Is It the Weekend Yet?

Posted on January 24, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I’m exhausted. So far, one of the main things I’m getting out of this year is a massive appreciation for actual teachers. My feet hurt from standing, and I only had 4 hours of class today. My head hurts from thinking and trying to come up with ways to entertain the kids. I’m seriously ready to pass out. Like I said yesterday, the kids are so well behaved though… I can’t even imagine how I would be feeling right now if they were out of control. Some issues come up, of course, but they’re manageable. It’s a beautiful thing.

The morning class today was C4, the oldest group. They’re 10-12 years old, and after meeting them and seeing them work today, I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the projects we’re going to do later on. We did mostly the same thing as yesterday’s class. The paper tower challenge was definitely… well, a challenge… but I was happy because the reason some groups had trouble was because they had big dreams that just weren’t quite realistic. Even though they didn’t “succeed” if you’re just measuring how tall their towers were, they were trying to problem solve and be creative and make their ambitious designs work. The winning team used their scissors as a weight in the base of their tower. Technically, we never said you couldn’t, so it was legal. YAY for kids thinking outside the box!

Coloring their maps and making symbol legends for them.

They also did the same coloring/map legend/giving directions activity as the group yesterday, and everyone caught on really quickly. We had them do another activity outside with a map of the Esperanza de Ana compound. We had some numbers written on the map, and they had to walk from number to number, proving that they understood what the map was showing, and drawing their routes as they went. It’s such a relief when you make up an activity, have no idea how it’s going to go, and everything turns out well! I feel like the kids learned something and weren’t miserable doing it, so it’s getting counted as a win. High standards for success, right?

The afternoon was a whole different adventure. I had an hour with each of the younger classes. Julie’s class has seven 2-3 year olds (C1), and Ligia’s has eleven 4-6 year olds (C2). Julie gets about 15 million gold stars for helping me (and by “helping” I mean basically carrying me because without her I’d be as useful as a broken rubber band – aka still capable of doing something, but only if there’s no other option). In her class, she explained some basics about what engineers do and then we had the kids build “houses” out of those big legos for an hour. That was probably my favorite part of the day because we just played with blocks, and the kids had a blast making crazy structures.

For the C2 class, Julie and Ligia switched places so that Julie could stay with me. We had the kids draw their dream houses after Julie explained that engineers make plans before they get to work actually building things. My two favorite drawings (which I realize now that I should have taken pictures of, but alas I didn’t) were one where the kid put his house on stilts and had a ladder to climb to the front door, and another one where the house was tiny and drawn in the corner, and the rest of the paper was filled by a drawing of a person riding a dinosaur that kind of looked like a llama.

Tomorrow we don’t have any engineering classes to teach because it’s a beach/movie/fun day (that’s the plan for every Wednesday). I’m not sure if I’ll get sent along on any beach trips as an extra chaperone, but I’m crossing my fingers for getting a recovery day and having some time to finish creating our activities for the rest of the week.

First Day of Summer School!

Posted on January 23, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

Happy first day of summer school! This was my first day experiencing a schedule that’s more structured and closer to the school year schedule, though that still has some differences from what we’re doing now. The summer school is from 10AM – 4PM and involves two 2-hour class blocks each day, plus lunch and some free play time. It’s cool because one of the main goals of the summer program is to get the kids to think creatively, so the teachers are all doing interesting things with their classes. For example, the little kids had cooking class today and there are movies and beach trips and science experiments and crafts planned. Heck, if I was a kid, I think I would be all about this summer school.

Our classroom! I didn’t know that we got our own classroom and was beyond excited. How cool is this??

Our morning started at 6:30AM. Julie, Debbie, and I went for another run. I’m impressed that we made it to day 2! Everyone seems interested in keeping this going, so I think there’s a good chance of it happening regularly. The current plan is Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and one day over the weekend. We’ll see! The run was miserable, but it was nice to have some wake up time and run through the neighborhood without many people around.
After we got back, we ate breakfast, showered, had some personal quiet time, and then did a mini staff worship time to get our heads into the right place before starting our days. Then, Debbie and I used the rest of the morning to finish pulling together our plans for our first Mini-Ingenieros class!

