(Incredibly) High Expectations

It is not often that one is told with complete and utter seriousness that they are the answer to someone’s prayers. And yet, in the last few days, during my pre-school-year meetings with my amazingly motivated and talented counterpart, Carlota, she has told me that she believes me to be, quite literally, God’s answer to her prayers.

I don’t mean this as something even close to a boast; it simply happens that my counterpart, Carlota, has been working on a project idea of how to teach English in an integrated fashion in a manner that includes increasing students’ self-esteem (something very important in a country that has been ravaged by violence) for say, ten years now. And it also happens that a few years ago, I interned with a wonderful non-profit in Boston, Girls’ LEAP, that teaches holistic self-defense to women and girls (as it applies to both the psyche and the body) for a summer. This means that Carlota and I have found that our combined experience complements in a rather serendipitous way Carlota’s amazing, ambitious goals to not only implement an English curriculum that addresses the emotional needs of her students, but also to accomplish what I’ve learned is our school’s goal to become bilingual in the space of three years. 

Counterparts, in case I haven’t run through that one, are the people with whom we work most closely—the mouthpiece for the Peace Corps program and our first point of contact within the schools. Each volunteer has one; Carlota is mine, and she is incredibly dedicated to spreading English knowledge to her students. She sees it as a conduit to not simply a job at a call center where regular money can be made, but more ambitiously as a vessel through which students can achieve self-realization as they learn a new way of thinking and expression. 

Carlota has an unerring faith in herself and an amazing dedication to her project. Last year she submitted her project plan to a city-wide competition and won first place. This is the year of implementation—the year when the plan is put into place and, with the proof and student projects we will collect throughout the year, will culminate in the making of a documentary and giant English Day performance event. And after this? We will enter the plan and results into a country wide contest that could potentially bring money and awareness to our school.

As a woman of great faith, Carlota has told me that she truly believes that there is a divine reason for my presence within the school, and that with the two of us working on this project, we can realize her decade long goals and dreams.

Lower my expectations on this one? Au contraire, I’m not sure how they could get any higher--at least, the expectations that are out there in regards to my own role in the coming years. While this is maybe the most daunting perception within which I have ever worked, it is perhaps also the most motivating.

In a life-situation over which, in terms of life-situations, I have never held less control (aka living with a family picked by Peace Corps, in a country and city and neighborhood picked by Peace Corps, working in a Peace Corps-chosen professional sphere and working for a school assigned to me by…yup, Peace Corps…), nothing has been more refreshing and encouraging than the few meetings I’ve held thus far with my counterpart. And so, on an incredibly high, albeit rather intimidating note, I begin work tomorrow, and all that comes with that…the good Lord willing and the arroyo don’t rise!