School Dayz

There is nothing too exciting to report on since our last post, just business as usual. Everyone continues to be happy and healthy and we are still very pleased with our decision to move here.  Since school is such a big part of our experience in Peru, education will be the focus of this blog post. We hope you enjoy all the different perspectives.

Emma

I am going to describe my school, Juan de la Cruz Calienes. In my school I am in 3^rd grade. We are not in the U.S.A., we are in Peru and we are here for a family adventure.

Part of my adventure is going to school! I am in section 3-A and the teacher is named Ursula Gonzales Leon. In my class there are 32 students. My classroom is close to the school office so there are always meetings there.

We have lots of classes like, Language, Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Catholicism, and Computers. We also get to pick our own workshops. Volleyball, chorus, swimming and cooking are all the workshops that I chose.

My school is very big and we have to wear uniforms. For a girl the fancier one is a grey jumper, a white shirt and a blue tie. The other uniform is for sports and is a blue jacket, a grey shirt, blue shorts and blue pants. The shorts go under the pants so you can take off the pants when we do sports.

I feel really good at this school. I have lots of friends, the teachers are nice, and we all play together. Sometimes there is teasing and I don’t like that. I like my school but it is still different from the U.S.A. My school is a lot bigger, because of that there is a lot more stuff like a swimming pool, 3 basketball courts, a computer lab, etc. Instead of having photo copies of everything like I did in the USA, we have to write everything down.  Sometimes Miss Ursula copies things on the whiteboard and other times she says it out loud for everyone to write. There are also lots of sports like volleyball which we did not have in the U.S.A. The big difference is that everybody speaks Spanish.

Overall I like my new school. So far I have had a really good experience here.  However, I still miss the USA.

Jeff

The Peruvian government spends relatively little on education and ranked in the bottom 20^th percentile in a World Bank study of public expenditure on schools.  Despite the low spending levels, Peru is above the 50^th percentile in most educational indicators.  I thought that this was because most Peruvians with regular incomes send their children to private school and thus the government did not need to spend as much money on public education.  I then started thinking that the Peruvian government should just get rid of public schools (except in rural areas) and implement a voucher system.  Lots of people I spoke to hear thought that sounded great.  OMG, not only do I sound like a Republican, I am starting to evangelize. 

Well, once I looked at the facts I realized that my theories were simply wrong.  I do not like being wrong but at least I am not turning into a Republican; they never bother with facts when setting social policy.  The fact is that only 15% of Peruvian children attend private school (compared to 10% in the USA).  The reason the government spends so little on education is that teacher salaries in Peru are among the lowest in Latin America.  From what we hear, this is reflected in the low quality of the public schools; the higher educational indicators are probably being skewed by the private school students who perform quite well.  What does this all mean? Beats the hell out of me but I am trying to get to the bottom of it.

In the meantime, we are lucky to be part of the 15%.  The school Emma and Hannah attend is quite solid. While the school is somewhat diverse, Emma and Hannah are the only ex-pats studying there.  This has created some challenges for everyone, but mostly the girls.  They were not treated so well by their classmates initially. Emma even got so fed up with someone teasing her that she pushed the girl! Emma came home crying because she was mean to someone. I was proud that she stood up for herself and even prouder she felt bad for acting inappropriately.

This was a far cry from their experience in rural Nicaragua where they were treated like rock stars.  Frankly, I am glad they faced some social challenges and even more pleased that they overcame them.  Emma and Hannah have both found their way and are now clearly part of the fabric of the school.  They must be happy there because when we asked if they wanted to transfer to the local American school they both shouted NO! 

Hannah

My school is called Colegio Calienes.  There is lots of stuff you can do there like swimming class, mini-chef, chorus, basketball, computer class, English, religion, social studies, language, math and science.  I like my friends and my teacher.  I have lots of friends in my class like Angela Melanie, Angela Luciana, Luciana, and my kind of good friend Lucia.  I do not like one of the girls in my class because she is kind of mean to me and does not share toys with me.  I also do not like another girl because she calls another boy names.  After school I go home with one of my friends whose Dad picks us up.  Mommy makes a snack for me and sometimes I take a shower with Emma and then I do homework. Sometimes I have five homeworks and that is a lot.  I do not like to do my homework.  I take gymnastics class 3 times a week.  It is very fun because we do lots of exercises like candle, jumping on the trampoline and almost always we have to work on the mats.  We do races called bunny, frog and fish.  I usually win.  And also, on my birthday my Daddy said I can get a violin.  He asked me if I wanted a dog, a big party or a violin.  I said a violin because it is one of my favorite instruments.  I will then go to school, take gymnastics and violin.