We decided that the best way to do the map lesson was to have a big version that everyone could see. I did my best without a straightedge to guide my lines.

We had lunch at 1, and at 2PM, it was time. Eek! Okay, deep breath. I know I keep saying this, but I think it requires repeating because it’s easy to forget when you’re not here. Our class is in Spanish. My Spanish experience is as follows: 5 years in middle/high school (which was almost 8 years ago), 2 weeks in college while contemplating a Spanish minor (the idea was clearly rejected), and about 9 months of semi-consistent Duolingo/reading my old textbooks/Spanish grammar internet searches after I decided that I wanted to come to Peru. In summary: my Spanish is kind of ehhh. Especially when it comes to speaking.

Debbie took the lead on a lot of the talking, which I appreciated. We started out having the kids introduce themselves, and then we talked about what an engineer is (“we” meaning mostly Debbie, but I did say a few words). When we got to our first activity, a paper tower competition, Debbie told me to explain it and she would translate. I felt kind of stupid doing it that way, so instead I decided that I was going to just try to explain it myself. Yes, I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what my brain decided. The result was… well, not terrible at least. I didn’t provide a lot of details, but Debbie and the class’s teacher, Vanessa, were there to fill in the gaps. I felt pretty good about myself actually. I just have to keep pushing, and I know that, but knowing it doesn’t make doing it any easier.

The paper tower challenge went so well! It’s only of those things that I’ve done a million times, generally for some engineering-related team-building activity. Each team gets a few sheets of paper, a 2-ish foot piece of tape, scissors, and 20 minutes to build the tallest tower that can stand on its own. The kids all participated and even seemed like they might be having fun! They clearly put thought into their towers, and I was proud of what they came up with.

The rest of class was spent attempting to teach the kids about maps. We used the map I made on Saturday and talked about what it was showing, colored it in, and then created a key. We also tried to explain how to give directions, and it seemed like the kids were getting it by the end, but who really knows? All in all, I was very happy with how everything went. The kids are, for the most part, well behaved and engaged. I know it’s only day 1, but I’m thinking that this is going to be the case for the rest of the time as well. These are some well-trained kids. Like all kids, I’m sure they’ll have their moments, but they know the expectations and how they’re supposed to act.

Tomorrow is the first day of trying to teach the little ones, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I hope that it’s as painless as today was.

Work on a Sunday

Posted on January 22, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

For the last two days technically being “off” days over the weekend, we certainly did a lot of work. I think that’s the teacher life though. You work whenever you need to in order to be ready for class. Good work, teachers of the world. I don’t know how you do it.

This is the inside of church. Check out that hip LED lighting!

The morning started off with a trip into Lima for church. The church (Camino de Vida) that the team goes to is pretty cool. It was celebrating its 28th anniversary this week! The mood was relaxed and welcoming, the people were passionate, and the music was great. We sang some songs that I know in English which was nice because then I had a much easier time mentally translating while singing (not the easiest thing to do, as you might imagine). Also, the pastor is originally from the US which meant that his Spanish during the sermon was easier for me to understand than if he was a native Spanish speaker (that’s a generalization, I know, but he talks more slowly than a lot of people here and says things in ways that make sense to me). I’d put my overall church comprehension at about 80%, and that’s being completely honest. That was also with me focusing extremely hard and not letting myself get distracted for even a second. If I had lost his train of thought, it would have been game over I think. I’m happy with that though!

We went grocery shopping after church but had to keep an eye on the time because the southbound side of the main highway is closed at 2PM on Sundays during the summer to accommodate beach traffic. People in Lima go south on the weekends to go to the beach which means that the northbound traffic on Sundays is horrible. To try to help with that, for part of the way the southbound lanes are closed to southbound traffic and are used for northbound traffic. That’s crazy! I mean, it certainly makes some sense, but it would have been a big inconvenience for us to have to find an alternate route home if we hadn’t made it in time. I can’t even imagine how much people would freak out at home if anyone even SUGGESTED doing something like that. At 2:05, we drove past all of the police officers who were just about ready to start redirecting traffic. Phew!

