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Hi everyone!
So my time in Peru is coming to a close, and I thought i would write one last time. Mind you, I also have a delay in the airport to wait through, so this conveniently gives me something to do, so thanks!
The last week and a half or so have been alright. It has been really good to be back with all the other students - since we all went our separate ways, I hadn't seen some students in a month - for presentations and turning in our papers and just wrapping the program up in general.
I was happy with my presentation - I felt like I somehow managed to give an idea of how complicated my investigation was and all the different things involved in doing an investigation about bilingual education in the part of the Amazon i was in - there are so many implications about identity (imposed or not), language, history (especially that of the era of the caucho in the Amazon - pretty fascinating by very sad history, mind you), and much more.
I think I gave a little bit of an idea of my thinking of these things the last time i wrote, so I won't get into it too much here - but basically, I had fun making my presentation and presenting but I can't help but feel that our former assistant director would have been a much better judge of my presentation and investigation as a whole than the director. The director didn't really have any idea of what my investigation was for the majority of the time leading up to when we left to do our investigations (and I'm not sure that she had an idea even after that, really) and she doesn't have a background in theory, so the theory that I talked about didn't go over very well, it seemed. In my presentation I talked about the ecolodge in the community and how it is creating economic problems and other implications for the community of Infierno, and her only question after my entire presentation was "do you really think that the ecolodge being in the community has anything to do with bilingual education?" my answer was that of course it does - the presence of the ecolodge and very inadequate education for the community are two parts of the same processes of acculturation, neocolonization, linguistic hegemony, etc.
there were a lot of presentations about investigations that had to do with the inadequacy of education in peru. I found this incredibly interesting, considering peru has one of the highest matriculation rates in latin america and the caribbean and it's pretty high for the world, even. yet, studies before ours and our investigations show that the education is incredibly inadequate for those who are being taught by this education system. there are a lot of reasons for this, in my opinion, but it would be nice to see this changing - the UN paper on indigenous peoples in the world states that all peoples have a right to their language, to education, etc. and by this, i think they meant an adequate education which allowed those being taught to succeed in countries that do not consider them part of the culture, country, etc.
in any case - it was very good to see everyone and some of my favorite presentations were on the following themes: vertical birthing (traditional birthing) in one region of Peru, alcoholism in a northern amazonian community (Iquitos), HIV/AIDS in Peru (Iquitos, specifically), some of the presentations about different facets of education in Peru - we had everything from acquisition of english as a 2nd or 3rd language, someone volunteered in a school in a poorer area of Cusco and found that teachers never really went because they don't feel they're paid enough, but that means that the students don't get taught ANYTHING, another whose investigation was more of a theoretical approach and the mix of the Ministry of Education, the State, and teachers, etc and the theory behind bilingual education, and much more.
Last night we had a goodbye dinner at a restaurant and I had my last meal with my host family yesterday at lunch. Both lunch and dinner were wonderful and this morning at the kitchen table with my host mom this overwhelming sadness came over me, knowing that it would be the last meal i had with her sitting across the table from me, at least for some time. All of my host brothers and sisters woke up to say bye to me, two of whom are flying today as well - Alex and his wife Antonella who live in Switzerland (she is Swiss, but her mom is Italian) and her mom. My family has been so incredibly kind and caring to me throughout my time here and it was wonderful to get to spend a few final minutes with them before leaving. They have definitely been one of the constant good things during my time here in Peru and one of the things I will miss the most.
Well, I think I'm done for now, the next time i write to you all will probably be from Argentina again! Yay! By the end of the week, I should have all my stuff figured out for my internship and be starting it shortly after, which should be good too!
Love you all, and I hope that you're all doing well, always feel free to send me updates and information from the states and let me know what's going on in your lives. Love love love!
Alma
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