Celebrando el Cumple de un Adulto

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So today (Tuesday) I told one of my adult women that her birthday was on Thursday, and she had NO idea that it was her birthday, that she was going to be 44… I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she had no idea because she had never celebrated her birthday before. I told her that I was going to take the whole class out to dinner. The smile on her face throughout this whole conversation was priceless!

Then Thursday rolled around and the birthday girl didn’t even show up to class! I saw her around 4 (and we have class at 5), and she told me that she had to go to the other Center because her son hadn’t shown up to classes for high school in 2 weeks. Clearly she had to go, but I was super disappointed. At least though I got to wish her a happy birthday, and she looked so flattered that I remembered and embarrassed by the attention haha

Thankfully she showed up on Friday, so I took her and her sister-in-law (one of my other students) out to a chicken fast food restaurant. They were super excited about the french fries. It was just such a pleasant experience to take them out to dinner. We laughed and laughed because they were only speaking their native language Quichua, to each other and with me, which is crazy because I don’t know it, but they would just keep saying things until I guessed by context what they were trying to tell me. Welcome to my adult class. I am pretty sure I will know Quichua by the end of the year. I love my adult class because I can let my guard down and I don’t have to worry about classroom discipline or behavior management. It is my one part of the day where I can smile and laugh so hard. Anyway, they ate so slowly and we talked about things like their work, or lack of work right now, and their life financially. Both of these women are barely scraping by to provide a quarter to take the bus for each of their kids each day, and they don’t have enough money for themselves to come eat at the Center except for dinner, which is more like a snack, so they’re not even able to access the free meals at the Center.

I gave her a tiny gift - homemade earrings that she had commented on earlier that she really liked them - but it was so precious watching her try to open it. I had found some wrapping paper so I wrapped them up, and I don’t think she’s ever unwrapped anything in her life. It was crazy. She just didn’t get how to open it. Then I gave her a cake when we got back to the Center. I think she was just overwhelmed by how much I gave her on this ‘random’ day for her - she’s never celebrated it in her life, and this day meant nothing for her, so I tried to spoil her as much as possible.

Teaching adults has been a really special thing this year…

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Photos

Maria
she has the most beautiful smile!