You’ll never guess what happened today… we finished wrapping all of the notebooks!!! I seriously thought there was no chance of us finishing before the end of the week, and I’m still not completely sure about how it happened. The total notebook count is 266, and maybe about 50% of those are double wrapped (paper then plastic)… that means that we wrapped notebooks about 399 times over the last 5 days! That’s crazy.
So many notebooks, all fabulously wrapped
The wrapping process was down to a science today. All week, I’ve been tweaking things and working to make them more efficient. Today, we were on a roll. All of the notebooks were already sorted, the labels written, the papers and plastic pieces cut, so the only thing that anyone had to do was wrap! The less thinking required, the better.
By the end, some of the kids were helping, Julie helped me finish up the last few, and I was refusing to stop until they were all done. Those things put together are what made the final stretch possible.
Tonight is a night for celebration! So I’ll be going to bed… Oh to sleep 15 hours, uninterrupted. That would be the ultimate dream right now.
The team’s last day is tomorrow, so we have an action-packed day in Lima ahead of us. As happy as I’ll be to not have to make 6AM coffee anymore, it will be sad not having them around. It’s been nice having some fresh faces around.
Okay… I’m starting to type gibberish. That means it’s time to sleep. Chau!
**This is from yesterday, but I literally fell asleep writing it.
THE ROBOT WORKS!!! This is BEYOND exciting news!! To sum it up really quickly, Tony got the idea that Debbie and I should teach a robotics class, and we gave in slightly and agreed to do one robot project in our class. We found an instructable online that doesn’t require any programming (because that makes things WAY more complicated) and decided that was going to be our project. We brought the motors, wires, switches, and battery holders from the States, figuring that the rest of the parts would be easy to find in Peru.
Meet Buzz the Bot!
That was a bit of a mistake… We have managed to find the essential parts and pieces, but it certainly hasn’t been easy. We eventually tracked down a soldering iron, flux, and solder, but then we found out that the solder was too thick. Debbie bought some thinner solder this morning, and that has made all the difference. We also bought sheet metal here, which they didn’t have at the two big hardware stores we shop at, so instead we were directed all over Chilca to this construction supply warehouse where we bought a piece of sheet metal that is at least 20 times bigger than what we need. Anyway, everything finally came together today, and we finished assembling our robot! We were having soldering issues which were quickly resolved after buying thinner solder. Now it works!! And thank goodness for that because I wouldn’t know what to do to troubleshoot if it hadn’t. The basic description of the robot is that it goes straight, and when it runs into something, it turns itself and keeps going. AND OURS ACTUALLY DOES THAT!! (You can watch a video of it on my Instagram @larakaiserian… If you’re on a computer, there’s a link on the right sidebar. The internet is too slow to directly upload it here.) Debbie and I are ecstatic, even though we still have some logistics to figure out, because we didn’t have a backup plan. No problem though because it worked!! Shopping in Chilca
The rest of the day was pretty cool too. This morning, the team went into Chilca, got split up into groups of two or three, and had a shopping list of items that they needed to find. All of the Spanish speakers (myself included actually) were assigned to groups and told not to intervene unless someone was in desperate need of assistance. It’s a valuable exercise because it helps to give the group an idea of what it’s like to be in a situation where you’re completely out of your element and trying to figure things out without speaking the language. It definitely required some creativity (and charades skills) and confidence to go up to people and sound like an idiot while trying to find your things. If anything, the whole exercise made me realize that I know a lot more Spanish than I thought. I would have easily been able to ask shopkeepers about the things on our list. The groups all did well, and I was impressed with how willing they were to just go for it. Tonight’s sunset
The afternoon was filled with more vinifan-ing notebooks. I’m getting good at it and have my pace down to a science. In about four hours this afternoon, I wrapped 15 notebooks that needed paper and plastic coverings and 10 that only needed plastic. That means, I did 40 wraps in 4 hours, 10 wraps each hour, or 1 wrap every 6 minutes. I had previously estimated my pace at 5 minutes per wrap, and I think that might still be correct because I probably spent about 10 minutes per hour doing other things like helping people, organizing notebooks, cutting paper and plastic in bulk for everyone to use, etc. Exciting because I now know my exact pace… discouraging because at that rate, it would take me close to one eternity to finish all of the notebooks… hopeful because the team is still here, and anything they get done is less for me to do. In conclusion, sometimes it might be better to know less.
