words matter

Yesterday I went to my favorite English used bookstore to sell some books (and get some new ones).  I was chatting with the gentleman who was working (let´s say 50 years old, proud owner of a nice dog that was cuddled up in the chair).  Said gentleman started telling me about some work he did about an hour outside of Colomba (a county here in Quetzaltenango), ´there we were in this little village...´ I sort of zoned out at that point.

The word village is such the wrong word.  Why?  Well, because it has implications.  People tend to only use the word village when referring to the developing world.  Someone who visits rural midwestern America will find lots of ´villages´ but when recounting to friends later, they´ll use ´oh and then we went to this cute little town called _____´.   So when I hear the word village, I hear, this poor little godforsaken group of shacks.  A village is a community.  A rural community.  Our words have power and we keep maginalizing people by labeling them with something out of date and offensive. 



Type ´Guatemalan village´ in google images and this appears.  The original caption was ´A sacred hill and Maya village, Guatemala´.  http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/calendar/december-21st-2012-2


Frankly, village isn´t the only word that gives me this reaction.  The word ´tribe´, really gets me riled up.  Tribe is an ethnicity.  Only when we refer to groups of people in Africa do people use the word tribe.  Why?  Racism?  Possibly.  The truth is, I don´t know why people haven´t figured this out yet.  Please, if you use the word tribe, stop. 

I´m on a roll.  The label, ´Maya´.   Oh the Maya.  After three years of living with the Maya in a rural village (typing that hurt!).  The Maya were an ancient civilization.  The indigenous people of Guatemala might claim Mayan roots, they might wear clothing rooted in Mayan tradition, they might speak language derived out of Mayan languages, BUT that does not mean they are Mayan.  To put it in persective, you speak English.  Let´s pretend your ancestors were from Scotland.  Your clothes are shockingly similar to those warn by your ancestors (pants and shirts and kilts, hello!).  Are you Scottish?  Are you the modern Scottish?  No, you are you.  Yes, you have an ethnicity.  Yes, you have a nation.  Yes, you have a language.  Yes, you have roots and ancestors and a history.  But no one comes to visit your suburb and say, WOW LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE, THE MODERN SCOTTISH IN A VILLAGE IN AMERICA.  Okay, I know, a little drastic?  Perhaps, but I think you get my point.   

Am I crazy?  Maybe, but for me it´s a great litmus test to understand people.  How about you?  Do the words village/tribe/maya make you cringe? 

You may disagree, but I think you might agree that words matter and have power.  When we use words that marginalize, we are creating injustice. 

creativity

Here I am presenting in Flores Costa Cuca (drenched in sweat)

 Happy tuesday to you!  So I´m just about at the T-1month point with Peace Corps...  And let me just say that I´m really excited.  There´s something about change that makes one see new possibilities and freedoms, that in reality were always there, but until you finish something you don´t let yourself see it.

This past month, here at the office we´ve been giving workshops to all the school principals of the state (590!) on how to improve evaulation techniques in the classroom.  USAID has a program called Reforma en el aula (Reform in the Classroom, YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK, PEOPLE!) that produced a great book full of little gems on how to make better tests, how to use debate, selfevaluation and a ton of other tools to make sure students are learning and not just attending school. 

NOTE THE PROJECTOR SCREEN!

These workshops have meant some brutally early mornings (alarm at 4:30 a.m.), but it´s been great to get to go to municiapalities that I hadn´t visited before.  The directors have been pretty great, it´s amazing how receptive people can be when you are talking about a subject that interests their intellectual/educational background.  When I worked with the Healthly Schools project, it would feel like pulling teeth to get teachers active about health habits in the schools.  Why?  They are not health workers.  If they had an interest in health issues they would have chosen to be health workers.  But they didn´t, they chose to be teachers.  And while being a teacher implies holistic education, sometimes spending hours talking about brushing teeth and hand washing just isn´t that exciting.

BUT, what does excite them is how to teach better.  And that´s what this past year has been (for me).  Working with teachers on how to teach better.  Specifically how to teach reading better. 

When I was home, I went to visit my nieces´ preschool classroom and I was blown away.  They had a treasure chest, dress up clothes, colorful rugs, A PLAYGROUND!  When I came back to Guate I was in this mentality ´what a difference´, not good, not bad, just what a pronounced difference that money makes in how we live our lives, how we educate, how we operate, how we function. 

Please take a look at the projector screen we used at our most recent workshop in Flores Costa Cuca.  You are not mistaken, that is in fact a white bed sheet.  Now, how practical is that!  Super portable, super easy to hang anywhere, no need to lug some huge projector screen, or spend hundreds of dollars to buy a huge projector screen and install it.  Call me crazy, but THIS. IS. GENIOUS.  I love the juxtaposition of using the technology of a projector, with a bed sheet.  Sometimes money makes us impractical.  Just as poverty makes us creative. 

Now, I´m sort of looking at everything and saying, Wait. One. Second.  This is only one example.  There are thousands.  Hundreds of thousands of brillant little things here that make me think, ´Hey, that´s really smart´.  This is not just in Guate, it´s in the US, in Nigeria, in Turkey, in France, in the Philipines.  So I´m on a new mission to start appreciating these details of creativity...

p.s.  Killed the third mouse in my house yesterday.  Pia is turning into a hunting dog (I´m not opposed).  My house being nicknamed ´La Ratonera´ by my host fam is endearing, right???