The mayor of my town began his second term on January 1st. With the new term, every in the Municipality and the city seemed to be energized and ready to get down to work. This was great for me and my work.
The mayor asked me to speak at a flag-raising ceremony one morning. The ceremony took part in the central plaza and I got up and spoke for a few minutes in front of everyone. It was a really good opportunity to further my work in the town, because a lot of people knew that a gringo was in town, but didn't know who I was or what I was doing. After I spoke, the provincial governor, a group of artisans, and a group of university students who work with youth all came up to me and expressed interest in working together. I was very fortunate to have this experience, because all though I thought I had already met a lot of people and made a lot of connections, I saw that there were still more people to work with.
Now that my dad is the Sub-Director for Social Development, he has a lot more power to get things done and can help me more with my projects. The first big project we are working on is a Summer school (remember it's Summer down here in the Southern Hemisphere) project for children in one of the poorer neighborhoods of my city - Villa el Milagro.
I am working with an English teacher, Judy, from Villa el Milagro. She is fantastic and has a lot of energy. We want to have four youth groups. One group that does theater, one for art, one for dance, and one for folklore music. We have already started the theater group and now we are collecting kids for the other three groups. I bought some origami paper the other day and learned how to make a paper crane, so I want to do that and a recycled art project with the art group. I'm not too excited about the dance group, mainly because I am a terrible dancer, but Judy assures me that she is a fabulous dancer. The folklore group will be fun. We are trying to get instruments now.
I am also teaching English classes. I have mixed feelings about these classes. On one hand, I feel that English is one of the most effective, sustainable ways I can help my community. On the other hand, I could easily devote all of my time to teaching English, because it is what everyone wants, and ignore other avenues of youth development. This tension became painfully obvious my first class, when 40 students showed up. The next class, 60 showed up. And that's just in the morning section. I also have an afternoon section which is only for teenagers. In that class I have 15 students.
I enjoy teaching the classes, but the morning class, which is 11 and under, can get a little hectic. All the kids are really enthusiastic about learning English so they each ask a million questions. This makes it impossible to attend to all the kids appropriately. I don't want to make two classes because I don't want to devote all of my time to teaching English, so I think I am going to worry less about teaching English in the morning class and just do fun games and projects that involve English. This way, the kids will be more manageable and will learn a little English at the same time.
My afternoon class is great. There are 15 students between the ages of 13 and 18. It is obvious that they really want to learn English and they work hard. I look back at my childhood and realize that if someone was offering Spanish classes for free in my neighborhood during Summer vacation, I would never have gone. But these kids show up on time, pay attention in class, and are actually excited to get homework. I couldn't imagine that happening in the States. These contrasts between American society and that of other countries really makes me wonder what the future holds for The United States.
My movie nights are also going really well. We have moved them from the library to the Municipality (City Hall) because the audiences were getting too big. On the last movie night, we showed Pan's Labyrinth. The kids seemed to like it a lot. However, all did not go according to plan. We had some last minute technical glitches. After running around the city looking for the appropriate equipment, I finally got the movie going (albeit half an hour late).
Besides the Summer school, English classes, and movie nights, I am also going to start working on a community center for youth. I have met a man who wants to work with me and we are going to start planning this week. I'm still not sure if our visions line-up exactly, but that's what planning is for, so I'll see.
I also want to find a way to sell my mom's artisan crafts in the United States and other markets. She makes really pretty, good quality wallets, hand bags, and other accessories, but the local market doesn't offer much potential. I'm thinking about just starting a blog to showcase the goods and take orders. I'll keep everyone updated on that as well.
Thanks for reading!
Chau!
