Moments

In case you hadn't heard, life is made a of moments. Here's some of my favorites from this week.

Two of the rowdy 5th grade boys stayed a whole half hour after school and painted ducks with water colors while I cleaned the classroom. We listened to Mozart the whole time and they didn't complain once.

One of the new 4th graders (who has only known me 11 days) saw me in the internet cafe and walked back and forth in front of the window waving for about 2 minutes.

My little sister struck up a rather deep conversation (for a 4 year-old) and asked me why people should be nice to each other. That night when I got home, she crawled in bed with me and she fell asleep hugging me.

Esteban, my 3 year-old Kinder developed a remarkable love for having me read to him in English. I went over to his house today and he made me read to him for 10 minutes.

Daniel, our new 2 year-old Kinder, didn't cry when his mom left the Kinder room. I think that's pretty remarkable for day 2.

From best to worst to...?

My week has been a roller coaster. Specifically, 'Vertical Velocity' or the 'Maliboomer'. Thankfully, I can recall Nate Miller quoting Madagascar at Indian camp..."Put your hands in the air Maurice! It's more fun that way!" Monday was pretty much the best day ever. Sounds cheesy, but if you've ever spent a decent time furthering the education of a small child, you will understand. Kinder, at our school, ranges in ages from ages 3 to 6. Quite a difference. I have them first thing in the morning so as soon as school worship finishes, I take them up to put their mochilas away and then we go outside to let the wiggles escape. While the kids are enjoying recreo, I make worksheets or coloring sheets for the letter of the day. Actually, we just recently finished the alphabet so I've been doing new things. This particular day, I decided to review the numbers, 1-10. Esteban is our youngest kid. He's also very small. He is 3. Everyday I make him a worksheet just like the other kids and try to explain that he should trace the letters even though I know that he will just scribble on it. I mean, he's three. You gotta give the kid a break.  This day was progressing like any other day. I wrote the numbers on the board, made the kids repeat them and then passed out the worksheet. They were just supposed to trace the dotted lines. The older kids trace and copy. Sofia needed her pencil sharpened so I went on search. By the time I finally found it, Esteban was screaming at the top of his lungs, "Teachherrrrrr!!!!!" with his precious little baby voice and accent. I turned and asked him what was up and he pointed to his paper. There on his paper, perfectly traced (as far as 3 year-old skills go) was the number 3. Esteban was grinning from ear to ear. I was so excited, I squealed and gave him a high-five. I then watched as he finished tracing the rest of the numbers. Every last one. He then scribbled all over his paper, but I didn't care. It made my day. I showed everyone. Yolanda was so happy she kissed him on the head. If you haven't experienced the joy of teaching someone, do it. It's the best feeling in the world.

Tuesday was looking up as well. I had the day's tests printed, all the rest were written, I had grades entered, and I was about to get a jump start on the following week's class planning. I was smack-dab on schedule. In the middle of the night, I woke up with a dry throat so when I woke up, I made sure to fill my water bottle back up. I'm the type of person that likes to use objects for more than their standard use. I am one of those that use their water bottles to hold hair ties. No big deal, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. My water bottle is a bit fancy. It's no spill which means there's a clever little button on the side that opens the mouth piece. It works like a dream. Unfortunately, the hair ties slipped down on top of the button and opened the mouth piece. So when I threw my water bottle on my bed, I unknowingly unleashed a waterfall of liquid onto my beautiful laptop. Long story short, it died. No power.

Now, it is Thursday. My dead laptop may have resurrected itself. It only powers on when the battery is in use. If I use the plug, it dies. Weird, eh? So while I'm in Nicaragua this weekend (Calle and Nate need to renew their visas so we're leaving for the required 36 hours), I'm leaving my laptop in rice. Let's all pray that this does the trick and restores my school planning tool and connection with home, to full health.

Teaching, Movies, Crying, Running, Schedules and things of that nature.

