and friends of my 2nd year community mates as well as some former JVs coming back to visit) so that should be fun to keep sharing our lives here with more people from home. Unfortunately for them summer vacation in the US means winter in Tacna and it is getting cold here! I mean it's no Worcester winter but definitely lots chillier than I was expecting, plus our houses don't have heat here so we really have to bundle up at night. I had a nice surprise this morning when I got back from a very chilly run and jumped into the shower only to find the gas tank was empty which meant frigid water-I'm still cold and that was almost 5 hours ago!
Alright I'll leave you with that, and promise I'll try to be better about writing in the coming weeks. Hope all is well wherever you are and I look forward to hearing from you soon! Muchos saludos from Tacna,
Mo
