Week Three: Two steps forward and one step back

Well, I think the title of this post says it all. The week was trying and frustrating, but still had its moments of fun and acomplishment.

Monday, as a reward for their hard work throughout the previous week, Michelle and I decided to aceed to requests for songs and dances from America. There was just one problem: we don`t really have dances like they do in Peru (except for things like the Lindy Hop and Fox Trot, which neither of us know). So, we started out with songs to prevent the enevitable embarassing dancing we would do. Happy Birthday went over pretty well. The tune is the same, so all the women had to focus on were the repetitive lyrics. A few women took turns having it be their birthday and giggiling appropriately. Next we tried Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, which proved to be a poor choice: too much vocab, too little repetition and too difficult a tune. We only got through four lines befire deciding it wasn`t worth it to do the full six. Still, I think that the songs helped in getting the women familiar with the sounds of English. And then the dances. We started with the most universal dance we could think of - the Hokey Pokey (which is a really difficult title to explain to a group of 20 to 50 something Peruvians). But it turned out to be an absoluetly great choice. First, the movements of the dance cracked the women up and got them feeling pretty good. Second, the song allows for the practice of left/right and body-part vocab, which is something that could actually be useful in selling products. Seeing all of them `put your butt in, put your butt out, put your butt in and shake it all about` was really amusing. And then we ended with the classic: The Maccarania (in lieu of the Chicken Dance) which turned out to be a good number review (one macca, two macca, three maccarania...). All in all it was a fun and positive day.

Tuesday was a prime business day. We scheduled a grand reunion for the women (complete with soda and cookies, a tactic learned form university to get people to attend meetings) to create their work plan. Michelle and I had previously created a work plan that we thought would be suitable. We only got through one part with the women:

Goal: Sell More Products
Activities to achieve goal:
a. find markets in which to sell products (Responsible parties: VP, ProPeru)
a. hostels and hotels
b. restaurants
c. Spanish schools
d. Shops
e. Tour organizations
b. have a stockpile of products (Durazno Ti´kay)
c. decide on new types of products and produce them
a. something different and unique
i. cards
ii. crocheted things: sweaters, baby clothes, shawls, bags
iii. dolls
d. Better the Durazno Ti´kay office (Durazno Ti´kay, ProPeru)
e. Have English classes (ProPeru)

It was great to get this much done and decided on with the vast majority of teh group present, but it took the time we had imagined the entire 4-part business plan would need. The women kept on going off on personal tangents; they got mad at the board of directors for sometimes not showing up or defended their own lack of attendance. It was extremely frustrating to see the women work individually as we tried to organize them to work as a group. As we didn`t finish the plan, we scheduled the continuation and termination of the grand reunion for Wednesday.

Wednesday: Market Day. Having a big group meeting to decided important (business life or death) issues on a market day is a terrible idea, and I should have known. I wanted to bash my head against the wall: only 5 women showed up, so we couldn’t finish the work plan, as it is a group activity. We hadn`t planned a back up, because we figured everyone would show, the work plan being so important and all, so we had no activity. We sat and chatted with the women, helping them practice English names for clothing and colors, but it wasn`t nearly as good as if we had planned something in advance. The deal with market day, for those who have not lived in a small Peruvian town, is that the largest town in the vicinity, Urubamba in this case, shuts down a few streets so that vendors can come from all over and sell their wares. It´s a beautiful sight, with people from super rural areas in traditional garb next to (relatively) large-city dwellers. There´s everything you could want from watches to food to key-chains and livestalk. Because this is the main buying/selling day, and because many of the women in Durazno Ti`kay sell their own wares on the side, a good proportion head the ten minutes into Urubamba to sell their things. The other good majority of women say that they do and use it as an excuse to not come to meetings. So we have a tiny attendance. This was by far the most frustrating day as of yet. We deriously thought of just heading out and getting furteada (chicha with strawberries) with teh womanwho had come, as opposed to sitting, letting them workand practicing English.

Thursday was Michelle´s day to jaunt, in her case to Nazca, so I was alone. I decided to review the English vocab that the previous two volunteers had taught. We did ´How are you?´ ´I am (good, bad, tired, crazy, fantastic)´and I also introduced the phrase ´I like to (sing, dance, sew, cook, play)´ to review verbs (sing, dance, sew, cook, play). Verbs seem to be hard for the women. They have trouble keeping words and actions together in their head. I decided it would be easier for them to remember the verbs if I made a fool of myself, so I acted out verbs which seemed to work fairly well (and get a laugh). I dribbled a basketball (I like to play), cooked a very inept meal (I like to cook) and danced like I had no clue what I was doing (I like to dance). ´How are you? ´ and ´I am…´ seem to be sticking fairly well.

After, we played two leadership/ group bonding games that I had played at one time or another. First, I had the women count (from 11 to 20 and from 21 to 30) without ordering who would say what number. If two women shouted out the same number, we would start from the beginning. I think I did this in 6th grade. Anyway, the game was a big hit; not only did the women work together and really like the game, but they reviewed numbers that they often don’t get the chance to practice. We ended the day by playing a game that I did during a Rice leadership retreat. In this game the women had a long circular piece of rope that they were asked to make into shapes (a house, a rectangle, a car, a flower). They had to work together to create the items. It went over well and encouraged certain women to take leadership roles, while it encouraged teh rest to work together to comply. Not unexpectedly, the women taking leadership roles were part of the board of directors.

Friday there was a parade in Yanhuara for Dias Patrias (Peruvian Independence Day) that the women had arranged to march in as Durazno Ti´kay. They wanted me to come and support them, which I did gladly. WHat I didn`t know was that a) I would be the only non Yanahuarian (I couldhave guessed I would be the only non-Peruvian) and that b) they wanted me to march in the parade as a part of the group. I was flattered but it was a bit more than alkward, to say the least. Firstly, the women gave me a poncho and matching hat to wear, which looked a bit ridiclous in teh burning sun of the day and, seccondly, I was a head taller than everyone else (whcih has nenver before happened in my life!) At one point a randomewoman came up to our group and asked why the hell I was in line to march. The women had to defend me and say I was a part of their group. And then we marched all of 20 feet. It was a good experience, but not something I think I´d really like to repeat. The parade took the place of a meeting (the womens´ decision, not mine) so we only really had three days of instruction.

A hard week, but followed by a four-day weekend, soon to be posted...