Half Way?!

First of all, I had no idea I hadn't updated in forever. Oops. Also, I just (well, yesterday) realized that I am exactly HALF WAY DONE! That is mind boggling, not only because I have been here for 2 months but also because that means I have to leave in 2 months!
On that note, I am overwhelmed by the prospect of describing what i have done since I last updated...let's see...I went on a public bus to the beach, which was an absolutely hilarious and wonderful day....I went on a 3 day silent retreat, which was amazing but i wont bore you all with the inner details of my mind and my newly found infinite wisdom of life and the universe (ha)...my friend got Dengue fever (she is okay, don't worry)....i went to the El Salvador-Honduras soccer game which was absolutely the craziest sporting event i have EVER seen...etc, etc.

So instead of even attempting to write out all those ridiculous amounts of stories, I think I'm going to write about my Praxis site, San Ramon, and the absolutely crazy experience of working in a school here. Sometimes i get so lost in the weekend adventures and the BIG stories that i forget that I should probably also write about what I do every week....

So. Centro Hogar (the school where I 'work') is a private school, but in a very different sense of the word...most kids here are on scholarships for the $30/month tuition that the school charges. The school was started by Alfonso Acevedo, a community organizer who was killed in 1982 by the military for the work he was doing; it focuses on developing the 'whole person-'creativity (which doesn't really exist in public schools here), human and community development, nutrition, etc etc. the school has a lot of amazing programs and works with the San Ramon community a lot. So, there is Centro Hogar ON PAPER.

In real life....Centro Hogar is something along the lines of wonderful semi-organized chaos.
Every monday morning, the kids have 'asamblea,' which means that the teachers try to wrangle 60 kids ages 18 months-6 years old into chairs to sit for 20 minutes. Chaos usually ensues. Each classroom is made up of about 29 kids, but on a given day only about 20-24 come. Keep in mind that each class has ONE teacher, and most teachers don't exactly have their masters in early childhood development...they are amazing women (all women, surprise surprise) from the community who are involved in the school and take classes and workshops on teaching, but I can't IMAGINE managing 24 kids with no formal experience in early childhood education.
The classrooms are bigger than most in El Salvador, and have more supplies and materials than most public schools I'm sure, but nowhere near space for 20 high-energy 3 year olds. The kids have access to a lot of stuff that I'm sure most kids don't--art supplies, their own chair and backpack, a healthy and professionally cooked lunch, a nice playground--but are still missing some basic stuff for a school. Since the teachers can't really control the kids that well (one on 20, it's impossible), the kids miss out on 1-on-1 teacher time, story time (or books in general), general discipline, etc.
I definately love all the kids there--and now that they finally all know my name, I like them even more. But it's heartbreaking to see how violent 3 year olds can become if they have violent influences in their home, no discipline, no consequences for their actions, no problem-solving skills, and, most of all, very little show of love or affection in their lives.
These kids are 3, so it's natural that they aren't awesome at sharing or at talking out problems. But every day, i watch 3 year olds kick, punch, pinch, wrestle, hit, scratch, and bite (and oh, how they bite...). It's not even that this comes a few minutes into an argument. If Josue takes Daniela's swing, she goes straight to punching. Bite marks are practically normal, as are crying children and out of control fist fights.
I try and try and try to have some semblance of control or authority, but it's a lost cause. First of all, they don't listen to me when I tell them to stop fighting (or the teacher, for that matter). Second of all, i have NEVER, EVER, EVER heard a kid apologize. I try endlessly to get kids to say sorry to eachother, or to acknowledge what they did at all. But usually I get blank stares, kids running away, or (worst of all), more hitting. The sad part is, I usually have to give up and just hug whoever is crying myself. With 20 kids, it's impossible to solve every problem that comes up or try to get any kid to change their behavior. I have been hit, kicked, and pinched a few times myself; one kid tried to throw an egg at me once, actually.

Amazingly, I still REALLY like these kids. Even when I am tired in the morning, the second i walk into the classroom and EVERY kid turns around and shouts "SABINA!!!!" and runs at me, I forget that it is 8 am and that i am in for a long, long day. I guess it is kind of hard to NOT like kids this adorable...because even though they are so violent and often so crazy, what gets me more is imagining HOW a 3 year old can BE this violent. If there is violence in their homes, and violence in their neighborhood with gangs, and there are police on every street corner and in every ice cream shop with HUGE guns (true story), how does a kid learn to NOT be violent??
In the end, it's little things that get me through the absolutely insane day at Centro Hogar--like last week when Daniel (who does his fair amount of hitting) went up and hugged every kid who has crying during the day and asked them where they got hurt. It's a confusing world.
This is mostly rambling, so sorry about that. But now you know, if you have been looking at my pictures, a little more about the random kids that show up in all of them. In the end of the day, i have an amazing time every day at Centro Hogar, even when I have kids brushing their teeth and spitting water on me, or running away from me when I'm trying to collect them on the playground, or refusing to apoligize for grabbing eachother's face and hitting it against the wall (yes, that happened yesterday).

Now i am off to catch up on emails and try to plan my vacation in Guatemala for next week...hope all is well in the Estados Unidos. I wish I had more time or more coherent thoughts at the moment, but I suppose that is fairly representative of being in el salvador these past 2 months. cheers to the half way point.
Peace & Love
-Sabine

ps, i put up MORE pictures if you want to look instead of read....www.flikr.com/sabinetb