Lunch with Perlita

This past Saturday my sweetheart Hugo walked with me to the Village Bank La Perlita where 3 of the loan recipients in this Village Bank are participating in literacy classes. Their classes started in April and will be finishing this month. The group told Nelly, their literacy teacher, that they were so grateful that someone cared enough about the 3 of them to send them a teacher that they wanted to make me and my boyfriend a lunch. Maria Cruz, one of the 3 loyal students in this group, had attended literacy classes in a different community but "the teacher didn't teach us like Nelly does. She gives us individual attention and explains things when we don't understand." La Perlita has been learning addition and subtraction skills through activities that allow the women to practice 'making change' with fake money. One of the group goals was actually to learn how to make monetary change because, according to the women, "when we go to the market we don't know if they are giving us the right amount of change because before we couldn't add very well." This group is also working on their grammar and writing skills through children's story books.

The women made one of my favorite dishes - hot yellow pepper cheese sauce with potatoes and rice. During our meal we had lots of animal visitors come in and out of the patio to join us. One of those visitors - a 1 month old kitty - came home with us to be our mouse hunter. Thus, our new kitty cats' name is Hunter.

Paz ~ Nora