I am learning to adjust to the fact that organization is really a very limited part of my life in Peru. For example, one of the students (who also attends the public school) told me that when she went to school yesterday, it was cancelled because her teacher was sick so they could all go home. (Can you imagine that happening in America?? We can barely get a snow day approved!). Therefore, when I was told that every once in awhile a man might stop by my class to take attendance, I thought just another thing that may or may not happen.

Then a few days later, a man appeared at my classroom door with a piece of paper and simply pointed to the paper and said “nombres” (Spanish for names). In my best Spanish, I asked him if he wanted me to write the names of the students and he simply replied “nombres,”. The other volunteer that day (Daniel) was also a beginning Spanish speaker so we decided that he must not understand our broken Spanish and yes, he probably was the attendance man. We proceeded to write the names of the kids on his paper. He looked at us rather strangely and then left.

About 30 minutes later, another man appeared at our door and in very clear Spanish told us that he was there to take attendance. David and I just looked at each other and now we were really confused because obviously the first man was not the attendance man. We had no idea what was going on (which is often typical for our day) so proceeded to give the second man all the names and went on with teaching.

About an hour later, it was time for recess. When I went out to the patio area, there was the first man. I asked another volunteer if he knew who he was and he told me, “Miguel- he has special needs but hangs out at the school.” Well, of course I couldn’t resist going to talk to Miguel! After I started talking with him, he ran to the trash can and got out a piece of paper and then told me “numeros” (numbers in Spanish) so I wrote some numbers on his paper. He copied them, and then I tried some easy single addition problems. Miguel got so excited and together we did simple addition- I would write the problems and then hold up the correct number of fingers for him to count. He’d then write the answer and ask for “mas” (more). I have never seen someone so happy to learn!

Now Miguel has become a regular stop in my morning… instead of having to find paper in the trash, I have a math sheet for him ready to go. He sits outside on the patio with a big smile and waits each day to do his math. And, while teachers are not supposed to have favorites, he definitely is one of mine!