Our second week of teaching was very good and much more consistant! It feels as though we have a really good routine going now. All of our classes have a steady core of students and all classes now have a nice steady minimum. Our 7-9 year old music class averaged 20 students this week, followed by our English class (11 students), 4-6 year old music (10 students), and 10-13 year old music (8 students). Our 4-6 year old "weekly average" is based on 4 days because on Monday no one showed up. Our supervisor apparently had forgotten to tell anyone about our new class time. We changed the time so that we would be back to back with the 4-6 year old volleyball group, so on Monday I went down to their class during the end of their period and made a recruitment speech to the parents. The next day we had 9 students! The previous week we had 4-6 most days.
Our supervisor, Johnny, is very curious about us. On several occassions after our last morning session, he hung out with us to converse and ask questions. He´s been so encouraging and supportive of our work here and asked us if we can come back every year for their summer program! He said that sports programs are very strong here, but there is not much music programming or music education. (I think the one exception to this would be folk dance. There are many folk dance clubs in Peru and many different types of folk dance.) He's not sure how we got here or why, but he said that he believes that we "were a gift from heaven." That huge big warm fuzzy should last us awhile. :) I explained to him that our reasons for coming were many. We wanted to get a new world perspective, we wanted to learn about the Peruvian cultures, we wanted to improve our Spanish, and we wanted to volunteer and teach music to children--all of which come out of our faith.
Johnny´s response to this was that Peruvians would never do this and that it boggles his mind that we would leave the U.S. for a year and spend all this money to volunteer. He said that he's gotten very positive responses from parents and that one comment he hears is that "this family from the U.S. is different" and is doing something that is "muy bonito" (very lovely). We were with a program in the Galapagos in a community that was used to volunteers, we were a bit less of an oddity. But now we are in an area that gets very few international volunteers like this (especially in the area of education). I guess a family from the U.S. going around and teaching music in Spanish in Peru for no pay is a very counter-cultural thing. The fact that the lead teacher (me) is male is even more odd because most teachers at the primary/preschool level here are female. After 5 months of being in South America, being odd is nothing new and is something that we are now accustomed to. Being "gushed over" by Johnny is a bit new for us, but I must admit it is definitely a nice feeling and it is very affirming. I think we are supposed to be here. :)
Our household changed drastically this past week. We went from being a family living with a "host couple" to living in a hostal with 6 other foreigners! Our hosts, Rosa and Luis, are seasoned hosts and host parents, but worked their tails off during the past 2 weeks to increase their housing capacity. They moved their bedroom to the top (3rd) floor, to which they added walls and a roof since we´ve been here and they did some major clearing out of their first floor to make more usable space. The six foreigners (also from the U.S.) are all with the same NGO organization,which is focused on public health and healthcare. 4 of them are only staying for 5 days, one woman for 3 weeks, and one guy 3 months. One is between med-school and residency, one is applying for med-school, one is in residency, and the other 3 are studying public health (although one of them is a veterinarian). Luisa has complained some about the extra noise at night, but with most of them being here a short time, it will be a short-lived challengee. We are just happy to have a nice place to live and everyone is kind, but after 5 months of living with others, we will be happy to be living on our own in Cusco.
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