Sunday, June 6, 2010

Good to the last drop

Another week has whizzed by! We started off by visiting another private primary school, this one being somewhat bilingual, in which there was actually a little boy from New York. After our regular deal at the primary school, that afternoon we were invited to visit a CAIF where the social worker who I had met up with a few weeks ago to discuss the social services system here works. A CAIF is a government funded social services center, mainly for preschool children; this particular one housed a pre-school, some after-school enrichment programs, and all sorts of workshops for parents and their small children, or for pregnant mothers. I was interested to hear things from the social worker's perspective, since like places where I have worked before, she makes up just part of a larger team that runs the workshops and enrichment programs. It sounded like this program had much in common with some of the programs I am familiar with in the U.S., and operates under many of the same philosophies and strategies.

As the week went on, we continued to hold classes in the elementary school as normal, as well as gave quite a few lessons/assisted in classes in the teacher's college. One class we were actually left in charge of entirely, since the professor, one of our mentors, could not be there that day. We spoke about things ranging from opinion essays on global issues to the Great Depression and the New Deal. We also hosted our weekly 'Conversation Club,' this week having a bit of a lighter theme where we did a bunch of creativity exercises, like a charades competition and stories with holes.

On Saturday, I attempted to be productive by drafting out some ideas for the 15 minute presentation I have to give at our conference in Buenos Aires the week after next... the panel I am on is centered around 'Challenges', which I think is a great topic for me and my experiences, considering that all of the challenges we faced actually ended up being resolved quite positively. I also went for a long walk down at the beach, taking some of my last photos here. That night we went out to eat with some friends (after having a rather difficult time getting a taxi, since we couldn't get through the telephone line to call one, then were told to wait 20 minutes, then no one showed up, then we called and they sent the SAME taxi that had apparently been waiting for us way earlier than they told us and left... so an hour later we made it to dinner...), and then went out to what ended up being a really great pub that we wish we had started going to earlier!

This weekend also marked the beginning of the celebration of the founding of Paysandu, so on Friday we went to part of a choral concert, then this morning we went to the parade. The parade mostly comprised of different associations who ride on horseback in the gaucho tradition, many of whom dress in traditional gaucho attire, and the women in traditional peasant dress. I got a great photo of one of our mentors in traditional dress on horseback.

We then went for an absolutely scrumptious pasta and pastry lunch at a mentor's family home (she is in fact going to be in the U.S. next year on a Fulbright herself). Her family has had us over before, and they are just spectacular and pretty hysterical. Sometimes there is nothing better than to be surrounded by a family, them making fun of one another, being shown old wedding photos and photos of the kids as young children, playing with all the pets... they were also gracious enough to take us to a museum and to take us out for a bit of a 'paseo,' driving and walking around with one of their dogs, drinking mate, and enjoying the beautiful weather that has miraculously reappeared after a week of feeling very cold.

(The problem is not that it gets very cold here, but that nothing is heated, so you never get to go inside and warm up... though we DID make the happy discovery of finding a portable, electric radiator in our apartment, which we have thankfully been using to heat up our bedroom at night! Somehow we had been blind to it all this time... not too swift...)

Next week we will have our kiddies at the primary school present their final showing (songs, projects, and even a dance number to the World Cup Anthem), and take advantage of our second to final week here. Then Saturday we will travel to Buenos Aires for our Fulbright conference for the week, and come back for our very last week in Paysandu. I will be very sad to leave all of our amazing friends and mentors here, but I am also very excited for the new adventures we will find in Montevideo.

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