I’m happy to report that we’ve successfully made it through an entire week of teaching. So far, I’m having a blast! Katie and I laughed about how the teachers we had growing up must not have been having as much fun as we were because we are genuinely loving being at school with our students. Yes, its still stressful and exhausting, but at the end of the day I can’t help but smile.
The week went by so quickly and my students accomplished pretty much everything I had hoped they would. Colin sat in on one of my lessons one day and it went really well and he also got an email from a parent of one of my students saying how happy they were with me and the rest of the staff at Inter. I am really relieved to see that Colin has faith in me as a teacher and that the parents are feeling comfortable with me at the front of the class. I think winning over the parents and principals is much harder than the students as my kiddos seem to love you no matter what!
Friday was one of my students’ birthday so her mother brought in cake and pizza for everyone in the class. I was so happy that it fell on a Friday because after that birthday feast my kids were bouncing off the walls! It was fun to eat lunch in the classroom for a change and to get to know some of the parents in light-hearted situation.
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| Happy birthday, Grace! |
Another great weekend of exploring has been written in the books. After finishing the first full week of school with great success a group of teachers decided to hike Volcan Pacaya on Saturday morning. We drove up in two different cars at 7am and started the trek up a very active volcano. Katie Yohnk, a grade 1 teacher from Wisconsin, brought a bag of marshmellows because there are open flames throughout the terrain that are ideal for roasting. It was a pretty short hike considering the volcano blew up in June and was missing a great chunk of it that is typically part of the trail. The hard part about the hike was that it was pretty much covered with brittle, volcanic ash that without hiking boots is pretty hard to walk on. I was happy to find that I wasn’t in as bad of shape as I thought I was as the hike didn’t leave me sore the next day and I was able to hike right behind our guide.
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| MAKenzie and mcMACKen on a steaming hot volcano |
After the Volcano, Makenzie, Trevor (middle school science teacher from Oklahoma) and Mike (high school social studies (I think!) teacher from Wisconsin, Katie Y’s cousin) and I went to get some Chinese food. Mike swore it was the best Chinese food around but since I am a Chinese food snob, I’m pretty hard to please. Lets just say I probably won’t be going back there.
That evening we went bowling at an alley that is just a few miles from our house and then called it a night. The next day Aubrey slept until 2pm, ha! We were certainly wiped out from the week. I went a played ultimate frisbee with Trevor and Mike with a bunch of teachers from the American school of Guatemala. Their school is significantly nicer than ours; I was really surprised! BUT I think our school has more personality :) It was cool to meet some new people though and many of the teachers at that school are married to people who work for the U.S. Embassy here in the City—good people to know! Playing ultimate again made me SO happy and I am definitely sore after that hour and a half game with no substitutions.
I’m now hoping week two of teaching will be just as successful as week one and that my students learn some things. We have a “Meet the Teacher Night” at school on Wednesday where the parents of our kiddos get to come to our classes and ask us a ton of questions we don’t even know the answers too. I haven’t given it much thought but hope they don’t throw me under the bus! Sorry again for the delay in posting; I’m making it my new goal to be more proactive about it.
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