I don't care about money, I just want to BE WONDERFUL- Marilyn Monroe: Epic Peace Corps Day

Wednesday: January 11, 2012

While I am happy pretty much all the time here, there are certain days in Peace Corps that are just really great. Days where people come to things you plan and nothing falls through and life just overall feels better. Today was one of those days. Whenever a day like that fall on me, I feel like writing about it.

From what I've noticed, there are certain components that turn otherwise normal days into epic days. These are as follows-

1.) A successful class or presentation with excited participants.

2.) Surprises of the pleasant variety.

3.) A Visitor, or two.

Today was great and I will tell you why. But I am exhausted and am thinking in short bursts right now so please bare with me.

Reasons why today was awesome-

My English class size has tripled. On day 1 I had three students. Day 2 brought four. Today I had fourteen.

My art class went from seven kids to twelve.

I now have my own classroom (with my very own key!) to use for all of summer break. No more stuffy sessions in the library without a chalkboard :)

Art class today was the best one I've had so far, both in numbers and contentment of the kids. It's only the third one though, so maybe I'm getting a little too excited. Any any case, the kids loved the project which made the class super fun for me. I had them draw caricatures that they made by blindly picking a little head, pair of eye, nose, and mouth that I had printed and cut out for them to mix and match randomly. They were really into it and it was cool to see them laughing and having so much fun with it. They were joking around and sharing pieces, getting along, coming out of their shells and having fun. So great! Not sure how I'm going to follow that up. My favorite part about it is that it wasn't even my idea. One of the students, a 12 year boy who is really great when it comes to drawing, suggested caricatures when I asked what they wanted to learn when we started the class a few days ago. Their ideas are better than mine and that is fantastic. If I've learned anything recently, it's that I don't think like a 14 year old anymore. I know, that might be shocking to some of you, lol. So to keep having successful classes, I need to figure out how it is that they think again. But today was a good start and a fun class.

Item one on the awesome day checklist: Complete

Before this class happened though, another item on my epic day checklist was knocked down. Shortly after lunch as I was getting ready for the art class, Maggie came to my room and told me I had a visitor. I don't have a lot of local friends that would visit me... 'a lot' in this case meaning 'any at all.' So this idea of me having an unexpected visitor was confusing. I thought maybe it was some parent asking about the classes I am teaching now, or one of the kids from my classes stopping in to say hi. But she went on to say that it was my friend from Sausal... a neighboring town where Matt used to live. Matt's in the States right now, so it couldn't be him. Odd. I went outside to investigate and found Matt's good friend from Sausal outside our gate. Love it. I've hung out with him on a couple different occasions with Matt and a bunch of other gringos and really enjoy his company. I never expected him to show up for a surprise visit though, so that was fun. He was in town on an errand that required him to wait around for a few hours, so he figured he'd ask around on where the gringa lives and swing by to say hi. It was nice. We had some mango and good conversation, then I made my way to the afternoon class. Even though I'm not sure if I can claim his as a friend, as opposed to a friend of a friend, it still feels nice to have someone stop in to visit me. Perhaps I'm on my way to making my own local friends my age... it's on the list of goals. So far most of my friends in Ascope are children or elderly neighbors. I'll keep you updated on this one.

After art class, I walked home feeling pretty good. On the way, I took a side street that I usually don't and walked past a house with an open door. In the doorway was a small case full of alfajores and nothing else. This was not a bodega or a restaurant, just someone's house. And here we have one of the many reasons why I love Peru. I knew that if I stood in the doorway long enough, a nice lady would come out to take 50 centimos from me and give me an alfajor, even if they weren't for sale. But because of their placement and position, I knew these were for sale and I knew they were fresh. I was right about all of the aforementioned and my afternoon treat was delicious.

Upon my arrival back at the homestead, I discovered that my host brother, grandma, and aunt had all returned from Cajamarca where they had been since mid December celebrating the holidays with relatives. They brought with them Tio (Uncle) Felipe, who owns a bakery and was for many years a farmer. After the initial round of welcome home hugs and souvenir sharing, I was ushered into the circle to sit and visit, chat, and eat fresh bakery products. I really enjoyed talking to Tio Felipe. Mostly because of our first interaction. It went something like this-

Tio Felipe: What state are you from in the US?

Me: Wisconsin

Tio Felipe: Have you ever been to the World Dairy Expo?

What the hell? A Peruvian who knows what, where, and when the World Dairy Expo is? This is a magic day. He went on to tell me that he has friends who have been to this event and that he has always wanted to go himself. So crazy. We went on to talk about farming and all that it entails for about an hour or so until we were enveloped in a cloud of ashes from the sugar cane that was being burnt across the way and I chickened out and went inside to watch Chavo with Piere. For the record (and if you're reading this, you already know this next little factoid), I am not a good person to talk to about farming. I can hold my own, but I kind of wish I had Bill or Dad or Marty around when they start asking questions like, "How many liters of milk does each cow produce on average there?" Hell if I know. Shortly after the sun went down, my host dad came in the house to get me because he wanted to show me the fire from the sugar field, which is actually really pretty at night. I resumed my spot in the circle, ate some more baked goods and generally enjoyed a really nice night. The moon was great last night. Magic day, I'm telling you.

Dinner followed which brought some more good conversation and family story time. I realized then that I missed the family members who were gone without realizing it until they were back. That's a nice feeling. It's good to have them back. Julie even bought me a really cute little purse that is very very Peruvian. I've been wanting one of those. And Betty got me a little stone elephant pencil holder. So sweet of them.

So about the checklist-

Visitors? Two of them!

Surprises? Alfajores, visit from Sausal, fresh baked goods, souvenirs, elevated class sizes, etc.

I love today. Epic Peace Corps day.