So I have just returned from the most challenging 5 days yet in my Peace Corps experience. I traveled about 3 hours from Piura to Los Organos for the Special Olympics with 30 of our kids and 8 other teachers. I had moments of seriously considering walking away from the whole experience as well as some of my happiest moments yet. Despite the roller coaster of the weekend, I am really happy I decided to go on the trip. I learned a lot about my kids, the teachers I liked before the trip I love now, and the parents of my kids definitely see me as more of a professional in the school now. And, it did not hurt to go 5 days without getting whistled at (much) :)
I should have anticipated some rocky moments when the day before we left for the Olympics the following two events took place at the school:
1. One of the kids on my handball team fell through the roof covering the concrete court area at the school. Why was he on the roof? Not because he is a crazy misbehaving teenager, no my friend, he was sent up there by the teachers to retrieve a ball that had been thrown up there while the kids were practicing (for the record, I was helping in a classroom and was not in charge at this point). Anyway the roof is old worn down from the sun, so the kids literally fell through onto the concrete and broke his leg. Needless to say, the poor kid was not able to go to the Olympics with us the next day :( This is appropriate child safety in Peru.
2. The social worker, let’s call her Señora (officially the Social Advisor, but I have no idea what that would actually mean) at the school comes up to me and tells me that instead of being a general helper at the Olympics, and working with the 2 teams that I have been helping coach (handball and gymnastics), I will instead be the official coach for Bocce Ball. She sent me over to talk to Nory who had been coaching the kids; she spent 10 minutes explaining the game (which I will grant is fairly straightforward) and thus I became an official Entrenedora.
- I would just like to mention at this point that I have had exactly 2 conversations with this woman, once she laughingly told me I must have been sleeping in when I came to the school at 9 one day (how dare I miss the first hour when the kids trickle in and the teachers do nothing), and once when she told me to make sure my handball boys did not hit her office door while we practiced… lovely woman she is.
Things did not start off too fantastic when I arrived at the bus station at 10, as I had been told, to find about half the kids there with their parents, and absolutely no one from the school. No one. Most of the parents recognized me as working at the school, and of course all the kids ran up and hugged me, etc so I somehow became unofficially in charge for about 45 minutes until the school director finally showed up. That meant for 45 minutes parents were attempting to ask me details about the trip, give instructions for the medications of their kids, and ask me for my cell phone number to call me to check in on their kids. Mind you, my Spanish is still at a very intermediate level, I should not under any circumstances be in charge of another person’s medication and my phone skills are genuinely laughable. Eventually the other teachers arrived and I could pawn questions off on other people. In a way it was kind of cool to have the parents look to me as a teacher, and I definitely got the impression that the kids I had been coaching had implied to their parents that I was going to be in charge of things, terrifying and inaccurate, but flattering.
When our bus arrived in Los Organos (after some panic about Javier’s luggage having gone missing despite several older kids swearing he had put it under the bus like everyone else) we began the process of boarding all the kids in to mototaxis to get to the school. It was at this point I became aware of what being the coach of the Bocce Ball team actually implied. I was responsible for every movement of my 3 team members. Now 3 kids is not a lot, however Crisitían is the one kid in a wheelchair and Luis is fairly severely developmentally delayed. He’s not the type to wander off and cause trouble, but he’s also not about to do much of anything without explicit instruction several times and a guiding hand. As I am trying to corral the kids with the other teachers, Señora yells at me why I am not helping Cristian get off the bus. I had 2 relatively solid reasons, one being that his wheelchair was still under the bus, and the other being she had assured Cristian and his mom that she herself would be with him to make sure he was ok. Apparently that meant dictating my every move rather than actually doing anything herself…
Regardless, we all eventually arrived at the school and got the kids settled into the rooms. I had been told they would give us mattresses in the classrooms, and apparently mattress and workout mat are synonymous in Spanish… For some reason everyone wanted to shower when we got there before the Opening Ceremony so I had to get my 2 boys ready and walk them over to the showers where Felix (the school maintenance man and only male who traveled with us) blessedly took over and helped my boys. Over this weekend I realized a few things about how difficult it has to be for the parents of my kids. But, I also realized how amazingly helpful the kids are with each other. Because I was in charge of 2 boys who really needed fairly constant help, and we only had one male staff member, I relied A LOT on my handball boys, and they never once said no when I asked for something. Anytime I found myself somehow getting 3 or 4 kids dressed for an activity or reading for bed at once, I could always turn to around and one of my boys would be standing there to help a younger more severely disabled kid find their toothbrush, tie their shoes, run to the bathroom, etc. By the end, they were doing a lot of it without being asked… they were honestly my salvation this weekend. I don’t want to give the impression that the other teachers were not doing anything (a few were definitely not doing anything with the kids, this is true) however, there were also a few girls who needed more constant care, and often they were coordinating food arrangements, etc while I got the kids ready. The teachers I had loved at the school were equally great during this weekend. I definitely preferred the funny hectic-ness of dressing the kids over worrying about the food, so I am not complaining. I just want to note how amazing some of these kids are when it comes to supporting each other so unquestioningly. It reminds you what big hearts they have - sappy but true fact.
