Here I Am

Well, I´m in El Salvador. On the plane ride over I felt very calm and for the life of me I can´t now understand why. That´s not true, I know why, because everyone still spoke English. Even when my first flight was delayed to remove ice from the plane and I only had 20 minutes to get off the plane and catch my connecting flight, even then I felt calm and didn´t panic. Now, I am not so calm. Only half a day I have been here and I have spoken more Spanish that I have in the past year. My head hurts. I now know that I will be teaching several classes of English, on my own, but only 2 or 3 each day for a total of 18 hours. I think I can handle this.

Once I get accustomed to the Spanish, I know I will feel much better, but right now I just want everyone to speak English.

The Positives: all the Sisters are very helpful and very nice! They speak slowly for me and don´t mind when I frequently say I don´t understand. There are 24 girls boarding at the school and I met most of them today - they are the sweetest girls I have ever met and they are between the ages of 12-17. I like them very much and will appreciate them even more as I pick up the language. Right now I am sleeping in the same building as all the girls, but have my own room set right next to their room. All their beds are in the same room, but apparently they are very good about going to bed on time. Won´t be a problem for me tonight! I´m so tired!

The other volunteer down here is Italian and she is teaching 1-6th graders English. I pick up where she stops. Her room is currently in the same building as the Sisters, but apparently we will be switching rooms every month. I think this is for time with the girls.

Right now I thought we were scheduled to have dinner, but no one is in the dining room, so I´m not sure what the next step is. I´m getting pretty hungry so I think I´ll go see if I can raid the kitchen. :)