One Month In

So they say that once you stop counting down the months to your close of service and start to just live your life in Paraguay that the time flies by, even faster then you might want it to... I am still waiting for the day when that becomes my reality. Here I am just under one month into service and hoping that I will reach that point of comfort. I know that I am still in the integration process, still trying to get to know my site and not actually expected to do any work yet, but if you know me then you know that I am a busybody and I like to have something planned for just about every hour of my day. So that is what I do. I plan and I plan and I plan. But in Paraguay it is hard to live by my plans because a meeting that is supposed to start at 9 am probably won't actually start until 11 and the one that I walk forty minutes to get to will likely be cancelled. But I am getting used to it.

The work that I have started has been equally frustrating and rewarding. I have found here that like in many of the poorer education systems in the States, there are many children that will be passed from grade to grade without actually ever learning anything. There are kids in fourth and fifth grade who haven't learned their ABCs. They don't know how to add or subtract. But they keep passing the grade. Is it because they somehow manage to pass the tests? Or is it more likely that their teacher doesn't want to have them as a bother in her class again the next year? I don't know. I just know that due to a lack of support both within the school and the home the children suffer. So that is where I have started. Teaching the ABCs. Teaching basic addition. Not sure if that's what I thought I would be doing in Peace Corps, but here I am with something to do. And on the days when I have something else to do and cannot teach it makes me happy just to hear that the kids were asking what happened to Profe Melissa. It means that I have on at least some level made a difference in someone's life. I have accomplished what it was that I set out to do... and now I have 23 months left to do it over and over and over again!