Today was so much fun!!! We went on a field trip with the team and ALL of the kids. The morning was the usual: make coffee at 6AM (my least favorite thing to do), run back to my room and pray/read my Bible for about half an hour before I have to get ready and run to the kitchen again to make breakfast for the team (I’m a professional bulk scrambled eggs maker now), eat, and go to worship with the team and the other missionary staff. After that, the day’s adventure started!
Beach organized chaos
We loaded the 50 kids plus the 20 or so teachers, team members, helpers, etc. onto a coach bus, along with games and toys and food and water, and made our way to the beach. That wasn’t the ultimate destination, but we pulled off the highway for a quick pit stop. I thought it was pretty brave of the teachers to plan a “quick stop” at the beach with all of those kids.
The beaches are all so pretty!
Somehow, we got everyone off the bus and down to the ocean where they splashed around for about half an hour before we rounded everyone up again and went back to the bus. Also, when I say “we”, realistically, I played a very small part in making everything happen. My biggest beach duty was making sure no kids drowned, a task made much easier by the fact that none of them went in past their knees.
The pool
The main stop of the day was a pool at this hotel/resort type place in Mirasur. It’s about half an hour south of where we live in Chilca. Once again, my job was to come out of lifeguard retirement and make sure all of the kids stayed safe. I was nervous at the beginning, especially because that’s when kids are a little more rowdy. I had to grab a couple of kids throughout the day and pull them up, but they might have been okay without me. I just wasn’t willing to take any chances, so if anyone looked like they were even struggling, I didn’t give them a chance to keep going on their own.
Me in a gazebo at the top of a mountain
Once things settled down, I had a lot of fun! I swam around with a few kids, helped them with their swimming, attempted to teach Eddy’s daughter how to swim (and speak English… we’re determined to make her grow up bilingual), and got a chance to hang out and spend time with the kids while finally feeling like I was in my element. Time flew by, and before I knew it, it was time for lunch. We kicked the kids out of the pool, changed, and ate.
Isn’t this awesome??
We had about an hour and a half to go before we needed to head back to Esperanza de Ana, so everyone played in the hotel’s big grass field with frisbees, volleyballs, pool noodles, soccer balls, and some inflatables. I mostly spent my time having a frisbee catch with one of the kids, and by the time we had to leave, I was totally exhausted.
Some well-irrigated fields in the middle of the desert
The bummer of the day was that our soldering practice went horribly. We’re trying to get ready for our robot project with the kids, and we’re struggling. One of the guys on the team knows some things about soldering, so we asked for his help. He said that he thinks we have the wrong type of solder because it wasn’t melting as easily as it should. Part of me is feeling like, “Hooray! Maybe we’re not the problem!” and the other part of me is grumbling about the fact that they didn’t give us the right stuff at the store. It’s fine though! Everything will get figured out.
For now, I need to go to sleep before I fall asleep at my computer again… anddd too late… I just did. Okay! But I’m up again and will go to bed as soon as I get this posted.
The last two days have been one, big, notebook-wrapping blur. The team has been working on their service projects, and I’m in charge of the “vinifan” project. Let me attempt to summarize the ridiculousness that is this process:
The notebooks closer to the bookcase are already wrapped. The other ones need to be wrapped. A million notebooks everywhere.
The kids need notebooks for school, and it’s way more than you would ever think that someone might need. A 2-year-old needs 2 notebooks. A 4th grader needs 13. A 7th grader needs 17. What the heck are they doing with 17 notebooks?? Well, that’s beside the point. Each notebook is for a specific subject (geometry, arithmetic, algebra, etc. – even though those are all math, they all need a different notebook). There are a bunch of different line types in the notebooks – graph paper, blank, lined, 3-lines, bigger squares, even bigger squares, bigger 3-lines, etc., and each subject needs a specific type of lines and a specific color. Each notebook also has to get covered with plastic (vinifan is the brand of the plastic) to protect it. If the notebook itself isn’t the right color to begin with, you need to first cover it with paper that’s the right color and second cover it with the plastic. They also all have handwritten labels that have the subject, kid’s name, grade, and school written on them. I think that we have about 24 kids that we are wrapping for, and they range in age from 2 years to 8th grade.Sunset!
