During the 10-minute walk to school, with a cup of coffee and piece of toast in hand, I felt anxious about my complete lack of expectations for my first day volunteering at the Rainbow Center. I didn´t know what age group I would be working with, what type of disabilities the children would have, how I would be assisting the teachers, nor how to accommodate the children´s learning needs.
The five other volunteers and I entered the Rainbow Center´s gate and Laura, the volunteer coordinator, greeted us for a tour around the school. Just as we took our first steps out of her office, a young boy ran toward us and hurled himself onto Laura for a bear hug.
“¡Profe Laura!” he exclaimed in a squeaky, high-pitched voice. Here at the school the teachers are called profesor/profesora which is always shortened to the endearing term of “profe.” My name is officially “Profe Kait” since Kaitlyn apparently does not roll off the tongue very easily in Spanish. I had to repeat my name at least four times to both the students and teachers, and after hearing their agonizing imitation of “Kayleeen?” I decided to permanently shorten my name to Kait during my stay in Peru.
During the tour I found out that our tag-a-long friend is named Piero. As we walked the grounds I noticed that Piero has a strange limp with each step. At one point he ran ahead of us and it looked like he couldn´t control the speed of his legs and I was sure he was going to tumble to the ground at any moment. Fortunately he didn´t and he stood waiting for us to catch up. When we reached him I looked down at him as he stood with one leg straight and the other stretched out much further to the side. I realized that one leg is prominently longer than the other, causing the hindrance in his stride. I later found out that Piero had complications during birth that also impaired his ability to speak and left him with a low-functioning right hand as well.
At this point it was just a little after 8:30 a.m. and students had started to trickle in the school. Looking around and accessing the students made me realize there was a huge range of disabilities. There was a spectrum of both physical and mental disabilities and the children greatly differed in severity. Some children are like Piero with physical disabilities. Others have Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy or Autism. Three of the children are deaf. Almost all of them experience abuse, neglect and/or impoverished living conditions.
At 9 a.m. we started the school day in a common group. During this time, one of the Profes asks how the group is doing today (everyone yells “¡Bien!” to this question) and then goes on to ask what day it is, the date, and what the weather is like outside. Everyone is very enthusiastic and sign language is used along with verbal responses as to include the deaf children. The Profes then organize some kind of physical, kinesthetic activity.
After this morning routine the group splits into three groups: the youngest group (which focuses mostly on toddler activities), the intermediate group and the “grupo funcional” (which focuses on more complex lesson plans and incorporates life skills lessons).
I spent the day with the middle group, going over the vowels. It was very difficult trying to overcome the language barrier and learn how to effectively work with the children. However, the instructor was very patient with me and helped me understand what she needed from me with slow, emphatic instructions accompanied with lots of gestures. She would make an excellent charades partner.
At the end of the day I was feeling highly emotional. I had so much love for the children, yet sadness for their plight in life. I immensely appreciated all of the people who come together every day to give this school life, yet I felt frustrated by the inefficiencies caused by the diverse range of disabilities. I felt thrilled with participating in the wonderful cause, but defeated by the language barrier.
That night the girls sat around the common-area’s table for some dinner, and just as I thought I was about to drown in an emotive sea of conflict, Chloe, one of the volunteers who has already been here for a few months, piped in with some perspective that I think will be my motivating source to a positive attitude for the remainder of my time here.
She gave us the background to some of the children at the school and listening to each child’s story reminded me that we are impacting their lives by simply being a part of a safe and caring environment. At home most of the children are completely ignored and live in terrible conditions with very little food or clean drinking water and lack attention for their different conditions. Eric, one of the boys with Down Syndrome in my class today, spends much of the class time crawling around on all fours, making animal noises. I now realize he does this because his family neglects him and he passes much of the day with the farm animals. I imagine that he is sometimes confused as to whether he is a person or an animal.
We also discussed how most of the children experience extreme abuse at home due to high occurrences of alcohol abuse and a common lack of understanding/acceptance of their disabilities in the culture. Before coming to the school, Fernando, one of the oldest boys with a severe case of autism, was found tied under his bed, completely malnourished and beaten. His parents had psychological problems and did not understand his disability and how to cope with it. Fernando and his five siblings are the reason that the Rainbow center was started. His brothers and sisters now live in the Rainbow house with a stand-in mother while Fernando, at age 19, holds the title of “grounds-keeper” of the school and lives on the campus.
After some of the children´s stories were revealed during our dinner, I started to feel better about my inadequacies. These children simply need positive caregivers, constructive stimulation and a safe environment…and this is exactly what the Rainbow Center provides.
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