8/19 – I taught Kinder all by myself today. Granted, it was only a half-day, but I did it. It was tiring but it was good. We made additions to the Noah and the Ark project we’ve been working on. So far we have the ark, Noah, the rainbow, clouds and 3 pairs of animals (tiger, elephant, horse). We were all really tired today. Around 11, I asked them if they wanted to play outside. They all screamed yes, grabbed a toy and headed out. I was helping Aniela pick out a toy so I came after them. I walked out and they were all sitting on the grass by the fence watching a repairman fix the power line. I sat down next to them and we just sat for probably a good five minutes. That’s a lot in Kinder world. Now we’re at Calle’s house watching a movie. Bring it on weekend. Bring it on.

8/21 – Yesterday was interesting to say the least. Since I can see church from my window, I didn’t go over until people started going in. There were only 3 people at 9am. Things really started around 9:30. Sabbath school was a Día de las Madres presentation by the jovenes since they were gone last week. It was really nice. We all wrote down characteristics of our moms (Amable, cariñosa, buena cantante, preciosa, lista, etc). They even read mine in front of everyone and gave me a rose even though my mommy isn’t with me. It made me miss her a lot. After church I went home and changed, grabbed some beans and rice and headed to Daniel’s. We made makeshift empanadas. Then we gathered our stuff for camping and braved the drizzle and hiked up to Ivan and Mayi’s house (about an hour walk, where we have the Thursday worship). I got really lucky. On the last, loooooonnngggg stretch of hill before their house, Esteban, their son, came by on his motorcycle. He gave me a ride up the hill. First time ever on a motorcycle and it was so fun! I may have screamed a little. Then we waited for everyone to show up. Melissa (Esteban’s twin) had the girls over for movie night. In the end, I decided to stay with them because it was pouring rain, thundering and I would be the only girl. The guys ended up having a pretty good time and it wasn’t too miserable (so they say) but I’m ok that I didn’t go. There will plenty other times to go in better weather. We watched 5 movies last night! It was crazy. I cried in 3 out of the 5. But it was kind of a good thing because it triggered my homesick emotions so I think I released some of my tension. The first movie we watched was The Last Song. *Spoiler Alert* When the Dad dies at the end, I cried a lot and it made me miss my dad and then I felt homesick and I couldn’t stop crying. I went into the bathroom and cried for a good long time. I hope nobody heard me. They probably thought I was dying. In total, we watched The Last Song, The Proposal, Anita, Wedding Crashers (only part of it because it was so raunchy), and My Sister’s Keeper. Now, I’m back at my house. We took the long walk back and it’s time for lunch. I’m gonna eat and then go over to the school and help paint the Kinder room if they need. If not, I’ll work on decorations for Yolanda’s classroom, plan Kinder and find internet. I also need to rearrange my room a bit.

…Later… So, I fell asleep. So much for helping paint. They’re done. I can’t decorate either because I don’t have the keys to Kinder of Yolanda’s room. It’ll just have to happen later. I suppose I’ll just make my plan for tomorrow and prepare in the morning. Nate came by to get the keys and we moved some stuff from the Kinder room to the library because of the mess and because it’s not finished. Pulga followed us over. She peed in one of the classrooms. Don’t worry; it got cleaned up (Thank you Nate).

8/23 – These last two days of school have been really great! For one, I’m a little less homesick. For another, I’ve gotten a chance to bond with all the classes and I’m feeling more confident. I’ve definitely bonded a bunch with Kinder because I’ve been helping out with them the most. But this is test week and I’ve been giving tests and also teaching class. 3^rd and 4^th graders are definitely the most challenging for me. The girls are easier to deal with. I guess it’s not that they’re really terrible per se, they just have more energy than time to get it out. Teaching math was way more fun that I ever thought. Yolanda wasn’t here today and yesterday, so yesterday I taught 1^st grade Math and Spanish. In Math, I got to teach them about adding/subtracting big numbers like 123 + 46 or 245 – 34. The trick is that they don’t know how to carry over yet or how to borrow but I taught them to always check to see if it’s addition or subtraction and then to start at the right and move to the left. Calle also had me teach her math class again today. I actually had a really good time. I freak out every time she’s had me do it but in the end, I always enjoy myself. Today, we all hashed out the new schedule (starting Monday). Here it is:

