This keyboard rocks, it has all the buttons for accents and punctuation in Español!
This last weekend has been a busy one, but I had Saturday free from work - Solidea and I made sure that at least one day remained free. Our schedule from Monday - Friday is English classes in the morning, somedays until 3:30, then we have a few hours free, then at 5 it is over to watch the Interna´s (girls living here during the week) until dinner. At dinner, one of us stays with the girls, the other eats, then we switch. Then S. Margarita Róman comes and stays with the girls. Usually it is 8 by this time and has been dark for 2 hours. Every day, it gets dark here at 6pm, no matter the season. The sun rises at 6am and sets at 6pm.
Sundays start with Mass (it´s always a surprise when and where this will be, which is why I missed it yesterday) then Solidea and I teach English for 3 hours to ladies from the community. At the same time many of the other sisters are teaching other various classes as well. After the classes can be time for chores, or if there is a local VIDES meeting Solidea and I run off to that. I might not do this so much since I have plenty of other stuff to do to keep me busy and day I´m not riding for hours on those painfully hot buses is a good day.
There are 24 or so Interna´s ranging in age from junior high to high school. Interna´s are the girls who dorm here during the week while their parents work. I don´t know if the parents can´t afford to feed them all week long or if they work odd hours, but whatever the case, the girls board here for the week and go home on the weekends.
Most of the teachers here this year are new, which is why S. Margarita Guillen(the principle) is having headaches. The school switched from a private school to a public school (I had thought it was the other way around before I got here). Because of this, most of the teachers left and the government provided a bunch of new ones. I was not provided by the government, but there is definitely a need for an English teacher, and if last years teacher is any indicator, they were in need of a good English teacher. To sum up last years teacher, let me just say that I will actually introduce my students to English grammar and words, and not just make them pray all hour long while predicting who will pass the test because Jesus told me. Yeah, apparently this is not normal and please don´t judge all the teachers in El Salvador by this one example. All the teachers I´ve met are pretty normal and capable of teaching.
I am very lucky Solidea is here. I think the Sisters would take more time to explain things to me if she wasn´t, but I know they wouldn´t think of everything - which is evident because we are frequently told things shortly before they happen. For example: the teachers are having a meeting right now in such and such a room(often a student tells us this); 7th grade is your homeroom and you need to prepare them for the pep rally tomorrow - right now; ¨why aren´t you walking around checking on the interna´s?¨ ¨It´s not 5 o´clock.¨ ¨No, today you need to watch them from 4.¨ ¨Okay.¨
Many times they discuss school related things at dinner - all of which I would miss if not for Solidea. And we´re the only two volunteers here, we´re the same age, and appreciate a lot of the same things. Her companionship has been so important to me here - and she has said the same of me. And she speaks English! So very nice.
Okay, that´s the background information on my location for now!
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3 comments:
Thanks for the background info...I've been wondering how everything is set up. Where is Solidea from? I'm glad there is someone else your age there so it's not quite as much of a shock to your system. I wouldn't deal well with the last minute plan changes (without being notified ahead of time)...I'd probably say "okay, no problem" but inside I'd be thinking "well DUH! why didn't you say so in the first place?"
(I thought you'd appreciate some Erin-speak!)
Take care and God bless!
Erin
I can't decide if I would go crazy in that environment or be happy that nothing would ever have to be really well done because I only had five minutes to prepare. Hmmm. Must ponder.
Yes, the last minute notifications tend to leave me somewhat bewildered. This happened again this morning and the only reason Solidea found out about a change in the morning routine is because Solidea heard one of the sisters say to the other in passing something about a change. She decided to ask about this and thus we found out 2-3 minutes after the usual start time that we had to do something different with the morning class.
We´ll get the details over the weekend. (yeah, we´ll see)
Solidea is from Italy and will be returning to Italy for 3 weeks at the end of February. I´ve already told her I´ll be holding some of her valuables as ransom to make sure she returns. :)
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