Long Overdue Update

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Well, it has been a long, long time since I have written, and I can’t explain why, except that maybe I am so immersed in my daily life that it’s hard to write about specific experiences. I really don’t know what to tell you.

I could go back and write about things like Easter or something, but I’m just going to write about some of the beautiful little moments that make up my days here. That’s really what I focus on now - these beautiful little moments.


*Today I went to Mass and sat with a first grade girl next to me and her 3-year-old brother on my lap, and they both passed out on me during Mass. It was cute in some ways, and I’m glad I could be there to allow them to rest a minute, but it’s also kind of sad. I know how exhausted our kids are here.

*Friday I went back to working in first grade after 2 weeks (because of vacation and then because I was sick), and the kids were SO excited to see me. (The Ecuadorian first grade teacher who I work with said they’re all in love with me haha.) I had two little boys fighting over me to sit next to them during Mass, not realizing that I could just sit in between them. I sat in between them and they both held onto my hands so tightly, and one of them kept looking up at me with the most beautiful smile in the whole world.

*Also, Friday my study hour with my high school girls was canceled at the last minute, so I had to rush around trying to find people to tell them that we weren’t going to have it. When I told one of the girls, who usually has the hardest time getting down to work and is having a lot of trouble in her classes (as in she will probably have to repeat this year), she was actually upset we weren’t going to have study hour, so I told her that I would work with her in the office. There is no way I’m not going to work with one of my girls if they tell me they WANT to work. She was so grateful and got a good amount of work done, plus it was a nice time to bond with her.

*This week we were doing pen pal letters with kids from California, and my girls English class especially loved it. First I read the letters out loud to them, and when I was reading the letter to each girl, their eyes lit up. I read one letter that said that this girl’s favorite color was yellow, and the girl in my class who was going to reply to that letter got SO excited and said “MY favorite color is yellow,” like she couldn’t believe that someone in the US had the same favorite color as her.

*Before Easter break, we performed English skits in front of all the classes at that time slot, and somehow both my classes won for their time slots. It was so amazing to see the pride on my boys’ faces. That class is one of my biggest challenges (I have 4th-6th graders), and we had worked for weeks on this skit. They worked in pairs and each pair built a room, furniture and everything, and they had to memorize a conversation like this: “This is the living room. This is the TV. This is the couch. This is the mother. Where is the mother? She is in the living room. What is she doing? She is watching TV.” They worked so hard, and they even practiced at home without me asking them to, and they were so nervous going into the skit. But they did it and they did it so well, and when they got their big cups of yogurts for their prizes, their expressions were priceless. You could not wipe the smiles off their faces.

*As you probably know, I’ve been making rosaries with my girls program group all semester, and it has been amazing to see how profitable it has been for them. In 4 months, each girl has made anywhere between $6 and $15, which is huge for here! Now, whatever they earn from selling their rosaries goes straight to them as well, so they’re on their way to earning a lot more. Usually they earn 15 cents every 2 weeks or something. Anyway, it’s been amazing to see them learn the value of work and to see them proud about what they’ve made and thus super excited to sell it. I paid one girl $11 a couple weeks ago, and I cannot even begin to express her excitement about how much she had earned.



Well, I hope you enjoyed those stories. I’ll try and be better about updating in these last 2 months.

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Comments

[morgan]

beautiful stories Laura! <3