Does that sound like a very complicated situation for some school notebooks? The correct answer to this question is “yes”, by the way. We figured out a system yesterday, after a little trial and error, and it ended up with me writing all of the labels, picking out notebooks, and leaving a note if their colors needed to be changed. I had volunteers assigned to me from the team, so at least I wasn’t doing it alone. By the end of the day yesterday, I think we had only done about 60, and we have over 200 to do.
The last two days have basically just been hours and hours of wrapping books in plastic. Actually, I spent most of my time writing labels. It was a fabulous moment when I finished writing and my hand could finally relax.
The team sang a couple of songs at church tonight!
Tonight, after dinner we went to the church where the kids are taken during the school year. The music was really fun and upbeat, and I knew some of the songs in English. The sermon was also really well done. Dina was translating it, so it wasn’t that hard to follow, but I tried to translate the Spanish and then only count on her for help when I definitely couldn’t figure out what was going on. I’m going to put my comprehension level of that service at about 85-90%. I’m definitely improving!!
I’m exhausted and have to wake up at 5:45AM again to put the coffee on before breakfast, so ciao for now!
Secret beach! El Boquerón. I love the view of the buildings in the background.
Despite losing a Sunday of personal time because of the team’s arrival, today was a great day! Since the team is here, there’s a whole plan of things to do and see to give them a picture of Peru and its culture. They’re all things that I haven’t done yet either, so I’m totally fine with being responsible for a couple more things over the next few days if that means I get to do all of this stuff with them! Here’s a view looking towards the direction of the ocean. You can’t see through the tunnel from this angle, but it’s a little bit out of frame to the right. My responsibilities over the next week include making breakfast each day (putting out cereal and milk, making coffee, cutting bread, and scrambling an incredible number of eggs), so I headed to the kitchen around 8:15 to get it ready for 9AM. I can now say that I have scrambled 35 eggs at once! Life skills, right? After breakfast, we had a little community worship where Jim and Tony talked about how they ended up here and Jim gave a mini-sermon. Then, Debbie walked everyone around the property and explained what the ministry does (which yes, I know I still have to write a post about more of the details of that… I’ll do it soon! It’s good that I waited though because I’m still learning more and more about how things work every day).
The coolest part of the day was going into Pucusana for lunch! Pucusana is a fishing village that’s only about a 10 minute drive (if that) from where we live. We had lunch at a restaurant right next to this place where there’s a tunnel through a hill that lets ocean water pass into a little beach area. I liked watching the waves come out of the tunnel, wash over the rocks, and fill the pool that creates what feels like a secret beach (besides the fact that it’s clearly not a secret, but that’s a minor detail).
The cancha (to the left) and lomo saltado (to the right) For lunch, I had lomo saltado. It’s another typical Peruvian dish and is a beef stir fry served with rice and french fries. The stir fry included beef, onions, tomatoes, and maybe some kind of pepper? I’m not the best at identifying foods, but I think that’s right. They also put out cancha as an appetizer. It’s a popular snack food here and is supposedly similar to corn nuts, but I can’t confirm because I don’t think I’ve ever had corn nuts. It’s definitely not exactly the same though because the corn here is different from the corn at home. It’s called “maiz chulpe” and has massive kernels… like nickel sized probably. The texture of cancha is baffling to me (my mouth can’t figure it out), but I think Debbie nailed it today when she said it’s like inside out popcorn. For the seasoning, I think it usually just is cooked in oil and has salt on it. Debbie, me, and Julie pre-boat ride
Our post-lunch activity was a boat ride around Pucusana Island. There’s not much happening on the island, people-wise, but there are a bunch of animals hanging out there. We saw sea lions, penguins (!!!), starfish, some birds that I should remember but don’t, and a few other things. We also saw a lot of yachts and rich person vacation houses. There was one that had part of the house next to the bottom of a cliff, another part at the top of the cliff, and an elevator connecting the two. There are also a few beaches which were completely packed. I’m really glad that I got to go on the boat ride. It was interesting getting to see everything from the water! Sea lions napping in the sun
How cool!!!On the right side, you can see the house I was talking about with the elevator!More houses in the hills.This person has some serious landscaping… A speck of green in a sea of brown, brown, brown. It looks like it got plucked out of somewhere else and plopped down here.Boat gas station!
