July 12 – July 18
The following is my journal entry from Thursday, which
reflects a perfectly Colombian day – it’s not every day I have a chance to wait
quite this much, have quite this many things cancelled, and am still happy
about how the day went! “This morning, I went to school to find classes had
been cancelled for an assembly introducing each grade’s soccer team. I stayed
to watch and the presentation was very neat, especially from the two 5th
grade classes. Then, I went to Buenavista, which was closed, so I went home. In
the afternoon, I went back to school to find there were still no classes, so I
walked to Buenavista again. This has been a good, Colombian day.”
On a more productive note, on Sunday, I went to my school to
help assemble trashcans made of recycled plastic bottles, which was fun. All
the bottles were clean and about the same size, so we poked holes in the ends
and sides of them and strung them all together horizontally and vertically with
wire to make cylinders in which to put trash bags. We had between 5 and 10
students and we only managed to finish one because they’re a lot of work, but
maybe we’ll make more in the future.
- I went to lunch with a former Peace Corps volunteer who
happened to be in town and that was wonderful! Being able to keep in touch with
former volunteers is awesome and I’m so glad I was able to visit with her and
walk around Santa Marta with her for a while.
- This week, I gave a quick re-explanation of what I do as a
Peace Corps volunteer for most of my counterparts and then we had time to make
materials for English classes for the rest of the year. I appreciate the school
administration’s giving me time to do this, since teachers likely won’t have a
chance to make materials or spend much time just on English class outside of
school.
- After school one day, I walked with a 5th
grader almost to her house near Buenavista, just because we happened to be
going the same way. Talking with her was nice and that’s quite a walk, so I’m
glad I could accompany her. I don’t often feel like I know my students
particularly well, since I work in a bunch of different classes and usually
just once a week with each class, so having that opportunity to visit with just
one student was good.
- There’s a new farmer’s market closer to my school than the
other one. Did I mention how much I love farmer’s markets and being able to
fill my backpack with fresh fruits and vegetables for less than 20,000 pesos?
- I’ve also started taking an online class on service
learning from Roots & Shoots, which is Jane Goodall’s youth environmental
action program. The class is free and I love learning things, so I thought I’d
give it a shot. Hopefully, this training will help me be a better volunteer
here and a better teacher in the future. I highly recommend finding ways to
keep learning things while you’re a Peace Corps volunteer. You’re learning
anyway, just by being in a new culture, and you likely have tons of free time
at this point in your service, so why not take your education to the next level
and actively seek out new things to learn?
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