Most days if you asked me what I was doing down here I would
happily have a plethora of answers for you.
Usually on Mondays I hop a ride 6km down the main dirt road to another
small town where I help out their substitute English teacher (who has fantastic
English by the way). Tuesdays &
Thursdays are spent in my site at the escuela coplanning & tryinggggg to
coteach lessons. Tuesday & Wednesday
nights I teach a community English class in my site that I love. Sprinkle in there some regional conversation
clubs and planning for JumpStart in January and wah-la, I’m usually pretty busy
and loving it.
But. Then there are
days like today. I woke up at 5:30am
because the teacher said she was going to pass through my town around
6:15am. 6:10am rolls around and I get a
text that we’re actually going with a different teacher at 6:50am. Now, I already don’t do mornings well, so I
was up far too early to just be sitting around.
But anyway, we finally make our way to school and since the teacher is
just temporary for a few more weeks, I’m not trying to do the whole coplan /
coteach thing…I basically just show up and help out anyway I can. Well today that involved occupying the 1st,
2nd, & 3rd graders while the 4th, 5th,
& 6th graders took their English test. When asked what they wanted me to do, the
answer was Jenga. Yes, Jenga. So I took them outside & we played Jenga. Obviously after an hour we got
bored of that & the workaholic in me decided to make them study for their
test. So we sat outside in some shade in
the dirt and I asked them questions that I thought would be on their test and surprise
surprise, they knew nothing. But quickly
it was their turn for the test as I watched over the older kids play kickball
(well, they hit a ball with their hand and there are about 5 bases, but
kickball is the closest thing I can think of to compare it to). I just kept begging them to be quieter, but
apparently I’m the only person who thinks a test should be taken in silence, so
apparently all the screaming wasn’t a big deal.
Perhaps one of the biggest skills Peace Corps is teaching me
is to let go, be patient, and go with the flow.
Sometimes, days like today infuriate me and make me question what the
heck I’m doing down here. But more often
than not, I’m just trying to learn how to do what I can where I can and if that
means spending my day playing Jenga, then I guess I’ll be playing Jenga.
