Great People

Shiva's art class


I think you can tell from the bios below, but these young women are great! Besides being sweet, they are incredibly hard working and serious about their studies. No matter how hard their math homework is, they spend as long as it takes to understand it.

Every Tuesday and Thursday is art class. The girls get out their sketchbooks and push the study tables together. Class is taught by Shiva, a South African woman who is spending a year in Peru before going to University. She is a great art teacher and has been an incredible help to the dormitory. She is there most afternoons, helping with homework or serving lunch. She has a great connection with the girls. They are starting to understand the concepts of shading and depth, and their drawings come out really cool.
We also have a volunteer named Gaby with us this week. She’s helping while she researches the rural high school education system for her study abroad program. It’s been great to have both her and Shiva. They’ve really helped in providing the support the girls need.

I can’t say enough good things about Señora Bianca. While we look for a house mom she’s been living at the dorm and taking care of the girls, and she’s doing a wonderful job. She wakes up at 5:30 to give Dina extra help with her math homework. The homework is so hard that I’ve seen Bianca spend her free time learning math so that she can teach it. The girls know they can count on her when they need her and she’ll always be there to support them. Plus, they know that she can be tough if they act out of line. But that doesn’t happen often, especially when you consider that they’re 12-14 year old girls. Every afternoon, when I get to the dorm, the group I find finishing up lunch seems happy. When they sit down to do homework, there’s a seriousness to their work. Of course they get rowdy (Marie Elena is a little jokester) but they are organized and diligent, and everything else I wasn’t when I was 12. Dina got a perfect score on her math test. I’m very proud of them.





-Eli