Birds, Bottle Bricks, and Brother-withdrawls

This morning while I was getting things ready for my students who were arriving in a few moments, an early student ran breathlessly into my classroom shouting, "Miss Hannah! There is a bird in Mr. Gordon's class!"

(Now, I haven't done a good job of introducing you all to the new staff but Mr. Gordon is the new third grade teacher who has graced Inter with his experience, positive attitude, and incredible ideas. He was making some copies in the office at time which ended up being a huge helping of irony as Gordon is an avid bird-watcher while I am an avid bird-hater.)

I creeped out of my classroom and slowly started towards Gordon's class, taking deep breaths and doing some self-talk. I didn't even make it halfway there when 4 students ran out of the class with one of those students holding the bird in her hand. Seriously.

This sweet girl looked at me innocently and asked, "What do I do now?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh... well... [gulp]... go over there [points to opposite direction of self] and open your hand while raising it up so it can fly away."

Child releases bird and Miss Hannah ducks. Other students laugh at Miss Hannah.

"Okay, now go wash your hands realllllllllly well!"

Turns out the bird was panicking more than I was and had knocked over a plant and thus spilled soil all over the floor. I ran to inform Mr. Gordon of such and he remained calm as usual. Made for an interesting story though!

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I don't want to get TOO excited about this bottle bricks thing until after the weekend but Jaron and I are meeting with the NGO Hug it Forward who funds the bottle schools this Friday in Antigua. Katrin, our ECA director, is coming with me right after school so we can discuss our contributions to the school and our ideas for how our students can be involved and possibilities of the students from the school we hope to build coming to visit us. We've got HUGE dreams for this project, I just hope their aren't too huge. I leave you with this link to check out the current situation with the bottle schools and this one to explain the bench we hope to build at Inter.

One thing I can say for sure is that my Earthkeepers club as increased enrollment to over 20 members. Some students even told me that they plan on coming but couldn't make it yesterday. What a relief! I even have some 4th and 5th graders there that are making my job so much easier (now that its not just me and 5 other Kindergarteners in the room, geesh!). We are planning an assembly to perform for the elementary school in two weeks to teach about how we can recycle and what materials we will need in order to get these bottles made. EXCITEMENT OVERLOAD!

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Yes, Mr. Zack has returned to Seattle. My kids were convinced that he was just a dude that has nothing to do in his days but travel the world (wouldn't that be nice!?) and were asking me questions like, "Why he go?" and, "Well what will he do now?" It's really funny to me how kids cannot conceptualize adults going to school. I think they picture them in an elementary school classroom with their knees up to their ears while they sit in tiny person chairs and mold their answers to questions with play-dough. Hm, sounds awesome.

But overall, Zack's visit was more than incredible. So many lives were changed because of his one month devotion to this country. My students adored him and cannot stop talking about him. My friends wanted to hang out with him more than they wanted to hang out with me (no hard feelings, he's pretty darn likable). My brother himself is now considering following the path of teaching. And I was in a constant state of jaw-drop as I watched my baby brother walking around my current country of residence with maturity, interest, perspective, open-mindedness, kindness, eagerness to know more, hilarity, and grace. He had his eyes opened to a completely new place and didn't let anything hold him back or shock him to the point of disliking the place. He is quite frankly one of the most well-rounded individuals I know and I am so thankful that I was able to spend almost two months in total with him in the last three months. 

I really do have a rock star family (NOT sorry for bragging!) and I seriously cannot wait for Sarah and Weston to come in December... a little over 2 months to go!!!