When we got back, I spent some time attempting to build a practice robot for our class (let’s just say it’s still a work in progress) before Julie and I had to get dinner ready. We made pasta salad for the team, and I was totally lost. “Pasta salad” isn’t even in my vocabulary. Why would you take the perfection that is pasta and sully its reputation by associating it with something like salad?? Sorry, side rant. Anyway, like I said, pasta salad = not really my thing, but I think it turned out fine (thanks to Julie and her exceptional dicing skills). At least all I have to make for the rest of the week is more scrambled eggs! That’s something I can handle.
The mission team arrives tonight, and they’re going to be here for the next week. Since we’re going to be running around the entire time they’re here, Debbie decided that we should have a “mandatory fun” trip to the beach. I needed some convincing, mostly because I can’t stand sand, but she promised that I would have a chair to sit on (since I refuse to lay on a towel… too close to the sand). I was a little skeptical, but we ended up having a really nice morning. We mostly just sat, read, and got sunburns (yes, we did put sunscreen on… no, we didn’t reapply). The beaches around us are beautiful. They all have big rocks and cliffs and millions of little crabs with those stick up eyes that you see on crabs in cartoons. Giant flower pot in your parking spot? No problem, just park next to it. No matter if you’re half in the street because everyone else is too.
On the way home, we went on a big quest/adventure to find sheet metal for the robots we’re going to make in class. Eventually, we found our way to a construction material warehouse. We only needed a small piece of sheet metal, about 20”x10”, but of course they only sold it in sheets that are something like 4’x8’. Sooo now we have a little extra sheet metal and zero ideas about what to do with it. More beach awesomeness When we got back to Esperanza de Ana, it was supposed to be time to take showers and get back to work. I had some trouble motiving myself, killed a lot of time before my shower, and ended up being ready to do work around 4:30. Our big task of the day was to build a sample robot for our class, and I completely failed… not because I messed it up but because I didn’t actually build anything. I didn’t know where all of the materials were, and Debbie was in a meeting so I didn’t want to bother her. Yes, I’m making excuses because if I had actually stuck to the schedule, Debbie would have been able to help me. Instead, I just gathered together the materials I could find, and spent most of the rest of my time until dinner reading about Spanish verbs. But really… How cool is that?
Now, my eyes are fighting to stay open (I’m starting to feel like I should be getting to bed much earlier each night…) even with the ridiculous club music that the house 2 properties down is blasting. This is great though. If I keep having exhausting Saturdays, I’ll never have any trouble falling asleep through this ruckus. A very small silver lining…
Time moves incredibly quickly here. I wake up, I blink, and it’s time for bed. That’s a good thing though, right? That means I’m keeping busy at least. Ha… as if that’s something I was worried about. The fact that I go to bed every night with a list of things to do the next day is enough to prove to myself that I have plenty to do. No complaints about that though! It’s nice to feel useful.
This isn’t a great picture (because I took it from the parking garage so there wasn’t much choice), but you can see enough. I love how they build houses and buildings all over the hills and mountains here. It looks super cool! I don’t completely understand how you get anything to your house, but that’s beside the point.
I didn’t write yesterday because I was exhausted, and nothing very exciting happened. Debbie and I went shopping to get food and supplies for the team that’s coming this weekend. Six hours and 230 eggs later, we were back at Esperanza de Ana, nearly ready to collapse… and then we had to prep for class today. So yeah, needless to say, I didn’t really feel like staying up even later to write something.
Origami time!
I’m falling into a nice pattern of life. I love routine, and that part of me is thriving here. I wake up around 6:30AM, and by 9AM, I’ve already: either gone for a run (MWF) or just vegetated in bed for a little, spent time reading my Bible/reflecting/praying, eaten breakfast, and gotten ready for the day. From 9-9:30AM, we have community worship (me and the missionary staff – Tony, Jim, Debbie, and Julie), and after that, the day is nonstop.
Starting to work on their models.
