School supplies of all sorts

We've been buying school supplies for years
This is one of our primary services to several families, to help their kids do well in school.
Teachers give students their "lists," the very specific notebooks required for each subject:
Red for Math, Green for Science (correct me on this, kids!), plus the art supplies and pens and even a cushion and toothbrush, plus a few books such as the dictionary.

We met Erica, Breta, and Yaquelin with their grandmother at the big school supply fair at the stadium and found most of what they needed.

Happy to get the rest of their school supplies

The elementary school requested cushions--I guess to pad the seats! Maybe they shouldn't be sitting so much as to need cushions.

Erica is happy choosing cuadernos

We bought school supplies for 12 students in elementary and secondary school at about $30 each.

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Ivan starts college, majoring in auto/boat mechanics.
Ivan's summer jobs the last couple of summers has been driving the boats back and forth from Puno to Taquile. He saw that mechanics would always be in demand, and also that it would be advantageous to have a mechanic in the family. Three boats are owned among his uncles. So he told his parents that he wanted to continue his education. He chose a respected institution, SENATI. His coursework includes not only auto mechanics, but math, physics, chemistry, British English, communications, personal development and technical drawing, as well as a special course in cell-phone repair!. It will be a three-year program. We have committed to paying tuition of $100 per month plus an occasional extra.

Silvano brought us on an excursion to check out the facilities.

Ivan is living in the family's apartment in the Taquile Albergue is on an upper floor, with natural light through a good window, plus a solar panel and electricity. Silvano chose it long ago with his dream to someday educate his children in Puno. It's small, but adequate for a college student to be able to study. The school requires that each student has a computer, so we bought one.  

Modern day college students everywhere use computers.

On top of the world:

Standing on top of the roof of the Albergue in his new uniform.

POSTSCRIPT ON IVAN'S PROGRESS, OCTOBER, 2018:

Ivan is doing very well in his coursework and beginning to experience hands-on mechanic work as well. All year, I have been in touch with his father through the internet. Silvano stays in Puno a lot to keep an eye on the young man, but he is living up to the challenge of advance education,. He keeps up with his studies.

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Kusi starts college
Kusi graduated from high school top of her class, and showed great promise to further her education. Her dream as always been to be in a profession that would help people, nutritionist, nurse. However those professions required a 6 year commitment and probably a move to Lima. She is only 17 as she starts her education, and settled on a study of languages for the tourist guide profession. Credits will be transferable from this school when or if she is ready to go for a bigger degree.
We got her all enrolled into a three-year program right in Puno. We are greatly assisted in the financing of Kusi's education by her godfather from Gunnison, Colorado, Luke Danielson. Thanks, Lucas!

A visit to the English classroom

The family is happy to get her started.

The family's  small room in the Taquile Albergue is dark and unsatisfactory for her to live in Puno, so the family want on a search for adequate housing where either her mother, Asunta, or her grandmother, Celbia, would stay with her most of the time. She would therefore need a desk and bed and other furniture. So school supplies take on a whole new meaning:

Table, desk, chair, tea kettle and pressure cooker

Armando loads up the new mattress. Big enough to share with grandma.

At last Kusi is established in her new apartment. She looks so confident at her new desk, with her new cell phone (required by the school to receive assignments).

POSTSCRIPT ON KUSI'S PROGRESS, OCTOBER, 2018

She transferred to a different school after two months. San Luis kept imposing new fees and unreasonably expensive excursions. For example, a student training tour of the Uros Islands required payment of the same that would be charged to tourists! She transferred to a facility in Capachica where she entered a program wherein she could study on her own and then report for instruction and testing every two weeks. During that time, she worked with Eufrasia in the store on Taquile while Delfin was recovering from an illness. We are not sure of her current academic status, but this week she was carrying and studying a book to learn English. She seems to have fallen in love; her boyfriend's family has a restaurant on Taquile. She is now age 18 and a legal adult.

Teaching English on Taquile

A group of Danish people are running a summer vacation English Class for Taquile youth. Twenty soles per month, or about $7. Quite a few of our family members are enrolled: Clever (age 10 on January 29), Ivan (age 14), Natalia (age 17), plus from Felipe´s family his wife Ines, Illliane and Anali. We visited the class and were invited to help with pronounciation. Then we offered to teach extra classes while they go to Puno to teach. Great fun. Teach how to say the English "th" sounds. I think not nearly as difficult as all these four different "g" and "k" and even "p" sounds in Quechua. An then there is the short "i"  and that every vowel "uh" sound that we use. I act things out with big gestures. "Uh" is a sock in the gut. Now nearly every kid on the island knows us and greets us with "Good morning," or at least a big smile.

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The first day, Sam and I made up a dialog of meeting tourists at the boat and inviting them to say overnight, "We have a room where you can stay." I also notice that Quechua has a word for "evening" which I haven´t found. My meager Quechua has been very helpful.

