For the rest of our first week at Katitawa School, Eric continued with the manual labor (or "trabajo duro") of leveling off the front school yard, planting new grass and pouring some new concrete edging to finish off the path. After my day in the library on Tuesday, I headed up to the school for a bit to help with the concrete, just so I felt like I accomplished something that day.
On Wednesday afternoon I was recruited to help out with the Pre-Kindergarten/Kindergarten ("niñitos" or little kids). I had already signed up to help with the niñitos for the full day on Thursday, so I thought that just the afternoon would be a good introduction. I entered the class after lunch. The teacher went into one small corner area with some of the kids to read a book, one of the mothers who sometimes helps sat with her kids and some others doing something else, and I sat near some kids on the floor and tried to get them to do something other than stare at me.
"Hola./Hi." Blank stare. "¿Como te llamas?/What's your name?" Blank stare. "¿Puedo jugar contigo?/Can I play with you?" Blank stare.
So I just started playing with some blocks and making faces at them. Eventually one little girl, Sintia (Cythia), asked me to help her make some boxes out of foam puzzle pieces, or as she calls them "casitas" (little houses). We played that for the rest of the day happily.
The next day the teacher was not in class, but Natasha, one of the volunteers who is usually with the niñitos every day was back. We sang some songs in the morning, I led stretches, and we played Duck, Duck, Goose outside. I also was regularly kidnapped by Sintia to play Casitas. (Her cat lives in the casitas.) I was also able to make friends with some of the other kids. Jéssica and Jenni are two sisters who always wear traditional dress and look like old ladies in miniature. They always look every serious. Jenni is only about two years old and just started coming to school. She likes to play Throw Things at Meghan, Hand Things to Meghan, Laugh at Meghan Making Funny Noises, and Puzzles. Jéssica is also very good at puzzles and likes to swing. She'll also play Casitas with me and Sintia sometimes.
There are a few other girls in the class who are still pretty shy around me, and there are three boys - Christian (Sintia's brother), Yannik, and Reyli - who do more to disrupt the class that if a tap dancing elephant click-clacked into the room every 10 minutes. They're all good kids, but focusing for more than 2 minutes just does not seem to be a part of their fabric. As a result, a lot of the day is just free play time, which is ok since they're 2-6 years old, but we want to teach them letters, numbers, colors, and the like, but it's tough. Thursday was pretty good. Today, Monday, was obnoxious. I basically spent the whole time between 9:30 snack and 12:00 lunch just guarding the door to make sure the kids didn't run off. We're hoping they tired themselves out today and that tomorrow will be better.
I also ended up in the Kindergarten on Friday. I wasn't supposed to be, but Sintia kidnapped me again to play Casitas all day long. I think that's when Jéssica finally decided I was OK. I think I also pushed her on the swing that day, which wins over almost any kid.
As far as the hard labor goes, Eric and some of the other volunteers got most of that done. Eric was in the library on Friday, which was a well deserved break. They laid the rest of the grass seed today.
Life has also been going well outside of the school. I may have mentioned in my last entry that each night a group of about 4 volunteers is responsible for dinner. On Thursday, Thanksgiving, Eric and three European fellows who arrived about the same time we did were responsible for dinner. They knocked it out of the park: pumpkin soup (or at least some kind of gourd) to start; roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roast vegetables, and "craneberry sauce" (blackberries) for the main course; and apple crisp with homemade ice cream for dessert! And plenty to go around for 18 people! It was rough not being with family for the holiday - and having to explain repeatedly to the Europeans what Thanksgiving is about - but the meal certainly made the day!
Last week a volcano that we can see from the hill the school is on started erupting. On Friday night many of the volunteers went to the top of the hill and had a bonfire to watch the volcano. Throughout the day and night, you can hear it rumbling. So far, no concerns of it really going wild though. (They did have to evacuate the city of Baños, which sits at the base of the volcano, in 1999 when it was active then.) And fortunately all the ash from it blows off in a different direction, so it's just a cool view for us.
Speaking of Baños, that's where Eric and I went last weekend. It's a touristy town with lots of mountain bike and hiking trails, thermal springs for bathing, and really good eats. It's about an hour bus ride from Central Salasaka, which costs $0.50 each. It's pretty common for the volunteers to take off on small weekend trips to see the country or just get out of our crowded house for a bit.
We found a nice hostel, Plantas y Blancas, which is very clean and bright, dropped off our stuff and went looking for food. We found an authentic Mexican restaurant and pigged out - chips with guacamole and salsa, beef fajitas for Eric, enchiladas for me, a few beers, a few margaritas, and a chocolate crepe for dessert! Oh, man, it was good!
Sunday was the national census, when no one - national, tourist, or otherwise - was allowed out of their home or lodging from 7AM to 5PM while the census was conducted. We were warned of this, so we bought some groceries and playing cards on Saturday, and just enjoyed having a quiet room and hot shower all to ourselves for a day. As soon as the clock struck five, we packed up, checked out and caught a bus back to Salasaka, where we passed the evening as we have most here, sitting around chatting with our new friends about where their from, where they've been and what they're going to do in life.
This week is our last week in Salasaka. I was with the niñitos today and will be again on Tuesday and Thursday. Eric's hoping that the supplies have been purchased for his next project; otherwise, he's not quite sure what he'll be up to, but classes always need help and there's always the garden. Never a lack of work to do here!
Once we're done here, we've only two weeks left of our trip. We'll travel south through Ecuador to Cuenca, Lojas, and some other cities, and then will spend some time in Northern Peru before sprinting back to Lima for our flight home on the 19th. It's strange to think of getting back on the road after only just a week in one spot, and it's even stranger to think that we'll be back in the U.S., in the cold, cold Midwest, in just a few weeks.