Debbie and I usually have some prep work to do from 9:30-11AM, class from 11AM-1PM, I help with lunch at 12:30PM, lunch is from 1-1:30PM, prep again from 1:30-2PM, class again from 2-4PM, pull myself together from 4-6PM (more prep/other things I need to get done), dinner from 6-7:30PM, and then maybe work a little more/practice my Spanish (I have a lot of children’s books in my room right now)/journal/blog. And then I go to sleep for what feels like 10 seconds, wake up, and do it again.
Last night we had to cut some foam board for class today. It reminded me of late nights in studio in college. It’s a little funny that Debbie and I can totally relate because our experiences were so similar, but our majors had such a rivalry in school.
Today we thankfully only had a morning class, C3 with Vanessa. The kids are starting their first big project, making a “kid city”. We started off the class with some origami to get the kids thinking in 3D. We weren’t sure how it would go, especially since this class can get a little out of control, but the kids were into it! They got so excited when we finished and they all had little foxes that they used to nibble on each other’s ears.
After that, we transitioned back into talking about cities. We listed out some building types again and had the kids draw numbers to find out what building type they had. In an attempt to spark some creativity, we pulled together a few of our favorite/wacky buildings to show to the class. We don’t want them all making buildings shaped like boxes, but for some of them, that’s the only kind of building they’ve seen. It will be interesting to see what we end up with!
I think Tuesdays might be the most exhausting day of the week. I have 4 hours of classes on Tuesdays, which is also the case on Mondays and Fridays, but Tuesday afternoon includes the two little kid classes (C1 2-3 years and C2 4-6 years). I’m wiped and really need to get to bed, so I’m going to keep this short(er) and put in a few more pictures.
Working on their cities
The morning class was with C4, Ingrid’s kids. We had them do the same activity as the C3 kids yesterday, making their own city “maps” and including a bunch of different building types and other things that make up a city (roads, rivers, bridges, walls, etc). The kids have been so awesome with all of the activities we’ve done so far. They’re being creative and producing some really cool stuff. I’m excited to see what they create in the coming weeks, once we start building models and doing more interesting projects.
This was one of the more detailed ones in the class. How cool is that??Hard at work
Lunch today was one of my favorites so far, Ají de Gallina. Debbie and I met once in the States when she was home for the holidays to talk about our class, and she made a Peruvian dinner… yup, you guessed it – Ají de Gallina. That was my first exposure to Peruvian cuisine, and I think it might have a special place in my heart because of that (and also because it’s good). Here’s an attempt at an explanation… I’m going to try to get this right. There’s a bed of rice and lettuce, a thick sauce on top that is made up of chicken that has been boiled and shredded plus some ground yellow pepper and other things, a hard-boiled egg, and potatoes. I don’t know how to describe it beyond that, so the picture is just going to have to be enough.
The sauce looks a little weird, but just trust me when I say it’s good!
After lunch, Julie and I attempted to wrangle the little kids. We decided to do an activity with crayon rubbings of different objects to explore texture. Yes, I know… not the most “engineering” like, but it’s hard to find stuff that will entertain the kids in this age group. For the youngest group, we just showed them what to do, dropped a bunch of objects on the table, and helped them scribble all over their papers. For the older kids, we drew shapes on the papers, had them do the different rubbings inside the shapes, and then cut them out and made a picture. Shockingly, this managed to amuse them for a full hour, and some of the kids got really excited about it, running around trying to find other objects in the room that they could use for cool textures. Nice! Today was definitely busy, but at least it was a busy day with lots of successes.
The fact that this many of them are at the table is a miracle.Getting the chair texture
I couldn’t get over how well they were doing! Very engaged and attentive!
I can’t believe it’s only Monday. The whole “work every day” thing is starting to mess with my head to the point where I have no idea what day of the week it is anymore. It’s like I’m back in college again, and that’s an experience I vowed to never repeat. When we finally get to a day when I have nothing scheduled, I’m going to need to do some hardcore vegetating (preferably on a couch with a blanket and snacks) to make up for all of this go go going.
The winning tower. It was exactly my height 5′-7″ (170 cm), and I was terrified that it was going to fall on me when I was measuring it.
The kids doing a team building activity where the ground is lava and you can only stand on the bricks to get from the start to the finish.
