Monday, though I was expecting it to be just another day, turned out to be rather interesting. I was supposed to start teaching on Monday, but, of course, when I went to the library and said I was ready to teach, they told me that the kids weren't there. I asked where they were, and the people at the library had no idea. I was super angry, because in the absence of students to teach, we were put back to work on those damn late book notices. Eventually, some kids started trickling in, and I was informed that these were my students. After a while there were about 12 kids, and they were very hyper and very entertained by the wonders of staff paper. I taught them, or tried to, for about an hour. A couple kids were giving me and the other kids sass during the whole class, so at the end of class I made the announcement that if they didn't wanna be there, they didn't have to come back. Nobody was making them come, and if they don't want to learn, they didn't need to come back, and it wouldn't bother me. I really hope a couple of them listened to that, because teaching kids who don't want to learn sucks pretty badly. After teaching for one hour, I have a whole new respect for teachers who do that all day every day.
Anyways, sometime during my lesson I noticed that an American or otherwise white couple came in. They struck up a conversation with Katie and Amara, and I didn't really think anything of it because I was teaching. After my lesson, the guy, we'll call him B, said, "Look at you go, teaching that music! Your Spanish is really good!" I thanked him and he and his wife introduced themselves. We'll call his wife M. They informed us that they were friends of the lady who runs the library. She had contacted B and M and told them that we were kinda floating dead in the water, and told them to help us figure out the teaching situation and sort out details and whatnot. B and M immediately took us in. They invited us over to their hotel (which is the one we stayed at during the first week here) for lunch and offered to come over to our little condo in the evening and cook us dinner. They showed us where to buy meat and who to buy fruit from in the market, and then took us to their hotel and fed us lunch. We ate so much, guys, it was almost crazy. They then told us that they would meet us at our hotel that evening and cook us dinner, and we'd all have dinner together. They came over and cooked us steak. STEAK!! It was so delicious. It was like a feast. We ate watermelon and steak with onions and garlic and avocados and tomatoes and all sorts of delicious things. B and M finally connected us with someone who could take us to the school here and get us some students to teach. It was great, because they know tons of people here and have connections that make it much easier to get things done. That's what they say, right? It's all about connections. They also said that they can take us to an orphanage called Los Quinchos this weekend and next weekend so Amara can teach paper quilling one weekend and I can teach music the other weekend. It'll be kind of like volunteering in India at the orphanages there, so I'm excited. They're even gonna try to help us do some fun stuff like see turtles and do something with them on the 4th of July! THANK GOODNESS FOR FELLOW FOREIGNERS!
Today, as arranged by B and M, we met up with one of the guys who works at the hotel we're staying in now and at the library (we'll call him E (I know, I know, sorry, lots of letters to keep track of)). He took us down to the public school and talked to one of the teachers there. That teacher was going to have a meeting with the director of the school later in the morning, so we had some time to kill between the visits to the school. Between the first visit to the school and the one happening later in the morning, we went to the beach (surprisingly, it was our first time doing so since being here) and walked along it for a little while. The water is slightly dirty and some rather odd things wash up to shore when the tide is in, such as books, trash, and tiny snails. However, it was nice to cool off a bit and walk along the beach. There were a few guys walking around with wheel barrows and rakes picking up trash when all of a sudden there was some sort of group meeting. Upon approaching the group of them we could see that they were huddled around something….something unfortunate. It was a dead sea turtle. It seemed to have been digging a hole to lay its eggs in or something before it died, because it was kinda halfway in a shallow hole. It seemed like it had died of natural causes, but it was sad nonetheless. We're gonna go back to the school in about three minutes to see what the result of that meeting was. If all went according to plan, we should have some students to teach starting tomorrow! We're going back to the school now, so I shall continue this when we return.
Alright, we're back, and with good news! Thanks to the cooperation of the director of the school and the help of E, we will be teaching our first real class tomorrow. A teacher at the school is going to organize a group of students for me to teach and one for Amara to teach, and we're gonna go to the school at 9 tomorrow to teach. E helped us make it clear that we only want to teach the students who really want to learn, and if there are students who don't want to learn or don't care, they don't have to come. They seemed to understand and assured us that they'd only sign the kids up who really wanted to be there. Finally we're getting stuff sorted out!
Later today we will have four hours of Spanish classes as usual, and then we'll go to B and M's hotel to let them know that we have the teaching sorted out, and then we'll go back to our hotel and do our stuff. After all the freaking out I've been doing, I'm glad some people who are similar to us have finally come to our rescue and helped us figure out how things will work while we're here. There is indeed a light at the end of this tunnel!
(continuation of the post that I wrote yesterday) Today, Wednesday, was our first day of teaching the students that will be the regulars. It went pretty well, and now we have students who actually want to learn and who are catching on pretty quickly for the most part. Amara has about 12 students in her paper quilling class, and I have 11 in my music class. Is it bad that I already kind of have a favorite student? Oh well. Anyways, the classes today went well. Even though I have lesson plans, I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants here because since I lost a week of teaching my lessons have shifted around and I'm basically just going in a random order. The good thing is that they really don't know anything at all about music, so I can start from scratch and go slowly to make sure that I don't run out of things to teach them. A couple of Amara's kids seem to be pretty artistically able, so that'll make her job a little easier as well. And so, a week and a half into our trip here, we're finally doing what we came to do. Tis a good thing!
Thanks for reading, more to come.
Aneesa
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