We had to skip “How do I find answers to my questions?”
theme this week because the encyclopedias haven’t yet arrived in Madrigal. We
moved on to the next week for “What is a good leader?”.
This week is pure games. Everything from working as a group,
to following the leader activities, then discussions on what worked and what
didn’t. Then, reflections on feelings associated with the different activities.
Because I have been so frustrated with inefficiency lately,
I decided to move the egg-drop contest into this week.
I have slowed down working in the fields as much as last
year. Mainly because I can’t swallow the frustration like I did before. I
mastered smiling and nodding while steam was pouring out my ears, now, I feel
no need to get myself so worked up. If I could make a life here, I would be
doing things differently with the resources they have.
For example; After plowing the fields with the bulls and
laying seeds the field needs to be leveled. This, like everything else, is done
by hand with rakes. Everyone grabs a rake and breaks up clumps. It obviously
takes hours.
One day when taking the donkey for a walk (yes, he actually
did that to keep Wilson fit after days of only grazing), Gray walked by one of
my host uncle’s fields and Doña Juana was working there. She called Gray over
to help, he obliged, and grabbed a rake. Tio Felix stopped Gray and said,
something like, “No no no, I do it like this.” At which point he tied reigns
onto the bulls, balanced himself on a board, and leveled the entire field in
about 15 minutes, water board style. Gray was flabbergasted. Why have we spent
days in Doña Juana’s fields, literally doing back breaking labor, if Doña
Juana’s brother figured out a faster way using the free tools we have? The very
next week, as I was laying corn seeds, Gray was handed a rake to level. He was
silent and furious all day.
He said all that was spinning through his head was,
“Why are they doing this to themselves?
Why is Roxana out here raking when she could be at home reading
or god-forbid playing?
Why do these parents repeat the uncomfortable ways of their
parents instead of making life better for their kids?
Why don’t they unite and buy a tractor?
There is a serious value to physical labor, but at the cost
of education and health?”
His anger was all too familiar. Last year I assumed I was
missing something. I repeatedly told myself that I didn’t understand. I can’t
possibly understand everything now. But, I can see that these parents have to decide to make change. Even when Gray and I implement
something in this house, the family doesn’t come to use it because they never
have. The chicken coop is literally rotting away. The oven has only ever been
used by me. When I brought some wheat home from a neighbor and put it in the
hand grinder she uses for corn, Doña Juana saw for the first time that she has
all the resources to make whole wheat bread, but I have yet to see her do so.
Instead they buy stale white bread shipped in from Chivay once a week.
Why?
What made my grandmother decide she wanted the lives of her
children to be easier than hers? What gives some parents the strength to pull
out of cyclical poverty, study for years to become higherly educated
individuals, and pass that value on to their children? The brain loves pattern,
so much so that these people can’t escape it.
So, this week I wrote in the egg drop contest. Giving them
limited supplies (some popsicle sticks, left over recyclable paper, and tape)
they had to build a basket that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped
from a second story height.
They loved it. The kids were so excited about the activities
this week it was almost impossible to control them.
The children are SO hungry. They need so much more than they
are getting. I had trouble keeping them away from the book tables while we were
playing the different games today. And, so many wondered in totally bummed that
we would not be coloring this week. They are hungry to be creative. They are
hungry for knowledge.
I know it is in a sense, “too late” for this generation, and
I have said since the beginning of the program that I am working for the next
one. I can’t get the adults to change now, even if I provide the resources for
them to do so. But, I can instill creativity and basic knowledge in this
generation so that it will be valued as they begin to have children of their
own.
Need-less-to-say the egg-drop competition was a huge hit, as well as the working in a group and leadership games...
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