5 Mayo 2011

This morning I met with a the nurse, Janeth to present a campaign program we have for the High School. We had a meeting with the NGO PreNatal this past weekend, and would like to do a workshop with the adolescents of Madrigal about planned pregnancies instead of adolescent ones. The program we would be using really is fabulous for many reasons 1) it is already developed, we just have to follow a well written script 2) it has been successful in other towns in Peru 3) It doesn’t talk about abstinence or condoms or sex specifically (which freak out Catholic Latinos), it discusses what happens to your life when you have a baby, and how to healthfully prepare for having your own child.
The principal of the high school was mostly onboard, but only for the older classes, which is fine. That means, in less than a month Janeth and I will actually have half the high school in our hands for an entire afternoon to talk about things their parents and teachers are afraid to talk to them about. Good stuff!

So, Mothers Day is a big deal in Latin America. A really big deal. Probably as big as Christmas or Easter. Both the primary and secondary school had a huge assembly where the kids put on little dances, acts and what-not. All the mothers came. I have to say surrounded by tacky artwork, poems and presents, I still found myself a little emotional for the happy moms. Yup, you know that biological clock is ticking into place when I feel left out in a room of 20-30 year old moms. I was asked to be the “madrina” or godmother-type-figure to a few of the kids during an award ceremony. The kids and moms were just so darn proud as I poked their award buttons through their little sweaters.

Since then I have been thinking about how appreciative I am to my mother, father, and entire family. Part of the beauty of Madrigalanians are the strong ties to family and tradition that a majority of Latin America has left in the dust in a conquest of modernism or “coolism”. This impoverished struggle in South American cities has left the culture a very fend-for-yourself mentality with formal familial relationships. But, in Madrigal, the parents do indeed talk to their kids. From what I have observed they have very close, intimate relationships, maybe purely because they spend so much time together in the one bedroom house or working in the fields. The love and affection for each other is not what lacks here. And, seeing the stark comparison of these relationships to city life relationships makes me appreciate my family in the States all the more. Everyone from Cathy on my mom’s side to Diane on my dad’s makes an effort to keep me in their lives even from the other side of the world. You all are such a beautiful strong base for me and my brother to build ourselves from. I cannot thank you all enough for your support from the moment our little eyes opened until now.