Globe-trotting

School vacation time in Cajabamba means vacaciones útiles (summer school) time for Jessica and I. Together we've got quite the program of free classes going: five for high schoolers, and three for elementary school students. But since each class only meets once a week, it's still a manageable project. 

Probably my favorite class is the mapa mundial (world map) we're doing with the elementary kids. Since small children don't exactly fall into the realm of economic development, the mapa class is one of the few times I get to work with this age group, and it's a fun change of pace. Little kids get excited about anything and everything, even the most basic activities like standing in a circle and throwing a paper ball around to learn everyone's names. Although they can sometimes be a bit of a handful, their energy is contagious, and their antics always make me laugh.

The centerpiece of the project is painting a big mural of the world map. Painting is super fun, but Jess and I definitely underestimated the amount of prep work involved before the wall was ready for the kids. I think we have spent about ten hours out at our wall this week, sometimes in rain and sometimes in skin-burning sun, with rulers and tape measures in hand, drawing the grid of 6x6-centimeter squares all across our 6x12-foot wall. Now that we've finally finished, the students will use the grid to accurately draw a world map on the wall, based on a scaled-down version that we have printed out for them.

Step 1: Jess painting the blue background and border

Step 2: measuring, measuring, measuring, and drawing gridlines

However, world map class is not just about painting. Each week, we also "visit" a different continent, with the goal of teaching the kids about geography and cultures around the world. Being able to split the 30 energetic students into two smaller groups each week (half painting while the other half learn, then switching the groups halfway through the class) makes for a much more manageable scene. As part of the cultural half of the class, each student has a home-made "passport," and every week they get to add another country. For example, this week, while Jessica supervised the painting, I showed the kids pictures/music/videos about Argentina. We talked about tango, Patagonia, and gauchos, and they were all wide-eyed at my video of the thundering Iguazu falls. Afterward, they each drew the map of Argentina in their passports and wrote a fact they'd learned about the country that day.

Three niños, passports in hand, ready to present what they learned about Argentina

Diligently drawing the map of Argentina in their passports

Next week, Jessica will be heading to "visit" North America with the kids, while I try and make sure that 15 small pairs of hands don't color too far outside the lines of our map. Then, by the end of February, we will (hopefully) have a beautiful world map completed on the wall of the school!