During the afternoon, Debbie and I went into Chilca to get the materials prepared for class tomorrow. We’re only teaching one class in the afternoon to allow time for the students to settle in during the morning (after this week, we will have a morning and an afternoon class on Mondays) which is a relief because we’ll have some time tomorrow to do some final planning. We got our maps printed out and then drove around and planned some stops and a route for the scavenger hunt we want to do in Chilca during our second class.

The town of Chilca is behind us in this picture. I’ll never get sick of the mountains in this place!

I’m getting excited about this class! I think it has the potential to be really cool, and I hope that we can pull it off. By “we”, I mostly mean “I”. I’m not worried about Debbie. She is going to take the lead on the explanations since obviously the class is going to be in Spanish, but I’m determined to help out. Hmm you know what? This could be perfect… Probably the best people I can talk to are kids because they’re the closest to my level of Spanish (probably like a 2-year-old kid, that is… they can mostly understand but don’t necessarily talk that much).

Keep us in your prayers (my Spanish skills especially)… I’ll let you know how things go tomorrow!

Chicken and Chilca

Posted on January 21, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I survived my first work week!! Woo! I know, not that impressive considering it was only one day, but let me have this little celebration anyway. Week #2 is definitely going to be much more challenging, so I’m building up my confidence in preparation for that.

Debbie and I planned to go for a run this morning, but our plans had to be postponed when we woke up to rain. Everyone was confused because apparently rain isn’t common here during the summer, and when it does rain, it’s usually more of a mist rather than raindrops. Well, it was definitely raindrops this morning. This is what happens when I try to run… I think that means it’s not meant to be.

Instead, I spent some time getting mentally organized. I made a list of what I want to do each day (go for a run, practice Spanish, read my Bible, write in my journal, etc) and then tried to translate that into a rough schedule so that I can plan my time better. I always run into trouble with trying to pack too much into one day, and often the things that are most important end up getting pushed out because I’m too busy wasting time. I’m turning over a new leaf though! No more time wasting for me!

Feel free to marvel at my Spanish skills. I couldn’t find anything that was exactly what I wanted in English OR Spanish, so I decided to make my own (and swiped some graphics from the Crayola page linked to the left for the sake of time). Those street names though, those are all mine. Bear Avenue? Genius.

Debbie and I met again in the afternoon to try to make a more detailed plan for the first day of classes. We’re going to do some activities with the kids that are focused on maps, discussing what maps show and how to use them. I made a worksheet for the 7-9 year old class (C3) (with some help from THIS Crayola coloring page), and Debbie cleaned up a plan of the compound to do a navigating activity outside with the 10-12 year old class (C4). I’m feeling good about the first class now, so we’re 1/15 of the way there!

We all ended up going for an afternoon run before the sun set. To sum it up in one word: ugh. But we went! That’s accomplishment enough for me. We’re going to try to run 3-4 times a week, and I know that after 2 weeks I’m going to feel exponentially better. It’s that knowledge that will keep me going, but it doesn’t make getting there any easier.

Here’s Chilca, near the coast, south of Lima. We’re located a little bit north of Chilca.

A Catholic church in Chilca that’s located right off of the main square.

For dinner, Debbie, Julie, Eddy (one of the local staff members), his daughter, Dasha, and I went into downtown Chilca. We went to this place that serves “pollo a la brasa” or roast chicken cooked on a rotating spit (basically a rotisserie chicken). It’s considered a typical Peruvian dish and is often accompanied with fries. There are also some sauces involved that vary depending on where you get it (mayonnaise is typical, plus some hot pepper sauce). My picky eater self was happy that the meal wasn’t much of a stretch for my food habits. I did try the sauces though… and decided to stick with the Peruvian “ketchup”. The quotes are required because no one does ketchup like the USA. The stuff here is similar what they had in Ghana. It tastes okay but is just not quite right… It’s too thin, and there’s something about the flavor that’s off.

