So, the first few days of school have gone well. I really love my students and my classroom. We are working on a few behavior issues (like following directions), but what can you expect from five year olds at the very beginning of school? Especially in a culture that is somewhat more lenient with discipline than I'm used to. All in all my students are all very sweet and good natured. They were all in Pre-Kinder together so there is already that feeling of a community in the classroom.
"Teacher, you're so beautiful" :)
I've always said that I love teaching boys...well, I'm glad
that's true because I have five of them.
I have five boys and three girls, and for all but two of them English is
a second language. They learned English
last year, so most of them are very fluent, though one is still struggling to
learn it. Luckily I have a student with
an American parent and a Paraguayan parent, so she is fluent in both Spanish
and English and can help translate when necessary.
Their favorite place in the room...
It's fun to listen to my students though. They will randomly
use Spanish words in the middle of sentences in English. Even my students who speak English as a first
language start speaking "spanglish"
in the heat of a soccer game. We have to remind them to "use
English" on the playground, because part of the purpose of the school is
to help students become fluent in English, so using English is actually a
school rule.
My classroom is nice, and almost finished...I expected an
empty classroom, but was pleased to find it full of teachery things. The only
problem was that it was full of about 12 years of teachery things. I've been
through most of it and sorted through what I want to keep and toss out. I still
have some stuff to go through when I have time, but that will have to wait for
a while.
On Day 2 of cleaning...
Finally finished (mostly)!
How to hide curriculum boxes in a small class: disguise them as stoves!
Thankfully, my classroom also has plenty of toys, which is a
real blessing in the afternoons. Pre-Kinder
and Kinder end school at 1:20, but the high school doesn't get out until
2:30. This translates into most of my
kids staying late. So far, none of my
kids gets picked up until 1:30 and I still have about five of them at 2:00 when
I can send them to the playground. Thankfully, they don't seem to mind playing
with trucks and dinosaurs until then (in fact, they usually groan when I
announce it's time to clean up).
The word you are looking for is "creepy"
I'm still definitely loving my neighbors. It's great to have
a community right there that you can talk to when you have a problem or need to
borrow something.
Two of the couples that are my neighbors and I went to a
strawberry festival in a nearby town last weekend. Well, technically it was the pre-cursor to
the festival. Apparently the festival
isn't until the 14th. We are hoping to
go back because 1. The strawberry jelly and strawberry foods are Amazing and 2.
Apparently the president and minister of the interior will be there. Needless
to say though, we all came back very full of strawberries!
The coolest part of the day though was actually the afternoon. The strawberry fields are just outside of a
town known for their pottery. After we were strawberried out we walked the few
miles to the outside of the town and went into a pottery store. The store owner actually gave us a tour of the back part of the store and we
got to see how they made the different kinds of pots. It was so cool! He showed us how they made the really big
pots (from two to six feet tall) in pieces on the wheel and then put them
together to make one pot. We had intended to walk all the way back into the
town, but we were getting pretty hot and some of us were starting to get a
sunburn so we stopped at this store. I'm
really glad we didn't end up walking all the way back, because it was a lot
farther than we thought. The sun definitely
would have been down by the time we made it back!
The Huge fire kiln
He showed us how to make the bottom of the pot (without getting at all dirty!)
Just a small taste of the many, many pots in the store!
I am really glad to be working here in Paraguay. It's been a
really great experience so far, and the people at the school are very friendly
and helpful. I can't wait to see how the rest of the year goes!
Prayer requests:
Pray for the school to get the rest of the teachers that are
needed. At least two are hoping to get
here soon, but really the school needs four total. Especially high school
science. Teachers and even
administrators are having to double up and cover classes until a full time
teacher can be found.
Pray for the health of the teachers and students. Between cold, damp nights, warm afternoons,
and working with children, a lot of us are teetering on the edge of colds and
other sickness.
Request: So, God made me a teacher not a chef. As such, I'm having trouble finding/making recipes that I can use here in Paraguay. If you know any good very simple recipes you would like to share, send me a message on facebook! I would love to try whatever you think is great food!
Keep in mind though, I have a very limited kitchen, both pots/pans wise and spices wise (think pepper, salt, and oregano). I would love recipes for fruits, veggies, and potatoes though, they are very cheap and are really yummy here!
One last thing:
A lot of people have been asking for my address, so here it is,
Asuncion Christian Academy
Avenida SantÃsimo Sacramento 1181
Asunción - Paraguay - South America
(I guess you just put my name somewhere on the letter?)
Keep in mind: you are sending things to South America. Packages take up to a couple of months, and may come missing things, so don't send anything that you don't want to go missing. There is a safer way to send things through another address, but it's super expensive (about $8 a pound), so unless you really want that address, I'm not going to post it. Letters may take a week or so, but the mail for letters is much more reliable. I love getting letters, so feel free to send them!
No comments:
Post a Comment