Hello again! Today was an utterly wonderful day. Even better than yesterday. So today's theme is: animals! What little kid doesn't love animals?
So in our groups last night, I came up with a swell idea. Animal masks. So today we made animal masks. Isn't that cool? My idea was used in our lesson!
So today when we got to the school, some of the kids were getting more excited to see what we had brought for them. So we gave them each a piece of white paper, some markers, some glue, some tissue paper, and some of this colored cellophane that they literally went crazy over.
So I worked with Aryel again today and another little boy named Ulises. He is literally the most adorable kid in the whole world, and so everyone loves him. He's only 3, and he doesn't really like to sit and do anything for a sustained amount of time. So every once in a while he walks out of the room and finds his mom, then his mom brings him back. I helped him with his mask too, which was a horse, and he loved it. He ran around holding it up and making cute little animal noises.
Which was the second part of our lesson. We would make an animal noise and the kids would say it in Spanish. Then we would say what it was in English and they would repeat it. It got easy for them though, so we had to switch up what we were doing. We were having so much fun by the end and unfortunately, we had to end our lesson work on construction outside.
We were ripping up the weeds and dead plants in the school yard so we could make room for a basketball court. We were going to clear the land and other groups that would come later in the summer would work on clearing the rest and laying cement.
And it occurred to me, sitting out in the field, that if they want a construction project to get done, then they would need to get tools and do it themselves.They can't call in a team of workers and get dump trucks and cranes and what not to help them. They have to do it all by hand.
After school, we had lunch and then it started to pour. We were stuck in the tree house for some time, and we waited for the rain to let up. When it did, we went to our rooms and hung out for an hour until we came up for a salsa dance lesson. I sat in my room lying on the bed doing nothing. I didn't fall asleep nor did I do anything. I just sat and listened to the rain for an hour. It was almost like meditation.
Then our Latin dance teacher arrived and showed us how to salsa. It was great fun, seeing all of the awkward Americans trying to dance as suave as our dance teacher did. And at the end, we all got it and we were really quite good. I still remember all of the dance moves actually.
At 2pm, 8 of the kids came up to the kitchen because they were going to cook dinner for us. And rumor has it it was something good.
The rest of us hung out in our rooms and played cards and talked and relaxed. It was fun getting to know the kids we were rooming with and the kids we were going to be living with for our time here. They were all so fun and nice and by the end we all felt closer.
But then a storm came, and the power went out. Including the power in the kitchen. Dinner was going to be delayed for an hour, so we waited and continued to hang out and enjoy each other's company.
At 7, we went upstairs and we found out what was for dinner - PASTA again! - and it was amazing. The sauce was great, so was the sausage and the vegetables. After dinner, I went to the kitchen to help clean up, but there were too many people in there so me and a few others had to leave. But one thing I noticed was that there was one plate filled with food that we got back. One of the girls on the cooking staff for today was shocked and sad. "We spent our free time cooking this meal and someone just wasted the food." she said. And it was right. This is how our real cooks must feel when we waste. They spend so much time cooking for us and we take to much and don't finish it. And then it goes to waste. It showed us all that we have to be careful about how much we take and about how much we actually eat, because in countries like this every grain of rice counts.
After dinner we played some group games and talked about our home visits. Then we retired to bed - after lesson planning - and went to sleep.
Well that's all for now. See you in the morning my friends! Pura vida!
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