estrés y éxito

so today was a semi-big day for me. after a few weeks of anticipation, we had the first reunión del club de orientación vocacional (o sea career club) and por casualidad today was also the day of my site visit with the APCD (o sea Associate Peace Corps Director del programa de pequeños negocios), the regional coordinator for ica, and the PCVC (o sea Peace Corps Volunteer Coordinator for el programa de pequeños negocios).

preparation for the career club has been in process for a while and although i had planned everything out, somehow, as always, i end up leaving stuff for the last minute and getting a bit stressed out.

my day:

7.30am to 8 - wake-up and go to the colegio Melchorita Saravia to collect permission slips and to remind the kids from cuarto año de secundaria (the equivalent of junior year in high school) that the first meeting was to be today between 3pm and 5pm.

8am to 9 - sleep

9am to noon - cleaned my room since we were told that the site visit would include a quick look at our rooms, showered, shaved (which is not something i've been doing so often!), breakfasted, and lunched.

noon to 1pm - went to the comedor to prepare materials for the career club -- papelotes (o sea big pieces of paper -- not actually sure what the english translation is) and cut-outs of my hand for one of the exercises we were going to do.

1pm to 3 - went into chincha to print some documents for the career club, to buy tape and markets, and to print out some photos to show everyone at the beginning of the meeting.

at 3pm, i was at the school en punto ready to go. sadly it was just me and Miss Lidia, the English teacher that is working with me on the career club project and on some other things i am doing at the school. thankfully, helping me avoid the potential embarrassment of no one showing up, kids trickled in one by one. at about 3.30pm, we had 25 kids. 33 had signed up when i had gone classroom-to-classroom signing people up last week, but just 16 had turned in their permission slips. thus, i was a bit surprised!

i kicked things off by talking about my life in the united states, showing pictures of washington, then talking about buenos aires, showing pictures of friends, family, and alejandra (sorry 15-year-old grociopradinas, i'm taken jaja).

at that point, my colleagues from peace corps showed up. i introduced them to the class and then alfredo, the APCD gave a short talk on what peace corps is and basically what i'm going to be doing here for the next 2 years (which is now just 22 months!).

Miss Lidia then spoke for a few minutes, talking to the kids on a more personal level about her life and about the three years she spent in the united states. in perú, schools are extremely formal and there is not much one-on-one personal contact between teachers and students. teachers come (or don't come), dictate class, and leave. in the u.s., based on my experience, i feel like kids and teachers are able to form relationships, talking with each other outside of the classroom and just getting to know each other on a more personal level. anyways, Miss Lidia did a great job.

i then had the kids get in groups, having them introduce themselves to one another, talk about their interests, and finally their expectativas for the club (i.e. why they were there). after a few hick-ups (in that the kids weren't speaking with each other!), we got things rolling. after giving the kids a chance to talk in small groups, they came up to the front of the room one-by-one to introduce their partners to the rest of the class. seems like this isn't something many kids are used to, but i think it really helps build self-confidence (o autoestima) in the kids, so i hope to incorporate more excercises like it in the future.

i then talked about the topics we will cover between now and the end of the school year in december and had the kids make a list of rules that they then agreed to abide by. to end the session, i passed out cut-outs of hands to the kids and told them to write in the center of the hand their dream and then in each of the five dedos, a characteristic of theirs that will help them achieve their dream. the kids then taped their hands on the árbol de sueños. i thought this excercise was a bit corny, but it was actually a great success!

after the reunión, my colleagues from peace corps and i had a meeting with the head of the office of tourism in chincha and the head of fovida, an ngo that is doing a tourism project here in grocio prado and chincha. we talked about ways that the office of tourism (dircetur), fovida, and peace corps can work together on projects designed to improve the situation of the artesanos in grocio prado.

needless to say, it was a long, stressful day. but, in the end, it was a successful day! one recommendation the apcd had for me is to slow down, to not try and do everything at once, and to not try to do too many things at one time. i think, the fact that my last "real job" was in investment banking makes me prone to want to get things done quickly, efficiently, and comprehensively. i am realizing that things here in grocio prado don't function like they did at the investment bank. things take longer. and maybe the results and successes are not as concrete as they were at the i-bank. after having pushed really hard over the past couple of days, tomorrow i'm going to try and take it easy. next week, i'll be in lima for the peace corps artesan fair (thursday). on wednesday, i will present during the day of talleres, or workshops, given to the artisans. so, basically, i'll have a lot to do the rest of the this week, this weekend, and next week. should be a great experience -- i'm really looking forward to it!