Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Good Monday

Yesterday was another good day.  We read some late yesterday morning and then we started working on a bulletin board.  The children here have never celebrated birthdays, and that's changing.  Stefanie and I started making a birthday board which we'll continue later today.  By continue I mean finish.  Yesterday afternoon we were assigned to help a child each with his/her homework.  All of the smaller kids work with an older kid (and older kids' school hours are different, and they do their homework later), and we were given smaller kids.  I was great at the math, but could only do so much with the reading.  I got Stefanie and some of the kids who do speak English to help me check the work, though.  My reading words out loud has gotten better, but I don't necessarily know what they mean.

My kid wasn't really interested in the reading, either.  I don't know his baseline for reading, so I don't know if he couldn't do what we were trying to do or just didn't want to try.  Hopefully today will be better?  If the children didn't have homework they had to read.  There aren't books here, though, so we might be looking into that (if a book drive would be helpful).  More on that later sometime after we've talked to Dori.  After homework/tutoring we went into town, which was great and meh.  We were going to take some kids to the doctor, and when we got there Dori estimated they'd be there at least two hours, so Stefanie and I went and walked around the town square.

We had a cultural experience of getting paletas.  They were soooooo good.  We both goth peanut since it was the woman selling them's favorite; they didn't have strawberries and cream, which was Stefanie's top suggestion.  I could eat one a day...and be as big as a house as I drink my apple sodas.  We went into the big church on the square where they were doing Bible study and just listened a bit.  We got bits of it and were at least able to sing the alleluia they sang for a gospel reading.  We went back to the doctor's office and checked in since I hadn't looked at my watch...and Dori said that we should just stay until the van came back by so that we could come home and eat, and that's what we did.

After dinner we talked with one of the English-speaking students for a bit.  Then we just hung out.  There was no TV last night since they had school today, so the big room was quiet.  I got online and chatted some.  I did a little Skyping, too.  Went to my room and read.  Good evening.  This morning has been good, too.  I got up in time for breakfast and ran with Stefanie.  We ran a little more today than yesterday, though we didn't run as much as we wanted.  By that I mean that I had to walk and couldn't go any more.  My legs are sore in a good way, so I know that I worked.  After our run we did 8 Minute Abs.  We went to our prayer roof and did morning prayer after we did some general checking in.  It's been a good morning.

It's 17 with a high of 27.  I'm lovin' in.  I'm looking forward to the homework time today.  Yesterday was really frustrating because I'm not a second grade teacher and had to make myself have patience with my kiddo.  If he'd seemed like he was trying (starting by at least looking at the paper as I sounded words out) I might've been less internally flustered.  I was a non-anxious presence, but I like when people focus and do what they're supposed to do....I like when I feel like I'm in control of a situation, and I didn't yesterday.  Math was fun though.  Maybe today will be better.

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