Long Division, Baloncesto, and Spelunking
I’m halfway through my Global Fellows experience! Since I’ve arrived in Bolivia, time has seemed to somehow simultaneously progress at a snail’s pace and faster than I can process. This week, winter break began for the Cochabamba schools, and our program, Bolivia 4WARD, began. We see four total groups of students at different times throughout the week. The groups consist of kids of varying ages, about 8–14, from area schools, orphanages, and the children of the artisans working for AHA Bolivia. We supervise as the kids use the Khan Academy online math program to strengthen the skills they learn in school, as well as pursue other interests like biology or coding within the Khan website. I’m not totally used to being “Profe Julieta” — I can’t even take myself seriously, so it’s pretty impressive that these kids do. So far, they’ve astounded me with their initiative. Even though each group is split in half and only scheduled for an hour of actual math work, some kids continually go above and beyond and seem genuinely excited about math (more than I can say about myself at any point in my life). It’s been immensely rewarding to be able to help kids grasp concepts and get one-on-one attention and see improvement every single day. Instead of shying away from what they don’t know, they’re open to being helped and learning concepts that were poorly explained (or not explained at all) by their schoolteachers. This process has beefed up my own math skills as well — I never thought I’d see the day that I re-learned long division by hand. However, I haven’t quite mastered the art of not tearing up when a little boy or girl comes up and hugs me or gives me a drawing or paper snowflake they made. I’m working on it.
Work is fantastic, but we’ve also been punctuating our workdays and work weeks with exploring the city and country. This week, all the Bolivia Fellows attended an exhilarating game of professional Cochabamba basketball. These basketball players defied stereotypes height-wise (Bolivians are notoriously short) and the combination of the native Bolivians with some imported American players made for a very interesting (and at times, hilarious) game.
Last weekend, we also visited Torotoro National Park about five hours away from the city. We traversed Umalajanta Cave, with only a few near-death experiences, and hiked 700 steps down a cliffside to Vergel Waterfall, seeing a few several-Ma-old dinosaur tracks along the way (Ma = a period of one million years. Thanks Wikipedia!). The landscape, all high arid desert, was breathtaking. This weekend we’re headed to Chaparre in the jungle, a vastly different ecosystem than Cochabamba or Torotoro, all in the same country.
After this first half of my fellowship, I’m feeling grateful for what I’ve learned so far and excited for what adventures the second half will bring. Thanks for reading!
