Today I am at my friend Janine's house in Escazu. Janine is in Panama, and I am catsitting. Her cat, Shanti (which means peace in Sanskrit) is very sweet and we are pretty much best friends now.
Since I last wrote, I had a little vacation, and started my Human Rights Education course. The vacation was good. I didn't travel, just stayed here and then Alistair and I had a retreat at my friend Hannah's, in Rodeo near the university. It was very peaceful. We cooked good food and played music and games and it was really nice.
Hannah and I also went to La Carpio to teach an English lesson. It was...interesting. We had it under control for a while, but eventually the kids were running around the room. Literally. It is much different from teaching in Japan, where a stern "No" went a long way. I need to work on compassionate discipline - I did not want to yell at the kids. Also, I am not sure that English lessons are really what they need. The group of us who are teaching there are going to meet next week so hopefully we can come up with some ideas.
Then it was back to school time, and I started my next course in Human Rights Education. The material is so interesting, and our professor seems great - but she was still in America this week so we did the course via distance learning. Two teleconferences failed miserably due to technical problems, which was very frustrating for our class. Basically it amounted to a waste of time, and also ended up with everyone venting about some pent-up frustrations with the university in general, purely over administrative issues (namely, transportation and electives). Otherwise, the online forum went well, the readings were good, and I think it will be a really great course when our professor arrives!
Meanwhile, other exciting things going on. As part of an effort to make our learning experience more transformative, me and some other peace ed students are organizing some World Cafe events. Please check out the web site www.theworldcafe.com. Its a method of conversation for talking about "issues that matter" and build community. It can be adapted for many different settings. We are going to use it as a way to build the UPEACE community, and to provide a socializing event where alcohol is not the focus. That has pretty much been the case with the social events thus far. We have set the date for October 30 for our first world cafe, so hopefully it will go well! I am really excited to be planning something (I think it has been at least a week, maybe two, since I have organized something!) that has the potential to be really great.
I am also going to post my two papers from my last course on this blog. Don't feel like you need to read them! However, so often in academia, papers just get graded and never read by anyone, so I figured I at least have this venue for sharing them. Plus, they might give you a better idea of what peace education is (hopefully you already have a pretty good idea from reading this so far!).
I'm going to close with a line from a Rumi poem, The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival
a joy, a depression, a meanness
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
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