Time	Mon/Wed	Tues/Thurs	Time	Fri
8-8:35	Worship/Kinder	Worship/Kinder	8-8:45	Worship
8:35-9:45	Kinder	Kinder	8:45-9	Limpio
9:45-10:15	Recreo	Recreo	9-9:30	Recreo
10:15-10:50	Biblia 1	Biblia 1	9:30-10:20	Musica 5-7
10:50-12	E.F. (PE) 1	E.S. 1	10:20-11:10	Musica 1
12-12:45	Almuerzo	Almuerzo	11:10-12	Kinder
12:45-1:50	Matematicas 5-7	Matematicas 5-7
1:50-3	Ingles 1	Ciencias 1

For those of you who don’t know Spanish:

Limpio = Clean (Clean up, clean up! Everybody everywhere…)

Recreo = Recess

Biblia = Bible (Please tell me you already figured that out :P )

Música = Music (Self-explanatory, eh?)

E.F. = Educación Fisica = PE

E.S. = Estudios Sociales = Social Studies

Almuerzo = Lunch

Matemáticas = Math (Again, I hope you got this already)

Inglés = English

I’m really looking forward to teaching my new classes! The only thing I’m apprehensive about is Music class. Resources are really limited for this class. I just need to figure out what angle to take with this. Should I concentrate on theory or maybe just teach them to sing songs or teach them to play the recorder or should I use a keyboard (we don’t have a piano L) instead? The possibilities are many though the resources are limited. Tricky business indeed.

On a completely different note, I went running with Nate and Daniel today after school. I think I’m going to be really sore tomorrow. I wanna keep it up though. This was the first time in quite awhile that it hasn’t been pouring rain in the afternoon. It was quite nice. This evening after I ate and showered, a bunch of the youth group came to the school and we had worship and then ate some snacks and played games. It was really fun! The stars were out again tonight. It’s a little disappointing that I don’t recognize the constellations, but it’s still beautiful. Now for bed. I’m zonked. Tomorrow is supposed to be an easier day. I hope that it’s so.

8/24 – Today was not as good as I hoped. It was just so lonnnnnggggg…I woke up exhausted. It probably had to do with going on that run. I’m really sore. My thighs in particular. I was so tired I had a full cup of coffee at lunch time. I barely even drink a full cup when I drink coffee, let alone every morning. I’ve resolved not to become an addict. I bet Nate and Calle a sock each that I won’t get hooked within 1 month and 1 ½ months. I spent most of my day cleaning and organizing the Kinder room. The paint was all dry by this morning so Calle and I moved everything back inside and then I put everything in it’s place and rearranged stuff. It really satisfied my CDO tendencies (CDO is like OCD, but in alphabetical order. As it should be). Yolanda was back today and we had a meeting after school. Apparently the schedule may change a bit. Kinder is only going to be 4 days a week too.
My puppy, Pulga, has a broken leg. It’s so sad! She still tries to follow me school. Poor baby. I hope she heals well.

Tomorrow, the other teachers, the 5^th-7^th graders and I are going door-to-door to collect money for ADRA. I’m really not good at all at this sort of thing. It should be interesting though. Now for Movie Night!!! We’re going to watch Top Gun. Kindra, I’m thinking of you. =]

This Bird Has Flown

I'm gone. I'm in a different country. I only know 3 people who speak fluent English. This is day 9 and I feel like I've been here for months. I've been journaling so I'll just let you read for yourself what I've been up to.

8/10 - Other than almost being denied boarding from Sac to Houston, my trip was rather uneventful. I had the standard "wake-up, fall asleep, repeat" cycle that is all too familiar to my travels. My second gate was moved last minute and the immigration line took forever but that's pretty standard I'd say. I found Daniel (He's Czech), on of the SMs, without much trouble and took a taxi to the bus station. We waited 2 hours for the 2nd and last bus of the day to Monteverde. The bus ride was also relatively uneventful. After trying to keep my eyes open to enjoy the scenery, I collapsed into slumberland. Again, it was standard vehicle-sleeping for me: Head back, eyebrows furrowed, mouth wide open. I did warn Daniel that this would happen so hopefully he doesn't think I'm too much of a weirdo. 4 1/2 hours later we arrived. The last hour or so was breathtaking! The sunset was brilliant orange, red and which emphasized the majestic mountains that our bus was scaling. All the vegetation is so green fuschia. More green than anything I've ever seen.  Trees and luscious grass stretch as far as the eye can see. I can't wait to see this place in daylight. Tonight I'm staying in the principal's home. She was very kind and had spaghetti for Daniel and I when we arrived. The sauce had chicken in it but I ate it anyway without complaint or mention of the fact that I'm vegetarian. I really hope that the family I'll be staying with is vegetarian. I highly doubt it, but I'll hope anyway. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and eat meat for a year. It won't kill me. I'm in bed before 9 pm (8 without the time change), showered and ready to fall asleep. God is so good! I'm so thankful to God that my trip was so smooth. Tomorrow I see the school and meet the other SMs. Woo!

