Classes
The students are starting to get the hang of being in class! At first it was a constant effort to have them still and listen to me, but now they're much more respectful and obedient. :) Of course, they're still little kids, with all of the entertainment that provides, but they're doing really well in class. The other day I was doing an activity with my first grade classes (4-5 year olds) and only explained it to them in English and they were able to do the activity!!! Of course, the next day I tried the same thing, only with a different activity and they didn't have a clue, but still, there's hope! :) It's been a lot of fun working with so many different ages, I feel like I have the best of all worlds, since I get the little, little ones who we sing songs and I point out the colors of their toys, to the 3rd graders (6-8 years old) who I'm teaching to read and we can play games like Hangman and stuff.
At recess time I'm usually in the library with about 15-20 kids all over the floor reading books and if I'm not here, for some reason, I'll have about 10-20 kids begging me to open it up, so that they can read. They have a choice of playing in the gym, eating, or reading and these guys choose reading!! I love to see all the different ages scattered all over the floor reading and sharing books. :) Cuenca
This past weekend was a four-day weekend so Diana, my roommate, and I went to Cuenca. It's one of the larger cities in Ecuador and about a 7-9 hour bus ride from Macas, up into the mountains. It was so much fun to wander around the town that she'd grown up in and to see a different part of Ecuador, since I'd never been there before. It was really pretty with Spanish colonial architecture all over, all of the roofs were red and many buildings made of adobe. The foundations of the buildings in the historic district were often made with the stones from Inca buildings! I loved the history of it all and spent all day Saturday wandering around historic Cuenca and visiting a museum that we didn't even get to go inside since we spent so much time walking around the Inca ruins outside! :)
Friday Diana's family got together to celebrate her sister-in-law's birthday, so they slaughtered a pig for the celebration. I think literally every part of the pig was prepared or consumed that day, nothing was wasted! I did eat some, of it, although I had more rice than anything. :) I enjoyed hanging out with her cousins and nieces and nephews; her family reminded me of my family, in that everyone is included and there's a lot of people! :) One of her cousins brought out cards and they were teaching me Ecuadorian card games, when one of her nieces, who'd studied for a year in the U.S. wanted to play Spoons. So the 2 of us taught the others how to play Spoons, which we continued to do for another couple of hours. Then on Sunday, before we left to go back to Macas, we played Spoons for another 2 or 3 hours! At first one of her brothers didn't like it, but then we switched to using tea bags instead of metal spoons and he really got into it and even won in the elimination round! :)
It was a very fun weekend, but I think my favorite part was that even though Cuenca is really high in elevation, my asthma didn't bother me at all! :) I put a bunch of pictures up on Facebook, if you want to see them, http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117939&id=517974210&l=d3e4fd8e34
That's a short summary of the past few weeks, and I'll try to do better next time! :)
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