Resourcefulness is a useful skill for anyone, but I have grown to believe that it is essential in Santa Ana. When resources are skim you have to be creative and work with what you’ve got. The eight volunteers here are very different though I feel one trait we all have in common is resourcefulness. During our Easter vacation we saw a bunch of WorldTeach volunteers from other sites. Many asked us what exactly we do in Santa Ana. To be honest, I couldn’t really answer them. I love my time here and I am always busy but I could not articulate what I do on a daily basis besides plan and teach. When I really started to reflect on how I have fun in Santa Ana I realized how absurd my life might seem to others. Sure I do some activities that would be considered “normal” I watch movies, surf the Internet, cook with my friends, and just hangout and talk for hours with the other teachers and volunteers. But then we also get a little creative too.
Let me tell you living on a school campus presents a lot of opportunities to be creative. We use the school soccer field to play our own women’s soccer games (we play with Gringos and Colombians on the same team because the one time it was Gringos vs. Colombians they creamed us). My friend and I turned the exercise field into a driving range/golf course. He brought some golf clubs back from the States and we designed a game where trash cans and bushes were holes, we even taught some Colombians how to golf (attempted to teach them anyway). This is the same friend who introduced me to “rubber chicken bocce.” Rubber chicken bocce is similar to bocce ball, the Italian game where two teams try to throw their balls closest to a small target ball. Except as you can probably guess it involves rubber chickens that we also use for class.
In addition, to sport-like activities we find ourselves pretty amused with the animals on campus. There are some dogs that have in some ways been adopted by Barbacoas. Usually the Gringos name them and the names tend to stick. For example, there is one floppy eared, quirky, black dog that my roommate named Jafar (after her likeness to Jafar from Aladdin). However, once we realized that she is a girl we changed the name to Jafarra. We spend a lot of time (too much time I’m sure) gossiping, not about people but about dogs. Jafarra recently had puppies and so we are constantly searching for who the father might be and discerning whether or not Jafarra is a good mother. This may sound sad but honestly the hours in Santa Ana fly by (except when there is no water and/or electricity- then time goes by much, much slower- but that is a topic for another blog).
Maybe I’m learning too much from my students on how to keep myself entertained. The students here have the best imagination. In one of my classes the students were presenting conversations in English, practicing personal questions. I had my video camera with me that day so I started vide taping their skits. The students who were not performing stepped into action right away. One of them grabbed the classroom broom and held it over his shoulder as though it were a microphone. Another student grabbed the garbage and acted as though it projected light. Two other students grabbed the boxes for recyclables and pretended they were two more cameras. They skillfully moved around the classroom capturing every moment of the skit. My coteacher and I then started each skit by saying “Light, Camera, Action!”
I know little kids can be entertained by almost anything but the kids here tend to take it to a new level. Santa Ana is a town where kids literally run down the dirt path pushing a tire with a stick. Just by walking through campus it is easy to see that kids here can entertain themselves with practically nothing. There are always little kids hanging off tress. The latest fad is marbles; I swear they are the tamagotchis or the pogs of my time. Kids of all ages are seen playing with marbles.
I always pass by the pre-schoolers on the way from my classes to my dorm. For a while now they have screamed “Good morning teacher” as I pass by. Recently, however, they have made a game of running up and touching me before running back to their class. Sometimes they hug me and other times they just come up and tag me, but if they see that one of their friends has touched me after them they will come back and touch me again so they are the last one to do so. It is very strange, like a game of tag that nobody told me I was playing. I’ve been asking around (Colombians and Americans) and nobody else seems to have this happen to him or her so I’m not exactly sure why I was selected. Regardless, it makes my day that much more interesting.
When you have less you try to do more with what you have. I find myself saving scarps paper to reuse in class. After I finished tube of deodorant I literally peeled the labels off to use as tape to hang pictures up in my room. I know that may sound absolutely ridiculous, but hey it works. It’s just one more lesson I’ve learned from Colombia. Who knows, maybe when I get to the States I can bring back good old-fashioned tires and sticks.
