Feel the Energy

Okay I felt it necessary to write two separate blogs, as they both contain two very, different sets of emotions. This one is about the Tai Chi class I taught yesterday in my caserío. A caserío for all of you non-volunteers is a town close to mine that´s a little bit smaller in size, but is still part of my district. We´re all run by the same municipality. So in other words, I live in San Juan- we´re the ¨capital¨more or less of my district also titles San Juan. I have four caseríos nearby that are part of my district. They are Tacural, Garbanzal, Cerro Blanco and Miraflores. So yesterday morning after doing some English tutoring, Iheaded over to Cerro Blanco to teach my first Tai Chi class over there to the older folk.

Note: I have never taken a class, read a book and up until last week, never watched a video of Tai Chi. But the older folk can´t really do downward facing diog with ease so we do Tai Chi instead.

So I took a collectivo over and showed up the health post with 12 ¨adultos mayores¨ ready to go. I mean that liberally too. The majority of them were wearing dresses, shoes with heels, and one was walking with a cane. But we made do. They key I´ve found to teaching a class of any sort is CONFIDENCE. Never let anyone know you have no idea what you´re doing, even if that is the case. Pretend your bizarre and bs ¨Tai Chi moves¨are really legitimate, even if you are just practicing breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle and butterfly on land. Even though I felt this was the most hilarious ting I´ve ever seen in my life as people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s were doing interpretive dance moves. However, Peruvians continue to surprise me as they thanked me way too much after we had finished the class and had each worked out a little on the two workout machines the mayor had given the town. Note to anyone in the states who works out: The people in my town are awesomely terrified by the elliptical. But it is the most adorable thing ever to help them get on and try it out.

I am trying to think of anything that might be of entertainment to you- my boss came in this week to ¨check up on me¨and I was sufficiently nervoud for that encounter. I almost was part of a head on collision with another taxi whose driver fell asleep at the wheel and came barreling towards my car at nihgt, just to have been woken up at the last minute and swerved to theother side of the road. My birthday is coming upand we (the other volunteers and I) are hoping to make a taco dinner to celebrate my 23 years on this earth. I sm getting more excited by the day to traevl to Lima and meet up with some of my closest friends to explore the departments of Paso and Ucayali for Semana Santa. So yeah, in a nutshell, those are some of the things I am looking forward to. I hope you all are doing all right, and if you ever feel like it, shoot me an email to let me know you´re alive slash what you´re up to, even if it´s nothing more to tell me about a good book you read.