Puberty

A few days ago I observed a sixth-grade class in the (relatively) large school in the center of the town.

This particular school is called Francisca Garcia Elementary and it is one of four primary schools where I work in my site. It’s also one of two pure-grade schools (the other two are multi-grade schools where 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades are with one teacher, and grades 4, 5, and 6 are with another). I’m still not officially teaching classes right now but my plan is to start getting into that in early May.

Anyway, I arrive in the school in the morning—less than a ten-minute walk from my house—say hello to the principal and walk to the 6th grade classroom. When I get to the doorway, all the kids shout Buenos Dias, forgetting completely whatever it is they were doing and jump to their feet to the sound of scraping desks. Then it is my duty to say siéntense, and they all sit down noisily, clearly savoring the interruption.

I greet the profesora quickly and take a seat. I always try to observe the Natural Science classes since that is the class I’ll be teaching. This particular day the lesson is on the reproductive system, and specifically the discussion is about puberty.

I can’t remember exactly when my first sex ed. class was, but I think I was in middle school…7th or 8th grade. It strikes me that many of these kids are a few years younger than that…

The teacher calls upon three girls by name to come to the front of the classroom and stand. The three girls gingerly get out of their chairs and exchange shy smiles. They walk to the front and face the rest of the class, leaning on the chalkboard and fidgeting with the skirts of their school uniforms.

The teacher then poses the following question to the whole class:

“What about these three girls is different?”

It takes me a second to realize that this is actually happening. The teacher had chosen girls who are obviously in different stages of development and had asked the rest of the class to point out their physical differences.

There are shouted comments to the effect of:

“That one’s got bigger boobs!”

and, “That one hasn’t gotten her period!”

Obviously I’m a little surprised at this teaching tactic, but I stay seated and quiet, observing. The teacher proceeds to wrangle the rowdy class and lead a noisy discussion about secondary sex characteristics using the three girls as explicit models.

To my surprise, it seems to work; the class is asking questions…the material is being presented in a familiar context and the three girls do not seem to be embarrassed or emotionally wracked by the 25 pairs of eyes analyzing their physical development.

I can’t help but imagine this same scene taking place in an American 6th grade class: the tears, the parent phone-calls, the legal action…

This experience seems to indicate a fundamental difference between American and Nicaraguan culture and society, a difference I have been noticing as I become more and more integrated. In America we are first and foremost individuals, but Nicaraguan culture is defined by a sense of community. In other words in Nicaragua you are a part of a community first and an individual second.

It seems to me that most Americans would think that singling out certain girls and drawing attention to their bodies in front of an entire class of students would be extremely inappropriate. There is an assumption in America that we have a right to absolute privacy when it comes to our bodies, at least in any social setting. It’s a form of American individualism.

In America you probably won’t be told to your face that you look/are fat. You also probably won’t get comments about your zits or offers from friends to help pop them. In Nicaragua it happens all the time. That sacred personal space we have imagined for ourselves in America simply doesn’t exist here.

In Nicaragua, people don’t harbor personal insecurities about their bodies in the same way they do in the States. Sure it was a little uncomfortable at first to witness what seemed like abject rudeness, (and what seemed like extremely inappropriate comments about 11-year-old girls) but now it doesn’t phase me. I realized that people here simply don’t get offended by fat comments…and why should they? I find it extremely refreshing that people don’t take themselves so seriously as to be offended by something so trivial. I’m trying to adopt the attitude myself.

So, I feel fairly safe in saying that the social mechanics at work in Nica seem to operate on a different level than they do in the States, but I haven’t yet figured out exactly what that level is or how exactly it’s different from American individualism. My hunch is that it has to do with the more important sense of community that exists here. The community protects and accepts, scolds and rejects, and much of the responsibility of the individual seems to be downplayed because of it.

It’s a complex problem—describing how this cultural sense of community works—but luckily I have the next 20 months to think about it. I’ll be revisiting the theme.

Leadership, Affinities, and The Self

I wrote this when I was feeling discouraged.

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I’ve been worrying that I will need to change myself radically in order to become a good Peace Corps volunteer…or worse: that I won’t be able to change.

Everyone always talks about how they “just aren’t that type of person,” or that they could never do a given thing because it goes against who they are. They draw clear lines around their “self,” bounded by likes and dislikes and notions of proficiency, what they are good and bad at.

I find myself thinking that when it really comes down to it, there is no such thing as this “essential self”. It’s a fiction we create to be comfortable. I came to the Peace Corps, in part, to test out this notion of the essentiality of self, to see how far I could push myself, and to see how moldable my “self” actually is. I have a feeling that by putting myself in a variety of new situations and in the company of a variety of new people, I will change me. It’s an exhilarating thought.

Right now, as I work on the ongoing project of integrating myself into the community, I find myself going through phases—highs and lows—a kind of emotional aftershock which I hope points towards the fact that I am indeed changing. This aftershock seems to come primarily out of the disparity between my expectations and often times radically different realities.

When I talk about my expectations, I’m talking about my vision of a good volunteer, ultimately my goal for myself. This vision has been informed and influenced by things I’ve read about Peace Corps, current volunteers I’ve met, impressions I get from the Peace Corps staff in Managua, and the stories I hear from people in my site about previous volunteers.

I’ve heard countless times that a good volunteer is a leader and a self-starter. This in and of itself doesn’t worry me, as I suppose I am a leader in a number of ways…what seems to push me into fits of guilt, self-pity, and worry is the thought that my interpretation of leadership may be different from the people who will be evaluating me on it, and that I will fail to make a difference by failing to adapt and accord with the interpretation of leadership that matters.

I came into Peace Corps thinking that I am best as a leader when it’s through tacit example. I try to live in the simplest and most honest way that I can. When left to my own devices, I am a fairly private person by nature and I try to radiate my love of learning in the hopes that it will inspire others to search in themselves for that same kind of drive.

I don’t have a background in the brand of leadership that requires you to captivate and dictate to large groups of people. I am uncomfortable with the power that comes with this kind of leadership. It seems so direct and assuming, so arrogant. There is no room for deep thinking, for second-guessing.

If there’s one thing I love doing, it’s second-guessing. My natural mode of thinking seems to be the questioning of norms and rules, and therefore, I am uncomfortable with the idea of taking them up as my mantle. I can imagine someone reading this and thinking that I sound like a very young and naive person. Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps I just haven’t grown up yet.

Maybe my Peace Corps experience will force me to grow up. Maybe a big part of it will be nagging failure and making a fool of myself. But I also realize that failing and making a fool of oneself is a great way to learn true humility, and I suppose humility is a quality just as important as leadership, if not an essential part of it.