Cuéntame....

This afternoon I had my Cuéntame... class at Centro Arte para la Paz. I have five 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. We are choosing an important event that has been life changing, writing about it, illustrating it, and then binding it into a book! I've had four classes so far, but this feels like the second "real" one -- partly because the first two happened before I hurt my toe and so we had a week without classes -- but mostly because I just figured out this morning the step we needed to actually write our stories. We'd be sitting in class, in a circle the kids would share their ideas with me : going to school for the first time, graduating kindergarten, meeting their best friends, meeting their dad, becoming a magician ... each of them with a strong idea they were excited to write about. Yet, when we went to put them on paper it was near impossible to tell what they were about.

I think a lot here about scaffolding -- a concept from both my childhood development psych class and my TESL certificate class: how could I provide the structure (the scaffold) to allow these stories to really be given voice and bloom without feeding them words?

So this morning I had a brainstorm, and here is the result:

Hola. Me llamo _________________________________. Voy a contarles una historia bien importante en mi vida. Tenía ________años cuando_________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________.


______________ comienzó cuando__________________________________________
__________________________ y yo sentí _______________________________por que _____________________________________________________________Mi familia sentío _______________________________ por que ___________________
__________________________________________________________________


Mi vida ha cambiado desde ese momento por que ________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

Last class we worked for an hour and a half trying to get a beginning middle and end and the kids were dying to draw, to start illustrating. So today we are started illustrating and "revised" our stories by putting them in this form. It was amazing. I had little "reuniones" with each student as they worked and explained the beginning of and they were off, occasionally asking questions or just wanting to show me their progress part by part. As I met with each of them the rest were working on their illustrations. Today's project was to get out construction paper first to back the background (and show the setting) and then in front to cut out and color a person: themselves, the main character! And they were getting a kick out of drawing cutting and sticking!







I walked around the class, read over their stories, and watched as the first page grew and my heart, cliche as it may sound, just swelled with emotion for these kids --love and pride. Our stories have ended up to be: the first day of school, graduating from kindergarten, meeting dad and little sister for the first time, meeting best friends, and becoming a magician. Such a variety. And every class at some point they ask: and today we'll be in class until 5 right? ...for a class scheduled to go from 2 - 3 pm.









What a joy, a privilege ... an es muss sein to be here, to be with these kids, giving this class and getting to hear and figure out how to help them express their story.

Wow.

La SuperGringa

It's a Bird!
......It's a Plane!
.............It's a ...SuperGringa?

So much to share with you all. As usual, but head is overflowing with 2, 3, 4 stories, blogs, ideas I want to share with you and finally here I am sitting down to write one of them. Know that you, my family friends supporters, are in my thoughts and prayers even when I am absent. There is still so much I have to learn here, about being, about being connected to others across space and/or culture.

Every Sunday evening el equipo (Me, the other 5 gringo volunteers and Sister Peggy) meet in Peggy's house for prayer/reflection. This past week we read some Mary Oliver (oh my friend, Mary!). Such reflections always help put my week into perspective, help me to process what has happened and so allow me to go deeper. At the end of this past week, I made a pledge to myself to allow myself more time to site and ask and engage in the questions that just always sit on my shoulder here. At the forefront: what does it mean to human? For all of us, and particularly what does it mean for me to human, for me to be Christy?

My humanity was extraordinarily highlighted to me this past week, with a thump over the head (and the foot!) in a rather ridiculous manner. Colin was visiting (woohoo!) and Tuesday morning it was our turn to watch the Patinaje (skatepark). We decided to skate for the last 40 min with the kids. I however didn't have closed toed shoes, so was going to watch when of the young salvadoran girls said to me "You need shoes, I have some, I'll go get them you can borrow them and skate!" When she returned with shoes, she was thrilled to tell me that they had pink on them! Which just so happened to match the brand new hot pink knee- elbow- and wrist- guards Colin had brought back from the States. And so decked out (+ a pink helmet, of course!), I was given a new name: La SuperGringa. Across the skate park, the 8 kids skating, stopped and encouraged me on to the park.

However, it turns out that appearances can be deceiving. My pink garb definitely gave the impression of a SuperGringa, but I've never skateboarded before in my life. So my friend Alex (the same from a few post before) started to help me. Showed me how to stand and then how to go down the smallest ramp. All of the kids took turns showing off for me and then it was my turn. balancing the end of my skate board on his knee and the other on the edge of the ramp, Alex showed me where to put my feet and held my hands for balance. And off a I went. to the ground. After that, with lots of hands and help, I mostly stayed up. After 3 successful goes like this, Alex announced he thought I was ready: "ahora, Sola" I climbed to the top of the ramp (I full two feet up!), looked down and said "ok...no! no! tengo miedo" And was helped again. But then I decided to try. I hadn't fallen in a while...at least 5 goes of it! So up I went .... and with a terrific them came down again. Looking up to a sea of concerned face, I hear an 8 year old from the side say with a gasp and a whisper "La SuperGringa se cayo" (the SuperGringa fell).

After regaining my breath, I stood up and noticed my toe felt a little funny. Later in the day (two hospitals and a free x-ray later!) I discovered I had fairly magnificently dislocated my toe.

It's back in now, not hurting, healing, but even more than the realization that I am not a Super Skaterboard (ay heartbreak!) my toe has been a source of reflection this week. From the times when Rosa has announced at school that we need to make sure to find a car to get back home instead of walking because 'Christy is bad in the toe" (I mean it's a toe! such a tiny thing to have to change everyone's plans!). To being dependent on Peggy to drive me home at night instead of walking. Asking the other volunteers to watch the skatepark and let me be in the museum so I can walk less and actually give it time to heal. Asking for help is something I've had to learn (rather painfully in highschool when I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Yet at the same time, feeling very loved and cared for by all here (people from the office drove me all the way to the capitol to go a hospital that had a really good orthopedist, one the guards now calls me "corazon", one of the cooks rubbed my foot when she found out I fell and now asks how it is every time she sees me, and on and on...)

I am called back to my favorite game I play with my students. With yarn we created a spider web, wrapping it around our wrist and throwing it across the circle. We stand up, touch the floor and then all do different things. We talk about how what one person does affects every other person, for good or for bad. I am very aware of the spiderweb or relationships of my life this week, and grateful for the support of Colin, my parents, Sister Peggy, the other volunteers, my friends from home who have stayed in contact with me even as I've been a terrible correspondent. I am grateful to you all, to the goodness you bring to me and so many others.

What it means to be human: to be grateful, to admit and gracefully accept our interdependency and limitedness, and, sometimes, to fall -- and allow others to helps us stand back up again.