We had Ingrid’s group, the oldest kids, for class this morning. Debbie had to bail on me to work on a time-sensitive project, so it was just me and Ingrid trying to manage the class. That’s great, except that Ingrid and I have some communication issues (aka she only speaks Spanish, and she speaks really quickly which makes it even harder for me to comprehend). Debbie explained some things to Ingrid ahead of time, but we still had to work out a few kinks during class. That consisted of Ingrid asking me things in Spanish, me squinting at her like I was brainless, her repeating herself, me responding with something that may or may not actually be relevant, her giving me a weird look, and me resorting to miming and charades (luckily, I’m a master of charades). To say that things went smoothly would be an outright lie, but I think I can honestly say that things went okay. The kids finished all of the challenges way more quickly than anticipated which left us with a bunch of extra time at the end, and we just gave them some free time to play until lunch. Working on his map… Check out those road lines!
After lunch, we were back with Vanessa’s kids. Thankfully, Debbie was back. We talked about what kinds of things there are in cities (building types, roads/parks/plazas, rivers/hills/mountains, etc), looked at some examples of cities around the world (in video and photo formats… never have I ever before watched so many drone videos), and had the kids draw their own “maps”, including some of the building types we talked about, plus roads and a city border. Some of them took a little coaxing to get involved in the activity, but for the most part, they did a great job and came up with some cool drawings. One kid drew his dream beach house on one side of the paper and his city on the other, with a road connecting the two. Another kid got so detailed that he even put yellow lines in the middle of the roads. Hard at work!
I was feeling pretty wiped after classes, but instead of having the usual free time before dinner, we had a meeting (Tony Kay, Jim, Julie, Debbie, and I) to talk about the service team that’s coming down next week. Esperanza de Ana, like many other international ministries, gets teams coming in from the US for weeklong service trips. I really appreciate the way those trips are approached by the team here. Often, weeklong trips are not very successful at utilizing the skills of the team members and filling a real need of the ministry. Here, everyone puts a lot of thought into how the team members will spend their time. They take an inventory of skills before making a plan and then try to come up with projects that are necessary and utilize people’s talents.
That’s all beside the point though. The point is, we all have a lot of extra things to do this week and weekend, plus next week, in order to make the whole process go smoothly. My biggest responsibility is cooking for the team. Luckily, since Delia (the chef) is here during the week, that only consists of one dinner and making scrambled eggs in the morning. I can definitely handle that.
For now though, I need to get to bed. If I’m going to survive the next two weeks, I have to take advantage of every opportunity to rest.
It’s starting to seem like we have a seven-day work week here. I don’t think there’s been a single day since the very first day that I didn’t do something work related. I’m happy to feel like I have plenty of things to do here and am being useful, but at some point, I’m going to need a day off. For now though, everything is good!
It is somewhat of our own doing because our work on Sundays has been class prep for the week, but there’s just too much to do the other days. I am definitely understanding the first-year teacher struggle of having to plan your curriculum for the first time and start from scratch. Thank goodness I have a co-teacher! It makes a HUGE difference to have someone to bounce ideas off and to know that you don’t have to come up with everything yourself.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. Today wasn’t a work day from the very beginning, at least. We started out the day by going to a new church in Lima that Debbie wanted to check out. It’s a Christian and Missionary Alliance church, which is the same alliance that my church at home (Citylight) is a part of. I liked it there, but I did have a WAYYY harder time understanding what the pastor was saying. He spoke much more quickly than the pastor last week, and I’d have to put my comprehension at 50% at best.
One of the breaches we drive by on the way to and from Lima. I love the big rocks out in the water.
By the time we got back from church and grocery shopping, it was about 2:30, and Debbie and I took a little time to pull ourselves together before sitting down to figure out our classes for the week. We came up with a general plan for the week first and then made a detailed outline for the class we have tomorrow. We’re talking about urban planning and building massing this week, and the kids are going to use all of their newfound knowledge of maps and cities to create a kid city for their first big project.
It took us about four hours to come up with a plan and gather the materials that we’re going to need. Totally exhausting. Fingers crossed all this planning means that things will go smoothly in class!
The neighbors are blasting music AGAIN tonight. Debbie said that last night’s party went until 5AM! The only thing making tonight slightly better is that it’s Peruvian music rather than the party/rage/electronic dance mix playlist they were using last night. I think I’ll be able to convince myself to fall asleep relatively quickly even with the extra sound (my eyes are trying to close already, so I think we should be good).
