12 Septiembre 2011

Today’s African acapella music kept the kids very lively while working on today’s kete cloth art project.

It is unexplainable how, when that cd ended and I put on some classical music, the children calmed.

“Where is this music from, Srta. Luz?”

“This music is from in Europe. The german composer is famous, his name was Mozart.”

“Well I have never heard of him.”

“No, probably not. But, do you like his music?”

*nod*

This conversation felt like a huge success for me, because not only does it show me that he now knows music comes from a place and a culture, but he is curious enough to ask about it.

Proud. 

10 Septiembre 2011 take two

After our one year med checks and in-service training we were given letters we wrote to ourselves a year ago. I thought I would share it with you…

“I hope with all my heart that you are healthy and falling in love with Madrigal. I hope that you have come to identify with the town as your town. I wish you could tell me the projects to throw all my energy into. Right now, I am scared and oh so excited all at the same time. Scared about food, bathing, comfort, and the unexpected. Will I be able to come to eat and enjoy the food? Will I feel good bathing only once a week? Will my motivation and positive energy dampen when I am not living in comfort?

Don’t forget that you want this oh, so much. You belong here. You want this organic lifestyle. You want to get in touch with the Earth. You want to more-than-know this culture, you want ot feel it. You earned the right to live in this.

I wish you could tell me what you have already learned. I am sure you are already becoming someone I admire today. Keep up the strong, motivated work.

Remember, you are loved. There are literally hundreds of people that want you to do well and will give you all the support they have any day of the week, any time of day.  You are so lucky.

Love every minute of this.

Feel the sadness

Feel the weakness

Feel the strength

Feel the joy.”

Reading this excited, clueless Peace Corps Trainee’s positive words threw me into her mind again.

Dear lu,

I am happy, and healthy, and very much in love with Madrigal. Yes, this town is a part of me now, and will forever be. I actually don’t know how I will leave it in 10 months.
Don’t doubt yourself with projects. The things bubbling in your mind today: keep them simmering, they will be your most successful projects.

You are rightfully afraid about food, bathing, and comfort. You are going to be uncomfortable, dirty, smelly, and hungry; but you will get used to it. You will not get used to their flavorless, starchy food. But, you will learn to use the accessible ingredients to create things you enjoy. What you don’ t know is how much you will miss art and how much that will effect your daily life and your mood. Your motivation and positive energy comes from meditation and creativity. Balancing the chores of everyday life and your program responsibilities doesn’t leave you much time for art and chanting, so yes, your optimism will wax and wane. But, you will make it through stronger for it.

I have gotten in touch with the Earth. You would never guess, but now you can raise all your own food as needed; Animal and plant. This will be a part of your life forever. You don’t know everything, and still might have a bit of a black thumb, but that biggest step has been taken and you now know how to get yourself started.

Let me tell ya, I feel that weakness, sadness, strength, and joy. All of them. All the time.

But, you were right, I belong here. I have a strong love for this lifestyle, and eat up every minute of learning. I can only hope that I am becoming the woman you want me to be. 

10 Septiembre 2011

The past week was spent in Lima for my training group's one year med-checks.

I am proud to report 100% healthfulness, and not a cavity :-)
(Grandma, you can stop worrying about whether I take care of myself or not)

It was a week of good food, good friends, and hot showers (yup, I took about 2 a day).
Now, we leave the pollution and over crowdedness for our secluded countryside beauty, yet again.

31 Agosto 2011

Because of the anniversary celebration, VALE was cancelled Monday and Tuesday. So, I planned to squish all of the Primary school into today, and all of the Secondary School into tomorrow. I was worried I would not be able to handle the 40+ kids that would probably turn up.

But, via some unfortunate gift the municipal speaker system is down. I could not call the youth as I do just as VALE is about to start every day. And, as the days had changed this week they had no way to know it was happening. So, with the 4 kids that followed me down the street to the library, I began.

By the end of the hour, we had about 25 VALE youth in attendance. Today we traveled to Japan. In the usual country exploration profile we learned about art and culture, how to count to ten, and phrases like ‘Konichi wa’ or ‘arigato’.

As children were arriving late this week, I left the youth who had arrived on time in charge or teaching their tardy buddies. It was beautiful to see the very young teaching their older siblings, the boys teaching the girls, and the girls teaching the boys patiently.

Once they finished their calligraphic and flowered Japanese style fans, we started some very simple origami hats and cups. As we finished the hats Luis held up an origami swan. I smiled broadly and asked him to come up and teach the class. Confident but quiet he took us through the steps.

“Wait for them to do what you have instructed before you move on.”

“But how do I know if they are ready?”

“Ask them.”

Today, Luis learned how to teach, and he will practice again tomorrow in front of the Secondary school youth. I am so proud of him.

We also might have had a little flood when I got to the library today that caused a little panic in my heart. But, all is taken care of now, and the youth themselves cleaned up their space and materials. Not a book was sacrificed. Thank God.

I want to learn a tonal language.

“Sound is like touch, at a distance.’

-Ann Fernold

Director of Infant Studies

Stanford University

30 Agosto 2011

Today was the anniversary celebration of Madrigal.

Like last year, I danced in the competition with the “Women Farmers”.

Unlike last year, we lost.

I have to admit that my favorite part was that I got to wear a costume that dangled coins over my forehead.

I was the Champi that is some sort of king representing local symbols like corn and the condor.

It was fun to compare the emotions of last year to that of today’s experience. The nervousness and unfamiliarity seized me last year. This year was casual and comfortable.

25 Agosto 2011

The wonderful Lindsay Potts has sent me books and letters throughout my service. Thank you a thousand times, Lindsay. It is amazing how similarly her taste and mine parallel. The book “Just Kids” published in 2010 by the famous Patti Smith was placed on my fruit crate bookshelf only for Gray to find when going through my collection of “to-be-read”. I immediately went to my itunes, and yes, someone, once upon a time, passed me some of the songs from her Horses album. I sat on the bed with Gray and we listened to her sound as if for the first time.

It took another week, and for Gray to go on another adventure into the mountains while I stayed back to work at the after school program, for me to actually crack the black book open. I had avoided this, her love story with Richard Mapplethorpe, for obvious reasons. The epitome of loneliness probably shouldn’t be participating in someone else’s love life, even if it is through script only. But now that I am experiencing the world with another young adventurer, it seemed a good moment.

My relationship with Patti has rocketed only 100 pages in. While this confused young woman she writes about doesn’t have quite the mission to save the world I have so naively possessed, her need to live through art yokes me to her. Her writing and rhythm feels so similar to mine that if it weren’t for her prodigious vocabulary you could probably confuse my own oeuvre for parts of hers. The young woman yearns to leave her hometown and know the world. She risks security and her health to not only meet people and earth, but to make art.

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.”

This is the only quote in the book I have actually dug out a pencil to underline. It echoes the Rilka quote when speaking to a young poet,

“…live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then someday… … you will live your way into the answer.”

But, what I love about Patti’s quote is that it speaks to the communal nature to humanity (though it may be a little mocking of young relationships). Our personal, young confusion only finds its answers through knowing others and living our confusion. It is only through simultaneously living our questions and the answers we have stumbled upon, do we begin to find ourselves and loved ones.

I love thinking of life this way. I love how this thought promotes world travel, curiosity, reading, questioning, conversing, listening, and loving. There is no irony in the fact that both of these writers are divulging information of and to the young. I like to think that that is all of us. So long as we are living our questions through knowing each other, will we be forever young?