Aileen

Education is such a complex issue that there’s no way I can do it justice in a short blog post, so I’ll just share some of our observations, based on our limited experience here.  I think the girls’ school, Colegio Calienes, is quite good, and we’re really lucky our friend Erika works there, or we may have had to homeschool the kids for our time here in Arequipa.  Part of this is related to the formality of Peruvian culture.  Peruvians seem to be accustomed to complying with lots of rules and regulations regarding documentation and things like that.  When we got to Nicaragua, we went to the local school, and they basically wrote down the girls’ names and their birthdays, and said, “See ya’ on Monday.”  Here in Arequipa, we had to have interviews, the girls had to be tested, the schools wanted to see the girls’ notarized report cards from last year, and the Catholic schools wanted an original marriage certificate and an original proof of baptism!  Anyway, to get back to education, this formality carries over into the girls’ school.  The girls lose “points” if they don’t write their capital letters in a red pencil, if they don’t “respetar los márgenes,” (if they write in the two centimeters on the edge of the page), or if they underline something without using a ruler.  I worry a little that the school is a little old-fashioned both in this way and in terms of how much time they spend copying down and memorizing stuff word for word, and not necessarily encouraging critical thinking and creativity.  In the end though, and especially at such young ages, the fact that the girls like their school and are learning a lot outweighs this concern.  They have plenty of opportunity to be creative and think critically since they have to navigate the complexities of another culture on a daily basis.

Children Thrive and Parents Survive

It has been awhile since we have written so here is an update on life in Arequipa.

The girls continue with school, gymnastics and guitar; they also have play dates, school activities and birthday parties to attend.  I continue to do consulting work and Aileen is looking into volunteer opportunities.  Daily housekeeping, cooking, homework, etc. also take up a great deal of our time. As a result, weekdays are pretty busy for everyone.  

Life seems much more "normal" than it did in Nicaragua and I suppose that means more like the USA.  The most notable difference is that I only have to work 4 hours a day and we can still afford a nice apartment, private school and extra-curricular activities.  Come to think of it, that is more "normal" than the 70 hour work weeks and high cost of living in San Francisco.

Getting pointers from Jaime

Walking home from guitar

Emma and Hannah are doing amazingly well at school.  Emma is pretty close to fluent in Spanish and has a beautiful Peruvian accent.  We are not sure about Hannah's Spanish as she still does not speak the language in front of us.  However, Hannah's teacher says she is doing great which is really impressive given that she started in the middle of the school year with somewhat limited Spanish.  In any event, school ends mid-December and they will both advance to the second and fourth grades when it resumes in March.  

Emma and Hannah are also doing great socially and have made plenty of friends. The adults are not doing as well.  Peruvians are much more formal than Nicaraguans (and Americans) so it has taken some time to meet people.  There is very little opportunity to interact with parents at the school because most everyone sends their children in vans or taxis and there is no real parental involvement encouraged. However, slowly but surely the adults are making friends too.  We still keep in touch with our host family and the owner of the language school the girls attended when we first arrived. In addition we have become friendly with an American missionary, the family that transports the kids to school, and a young couple we met a few weeks ago.  We are also getting to know some of the families who send their kids to gymnastics and guitar, which makes sitting around during the lessons more enjoyable.  It does seem as if we are starting to build a community of friends, but it is slow going.  This really makes us appreciate all of our loved-ones back home!

We continue to find fun and interesting things to do on the weekends.  The last weekend in October there was an anniversary celebration and fundraiser at the girls' school.  Hannah performed in a dance with her class which was very charming (see video).  On this particular occasion, we got to hang out with some other parents, many of whom went out of their way to make us feel welcome. We had a great time and I have to say, it was more enjoyable than most of the school fundraisers I have attended; well, it was certainly more rowdy.  Parents sat around drinking lots of beer and watching a band perform (complete with half-naked dancers) on the school's outdoor stage while the kids were playing in jumpy houses.

The next weekend we took our first excursion out of town, travelling by bus to the Majes River Valley which is about three hours west of Arequipa.  We first visited an area in the desert known for its petroglyphs.  It is called Toro Muerto because ranchers used to lose many cattle there while driving their herds toward greener pastures.  Toro Muerto has over 5,000 rock drawings made by the Wari people over 1,000 years ago.  Nobody knows what they mean or why they chose to carve them in this dry area, especially when there is a beautiful river valley nearby.  That evening we stayed by the river at an interesting hotel where the owner makes his own wine and brandy that he is eager to share.  The next day we went white water rafting with a family we met at the hotel.  Everyone had a great time and we hope to do this again before the rains begin.

Other weekends have included concerts, Emma's first public guitar performance (see video), trips to the library, horseback riding with the folks we met on our rafting trip, and of course homework.  This weekend we a birthday party, breakfast with some friends, a play date, and yes, more homework to content with.  We are also busy planning a thanksgiving celebration and a few weeks later a birthday party for the girls. Next will be exams and before you know it, summer vacation starts.   Hopefully we will do a little travelling before returning to the USA in mid-January to visit family and friends.

In reading this over, life does not seem as exciting as it did in Nicaragua, and I suppose it isn't because we are not doing that much travelling.  We don't have a car and despite the low cost of living, we have to be thriftier this year since we were not expecting to live overseas for this long.  Also, the girls have lots of homework and activities and we cannot just leave town whenever we want.  While I miss that freedom, there is something about this place that makes life so darn enjoyable.  I just cannot put my finger on it (yet) but perhaps these pictures will shed some light.

Sunset at a plaza near our apartment

A 15 minute walk from our apartment

I almost forgot to mention that we also celebrated Aileen's birthday this month. There was lots of presents and Aileen also got to curl up in bed with a romantic comedy while the girls and I did the chores.  Here is our attempt at some Peruvian cuisine along with the wine we bought from the hotel in Majes River.