While Malin, Emma, and Jeanne all chose the sit in chairs, Dominik and I sat on the bench that was built into the wall (it went the entire length of the wall). We initially sat here because they had to go get us more chairs, but once sitting down, we were sprung on by the surrounding children. The first initial questions were about the Rotary jackets. Mine being more covered than Dominik's, I received the most questions and grabs from children. After that, questions started. Personally, I love talking to children in Spanish for two reasons:
1. Their Spanish is much more basic and they use a smaller vocabulary
2. Their Spanish is very clear to me and they don't use slang
My conversation in Spanish started off with the two girls sitting next to me. They had many questions (Where I was from, how old was I, I could speak English, etc.). But they also had so many questions about my Rotary jacket (Where were all the pins from, had I been to all those places, etc). After the initial basic questions passed, the girls started asking me how to say things in English. While it started off with colors (the older of the two girls told me she knew that a pin on my jacket was blue), it somehow morphed into names. While there are a few names in Spanish that have English equivalents, the majority do not. I honestly think that this confused the girls a little bit as both of their names had no equivalents, but their classmate Jorge (who one of the girls told me is crazy) had the English name George. During these conversations, Dominik and I were both asked repeatedly if we wanted to sit in the chairs that had been brought for us, which we both declined, as we were having too much fun being questioned.
Eventually the questions died down and the show began. A few were singing and quite a few were dancing. I quite enjoyed the dancing ones, as they were dancing to remixes of songs I knew. It was also a little insightful as to how Latino/as are raised, and that is, dancing from a young age. The girls in the primary school were already learning how to shake their little hips quite well if I do say so myself.
There also happened to be a little boy that was dressed as a little mime. He however, was terrified to go and perform. I felt horrible for him, as he looked like he was going to vomit and he kept running away from the stage. Eventually, his friends and the teacher convinced/dragged him on stage. He happened to be quite good at his little magic act, and after getting past his stage fright, he performed well. He did; however, run as fast as he could off the stage when he was done, only to be greeted by tons of students who congratulated him.
The magic was the last act, and afterwards the exchange students, Rotarians, and school officials all met in a little room. While I don't really know what was being said, we did get to eat little sweets. While American sweets will probably always be number one in my eyes, we were all starving at this point, and gladly took what we were given. After the quick little meeting, we went to one of the classrooms and introduced ourselves to the students. While there are times I am not always proud of my country and the decisions we make, nothing can describe the feeling you get when children get excited I'm from the United States. It goes to show you how present American things are around the world and how far we have reached into other countries. Every time I tell a child I am from the United States, the incredulity on their faces and in their voices is something that makes my heart happy (and the French a little salty that their country doesn't have the same effect).
After the classroom, we all returned to Violeta's (my counselor and a Rotarian) car. We crammed in, drove back to the Rotary club and then all clambered out. Knowing we had a few more meetings before lunch, we all headed to a nearby convenience store. We all ended up buying a liter of ice cream to all share (we make healthy choices), before heading back to the club building. We all sat down and started eating, before Jeanne (French) and I were pulled away to help set up for the Rotary. Emma (France) quickly joined, and we ended up moving pop and cutting cake. Afterwards we returned to eat a bit more ice cream.
After polishing off the ice cream, we talked with some Rotarians and other people about our exchange thus far. The discussion wasn't that long, and included quite a bit head nodding from me, but eventually we wrapped it up. After the discussion, all of the exchange students once again left with Violeta for a more important thing, lunch. We went and got Pollo a la Brasa (Rotisserie Chicken and French fries dipped in Ají or Mayonnaise with a salad on the side). We talked a bit more about the Rotary events our club would be doing while we ate. Afterwards, we all went to back to Violeta's house to figure out what to do next. After some discussion, we decided to all take the micro to Plaza San Miguel (a large shopping center in Pueblo Libre). Here, we all got coffee, looked around Ripley's (department store), and got churros. Eventually, we all headed back to Violeta's/Emma's house. Jeanne and I ended up calling for a taxi to take us to a different part of Lima for our first Interact meeting.
Jeanne and I's taxi driver to our Interact meeting seemed fine and normal at first. By no means was he dangerous (we only take taxis through a Rotary recommended app that does background checks on our drivers), but after we asked him to crank up the radio, he knew we weren't from Peru. He then started to ask us questions, all of which lead to him asking us if we were religious. After we both told him know, this opened up a giant conversation that I didn't particularly want to be a part of. So instead, I got to silently send moral support to Jeanne for 15 minutes as she argued with the driver about why she didn't need to pray or be religious. He never fully understood her, so he turned to me instead. This is when I gave him the most basic and watered down version of why I am not religious. But instead of arguing with me, he simply said okay and continued on. This was not only a bit comical, but made Jeanne a little angry. Personally, I think he could tell from my response my Spanish wasn't that great, so he just gave up. Nonetheless, he didn't receive a very good rating from us on the app.
After we found the location of the interact building, we went up and had our first meeting. We (meaning a ton of exchange students), were all inducted in. There were also three presentations given, two from exchange students (Italy and France), and one from a Rebound. During his presentation, the rebound started to cry when he looked at photos of his friends. This proceeded to make everyone else almost start crying or cry (my eyes were pretty watery). After the meeting, we all talked with Charo and Henry a bit before we all left and headed home.
No comments:
Post a Comment