October 12, 2009

Tengo Pereza…….

Where does anyone learn the feeling of laziness. Laziness that is the excuse to not get up out of your hammock….the heat? Laziness that keeps you from visiting your neighbor….shyness? A laziness that keeps you from planting yucca….my kids don’t like it? Or from studying multiplication tables, going to high school, going to your 3rd grade class, starting a project on your own, breeding your goat, selling your nursery plants, reading a book, or going to a meeting. The list of things not accomplished because of “pereza” could fill a page and is the cause and in turn the affect of Chumicosan poverty???……Pereza.

The word comes out of my mouth at times with spite I want to spit it out and at times a joking laziness of my own finds joy in using that word to reason why I am not going to cook more than pasta and sauce. However, when a young boy of 4 years tells me “tengo pereza” to pick up the trash that just fell on the ground I want to shake him, or maybe just his father and mother and grandfather and aunt and cousin who echo this sentiment in their excuses for everything.

Clemente asked us if it is an illness that his son has. “He drinks beer with the guys while they work and then says tengo pereza a trabajar (he feels too lazi to work)” and sits down for the rest of the day. “I am not sure what it is” I answer. But it is something they learned from you and the neighbors. Maybe it is because there is little hope for change or that fighting for the smallest of your rights has sapped all your other energies. There is something to say about the dreadful heat. Most afternoons I myself have little energy to do much and often fight with myself to stay out of the hammock. Not having a schedule seems to discourage any hope for really productive use of your time. There is no boss to answer to, no tax collector to pay, only those 7 small mouths to feed in a land where you can stick I stick in the ground and it grows. That is not to say that growing a nutritious diet is easy. But to have enough for 1 or two meals a day will not fill your day with planting and weeding.

Parents wonder why their kids don’t want to go to high school and some finish sixth grade not knowing how to read. Is it because they don’t have to? We always say in the states that the work of the kids is to study to go to school and learn prepare for your future for that good job. But, no one seems to understand that today effects the future and that there are opportunities. I get the feeling that the people here (chumicosa, here) think that if the kids don’t learn that it is the fault of the teachers. I find myself having the same thought that the teachers suck…. Maybe they do but really they are a product of the same system. I don’t think you can blame a teacher completely when the parents don’t work with their kids to study and the kids don’t take the time to study.

As I has cutting up banana trunks in my garden for compost I pictured myself in the parent school meeting tomorrow. Asking what the responsibilities of the parents were…..To provide for your children, food, a home, love, support. I would hope for an answer like this. And then the work of a child? What could that be? To study, to prepare for their future, maybe to change something, to make their lives a little bit better or just prepare them to provide for their children.

So today, now the day after the parent teacher meeting (not done individually, done with 31 parents and the 5 teachers) I left sad and frustrated. The teachers tell the parents that the kids leave class, they rip bad grades out of their note books and write in good grades, they tell their teachers to their face that “I don’t want to do my home work”, the kids hide under desks, and out behind the school, the list goes on. The talk about the problem, we have to have strong hands, discipline our children, check up on their work, blaa blaa bla. They say it every meeting.

Could the pereza that seems to exist in most parts of the country, but festers here, come from the gifts the free projects, the welfare checks that get sent out, the free food, and the lack of education. Or is it something else. I told Muyo my frustrations and thoughts and wondered what he thought about this condition. He agreed on the overall existence of laziness on a national level but that Chumicosa was better off than most places. It is not any better here.

Anyway, not always are things great and productive and rosy. There we are, a rant session of frustrations. We will go back to positive the next time around.

Otherwise we had a great visit with Tommi and Mariah. I am doing some research on cooking Sorgham, Millet and Amaranth. There is an organization working with families in the area and have a great little food mill set up and are growing some different grains. Any one have any experience? The Amaranth seems to grow great and I have a bunch in my own garden for salads. Isaac has been busy most afternoons teaching computer classes and the locals are cranking out letters to the government on all their needs (road, bridges, cell tower, ect.). Summer is approaching quickly and most likely it will be quiet with a lot of families leaving to work. Happy Halloween everyone! We are going to hunt down some (bruhas) witches and (dwindis) fairies to scare some people.

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