Thursday, March 3, 2016

Less, is more?


The past week was strange. For several days few kids showed up to the PM activities. ‘¿Dónde están tus compañeros? ¿Trabajando?’ – ‘¿Where are your schoolmates?¿Working?’ though the typical ‘saber’ is still the main answer many nodded in agreement, as to say their colleagues were working.
‘Yo también estoy trabajando’ - ‘ I am also working’ one told me when he randomly entered the room and didn’t want to stay for long. Education vs work that is a hard one to figure out around here.
Other days were better, on Thursday for example, there were many kids eager to play Uno and the smaller ones asked the ball to play outside. There was also
a professions' soup letter going on and some hangman games.

The playground to the smaller ones!



The classroom for the bigger :) professions' soup letter!

In the morning I am disputed by several grades : ‘¿vas a venir con nosotros?’ - literally ‘will you come with us?’- meaning : ‘are you staying in our classroom today?’. For me, AM support is one of the moments where I feel Li Ch’utam's strongest 'magic'; being there and assisting the teachers when they have to deal with so many energetic kids.....

Here in Mercedes the parents decide when to have their kids entering school, so indeed there are grades but ages are all mixed, and that creates a certain disparity between learning rythms. 
Some kids are struggling to get number 8 right and others can easily count, write, and recognize numbers untill 28. All in the same classroom and grade. Grammar is another issue (spanish is their second language), with singular mixed with plural, feminine with masculine and ‘s’ for ‘c’, AM is one of the most tiring moments at school, but definitely definitely worth it!

As for the kitchen gardens projects there are some new families on board, whilst others stepped down and many boosted up their compromise. My heart gets warm every time we arrive to a kitchen garden where the compromise, effort and hope of that family can clearly be seen by the improvement and time they visibly dedicated to their garden. We also get disappointed with some families at times. But after all, the main is to offer the hand, tools, advice and motivation. The remaining is up to each family, and has long as one family tries hard, there is no reason for us not too.



Maria Victoria's kitchen garden 2
 
Maria Victoria's kitchen garden



Julio's kitchen garden


Julio's Kitchen garden 2




 














 Today on my way to one of the latest kitchen garden participant families’ place one of my little friends asked me:

'¿Felipa, adónde vas?' - ‘Felipa, where are you going?’
‘Hola amiguito, me voy a lo de Julio, a sacarme una foto de su huerto’- ‘Hi, little friend, I am going to Julio’s place to take a picture of his kitchen garden’;
‘¡Ah , si!, es que mi mamé también está interesada’-  ‘Oh yes! my mother is also interested in the project’ ;
‘Púes dile que proxima semana tenemos reunión el la escuela, martes 10 a las 15h30, que venga si quiere asesorarse’ –‘We will have a meeting at school on the project, next week, Thursday 10 at 15h30’.
‘Le voy a decir!’ – ‘I’ll tell her’.

So keep your eyes open, next week there are a lot of things going on and we’ll keep you posted!



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