Look at this place! So trendy. Not shown: the nonexistent 4th wall because when you have bearable weather year-round, you can do things like that.

After dinner, we roamed the streets of the downtown. In general, being here doesn’t feel like as much of a stretch as being in Ghana did. At times, I can even fool myself into feeling like I’m still in the USA… and then someone talks to me, I have no idea what they’re saying, and I remember where I actually am. We went to this new ice cream place (VERY new – they’ve been open for one day!) in town that seriously looks like it could be in the middle of a city at home. Feeling sufficiently stuffed, we loaded back into the Esperanza de Ana van and headed back to the suburbs.

Tomorrow, we’re going into Lima for church. It’ll be my first time seeing the city in the light, and I’m excited! Now I just need to figure out how to fall asleep… Our neighbor is having a party and the music is incredibly loud. Don’t they know that their old person neighbors are trying to go to sleep at 10:30PM on a Saturday?

Let’s Get Down to Business

Posted on January 20, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

After having some time to relax and settle in yesterday, today we got to work! The morning started off at 9AM with a staff meeting… in Spanish. I’m going to put my comprehension at maybe 50%? And if I’m being completely honest, that might be a little high. Either way, I was proud of myself because I at least got the general idea of what was being discussed. I’m sure that more than a few details fell through the cracks, but expectations of my language skills are low, so no one is really expecting me to know much after group discussions and meetings.

The compound is located in a part of town where the properties are bigger and everyone’s lot is surrounded by walls. I never realized how nosy I am until I saw how much it bothers me not to be able to see what’s going on behind the walls. It also makes for a sort of ghost town feeling because everyone is hidden from view.

To give you a better idea of the dynamic, there are currently 5 of us who are from the US: Jim and Tony Kay (the directors who I mentioned before), Debbie (a Penn State architect!), and Julie (a teacher). Everyone besides me can speak Spanish, though they all mostly learned after arriving in Peru which gives me hope that I’ll at least have passable skills by the end of my 10 weeks. The national staff members obviously speak Spanish and have varying levels of English knowledge. When the group is together, Spanish is the language. Even though it makes it much harder for me to have any clue about what is going on, I’m happy that’s the case. It’s forcing me to work on my Spanish, and I can see how much better my experience will be once I feel more confident and can actually communicate back to people rather than just semi-understanding what they’re saying to me.

A five-week summer school is starting next week, and Debbie and I are teaching a “Mini-ingenieros” (mini-engineers) class together. We met once around the holidays when she was in the States to come up with some ideas, and today we had to actually plan out the classes and fill in some details. We have a much better framework now, but there’s definitely still a lot of work to do. To give you the gist, we’re going to talk about urban planning, transition into talking about building types and space planning, and have the kids each design the exterior of a building that takes up a “city block”. The hope is to inspire them to make some funky designs and interesting shapes and decorate them, and afterwards we’ll put everyone’s together to make a “kid city”.

Here you can see the one green part of the neighborhood up ahead to the right. Bright green grass looks very out of place in the middle of the desert!

Part 2 of the class is a robotics project that may or may not go well… Theoretically, we’re going to have the kids build these little, simple robots and then set them free in the city like it’s a robot takeover. That’s the current/still somewhat a work in progress plan, and Debbie and I are going to test build a robot next week. Cross your fingers for us because it should be interesting.
We have two classes of older kids (7-9 and 10-12 years old) and two classes of younger kids (2-6 years old). Obviously the younger kids aren’t going to be doing these projects, and we thankfully have only 30 mins – 1 hour with them each week. We’ll have three 2 hour classes each week with the older kids. The big challenge now is coming up with “engineering”-ish projects to do with the younger kids. Now accepting suggestions…

Besides planning our classes, I got to use some of my technical knowledge today! That was exciting because I was feeling a bit like this whole year was going to be me out of my element and not really using my education for anything. It wasn’t anything complicated, but they’re planning to add fans into some of the classrooms here, and I helped with some electrical investigation and gave a few options for how it could be done. Like I said, nothing too exciting or complicated, but I finally did something that made me feel like my knowledge from 5 years of college and 2 years of working could be useful in this context!

