Sticken' it to the Man

In this entry I am going to talk about the frustrations I have encountered while working with nuns. Contrary to what one might automatically think, the "man" I refer to in the title is not God. In fact, I have been very surprised at how my lack of religion and the nuns devotion to religion, hasn't really got in the way.

Catholicism seems to follow me around wherever I go. Some of my best high school friends are Catholic, 80% of my boyfriends have been catholic, my long-time college roommate was so catholic she even got me involved with projects in her church. I studied a year abroad in Spain, where the catholic church is the historical basis of their society, what with the whole Spanish Inquisition, explosion and killing of all the Jews and Moores. I don't know, maybe you've heard about it. And now I find myself in Peru. It doesn't have the same Historical fanaticism like Spain did. But Peruvians in general seem to be much more religious than the people in Spain.

I've gotten to the point where I cross myself before and after every meal. It's just easier to do so than to explain everyday why I do not. Plus, even though crossing myself doesn't hold a religious meaning to me, I think it is important that everyone who is as fortunate in life as I, should take a moment to reflect on that and feel grateful.

So the religious aspect aside, the nuns and I are finding where are differences lie. The other day, I sat down with the head nun to plan out my projects for next year (the school year ends this coming week and summer vacation starts). She basically told me the projects I was doing at the moment weren't beneficial and she didn't want me to continue with them. The head nun wanted me to help with homework and teach workshops on self esteem, and not fool around with my silly projects that are a wast of time.

It's not just the catholic organizations, but the society of Peru that believes one in only capable of learning in a classroom. A strict schedule and memorization are the two main ingredients the nuns use on to instill all of life's lessons in the children. As Peace Corps volunteers, we are told that this traditional style of teaching is the only thing most Peruvians know, so it is part of our job to introduce non-formal education to not just the kids, but the teachers as well.

The head nun explained how she wanted me to be teaching life skills. To her, naturally, one could only learn life skills in a class room, memorizing the definition of what a life skill was out of book. During my site visit, I sat in on a catechism class that Bianca taught at the orphanage. The class consisted of her standing in front of the class and reading line by line off a sheet of paper. The students wrote down all the lines, and when they had copied the whole page, class was over. That was it! But that is traditional education, copying and memorization. So I explained to the nun, all of the life lessons my painting project had taught so far. I told her how we all went to the paint store and each kid had to pay their own way and tell the cobrador the stop. At the paint store, they were in charge of telling the worker how much paint, what colors we wanted and had to pay attention as he described all the different kinds of paints. We held a contest and then a formal election to pick which drawing we would paint first. I explained that there was much more to the project besides painting. It takes a lot of preparation to paint a mural on a wall. There needs to be a big plan that maps out all of the steps and what order we will paint them in and who has what job. Then everyday, there is the preparation, the actual work and then the clean up. All of these things not only teach but are practical life lessons.

The head nun was really impressed that all these life skills were being taught by something as silly as painting. It was mildly frustrating to me, that as an adult, she couldn't have figured this out for herself. But then, if you have only ever known traditional learning methods, I guess non-formal education would never occur to you.

This is only one of many difficulties I have faced with the nuns. Their strict order and formality definitely clashes with my open-ended, fun loving style. The painting project is the only place I have had success is maintaining my non-formal style. For most other aspects of my work in the orphanage I have had to conform to their "my way of the high way" method. I am really looking forward to summer vacation as the kids will be spending time with family member's for 2 months and there will be no work for me in the Hogar. Stickin' to the man is a tough job cause most of the time, the man wins and you feel like you can do nothing right. I'm supposed to be creating positive change by introducing non-formal education to the traditional Peruvian system. But how does one change 2,000 years of tradition that is the Catholic church?