I got to school about half an hour before the bus was to leave on Monday evening. A smattering of students were already there. Took care of some last minute details for Wendy (the other teacher) and I. Kids trickled in slowly, bouncing up to the office, about as excited as you've ever seen kids be. Andre was a human jumping, yelling bean. I felt as tight as a fiddle string myself, not sure how all this would go. After we gave them their class jackets and had a time of prayer with all the nervous parents, we boarded the bus - 18 students and 5 adults (2 teachers, 3 parents). I felt the presence of God as we prayed. We set off for Ollantaytambo (about 2 hours away) where we would board the train for Machu Picchu. We were not even out of Cusco before we heard the first "How long till we get there?" Nor were we out of Cusco before the first student began complaining of motion sickness. Between checking on carsick kids and getting everyone settled and comfortable, I began to feel like a flight attendant. Can you put this CD in the CD player so we can all listen to it? Miss Bethany, I feel sick! Can you help me get my backpack down from the overhead rack? Can you help me get this blanket situated? My stomach hurts! I need to go to the bathroom. They finally all settled down. The first "I think this will all be okay" moment came when Sara and Clara suggested that the whole bus sing a song together instead of singing two or three songs in little groups. They began singing "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever". It didn't catch on, but I enjoyed it. We finally got to Ollantaytambo around 10:30 and got everyone's luggage sorted out. Weighed down with said luggage, we waddled to the train station, boarded the train, and then had to get luggage situated again, this time on the train. It was Magna's birthday that day, so when the train began moving, we sang happy birthday. A high school class behind us in the train compartment was also going on promotion and they pitched in with the happy birthday singing also. They were being normal, hormone-infused high-schoolers, so we broke out the dice and soon had people distracted and entertained with games of Farkle and Yahtzee. Between farkling, yahtzeeing and sleeping, we arrived uneventfully in Machu Picchu around 1 AM. We then proceeded to the church which would be our lodging for the night, struggling under heavy bundles of luggage. Till we got everyone settled in and the lights turned off, it was more like 2:15. I found it difficult to sleep for some reason and lay on the floor listening to the chorus of heavy breathing around me for what seemed like most of the night. Right after I heard the first rooster crow, all the kids started waking up and soon my sleeping bag nest on the floor was surrounded by a hive of barely suppressed activity. Who programmed all 20 of their internal alarm clocks to go off at 5:00 AM, I had to wonder. As soon as I got up the kids started asking "Can you help me roll up my sleeping bag?" I had to remember all the times I asked my parents the same thing as a child and smiled to myself as I thought about how the shoe was now on the other foot. Gradually all the sleeping bags turned into neat little sacks and pajamas were traded for clean clothes. Around 7:00 they couldn't wait any longer. The church had turned into a confining prison for 18 rearin'-to-go sixth graders. We decided to go on a walk and out they poured through the open doors. We went to the plaza and enjoyed taking pictures there and playing with the local dogs while we waited for breakfast to be readied. After breakfast, we went up to the ruins of Machu Picchu. Waiting at the train station, playing "I Spy" (in English!) and hearing Andre call out to the tourists "You need to have a good time in Peru", I began to feel as though I have been successful as an English teacher. :) Sometimes it's the little things.
Machu Picchu is honestly a blur. Between the late night and fitful sleep of the night before and the hot sun of the new day, my brain did not retain much. We trekked all over the ruins of the city, seeing the agricultural district, the various temples and mystical rocks, and the residential area. It was, however, an interesting tour, despite my out-of-it-ness. The kids got tired pretty quickly, for the same reasons I did, and were quite ready to head back to town for lunch when the tour was over. In the afternoon we got everyone installed in a cheap hostel in the town and gave them time to rest and shower before we went to the hot springs and then supper in the evening. Somehow, they all found enough energy to annoy the other occupants of the hot springs with their splashing and noise, trying to figure out the art of floating and swimming in the water and just in general having fun playing. I think everyone was ready to see our troupe leave. Back at the hotel after supper and a round of eye drops (you would have thought we were torturing the poor kids!), we bandaged up the battle scars from the rough stone bottoms of the hot spring pools, had a short devotional and fell into bed exhausted.
Wednesday morning dawned with a general power outage in the town. I feared my watch had gone crazy when I peered at it through sleep-dazed eyes at 7:00 in the morning. 9 hours of dead to the world sleep felt excellent! So did the nice hot shower. We hurried through breakfast, then grabbed our luggage and lugged it again to the train station to leave for Ollantaytambo. The train ride was long for the kids, about 3 hours, punctuated with several stops, Leo's severe motion sickness, and jumping from one game to another. I, as the only one who knew most of the games, spent my train ride jumping from Yahtzee to Racko to Phase 10 as a stream of interested kids came to see what games I had brought in my bag. Dice are extremely handy for playing games in cars and lively games of Farkle and Mennonite Madness also ensued. Once at Ollantaytambo, we again loaded ourselves with our luggage and made our way to the bus that would take us to Pisac. I spent the trip from Ollantaytambo to Pisac squeezing the wrists of poor Leo, who never got a chance to recover between the bout of motion sickness on the train before we got on the bus. Thankfully, I remembered a trick my mom had taught me as a child, that putting pressure on your wrists, for whatever reason, helps. Unfortunately, he ended up throwing up, right as he was getting off the bus. Fortunately, he did it in a bag and the clean up was easy. We stowed our luggage in the Royal Inka Hotel in Pisac quickly and went to find some lunch. After lunch, we walked back to the hotel, and some of the boys almost gave me a heart attack when I saw them walking carefree in the MIDDLE of the road, right around a CURVE! That did not go without its respective talking-to afterwards. After getting everyone situated in their rooms, they all wanted to go to the pool, so we decided to let them do so for a little while. Wendy and I sent them with the parents, while we worked frantically to figure out the best way to set up a projector to show a movie in our bedroom. A bedsheet, a few curtain hangers, Ada Sol's speakers and an extension cord borrowed from the hotel later, we were almost ready when the kids started coming to our room. Partway through the movie, the battery-powered speakers died and Mr. Steve, Micah's dad and the resident adult male on the trip, made several trips to the reception desk to borrow speakers that would work with my laptop. We finished 2/3 of the movie before supper, which turned out, for me, to be one of those magical moments.