I didn’t do a great job of taking pictures today (aka I took zero), so the ones above are just more that I took while walking around yesterday. I’ll be better tomorrow!

¡Bienvenidos a Perú!

Posted on January 19, 2017November 10, 2020 by Lark

Welcome to Peru! Somehow, the trip here felt like an eternity even though I had a direct flight from Miami. I’m definitely happy that I didn’t have to come all the way from Pennsylvania in the same day… Instead, I flew to Florida a week ago, spent some time with family, and started adapting to warm weather (it’s summer in Peru!). Even without the additional flight from Philly to Miami, it was a long day. The flight from Miami to Lima, Peru is about 6 hours and then I had to go through immigration and customs. It was about midnight by the time we landed, so thankfully there were no lines and I probably got through everything and out of the airport in under half an hour.

Here’s Peru! Lima, the capital, is on the coast.

Someone from Esperanza de Ana met me there, and our connection went smoothly despite the fact that we didn’t know what each other looked like. We were counting on him recognizing me based on my clothes (which I tried to pretend wasn’t stressing me out at all). It all worked out though! See? No need to worry. I have to stop stressing about things that are beyond my control.

The drive to Chilca (it’s on the coast, south of Lima) from the airport was about an hour and a half. I attempted to stay awake for the drive and failed pretty miserably. I did, however, stay awake long enough to decide that I also have no interest in driving in Peru (the same decision was made about Ghana within minutes of experiencing life on the road). From my initial impression, it seems that the lines on the road are considered more of suggestions than anything else. If, for example, you’re on a three-lane, divided highway and the road bends, you can just drive straight and use all three of the lanes rather than taking a turn as dramatic as the road’s bend. I can’t say that I’m a big fan of driving anyway so maybe this statement doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I am absolutely not going to be seeking out ways to drive while I’m here.

We got to Esperanza de Ana probably close to 2AM (my eyes were only half open at this point though, so I can’t be sure), and Jim and Tony Kay, the directors, met me at the gate and showed me to my room. Get this – I get my own room for the first month that I’m here! And after that, I only have to share with one person. AND they have flush toilets here. AND you can even flush toilet paper! AND there are hot showers! AND there’s cell reception! Are you overwhelmed by the luxury? I sure am (no sarcasm… I really am).

Today was a combination of attempting to get oriented and organized and recovered from staying up until 2:30AM last night (what has happened to me? I’m such an old person). Tony Kay and I sat down and went over some information to get me acclimated and up to speed on the organization, and the rest of the day was spent trying to put my things in order, taking a nap, and walking around the neighborhood just to get a sense of where I am.
I’ll talk more later about what I learned today, but for now, I’m off to bed!

Peru, Here I Come!

Posted on January 18, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

After two long, relaxing months at home, it’s finally time for me to get going again! I’m currently sitting in the Miami airport, waiting for my flight to Lima to start boarding.

You may recall that I was somewhat of a mess before leaving for Ghana, and you’ll be happy to know that I am doing much better right now. I am still thinking rationally, I don’t feel like there are multiple Lara’s existing in one body (see pre-Ghana airport post), and while I am a little nervous, it’s the normal, healthy nerves that happen when you’re doing something new.

Beyond that, I’m excited! I’m excited to get going again, experience another culture, and attempt to speak some Spanish. I’ve been working on my Spanish in preparation for this trip, and I’m feeling okay-ish. As far as being able to navigate and understand signs and stuff, I’m not worried. If someone is expecting me to speak, that’s a whole different story. I think I have enough of a foundation to be able to pick it up if I keep working at it though. That’s one of my major goals for this trip!

