Meeting the kids

While its the weekend in the US, for the volunteers working in Huaycan we are in the midst of the work week! Our classes are offered from Friday to Tuesday so that we can provide weekend classes to students here. Thankfully I am shadowing the woman who has been teaching all of the classes I am going to be teaching for one week before she leaves (and she is also named Sara!). This allows me to observe how she teaches and get to know the kids before I become the lead teacher for the next four months. I am going to be teaching kids from age 6 to adults and I am teaching in a variety of locations and number of different levels so I am really going to get a wide range of teaching experiences! I am also going to be tutoring several students one-on-one. Yesterday, I accompanied Sara in a Combi (small vans that are used as buses here) up to a higher Zone (neighborhood) in Huaycan. As the van packed with people slowly climbed the mountain, I was glued to the window watching the houses on the side of the road turn to shacks. Zone Z is high up on the dusty mountain and is one of the poorest areas of Huaycan. The classroom where we teach the kids is basically a wooden room with a couple of windows and a single light. This is not a school, but a community room where people meet but it was still a huge shock to see how bare and rustic the classroom is after my experiences teaching in the full stocked, beautiful classrooms of the US. Despite the poverty of this place, the children are filled with life and laughter. They arrived in the classroom and gave us a cheek kiss as a formal greeting (Like many countries, this is a formal greeting). We do an hour of sports with them- playing volleyball and watching them climb up a very treacherous slide that would never pass in the US and then 1 hour of English. These kids were ages 6-9 and very rambunctious, but they are smart and have surprisingly beautiful cursive handwriting. I am definitely going to have my hands full with these kids! One girl brought her dog to the class- I'm going to have to put a stop to that! This morning, I co-taught a class in Zone D, which is in a classroom that belongs to Light and Leadership and it right up the street from our house. This is a very nice classroom with lots of the kids artwork on the walls and lots of school supplies for the kids to use. We had a class of 5 girls ages 11-13 who are very sweet and really enjoyed designing clothing as part of our clothing vocab lesson. They are also very skilled twister players! There are lots of new things to get used to and I am still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I am here in this environment, witnessing a way of life so different from home. However, I am very inspired by all of my fellow volunteers and the people living here. I am already learning so much!