Week 2

Monday was alright, it was a bit sad because we had to say goodbye to Joke and Olivia, our two volunteers who were going home. I've met and said goodbye to so many people this year!

Tuesday was pretty good, I especially enjoyed our egg race, the kids were so much better at it then I thought they would be at their age! We walked home with the children (they walk with us a lot) and I was feeling pretty good. Unfortunately my light mood was darkened by a light spot...on my foot. I pressed it and it was a bit sore, so I asked (with trepidation, as I kind of had an idea) what it was. Eddie said maybe it was a metequene, I said no, surely it isn't, I'd been quite diligent about always wearing shoes and always dusting off my feet, but Eddie looked closely at it, and said one word that sealed my fate. "Yep."

I rushed to my room, got a needle, sterilized it and then asked him to take the sucker out. One of the other volunteers called Mai tried to be helpful by telling me "Don't worry Carielle, it's like taking out a splinter," but the response from Amy, who has actually had a metequene, "Mai, have you ever had one taken out?" let me know that Mai-bless her-was probably blowing smoke. NOT ENCOURAGING.

Eddie tried a bit with the needle but then said he needed to use his "tool," tool meaning a thorn that was much thicker than the needle. Thank God I didn't know how much it hurt or I probably wouldn't have let him near me. The thing came out and we took photos and videos, but I think it'll gross you guys out so I'm not posting!
We had Portugese lessons, Deolinda, one of the teachers at the school, came by to help us out. Now I can stop speaking Spanish and just having people think I have a funky accent (and in some cases, having them think I'm just speaking gibberish).

The rest of the week was good, on Wednesday I led my first adult English class.

I teach the pre-intermediate group with India, a volunteer from Australia. I had put a good bit of time into my lesson planning for Wednesday, so I felt pretty confident, but only a few minutes into the class I realized I was heavy on exercises and not so strong on the basic rules of what I was teaching! So I thought fast and scrapped the plan and just went over the basic rules of what I was trying to teach for the rest of the class. I made a good comeback, but this was a good lesson for me! When teaching, make sure students understand before you start having them practice what you've taught. For Friday, I made a point to really focus on the rules of what I was teaching before going any further into the lesson, and we had a wonderful time. The students seemed really engaged and when I finally did get around to practicing what I had taught, they were answering my questions correctly, which let me know they were retaining the information.

We had another pleasant weekend! We painted the school on Saturday and got quite a bit done, I'm sure that's thanks to the help of a certain munchkin.
I'm excited to go back to school tomorrow, things felt a bit hectic the first week, but now that I'm getting to know the children, I'm really enjoying it!