First Day of School!

August 14, 2017

Monday was my first day of school. I thought I was starting the week before, but as it turns out, I had an extra week of not going. I initially thought that I would be taking the bus to and from school, but on the first day, my host cousin Fernando took me (along with Mama). I woke up around 6, got out of bed around 6:20 and got around. The first thing that was asked of me was to eat breakfast (this is every morning). As my family all knows, I struggle to be a person in the morning. Add trying to speak Spanish at 6 in the morning and I am failing miserably. Nonetheless, I got around and sat down at the kitchen table to eat breakfast (or attempt, I drank half of a smoothie). After everyone had finished eating, we got into the car and we all headed to my school.

Upon arrival to school, Mama and I got out of the car and walked in. We waited in the lobby (not really sure why) before Mama gave me a blessing and I walked into my first day. My school here is very different from my school back in the USA. The first apparent difference between the two (after acknowledging my school is private and I have a uniform) is that the school here is partially outside. This sounds kind of weird and the best way to explain it is that in order to get from class to class you walk outside and go up and down stairs, past the office however is a large space that I would call a commons area (although this area is also used for our gym class).

So after walking past the office, I was outside in the commons area. I quickly spotted Tiia (Rotary exchange student from Finland). We both sat down and talked while the Peruvians all stared at us. My school is Primary and Secondary combined, so you saw kids as young as 5/6 to teenagers that were 17/18. Eventually, Jeanne walked through a different door off the side of the commons and going our little foreign group. Jeanne was a lot more nervous than Tiia and I so we all just talked out our nerves. After a while, a whistle was blown and all of the students got into lines. We were then signaled to the middle (the students were in lines to both our right and left). We all stood there as they sang the school song and Peru's national anthem. After, we were introduced by the school Director (A Rotarian in mine and Jeanne's host club). She asked us all to say our name, where we were from, and how old we were. Afterwards we all went to join our grades. I am younger than both Jeanne and Tiia, so they are in the highest grade (5th) while I am in the grade below (4th). Upon me getting in line, the girls in my grade turned around and the tallest started speaking to me in perfect English. I was more than a little confused, she didn't necessarily look "Peruvian" either (she was fairly tall and had aa fairer complexion). Turns out I'm not the only American at my school. The girl giving me all of the confusion happens to be from the U.S. (Florida to be exact). After asking about her life, she told me she was born in the U.S. (both of her parents are Peruvian) and she lived there until she finished elementary school. After that, she moved to Peru.

After getting over my initial shock, I met the rest of the girls in my grade. I had been told my school was small, but by small they meant very small. In my total grade, there are around maybe 15 -20 kids. This is actually really nice, it makes it easier to get to know everyone and hopefully (eventually) remember their names. After the whistle was blown again, we headed up two flights of stairs and into what I am calling homeroom.

After going into the room, we all took seats (I stuck with the Peruvian American) and we did nothing. I found this very confusing as we literally just sat there in talked. I was very confused why we had a class where we didn't do anything but it was explained to me that it was for homework or helping around the school. Since we didn't do either, we all just talked. I was introduced to Christian and Lorena. After this, we all went to "Psychology" class. I don't really know if it was psychology or not but upon entering this class I received a brochure about periods and a sheet of paper to fill out to help me figure out what career path I might take. I was able to figure out what most of the words meant (go me) and afterwards, all of the Peruvians got packets for careers that wanted.

My other morning classes included history and religion. The history teacher was really kind and kept asking if I understood what was going on. I didn't fully understand, but I was able to decipher what was going on since all of the notes were written on the board. While the history teacher didn't speak any English, he did speak German (kinda random, but also cool). We all got into groups and someone from each group had to pick a piece of paper from the teacher. I think this our group's project, not really sure, but I picked the Russian revolution. After history we had religion. The teacher asked me what my religion was, and when I told her that I had none, she seemed confused/shocked. She asked me why and I just told her it was complicated (kinda difficult to explain why you don't love religion when you don't speak Spanish). I later told my host family this story and my Tia laughed (maybe not the best choice to tell your religion teacher you aren't religious, but it's too late now).

The school day continued on with other classes and more random breaks. Before I knew it, we were having lunch. Or snack time/recess. We don't ever actually have a lunch, we all just have a giant recess that we can eat snacks and let loose some of our energy. During lunch, I met back up with my gringas and we all discussed differences we had thus found between our schools in our home countries and our current school. We all agreed that the largest difference was the lack of respect between students and the teachers. Many students played music during class (the girls in 5th grade said someone sang throughout their classes), were on their phones the whole time (this happens at my school in the US), or just simply didn't pay attention. We all shared our food, caught up, and eventually had to go back to class.

After recess, we had to line up in the same lines that we were in at the beginning of the day. We were then approached by a teacher (I think). He asked if I was an exchange student (yes) and then went on and got all of the students laughing. Eventually, we all continued with the rest of the day. It flew by and ended with science class. My classmates all had projects to present so I just listened to them talk without understanding anything. The teacher all asked them questions and afterwards we got a form that our parents had to sign. After class ended, we all got to go home. My cousin was waiting for me, and he took me and Mamita home (she decided to come and get me from school). Upon getting home, I took a four hour nap (school is difficult).

After waking up, Naty and I got cracking on my Religion homework. I don't really understand what I was doing or how it was helping me learn, but we searched things into google, copied them, and then pasted them into a Microsoft document. Afterwards, we printed it off.

Quick photo of my awesome uniform! It is basically a tracksuit with a t-shirt underneath!