The first day of events was preliminaries. I love the Special Olympics for simple fact that it’s rigged so everyone wins. They use the results from the preliminaries to place the kids into groups of 3, and basically everyone gets a medal. Life’s just happier that way :) I began the day practically in tears of frustration when I was yelled at during breakfast (by guess who?) because Luis pushed another student down (random act of misbehavior from a group of 30 kids with special needs, I’m shocked!) and I was told I needed to control my kids. Apparently she is incapable of addressing behaviors that occur right in front of her, but instead must call me over from the other room to deal with the situation… It also did not occur to anyone to inform me that I had to bring anything the kids might need, obtain the schedule of participants and locate the playing field alone. Just a reminder here folks – Spanish: second language, not that great at hearing announcements over a loudspeaker, a little help would be great. At the 11th hour I was given a volunteer to help me all day, and life got much better from this point. I could just be there to support my kids and help wheel Cristian around all morning. The afternoon was awesome because I had gotten the hang of traveling with Cristian, and Edson had officially designated himself as my personal assistant everywhere I went :)
While I was a little hurt that I had been removed as coach from gymnastics and handball (whom I had been helping for the last 2 months) to take over bocce ball, I was happy to be allowed to go back and forth between the two events and take pictures. It was also comforting that Socoro, the teacher in charge of gymnastics wanted me there with the girls and in all the pictures because she knew how much I had worked with them, and the mom of a boy on the handball team insisted the same thing, that I be in the pictures and be around to watch the team because her son had told her I was coaching them (at this point the person in charge of them had changed to many times for a variety of crazy reasons that they always came to me with everything because they just assumed I was still their coach). It was nice to know that even though Señora might have no clue what I did, the kids and other teachers recognized how much I had worked with those teams. When the kids did well, I was usually the first person they ran to for a hug, and that’s a lot better than the respect of someone I never talk to.
Including girls in trampy clothes... the winner is on the right
Violeta with Estefanie Jairo was a little scared of the ocean
With the exception of Señora coming over midway through the morning to question my management of my team, and yell at me for not accusing the referee of favoring another team (seriously, in the Special Olympics?? Seriously??) The second day was much smoother. My boys on the bocce ball team both won gold and Julianna won silver. One of my favorite students, Mayra won the gold in her gymnastics group, Mariby got the silver, and my handball boys got bronze (out of 3 teams competing, but this is a minor detail). Mayra is also going to Lima for the national competition along with 4 other kids.
5 days later I arrived back in Piura with even more love for my students, a stronger relationship with the teachers I liked, a few new friends in the boys on my handball team, a new respect for the parents of my students, a greater respect from them in return, a nearly perfected usage of the imperative form, a renewed appreciation for my shower and my bed, and the habit of speaking to everyone in diminutives (putting –ito on the end of everyone’s names). Overall, it was 5 days well spent.
