9/6

So I finally talked with the woman in charge of the Young Mothers´Project and she suggested that I teach English at an elementary school that her organization also runs. I told her that I don´t know Spanish and I´m not sure how to teach English and she didn´t seem to mind, because I would be working with kids and it would be basic stuff. I´ve always wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but today was daunting. I arrived at the school, which is only a five minute walk or so from my hostel, at 8 am. I met that woman in charge, who could speak English and she introduced me to the principal as their new English teacher. Then she left and I didn´t see her again. The principal, who can also speak a little English, led me to a small class of 11 to 15 year olds. They already knew some English, so I couldn´t do ¨A is for apple¨or anything. They kids weren´t really responsive to me, so I didn´t know what they knew and I wasn´t sure where to go with the whole thing. Then the principal came in and gave me an English workbook he had and told me to do anything I wished. If I wanted it to be recess, it was recess. So, shortly after that I gave the kids stickers and let them go play. There was a cute little girl named Camilla that told me the teacher is beautiful and drew me a picture that said ¨The teacher¨and it had a heart with little heart eyes and a little heart nose. Camilla was at my side most of the day. She´s awesome.

So, during the recess, I talked to another volunteer from the States, and she said that they may have said something to her about being a teacher, but she´s been there for weeks and has just been fixing up the school (classes just began three days ago) and has been playing with the kids. She made it sound like the people in charge didn´t really care what you did as long as you were nice to the children. So I just played with the kids for the next hour or so. They´re really affectionate. The other volunteer and I had kids constantly coming up to us to sit on our laps or play with our hair. Children were constantly hugging me, and a little girl named Maria was really fond of pinching my cheeks. She´s maybe four years old and she grabbed me by the hand and paraded me around. The principal put me in Maria´s class, actually, after a little while. There was another volunteer there and we were just looking after the kids as they did an assignment (which was not as easy as it sounded). The principal told me that the children were orphans or had parents in one the organization´s (it´s the Remer Foundation, by the way. It´s a Christian organization that does a lot of social service projects) other projects. He said most of the children had parents with drug abuse problems or were physically abused. So, I think I´m going to like just hanging out with the kids as I learn Spanish, but I hope I don´t have to teach again! The kids would ask me questions in Spanish, and since I couldn´t understand it was frustrating for both of us. So I guess I´ll show up at 8 am again tomorrow and see what happens! The place is in complete disorder, but I think the main idea is to just have a safe environment for the kids to grow in.