Thursday, August 17, 2023 (Josh Blessing)
Today was our second day volunteering at the Promesa school in San Jeronimo, Cusco, Peru. The previous day I had spent the time at Promesa attending several chapels for the various grades and observing the 3rd grade of secondary school with Rosemary; this grade is equivalent to 11th grade in the US. Today was different though as I volunteered with the 4th grade class by myself and got to really participate and engage more directly with the students and teachers. I realized quickly that this class would have been the kindergarten class when we last visited Peru and Promesa in 2019 and I had sat in on those classes back then with my son, Micah, who would just be entering kindergarten back home. There was one boy in particular, Mateo, who I remembered from back then as he had sat next to Micah.
The first class that we had was a gym class where we left the Promesa campus and walked about 2 blocks up the road to an outdoor turf field/playground which had a large “roof” that shielded us from the sun. Mister Pablo was the gym teacher there as well as in 2019 and was also the gym teacher when Bethany taught there….so he’s been there many years. The class played soccer and Mister Pablo had me do some passing drills with some of the students. Initially I practiced with the girls because they were the ones who had the most interest in interacting with me at first and engaging in conversation. I’ve heard that girls and women often tend to be more gifted with language than boys and men and a main part of that I think is because they, in general, enjoy conversation more and practice more. While I was practicing and talking with the girls, the boys were pounding away to see who could score goals and kick the ball the hardest.
After practicing some passing drills, some of the boys did come up to me and ask if I wanted to play a game with them. I’ve done this before in 2019 and remembered how quickly you get tired when running and playing sports at an altitude of 11,000 ft where we were. I quickly learned that some of these boys were quite good even at 4th grade. I managed to score a couple goals but I believe the other team scored more and sadly, one of my passes hit a child in the face and caused a bloody nose. I was very embarrassed and said “lo siento” (“I’m sorry”) many times, but the students and Mister Pablo said this was a common thing for this specific boy and for the children in general. I confirmed this with Bethany as being a very dry season and being at such a high altitude makes it very easy to get a bloody nose. The boy was fine thankfully and was able to return to the game.
After gym class, I was able to assist the 4th graders with their English lessons, helping to pronounce the English words for several emotions and safari animals. I think it was helpful to have a native speaker assist. These children are learning English, as well as Quechua, which is impressive. I’ve been fortunate to have my own children attend Lancaster Mennonite’s Spanish immersion program. We’ve been using both Joelyn and Micah a lot on this trip to help with translations and I am very proud of them. And these children at Promesa are learning other languages from the earliest ages which will really help them in the future. I regret that I’m not conversational in any language other than English despite my 1,200 day streak on the Duolingo language app. But I will keep trying and work towards learning Spanish and perhaps some other languages too.
After volunteering at the school, we had lunch at a nice restaurant with principal Damaris and Pastor David from the San Jeronimo church. My son, Micah, ordered cuy (guinea pig). It was good to hear from principal Damaris and learn more about her own story and her passion for Promesa. I have come away impressed from visiting Promesa. I’m seeing the children really worshiping God and praying, and a lot of this comes from the leadership of the school. Principal Damaris has a prayer meeting every morning at 7am with teachers and parents can participate as well over Zoom. She also has a WhatsApp group of all the parents where she can communicate promptly and even share videos such as our chapel presentation yesterday with our kids singing. Covid-19 negatively impacted almost every industry but especially the arts and education. And while we watched the battles take place in the USA over how to best respond and teach our children, it was even more difficult in other places like Peru. Promesa lost many students and staff during the pandemic, but it seems to be thriving. Please continue to pray for the school where at least 60% of the students come from Christian homes and many of those from the Mennonite churches.
