October 2007 - Mayquelin and Gregoria

From current PD Julie Mills:

"For the past few weeks, Mayquelin (who lives catty-corner to El Farito) and I have been working on homework together occasionally after programs. She is twelve and still in the third grade with eight-year-olds because of her difficulty with reading and math. Every day seems like such a struggle for her. She guesses at math problem solutions because she doesn't believe she possesses the ability to solve them herself, and for Mayquelin, syllables don't seem to come together to form words and thoughts. She is a beautiful and cheerful little girl who bravely marches to El Farito every day to try to learn things she really doesn't think she can master. But our last few study sessions, though dominated by frustration on both our parts, have been dotted by sweet moments of victory. Usually they are not working at the dry erase board on homework assignments, but while playing Connect Four, when Mayquelin starts to understand the strategy behind the game, or while putting together a jigsaw puzzle, which is one of the few classroom things she really dominates. Building up her confidence in her own cognitive ability is a task I don't nearly feel equipped to conquer, but I am so inspired by the brave heart that this little girl carries around all day every day as she strains to do things that seem so much harder for her than for everyone around her. And one jigsaw puzzle and congratulatory sticker at a time, I hope to report more and more happy moments of success that flow together to convince this girl that she is beautiful and smart and capable, inside the classroom, on the dirt roads of Cedro Galan, and everywhere else her little feet take her."

From current PD Erin Duncan:

"Gregoria has been coming to women's exercise class since we arrived, and she has become one of my friends, labeling me "Shakira" and inviting me to meet her family and boyfriend. Recently, she started bringing Raquel, her mom, to class, usually with at least one of her two younger sisters in tow. It's amazing to watch them interact-- at first Raquel added to the noise of the class as if she were another fourteen year old, but she has started to embrace the class, especially the yoga section. Now, when they're in the class, she acts like a mother instead of another child.

Every month, we have some sort of reunion with women in the community regarding our health, typically based on topics that the women want to explore. I asked Raquel if there was a topic she was interested in and she immediately told me that the teenage girls in the community need to be educated on sex, from abstinence to condoms to pregnacy. Seems that this topic is never addressed in home, church, or school, other than the occasional comment about waiting until marriage. For the next half hour, Raquel and I spoke very frankly about the mother's role in the education of her daughter, how manna members are viewed as positive role models, and why girls here have difficulty comprehending the consequences of their actions, both good and bad. At the end, no one had committed to speak to Gregoria or the other girls in Cedro. We will continue to discuss that. However, I now know that Raquel respects me enough to invite me to help care for her daughters, a rather daunting prospect. I also know that the women's exercise class is serving its purpose of fostering a safe place in the community for women to discuss topics that may not be comfortable or acceptable in other situations."