Interns and El Ministerio

The last three days of training have been long.  For me that means attending to spanish, to which my mind refuses to assimilate as to a new liver.  But my fellow interns and I are learning much about the tool we're using, the XO, and how to use it in a classroom.  These instructive sessions have been broken up by lectures from the Peruvian Ministry of Education, a well dressed government organization bent on keeping us on task.  I'm always fuzzy on the details, but my fellows explain that the teachers we'll be working with are the bosses, "los maestros" indeed, and we should keep our ambitions in check.  This is most ironic as my fellows are mostly looking to enjoy themselves and don't intend to challenge anyone's control.  We relax into the well meaning bureaucracy and let it coddle us.  Our training is broken by leisurely and well catered coffee breaks served by a mousy older Peruvian senora, no doubt the protagonist of the scene, in a hallway at the top of the stairs of an industrial concrete building in downtown Lima, itself under a perennial blanket of clouds and smog which intermingle indistinctly.  My dystopian sci-fi imaginings run wild.

I'm falling in love with my interns, these lovable and worldly dorks.  They drink, though not like I know how to drink, and they commiserate like all good humans should.  There's Dhyana - a U.N refugee of Nicaragua and NY and a lovely roommate, Mark - tall and smirky, Steve - an experienced OLPC veteran and also smirky, Tiffany - a young New England woman at her best, Adam - an ironic brit (if you can believe that) and quite hugable, Cesar - stoic techie of Espana, Nick - a fellow Miamian and a lark, Becca - she's a sorority president and enjoys whisky (I'll be seeing a lot of this one as she'll be my partner in classroom work), Diego - a very much redhead of Uruguay, Andre - a young professional with more experience in the world than most old professionals, and Brian - our trustworthy and dapper diplomat of a supervisor.  We huddle around breakfast, coffee, or beers, and make chit chat and innuendoes.  We ride in taxis to training and make fun of the Ministry almost as much as it deserves.  You know.  I'm the quiet one again, and over enthusiastic, but that's my m.o.

Lima is as diverse a town as any its size - families, business folk, hippies, poor, rich - but as its next to the ocean its bound to attract a good deal more tourists than the average.  A sublime coastline filled with shining excuses for gringos to spend money.  The hostel we're in maintains a steady cliental of young, thirsty internationals.  Its in the center of the more lush section of the city.  Joyous, affluent noise surrounds.  I'm looking ahead to the field work and the small town drinking holes we're headed for.  And most of all the kids.