8/11 - When I woke up, I almost cried. I was nervous to meet the other volunteers, sad because I was no longer a vegetarian (this is marginally funny, but I'm still sad), sad because I was still so tired, scared of meeting the kids and sad because I couldn't hug my mom and make it all better. Now, it's 10:30 and I still want to cry, but only because I can't hug my mom and because I'm tired again. I met Nate first. He's really an awesome guy. I feel really comfortable around him which is good because there are only 3 other SMs total so naturally it's good that I get along with him. Daniel leaves in September so after that, there will only be 2 others. Calle (pronounced Kali) is really awesome too. After morning worship, I went with her to the Kinder room. I helped her out all morning and I loved it. Those kids have already stolen my heart. We sang songs and played recess, had snack and did art and flashcards. I was really proud because I got "the punk," Christopher, to play catch with me and to sing with the group. He's only 3 and needs a little one-on-one time which is hard because it's usually only one person taking charge of Kinder. Calle is awesome for accomplishing all that she was with them. They're darling but fiesty too. 

After lunch, I observed Daniel's Social Studies class and Calle's Science class. It turns out I like little kids more than I thought. I liked Kinder best. After school, we had a staff meeting and discussed the upcoming Mother's Day program (Monday). Calle and I are in charge of the little ones. Then I helped Nate with his evaluation of Yolanda and Calle taught me the chords for "Somewhere over the Rainbow" on ukulele. I was stoked. After heading back to Yolanda's house, Nate Daniel and I headed to the reuñon de jovenes in town. It's a youth group gathering. They're all really nice. They're incredibly active in their group. They take turns every week teaching the lesson. They invited us to go with them to San Jose this weekend for an Adventist Youth Conference. We're going! Now that we’re back from he reuñon, I’m staying at Yolanda’s another night. My stuff is at another teacher’s house because my family wasn’t home when I needed to move in. Interestingly enough, her name is also Yolanda. Her son, Fabian, goes to the school. He desperately wants to use my computer to play games. I’m not going to let him. Poor kid. Yolanda (principal) had food waiting for me when I got back. She’s so sweet. I stood up for myself and told her that fish makes my stomach hurt, which is basically true. I puked last time I ate it, immediately after consumption. So I didn’t want to risk it. She was really nice and said not to worry and that it’s important to say when something doesn’t sit well with me. Very kind of her. Tonight I’m sleeping in my dirty clothes because my stuff is at the other house. Hopefully I’ll get to change before school.

8/12 – Fridays are half-days at school which was interesting. I noticed partwat through worship that I was not up front singing with the other teachers. That was bad of me. I forget that I need to jump right in. Other than that, things went pretty smooth. Well, almost. Christopher, the “punk” hit and older kid in the mouth with a phone and broke his tooth in half. Luckily it was a baby tooth. Yolanda will not be happy. All us teachers went to Aniela and Dylan’s house after school. It’s an amazing house. Their dad, Javier, built it. It’s all wood with incredible details with a tree in the middle. You can’t even hear when it rains. We swam in their pool that overlooks the descending mountains out towards Puntarenas. Breathtaking to the max! They fed us and then we hung out. They gave us a ride back to Calle’s home, which is a hotel room. Then Calle, Nate and I went into downtown. We walked around, schemed about tomorrow and then I finally met Fabian’s mom, Yolanda. I don’t know if she’s actually married to him, but her man, Chino, lives here to. Fabian calls him Dad, but I’m not sure. I need to get shampoo and stuff. She asked me if I eat meat. I told her chicken. I’ll tough it. Chicken is palatable for me. I told her fish makes me sick. Luckily she didn’t give me grief. I wake up at 5:30 tomorrow for the youth excursion. Woo? Haha.

