Overnight Results

It's a very common experience for a Peace Corps volunteer to arrive in a community and for all the locals to expect that this foreigner is going to teach them English. Most PCVs try their hand in one way or another at teaching English. Whether it's teaching artisans basic words and phrases like "how much?" so they can more effectively sell their products at fairs, helping kids with their English homework, or working everyday in an English institute. Teaching English is almost unavoidable during our two year service.

Luckily, the initial idea that every person you come into contact with that you are going to teach them English wears off after they realize they cannot learn a language over night and without a considerable amount of effort on their part. My favorite is when the host country national blames the volunteer for not being able to learn through osmosis. So unless the volunteer is wildly motivated to teach English or they are magically blessed with enough people willing to put the back work into studying, the volunteer can eventually focus on projects closer to their heart.

I continuously side step working with English. But I have found a similar mentality in another area that I have been unable to avoid. At my girls home I do a lot of different projects. I teach classes on communication, self esteem, sexuality, etc. I have a theater group and mural painting project. But from the moment I arrived at the home, the girls have demanded exercise and aerobics classes. While setting up my summer schedule this year, the girls agreed to all of my proposals as long as I would have exercise classes.

I started the classes just a few weeks ago. Twice a week I show up in the morning, before it gets too hot, and we do a fairly basic routine. We run on dirt roads around the farms for about 20 minutes. Actually, the running only lasts from 5-10 minutes because only about 3 of the 10 girls jog while the others have varying paces of walk/jogging. We get to our half way point where we turn around to go back, but sit and wait for the rest of the girls to finish before we return. At our rest stop a lot of the girls by sodas. I try to explain to them how water is a better choice, but so far no one has bought a bottle of water.

Then we stretch and do simple exercises like squats, lunges, chair dips and push ups. And of course, no day of exercise is ever complete without sit ups and abs. If you remember back to my blogs about going to the gym in Lurin, you'll remember that most Peruvian woman have a muffin top belly and are adamant about doing 2 seconds of ab work to get rid of it. Resources are limited so there isn't much else to do. There are no weights or steps or even a radio to do a more intensive and thorough work out. But the regiment I have complied is certainly enough to help the girls maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If only that were enough.

After two weeks the girls started complaining the the exercise classes weren't working. They weren't loosing any weight and they looked exactly the same. They made comments about my body and wanted to know what I did to look the way I look. It was then I noticed the pattern that is persistent with learning English. The moment I walked through the gate at the home, the girls looked at me and thought that i could teach them to look just like me, and overnight at that. I tried at first to simply brush off the remarks that the girls wanted to know my secret, hopding they would forget about it and just enjoy the classes as they are. But they got quite demanding and I've tried with great difficulty to explain to them than in order to loose weight one must really put a lot of effort in; exercise everyday and change their diet.

But the answer isn't as simple as applying one's self to learn English. I try to explain that they don't need to loose weight, that they have healthy bodies. Not just that. If say, some one really wanted to learn English, they could study and practice and one day, they would indeed speak English. But no matter how hard they worked, they would never look like me. My body type is completely different. Every one is built a different way with different natural shapes and metabolisms.

It's frustrating, cause they don't seem to get it. And why would they? It's no different from the millions of Americans who get suckered into buying quick fix, overnight result exercise equipment and diet fads products. This is a billion dollar industry. I can't really blame the girls that they have a hard time understanding they're not going to transform in a matter or weeks.

But it's hard. There is a girl in my exercise group who was abused and got pregnant at 12. Now she is 13 and has the body of mother. She wants to loose the extra weight around her middle. She wants to look like the rest of the girls. It breaks my heart. She is one of the most dedicated girls in the class because she was powerless to resist getting pregnant, but she is not powerless to loose the weight. This is something she can do and is determined.

One might think that after what these girls have been through, the way their bodies look might seem trivial or that they would want to cover up and hide their bodies after the abuse they have endured. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The female body image remains a point of much interest to me. Thought my exercise classes I am learning how to tackle health issues and self esteem issues. It won't happen overnight, but I have at least until August to make a change.