The Danish teachers drew pictures of their families. 

Contrasts

On Friday (30 Jan.) a storyteller joined us. He is a history teacher in Lima and an actor, originally from Cusco and well versed in Fables, Legends and Tales in Quechua. He has us put all the chairs in a big circle. He was most dramatic and dressed in typical clothing from Cusco area. Unfortunately, his Quechua is very different from the language here. Afterward Ivan told me that he missed about half the words. I knew that our Quechua here around Lake Titicaca differs from the Cusco Quechua, but I did not realize that it was that different. We borrow from Spanish and Aymara, but now I learn that two very old languages, perhaps from the Teohuanaco Culture also influence our Quechua. Pukinas and also Pukaras are the names of the old languages.

Mario Warangamaki Castillo, narrador oral indigena

He finished his stories with only about 30 minutes left in class, so I presented some coyote tales. One where coyote gets in trouble for laughing at Spider Woman´s rope coming out of her butt, and another of how coyote tried to stay up all night to be in line early to get a more powerful name. The snoring always gets a good laugh.

Solar Powered Computers at School

Coming to Taquile last week we rode on the bus with a crew of electricians and workers who were coming to Taquile to install a solar/wind powered computer program for the Elementary School. EuroSolar has 27 identical projects for schools in the Department of Puno, including five 170W PV panels, a wind turbine, 24V worth of batteries inverted to the Peruvian standard of 22V, and a water tank with an ultra-violet water purifier on the line, a refrigerator, and 5 laptops plus mouse and keyboard. Very cool.

Here's the project in process. The 6-man crew, plus several Taquileños, finished the installation in 4 days. The ground wires were in long deep pits, covered first with sheep dung before the dirt and rocks. Water in the dung makes a better electrical conductor that just dirt.

Showing the water tank, windmill (they call it a mariposa, or butterfly) and the 850W of PV panels. The trouble with 27 identical projects is that individual issues aren't considered: How will they get the water up into the tank? Climb a ladder with water on their backs after hauling in from the well 100 meters downhill? The Taquileños suggested a pump, not included in the project. They probably will still need to haul the water up the hill before pumping it up to the tank.

Final view of the installation, including the fence. Taquileños had built the control/battery building and the cement foundations for the PV array as well as the water tower in advance of the crew's arrival.

Five Fujitsu Siemens business notebooks, plus keyboard and mouse (so they'll know how to use them when they come to town and use other computers). Satelite internet is promised to come next year.

This is a picture of the PV array which was installed at the high school several years ago. Local parents complain that when the teachers leave they take the key, so no one else can use the computers. I suggested they train someone and make him "president of the computers" (seems that everyone is president of something), if they want to keep it open.

Potato Fields in Bloom

¡We took the boat to Taquile on Sunday--at last! Just below our house are several potato fields in full bloom: purple and burgandy and white. I think we arrived just in time for the peak of beauty. It's rainy season, so all the terraces are green and growing. We ate new potatoes and young oca from the fields. AND the night sky is fantastic! It has been clear, the Southern Cross, Mars, the Milky Way: I was up in the night on Sunday after the moon rose. Silver reflection on the lake and then from behind s cloud shaped like a woman. Exquisite.

All of our extended family has come to visit us in the first couple of days, and it has been a time full of love and news. During most of the year, everyone has their own busy lives. When we come, they all get together, so much of the conversation is in Quechua of them catching up on their own news with each other. They tell us how we unite the family.

Monday was the first day of school. Our goddaughter, Natalia, starts her first year of High School this year. We're very proud of her; many of her cousins and even one of her brothers and her sister didn't get past elementary school. The community held a big ceremony: All the officers of Taquile were there in full regalia. They did a coca leaf ceremony, passed soda pop all around to the spectators. Speeches were made in both Quechua and Spanish: One told the students, "Your education is not just for you, not just for the community, but to lift up the whole country." The government has put some money into the school and therefore has stricter requirements for attendance (Taquile students have always been somewhat lax). A few years ago a 20 panel solar array was installed and this year we see the satelite internet connection. I didn't ask if each student gets to have a personal email address!

A few days ago Valeria's cow pulled her off balance, she fell and is in some serious pain, so we told her we wanted to take her to some hot springs. We started plans to go NEXT week, but all of a sudden it seemed best to go right away. That's why you can read this post. We're back in Puno, leaving tomorrow for some wonderful thermal springs north of here. The group is comfortably small, Ruperta, Eufrasia and Valeria, plus Sam and I, and I think 5-yr-old Clever will be coming too. Silvano and Lino have community obligations, though Lino may join us after a day.

One of our most pleasurable experiences here is to take small groups on excusions to places they probably won't be able to afford to visit on their own. Prices in Peru are quite cheap compared to the U.S., so we can afford these marvelous outings. It's great fun to travel with our Taquile family. We can all be tourists together, different than being an ordinary tourist.