8/16 – The youth trip was pretty fun though we didn’t spend much time at the actual youth convention. Actually, the convention itself made me mad, at first. It appeared that they were charging us for entering church. It turns out they weren’t. It wasn’t church yet, but I almost got seriously mad. It was hard to pay attention because it was such a production and they speak so fast in Spanish.  In the evening, after sundown, we teachers went to the Mall and watched Captain America. It was awesome!!! I loved it. We muched on the candy I brought for them. Calle and Nate keep treating me. It’s almost impossible to treat them back; They’re ridiculously nice. Afterwards, we caught a taxi back to the house. The group said they would be back from the youth meeting by 10 pm at the latest but we waited outside until 11:30. The grandma was supposed to let us in but we didn’t yell enough apparently. Oops. But we had fun. WE all learned interesting things about one another. Ha. On Sunday, we thought we were going to leave after breakfast. That turned into after lunch, which became after a day at an amusement park. I t was really fun but I was stressed out about being “home.” It ended up ok though and it was fun. Isaac and Daniel did a dancing game. Monday was Día de las Madres (yes, different than ours). We spent the day preparing for the program since hardly any kids came to school. The program was rough, as all kid programs are, but the parents like it and the kids were cute. Win-win. After teardown, we teachers watched Black Sheep at the school. I missed dinner as usual. Today (Monday) is the first day that I actually ate dinner with my family since I’ve been here. I also got Internet today. Calle had me teach math today. That was cool. After seeing more classes, I feel that I can teach anything if I need to. That’s comforting. You know, the other volunteers are wonderful. Daniel is very calm and always knows what’s going on. Calle is exciting, a ton of fun and gets me to stretch (like teaching Math the other day). Nate keeps me laughing and I’m pretty comfortable around him. My family wants me to get my parents to buy and bring shoes to them (they’d pay of course). Now I need to sleep. I’m zonked. I wish I could bring in Pulga, the puppy. I want him to sleep with me. He’s cuddly and precious and I need a hug. He’d be helpful. Ha. Chino just said “Que Adventista” about me because I don’t eat meat. It’s true. I’m “corrupted.”

8/18 – Last night was the first time I’ve seen any stars at all since I arrived. I almost cried I was so happy! It’s actually not that terrible since I’ve been here barely over a week. I’m teaching Kinder in the morning and today and yesterday I taught Math. I had to “yell” at a kid who tried to cheat. He thought I wouldn’t find out because he thought I don’t speak Spanish. I sure showed him. The kids paid attention to me after that which was really nice. I hope that continues.  Probably won’t. We’ll see. I’m also in charge of decorating Yolanda’s classroom. It’s going to be kind of a chore. Ok, in all seriousness, I’m not doing well right now. I feel like I have no privacy and yet, I still feel alone. If I’m not at school or with the other teachers, I get sad. When I have down time, all I want to do is sleep or watch movies. I’ve really done neither of those until now. I’m watching Dan in Real Life. I just feel very vulnerable and like I may break down at any moment. I really hope it doesn’t happen at school. I’m not getting enough hugs. That’s a huge part of it. I die without physical affection. Kinder hugs are the closest I get. And the puppy. I pray every day that I’ll adjust. I’m trying to be patient but it’s hard. I need some love.

8/19 – I taught Kinder all by myself today. Granted, it was only a half-day, but I did it. It was tiring but it was good. We made additions to the Noah and the Ark project we’ve been working on. So far we have the ark, Noah, the rainbow, clouds and 3 pairs of animals (tiger, elephant, horse). We were all really tired today. Around 11, I asked them if they wanted to play outside. They all screamed yes, grabbed a toy and headed out. I was helping Aniela pick out a toy so I came after them. I walked out and they were all sitting on the grass by the fence watching a repairman fix the power line. I sat down next to them and we just sat for probably a good five minutes. That’s a lot in Kinder world. Now we’re at Calle’s house watching a movie. Bring it on weekend. Bring it on.