Sunday, June 19, 2011

Day 9 - Happy Father's Day!!!

   We all send a big Feliz Dia de Papa (Happy Father’s Day) to all of our fathers. In fact, all of the kids arrived at Adele’s house a bit early today to shout happy father’s day to me.  It was touching and another example of the thoughtfulness of this group.  The kids looked great after a good night’s sleep.  The host families were very excited to have the kids back, and our group continues to benefit from their generosity.  Most of the families have figured out what the kids like and make that every morning for breakfast. 
   Our work at the school began at 9 am. We moved 40 wheelbarrow loads of dirt into the courtyard of the school after clearing the courtyard of rocks, sticks, and debris. We will plant grass and flowers tomorrow. Our work concluded with erecting one of the A-frames and tomorrow we will erect the other one and pour the concrete. The group broke for lunch, and because today was a special day (Dia de Papa) many guinea pigs were served.  Everyone graciously tried them, but most could not “stomach” eating all of it.  In most cases the families had prepared an alternative option because they expected we would not clean our plates at this meal. We reconvened at 3 pm and went to watch another bullfight.  This one is set up where about 50 bulls are tethered around the edges of a big field and alternate turns in the middle where they fight or simply butt heads.  It was unclear how the winner was determined, but apparently the bull who runs away loses. 
   We dedicated quite a bit of time today to our curriculum. Before lunch, we completed the activity entitled, “Building a Utopia”. In this activity the kids worked with the term utopia in terms of what it means and the biases and judgements that go along with this term.  For example, definitions of utopia include language such as, “imaginary”, “idealistic”, and “misconceived notion”. From that the kids worked with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) and prioritized them in terms of what is most important. The aim of this activity was to (1) introduce the kids to these goals, (2) have the kids grapple with the MGDs while living in a different culture with the assumption that it is different here than in their classrooms at St. Anne’s, for example, and finally (3) contemplate where they fit into this schema. All 10 kids worked together on this activity, which is uncanny because normally groups of this size can’t work together as well as this group can. They used health as the scale of interpretation to organize these goals in order of what is most important. Then, after learning about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they reorganized the goals in terms of happiness. Some takeaways from this were that dealing with hunger is a top priority and then helping individuals get jobs is next in line.
   To end the day we completed the activity “Marketplace of Ideas”, which is in my opinion the best curriculum piece and activity of the trip. To simplify the explanation of this exercise for purposes of this blog, the kids were divided into groups to come up with what their “next step(s)” is (are) in order to sustain the connection and partnership with Ollantaytambo or any community with which they are familiar and/or connected, and they made an action plan to deal with the world’s tough problems.  The three teams were: Papayas, Chichas, and Guinea Pigs.  The Papayas suggested that the World Leadership School be adopted, initially, by 3/4 of the schools in Colorado and the ultimate goal is 3/4 of the schools in the US. The Chichas suggested creating a website (www.authenticperu.com) where crafts and goods from Peru can be purchased by anyone in the world.  The website would include photos, videos, stories, and details about the crafts and the hands from which the crafts come.  The Guinea Pigs came up with the idea “Aqua Dash”, which is a four-mile road race where the proceeds fund trips for anyone who wants to visit a Third World Country and install clean water pumps and filters in communities to provide potable water to communities.  Four miles is significant because that is the average distance that most people who don’t have clean water have to travel to get water. The kids present these ideas to the “marketplace”, which is our group, and get feedback to improve their concept.  They get some time to revise and then “sell” their idea in the market.  The group who sells the most and has the most “money” at the end of the exercise “wins”.  The students came out feeling empowered and with a terrific goal.  Please ask them about it when they return!
  Tomorrow is our last day of work at the school and the last night for home stays.  We move back to the hostel on Tuesday night after our excursion to Machu Picchu. Tomorrow afternoon we will help prepare a feast and an appreciation dinner for our home stay families. It feels good to be wrapping up our experience and sad to leave our new friends.  One student commented tonight how surprised he/she was that his/her host mom would do anything to take care of him. The kids remark that they will miss their families, miss the town, and miss our group.  As leaders, Susan, Angela, Adele, and I hoped for this to be case for each of the kids and we feel very fortunate that it has come to be a reality.  We too are excited to come home and we too will miss how well this group functions and how much joy the exude!






2 comments:

linda said...

You all should be so very proud. I often wonder what the developing world thinks of our great nation and with you as ambassadors I am confident we are well represented and that you will well represent the culture to which you have most graciously been exposed by you host families. Miss you Maddie!

Gregory said...

Guinea pigs, huh? John, did it make you think of Lucy and Ethel???? Sounds like you had a very full day! Missed you so much on Father's Day. We are so anxious to see you. Can hardly wait until Friday. Take lots of pics at Machu Picchu. Love you, Mom & Dad

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