Anyway, there’s not much else to say, so bye for now. I’m going to organize my snacks and activities for the 6 hour flight ahead, and next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Peru!

P.S. Just a note about contacting me. You can comment here, email me, text me (normal texting will work and you won’t be charged extra), facebook message, etc. I’ll have internet access, and my phone will work (but don’t normal call me… whatsapp, Skype, fb messenger, etc calls are all fine!).

Introduction

Posted on August 10, 2016April 16, 2019 by Lark

Welcome to my blog! I am going to be documenting my yearlong adventure around the world, and I think it will be helpful to start off by catching you up on the who/what/where/when/why details of my trip.

Really, the first question that needs to be answered is why? Why am I doing this?

To put it simply, I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing right now. I love experiencing new cultures and seeing how beneath the obvious differences, people are so similar no matter where you are. That’s where the interest started, and the thinking/planning process since then has been about a year and a half long. For each decision, I prayed and researched and listened and waited until I had that feeling of inner peace that makes you sure that it was the right one. It was a long process, but I’m excited about how the plans developed and how once I was on the right track, all of the details fell into place!

Now for the who/what/where/when…

I am doing four separate trips to four countries – Ghana, Peru, India, and Armenia. Below are the timeframes of when I’ll be in each, the organizations I’ll be working with and their descriptions of their missions/what they do, and links to their websites.

August – November 2016: Ghana – Volunteer Corps Organisation

“Volunteer Corps Organisation is dedicated to building a better world by improving the lives, living standards, education and health care of those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Through affordable volunteer placements in Ghana, Volunteer Corps Organisation offers a unique opportunity for cultural immersion whilst enabling volunteers to share their skills and knowledge with local communities in order to promote self-sufficiency.”

January – March 2017: Peru – Esperanza de Ana [Facebook page]

“Esperanza de Ana provides services that bring guidance and emotional support to children and their families who are facing situations of conflict and personal trauma that put at risk the family unit and the functioning of the family.”

“Our passion is to strengthen families while offering a place of healing for the hearts and minds of each child and parent who has experienced trauma or is suffering crisis. Through the education center we focus on the integral development of each child while we work to encourage parents to value each child and discover their gifts.”

April – May 2017: India – Harvest Bridge

“Harvest Bridge is a network of trusted indigenous churches and missionaries, cooperating on church planting, pastor education, poverty alleviation, disaster relief, and various other missionary and humanitarian programs.

We were founded and continue to grow with few worldly resources. The secret to our success is working through local churches and ministries in the countries where we serve. This leverages the passion, experience, and knowledge of local Christians and reduces the duplication of effort and resources.”

July – September/October 2017: Armenia – Birthright Armenia

“Birthright Armenia was founded … with the belief that it is every Armenian’s birthright to not only see Armenia, but also experience their homeland via an enriching, hands-on, life-changing experience.”

“Our mission is to strengthen ties between the homeland and Diasporan youth, by affording them an opportunity to be a part of Armenia’s daily life and to contribute to Armenia’s development through work, study and volunteer experiences, while developing life-long personal ties and a renewed sense of Armenian identity.”

There is just one more what to be answered, and that is what do I hope to accomplish with this trip?

I know that there’s only so much of a difference I can make with such short trips to each place. Real, sustainable change requires a much bigger investment of time and talents. Knowing that, my goal on this trip isn’t to change the world. Maybe I’ll make a lasting impact on one or two people, but even that isn’t a guarantee.

The only thing I can know for certain is that I will be changed, and I’m going to spend every day experiencing and absorbing as much as possible. I want to learn everything I can from the people and organizations I encounter. I want to live outside my comfort zone and eat at least one bug. JUST KIDDING I’m absolutely NOT eating any bugs. But I will eat new foods and say yes to things that scare me and maybe even get malaria. Most of all, I want to learn to trust in God and go enthusiastically towards the future He has planned for me, even without knowing all of the details.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. – Proverbs 3:5-6

Well, that should about cover it! Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.

Ready… set… time to go pack!