This past week was such a blur. Everybody here was sick (myself included) and we were extrememly busy the entire week. We found out that Leona, the other girl from the US, has tonsilitis. I went to two more parent teacher meetings and the first one actually went well. At some of the meetings they hold a "rifa" or raffle as a fundraiser for the class. However, it is a little different than your normal raffle. Some parents bring a specified food, usually oil, eggs or sugar, and they sell raffle numbers. They also have cake and coffee or tea for sale. Not only did I get cake (since I was missing dinner) but I won a bag of sugar! While that was great the best part was that one of the moms there talked to me. At the past "reuniones" I generally just get stared at becuase I am the only "gringa" in the room. If any of the parents notice that I am there they most likely know I am there for the kids at the hogar (which is just one more prejudice against me). The mom asked me if I had a kid in the class and when I explained why I was there she didnt seem to think twice about it. Later she continued to talk to me and included me in the rifa. While, this doesn't sound like a big gesture it made me feel welcome for the first time at one of these meetings. I wanted to go up and thank her at the end of the meeting because after 5 reuniones she has been the only parent to approach me and not judge me.
Since we were all sick working with the kids was even more difficult. I know that there were several days I did not have the patience to deal with kids that misbehaved the way these kids can. Luckily we spent some afternoons preparing notebooks for the kids (which I will explain). Since we cannot work with all the kids in the library we make notebooks with activities for them to do at home. So, we had about 25-30 notebooks to update this past week. Unfortunately when I was able to work with "my" kids this past week it was a disappointment. I have one kid who is a complete terror most days, Paul. He cannot stay seated for more than 3 minutes and he has the tendency to jump up and scream at random because he has so much energy. He didn't show much improvement this week...we actually had to take a step backwards and give him pre-school activities instead of kindergarten (which is the grade he is in) because he was having too much trouble completing the ones at his grade level. Since the work will be more at his level hopefully he will focus and become more interested in his work. Then there was Jairo....the 5 year old I work with. I have been working on the numbers with him for the past 3 1/2 weeks. I finally got to the point where I thought he could write and identify the numbers 1,2 and 3. Little did I know that he still can't. He has the number 1 down pretty well...however he still cannot get 2 and 3. I wish I could express how I felt when he failed to write the number 2 and wrote a 3 instead. At first I wanted him to learn all of his vowels and numbers before I left however, I have changed my goals just to the numbers 1-10. We'll see how that goes.
Finally Friday got here and we were all starting to feel a little better. I got the day off for my birthday and slept in. I also spent most of the day on skype with family and friends. While it doesn't sound that exciting it was really nice to relax and spend the day talking to people I care about and miss. I also had a "surprise" party in one of the offices. They got me an amazing cake and had a bunch of snacks there. Then later in the day I had another party with more food, wine and another cake. While it wasn't the most exciting birthday ever I definitely enjoyed it. Saturday it poured all day so Ophelia and I did not go to Cajon de Maipo to go horseback riding...maybe another weekend. Instead we sat around and watched movies and went to Santiago on Sunday. The next few weeks should be pretty busy...I have a friend from Pitt coming to Santaigo to work starting next Saturday and I found out today that an old friend from elementary school and high school is interning in Santiago until the end of July. And we have a 3 day weekend next week!!
I want to add that I am really enjoying myself here. While my posts may seem a bit frustrated at times it is because I know that the people in the US reading them can identify with some of my frustrations (since we have the same educational norms). I can't believe I only have 5 weeks left here...it actually makes me sad to think that. While I will be happy to see the summer again and all the people I love, I will miss being here.
No comments:
Post a Comment