It's difficult to be inconspicuous when you're a group of 21, 17 of which are students (a mother and son stayed behind in Machu Picchu for business reasons). It's especially difficult to be inconspicuous when you take 17 sixth-grade students to the nice restaurant in the hotel for supper. We were joined in the adjoining dining room of the restaurant by a group of kind adults from various countries (I think I heard Pakistan, the Philippines, and Ethiopia). One older gentleman in particular took an interest in our students and was talking with them in English (short phrases, but English nonetheless), which in this case was a common bridge language for both parties. I again felt highly satisfied when my kids could enjoy talking with them in English and found a good and intriguing reason to speak the English they know. That was the beginning of the magic for me. I had to hold down a laugh when Sara and Crhisnna returned to the table after getting hot water for tea and announced wide-eyed "Nos dijeron que somos beautiful!" (they said we're beautiful!) Their next question was "How do you say in English 'De que pais son?'" (what country are you from?) That's not a question they use every day, but they know the elements. They figured out how to say "Where are you from?" and then went back to the group of adults. They chickened out, but Mr. Steve took advantage of the moment and helped them begin a conversation with the international gathering. A guitar had been brought out as we ate and slipped glances over their way, and when one of the Ethiopian men began dancing while our kids were over talking with them, inhibitions dropped. Pretty soon, Crhisnna and Sara were dancing with the Ethiopian man. And then a beautiful Asian dance of some kind was begun and we all watched in wonder as we saw culture and language barriers be torn down right then and there. People from 5 of the 6 inhabited continents (one of our students is half English) standing in the same room, speaking to each other in the same bridge language and enjoying the same music and dance....that for me was a magical moment.
We then went back from supper and finished The Princess Bride, which the kids, much to their own amazement, enjoyed. The evening then was a flurry of putting drops in eyes again (half of the boys were amazingly cowardly before a tiny bottle of eye drops...it made me laugh), re-bandaging wounds, devotionals with the boys and girls separate, and trying to get everyone in their rooms and settled down. It was midnight till that goal was reached. Clara was told that she could NOT under any circumstances call Ronaldo's room and Clara and Ada Sol were also told that they could most definitely NOT have a slumber party and stay up till all hours of the night doing who knows what. I again had a fitful night of sleep, for whatever reason.
Thursday morning dawned bright and clear. We rested in bed till about 7, then got up and got ready for breakfast. After breakfast and getting luggage ready to take back to Cusco, everyone wanted to swim, so we all trooped over to the pool. I was teaching Magna and Mishell how to swim and we were all playing around in the water, when we noticed that Sara and Crhisnna were out in about 6 1/2 feet of water, had gotten tired, and were clinging to each other, desperately trying to stay afloat, panicking and pushing each other under the water worse. I swam out to them and they, in their panic to get to a safe place, were pushing me under the water further and making me panic. I can swim, but I am not a lifeguard and don't know how to do water rescue. After what seemed like an eternity, I surfaced and saw that Mr. Steve had gotten them to the shallow end and they were okay. It was a traumatizing event for all three of us and I thank God that He knew all along what would happen and provided someone who could help in the situation. I'm not sure what I would have done by myself. It would have been a bit more time until serious damage would have happened, but we were very shaken by the whole experience! We played a bit more in the water, then went back to the hotel to shower and get everything packed up and ready to leave. After another round of bandaging things up and putting drops in eyes, the bus came an hour early and we had to get everyone rounded up, luggage moved to the bus, pictures taken. Then came lunch, the last rush to the bathroom and we were all on the bus heading back to Cusco. When we arrived at the school, we were met with the welcome of returning heroes. Parents and teachers alike awaited us at the door, clapping, smiling, hugging, reuniting. It was good to see everyone again, see that my sub had survived, and especially to know that the whole stress of being responsible for the well-being of 17 students was no longer in my hands. Coming home to my house after the last student was picked up was anti-climactic. I realized it's kind of depressing coming home to an empty house as a single person. I was greeted by a wilting plant, some old bananas and a house that hadn't moved a muscle since I left almost 3 days beforehand. And yet it's good to be home. It was fun to see my students outside a classroom. It was good to know that I have Jesus' help to do all that I need to do. And it was interesting to get out of the normal routine of life and have a change of scenery. But I'm glad to be back. I'm glad that I am not the mother of 17 sixth-graders constantly. And I am ready for SLEEP! Thank you God for a good trip and help it to be a good memory and a good class-builder for years to come. Thus ends the chronicle of the first promotion trip of PROMESA.
1 comment:
woo hoo you did it!
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