Our First Day on the Job

Monday started when Cuatro awoke at 4:30, which gave us a generous 3 hours to get ready before the start of school.:)  In fact, we put him down for his morning nap just before we left the house, and Tante Corrie stayed at the house with him while the rest of us walked down to greet the students and reconnect with the teachers.  It was so good to see them all again!!

Hubry is teaching 6 Social Studies classes in a row, with a 10 minute break after the first 3.  And he's doing it mostly in Spanish.  So by the end of his last class, his brain was hurting, and he felt pretty exhausted!

The kids and I helped Karen and her daughter Sarah with the arts and crafts classes.  They were making clay beads to string together necklaces.  Songbird helped the group from Mobile build a wall out of cinderblocks, and Raindrop, Bro, and I visited Hubry's class and students here and there until Cuatro awoke, and then Corrie and I switched places.

After lunch Sarah, who is 16 and wants to be a professional ballerina, shared the gospel message via a dance routine that she created.  It was beautifully done, and I'm pretty sure our little Raindrop thinks that Sarah hangs the moon!

After lunch I began the sea turtle project with the 7th graders.  I have 45 students in class at the same time, which is a lot for an art class, especially when it comes to tracking whether or not everyone is following along.  But overall they did a great job.  None of the students have ever seen / used oil pastels, so I'm excited to get to introduce them.  The teacher is so excited to have the watercolor paper, too.  She says it is really difficult to buy nice art supplies at a reasonable price in the city.

After school was over, we decided to take a family walk through the village to buy some Sprite at a Pulperia.  We wanted to show the kids the village, and the animals, and see if we could see any students while we were out and about.  Also, the backpack is one of the only ways we can contain Cuatro where he remains content.  We can't let him play on the grass because of all the ants.  And we have to be careful with the drop-offs and the dogs, and the chemicals, and the electric outlets (where he's already been shocked once) and, and, and...

He's waking up again.

Family walk

Chatting with girls outside the local elementary school 

So many beautiful butterflies