Day 5? First day of school in Vocancito

After a night that tested my patience and caused me to have a TERRIBLE attitude towards hostel life (filled with bugs and the large beetle in the middle of my bed was just the topper...thanks, Mom, for listening to me freak out when I called), I woke up today with a very optimistic attitude. Although I was not very keen on the idea another night with bugs, being the only one in a room of 10 beds, and having no coverings over the windows, I thought that I needed to try harder to adapt to my surroundings. No, 3 hours (or 12 for that matter) was not enough time for me to give the hostel experience a try, therefore, I will be staying at the hostel yet another night. Of course, I say that now, when it´s been over 12 hours since I´ve last stepped foot in that place.

Ok, so enough with that! Today was my first day of school! I woke up early, got ready, and grabbed coffee before a cab was supposed to pick me up. The scheduled pick up time was 8:45am, but the cab did not arrive until 9:15, which frustrated me, but there was nothing else I could do. I arrived at Volcancito school shortly after.

First, an introduction to the school: this school is for the underpriviledged kids around the Boquete area, most of which come from farming or indiginous families (Nogle Bougle, I think is the name) and the school consists of 4 classrooms to teach the approximately 50 kids that are going to school there. The ages range from 5 to 14 and all wear school uniforms, except the indiginous Indians who wore the traditional dresses. The school is made completely out of concrete, barely have windows (in fact, the computer room has no windows), no air conditioning, and swelters during the warm mornings/early afternoons. During the day, the kids roam in and out of the classrooms because the teachers don´t have a whole lot of control over the kids, which was interesting because they all came to the computer room to see what Oscar and I were teaching. I have yet to run into a child at that school who seemed excited to see someone new, wave, and say bye before they left.

So, we were to shows the kids how to use Word and Paint on the computers, but we also turned it into an English lesson as well. Since I didn´t know what to expect, I had nothing prepared and relied on Oscar´s help to get me through the day. As we went through numbers 11 thru 20 with the kids, I was able to learn some Spanish myself and also see how kids the kids were learning English. Of the numbers that we reviewed, 12 and 20 were the hardest for the kids to say. I also noticed that the younger kids were less shy and wanted to show me their English, rather than the older kids who were more shy. The kids were so excited to come into the classroom, say hi to us, and see what we were doing. The teachers were also excited too, to have a native English speaker helping the kids with their English.

One funny/gross thing that happened was when a little boy walked into our room holding something rather large and black. As I realized that he was holding a beetle or bug of some sorts, another boy knocked the bug from his hands, landing on the floor, so the little boy stomped on it with all his might. As I watched this unfold, I heard the disgusting pop that sent shivers down my spine (and continue to do so as I think of it again). This was nothing to the little boy, who walked away, but I couldn´t stop staring at the bug remains and thinking of how grossed out I was. Yes, in case you couldn´t tell, I´ve got an issue with creepy crawly things.

Today went by quickly and we ran through about 20 kids on the computer before school got out at noon. A couple of kids stayed behind and washed the cement floor with the teachers before heading home.

From there I went back to Oscar and Kaytee´s house for lunch and as we we walked there, Oscar and I thought of things I could do for my lesson tomorrow. There are a couple of different ways I think I´ll prepare for class, with tomorrow´s lesson on colors. Ultimately, given enough time, I hope to put together a PowerPoint presentation that I can save to the school´s computers for basics in English. For now, though, I´ll work with flashcards.

After lunch, I went off to my Spanish class at Habla Ya. Ericka is my teacher and we spent 2 hours going over basics. I´m catching on more than I thought, but am still having a hard time mixing my Spanish with French words that I know. Although I don´t know a whole lot, I´ve learned enough to interact with the kids tomorrow.

Once class ended, I had about an hour of freetime before a jewelry making class that I signed up for (suprised I did that? Me too!). During this time, I went shopping for supplies for class tomorrow.

The jewelry making class was taught by Kaytee and it ended up being just me and her spending 2 hours making jewelry (5 pairs of earrings in my case). I was surprised by how much I liked doing this, since it isn´t something I´d usually try doing on my own. Afterwards, we met up with Oscar for a Peruvian dinner at Machu Pachu.

Well, that´s it for my day. I´m excited to back to school tomorrow, see the kids again, and work on colors. I won´t have Oscar´s help, so it´ll be difficult with the language barrier, but I´m excited anyways.