Middle of week 3

I know it’s been a while again since I’ve posted, but I underestimated how busy I really am at the project.  I get up at 6:45am every morning and don’t get home until about 6pm or so.  Then I have some free time to do various errands and stuff, dinner from 7-8, and then its relax time and I’m often pretty tired.  So, this week…

            Actually, first I’ll talk about last weekend.  One night I went out to this popular gringo bar called Monoloco.  I’ve gone there a bit since they have a lot of TVs with American sports on.  It is very gringo there though and I actually don’t like that so much haha.  But anyways, I met the owner of the bar that weekend.  His name is Billy (already knew he must be an awesome guy) and he’s from Virginia, but his family grew up in R.I. so is a big Boston sports fan and the whole bar is decorated with Red Sox stuff.  Makes me feel a little bit at home.

            So anyways, my 3 friends and I got to talking about being volunteers at Camino Seguro.  He said he actually knew Hanley Denning who is the founder of Camino Seguro.  Billy first came to Guatemala years ago and was volunteering in the same project as Hanley.  2 days into the project, they had a conversation like this:

Hanley: “Hey, what do you think of this project?  I don’t feel like the kids really need us that badly.” 

Billy: “Ummm… I don’t know.” 

Hanley: “I think I might try to do something more worthwhile.”

Billy: “Umm… OK, go for it.”

Then she quit and started Camino Seguro.  He said he has such great respect for her and was friends with her and that “anybody who works for Hanley’s program is a friend of mine” and bought the 4 of us 2 liters of beer. 

            This week has been good.  It’s crazy how fast it’s flying by – its flying by way faster than my week off last week did.  I can definitely say that a week of work has never gone by faster than a week of vacation in my entire life until now.  Anyways the past 3 days have been pretty good.  All three days I’ve helped both my morning and afternoon classes with English.  My teacher doesn’t speak English, so I’m a pretty useful tool there since all the students are studying it in school and have a ½ hour of it at Camino Seguro daily.  As for math: Monday, I helped somebody from another class with solving equations of 1 variable with all different denominators.  Yesterday, I helped a couple students with solving systems of 2 equations with 2 variables.  Its stuff that juniors at SHS learn and many struggle with.  I cannot tell you how difficult it was trying to teach those 2 things in Spanish haha!  They seemed to understand decently though, I was sure to ask “Comprenden?” often to make sure.  I gave them all examples too which they did not perfectly, but with only few minor errors, often not even from to the new material.  Today, my morning class was small and pretty set with math, but I did a LOT of multiplication homework checking and helping with my 3^rd graders in the afternoon.  Man, they really tired me out today. 

            During a meeting this morning, our volunteer coordinator asked for suggestions for new volunteers.  One girl who has been here a while suggested discipline training.  She said, “Many people think they all come from unpriviliged backgrounds and they just need some TLC, but we’re not doing them right if not disciplining them when misbehaving.”  It kind of struck me then how right she was.  I don’t feel like I had been doing much disciplining and today I started to be a little more strict with them.  I can’t get on them for everything, I swear literally not a minute goes by without a punch or kick or hair pulled, but if somebody was being really dangerous, disrespectful, or not listening to what I said I pulled them aside for a private conversation.  I wasn’t harsh and they were very respectful and took it well!  I think it was just once and he hugged me right after.  The other time I almost did the girl immediately did as I previously instructed instead.  I’m glad Nellie made me realize that today because otherwise I may not have realized what a disservice I would be doing to the students by just playing and loving them but not providing them with the very necessary occasional discipline.  OK, that’s it for now, I’ll try to be more frequent in my postings, but can’t make any promises.  Hasta Luego!