New Project
Sorry it´s been a while. There is so much going on here, it´s hard to find time to blog.
Anyways, last we talked we were working on the website and funding. Our plans quickly changed. It turns out the website will not be ready for us to translate for while.
We had our first English class last week teaching the alphabet to about 20 kids at the same time. It was chaotic! The kids were very talkative and it was hard to get their attention. Everyday since then, when they get back from school, the first thing they ask is if we are going to teach English today. It´s really cute how excited they are for English class, and yet they act like they don´t want to do it when we gather them up for class. When we say it´s time for English, it takes them forever to go to the room and they put on a pouty face. Even in class they look sad as if they hate the class until it is their turn to pronounce the word. When it´s their turn they exude joy and are ecstatic to speak.
We have only worked on the alphabet and vowel sounds thus far, although we have also made numbers charts and have the days of the week and months planned in our heads. It is a little chaotic at the orphanage and hard to find a time to teach English. They are either eating lunch, brushing their teeth, doing their homework, at the park, or getting their teeth cleaned at the dentist. The English classes are a bit impromptu and we have not had as many as I´d hoped to.
The day of our first English class, we spoke with the directors of the Hospicio and were given a new project. We are now in charge of organizing the two study/stimulation rooms. We are almost done with one of the two rooms, but have yet to start the inventory. They want us to develop a system where people have to sign out pencils and books, etc, because the system right now is basically if you find something, you can use it, but chances are no one is ever going to find it again. I cannot wait to organize everything. It is a big task! I hope we make a system they can use. It sounds a little too military for my style, but it seems like that is what they need at this point in time.
We have not gotten very far with the inventory because it is very difficult to leave the babies. We finally found our niche with the babies and it´s hard to not be with them. In order to complete our tasks we are definitely going to need to take more time away from them, and spend more of it in the classrooms. Wish us luck!