Lesson 6: Proximity and sharing
I moved into the Casita de los Maestros one week ago yesterday. This house is a cement-and-wood construction with a large main room, small kitchen, bedroom, and a cold-water shower. Attached is a room that houses the town's tools, a collection left over from the residency of a Peace Corps couple. A new outhouse serves as the bathroom. It is spartan but comfortable, and I enjoy the luxury of cooking for myself. Future teachers at Alta Gracia will be housed here. For pictures, check out the beginning of the Photos From the Farm album, where I've added some new images.
What's most important about the Casita is that it is located right in Los Marranitos along the path where a majority of the community's families also have their home. It is built on a piece of farm land that is cut off from the rest of the farm by a road, and doesn't feel like the rest of the farm. Living "down below," on the farm, for the first two and a half months of my time here, I was isolated from the community simply because I did not live with them. I could pass through on walks ten times a day (which was not likely to happen, given the steep hill that the houses are located on!) and still be seen as an outsider. Living in the Casita, I instantly feel more a part of the community. I have neighbors! My neighbors watch out for me, and always remind me that they're here to help me as much as I am here to help them. It's fun to have kids wander in and enjoy the snowflakes I've cut to put up on my walls. I feel like the Pied Piper when I go down to the library trailed by a bunch of kids! I even enjoy hearing "Julie, vas a abrir la biblioteca hoy?!" being shouted at my open windows at least five times a day. Every time I hear it I think, didn't they always know the schedule of the library? Why do I have to tell them every day now? But I realize that it is the power of proximity that makes this question so urgent in the minds of some of the children: before they suspected they knew the schedule and they figured they would go down sometime in the afternoon; now they know that when I leave, I'm headed down. I stop to pick up regulars at their houses, they shout for me to wait so that they won't be left behind (mothers don't like their younger children to walk even the short distance to the library alone). It's great!
The Casita will be a great asset to future teachers at Alta Gracia. I am sad that I only have three weeks to live in it: I leave for the States on December 22nd, and leave behind the Casita (and the library, and Marranitos). Our latest hope is that, between teachers, the Casita will be used for more directly community-oriented Fundacion-Finca Alta Gracia projects, such as the host site of a traveling clinic.
What's most important about the Casita is that it is located right in Los Marranitos along the path where a majority of the community's families also have their home. It is built on a piece of farm land that is cut off from the rest of the farm by a road, and doesn't feel like the rest of the farm. Living "down below," on the farm, for the first two and a half months of my time here, I was isolated from the community simply because I did not live with them. I could pass through on walks ten times a day (which was not likely to happen, given the steep hill that the houses are located on!) and still be seen as an outsider. Living in the Casita, I instantly feel more a part of the community. I have neighbors! My neighbors watch out for me, and always remind me that they're here to help me as much as I am here to help them. It's fun to have kids wander in and enjoy the snowflakes I've cut to put up on my walls. I feel like the Pied Piper when I go down to the library trailed by a bunch of kids! I even enjoy hearing "Julie, vas a abrir la biblioteca hoy?!" being shouted at my open windows at least five times a day. Every time I hear it I think, didn't they always know the schedule of the library? Why do I have to tell them every day now? But I realize that it is the power of proximity that makes this question so urgent in the minds of some of the children: before they suspected they knew the schedule and they figured they would go down sometime in the afternoon; now they know that when I leave, I'm headed down. I stop to pick up regulars at their houses, they shout for me to wait so that they won't be left behind (mothers don't like their younger children to walk even the short distance to the library alone). It's great!
The Casita will be a great asset to future teachers at Alta Gracia. I am sad that I only have three weeks to live in it: I leave for the States on December 22nd, and leave behind the Casita (and the library, and Marranitos). Our latest hope is that, between teachers, the Casita will be used for more directly community-oriented Fundacion-Finca Alta Gracia projects, such as the host site of a traveling clinic.
posted by Julianne Baroody @ 11:05 AM
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