Class

I just got done teaching my first class, and right now I am in the "garden house" where I go to eat lunch everyday in between my classes. They are so nice, because they take really good care of me and don't ask that I pay anything. In my first class, we made menus for the kids' restaurants, and then we played a game where there is a song playing and the kids are passing around a ball. Before they can pass it they have to say the name of a food or drink in English. If they have the ball when the music stops they are out, and the last person in the game wins a prize. They loved it and got so serious. It was so funny. Yesterday I learned the Lords prayer in Spanish . . go me. Right now I'm really really hungry! Saturday I'm going to the lagoon with a bunch of people!

faster than I thought!!!!!!

January 24, 2010. . . .. . . 97 days left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where is the time going????? Seriously the time has gone by sooo fast and I still feel like I have so much to do! I still want to go to Casa Materna, visit Danilo’s mom, visit an orphanage, and I still have sooo much to teach my kids! Not only kids. I also just started teaching adult classes, and I feel like I have no time! But its okay. We are going to cram like crazy. I really really like the adult classes; they really want to learn, make a lot of funny jokes, and we always laugh a lot. It's good, because I have adult class on Monday after a day of 3 other classes, and it’s a good relief! I also had my first experience of being really sick in Nicaragua. Don’t worry I’m perfectly fine. I woke up one night with a horrible stomach pain and a few hours later I was throwing up everywhere. The whole next day I had the worst stomach pain ever, and I ended up going to the doctor. I had about 7 shots and some tubes in me to give me water or something, because I didn’t eat all day. . . .I'm not really sure but now the doctor says that I have to be really careful what I eat and I can't eat things with acids and some other foods that I really like. Ohh well whatever! I'm still having a great time and I'm fine so all is good! In about 25 days my best friend Michele is coming to see me. yayyyy!!!! It is going to be soo much fun! I'm really excited for that! Also Cheryl and another women are coming to do some things here really soon and I'm really excited to see them! I have my Spanish Bible and I like it. . . Joel and I have been staying up long nights comparing the English and Spanish just to be sure they are the same. lol. We're finding out that yes, its true, they say the same thing. Nelson, one of my best friends here (who speaks English) just recently found out that he is going to live in New York as soon as possible to work and help an aunt who lives there. I'm sad, because he is one of my best friends here, but I know that it is really good for him because he is going to be able to send money back to his family to help out with things here in Nicaragua. Right now I'm helping him get his passport and visa, even though I told him I don’t really want to because I don't want him to leave! For about a week and a half it was really cold here and I don’t know why! I had a sweater on everyday and two at night! But now. . . . we're back to tank tops. Mira (my puppy) is doing really well. She hates dog food. She cries when I'm not with her, and when I leave she looks at me like she is going to die. Soooo I just bring her to English class. . . in the church! The kids love her and she helps me teach! She is much bigger now too, but she is still my little puppy. When we go on walks she stays right with me and loves to run with me! I still haven’t tried to see if she can swim, but we are going to go to the lagoon soon! Well church is about to start so I gotta go! Hope everything is going amazing for everyone! Love to all!

Family and more!

OK so it has been a little while and I'm so sorry! I promise this year I'm going to try harder to write more! About three weeks before my amazing family came to see me, English class got really intense! We started learning a lot of new things but the best was when we learned classroom objects. We would play a game where I would put a table at the front of the class with various objects from the classroom like books, pencils, staplers, paper, markers, crayons, and just about anything else you can find in a classroom. There are two teams and it’s a relay race. I say an object and one person from each team runs, grabs the object, runs back to their team and has another person run back to me with the object, and the first team to get me the object gets a point. The kids go completely crazy. It’s so fun! I like to play to 15 points but they like to play until their team wins . . . .so the game goes on for pretty long ☺ We also learned commands like sit down, stand up, back, forward, jump, and spin. I have a song that says all these things and makes it into a dance. They love doing it and love to have competitions to see who could dance the moves the best and who could sing the words (in English) the loudest. I have some amazing videos of the dance and all the games that we play in class. Since Christmas was coming fast, we learned some Christmas words and phrases, and I thought I would teach them a simple Christmas song. So we started learning Silent Night. I mentioned it to the Pastor, and he said he wanted the kids to sing it for the Christmas service in church. I said ok but it’s going to take a lot more work! So we worked extra hard on the song and eventually it was really good and we were ready! Also, one day in class I said we were going to make Christmas cards for family, friends or whoever you want (in English) It was so cute, because almost every kid made a card for either my family or for me.

The past ten days of my life were amazing, because my family and my amazing boyfriend came to see me! When I was waiting in the airport for them to come in I really almost peed my pants! So they got here and we came back to the house and had a really good lunch that Francie, my host mom, cooked, and then we went to church. My family started to meet everyone and my class, too. The kids love my family! There is one girl named Anna, and I really think she was in love with Zach. Not just her but everyone was amazed with how tall he was, and Anna loved to have him pick her up over his head.
We saw the Mirador of Catarina, went to Derick’s and Julisa’s wedding (which was amazing), saw my kids sing Silent Night in church, gave gift bags to all my students, went to San Juan del Sur, and Zach and I with other teenagers from Catarina, climbed up AND down a mountain that I swear was at least 10 miles. Ok it was probably more like 1 but it was sooo hard I almost died! We also saw the project site for the Nicaragua Project and other towns and cities in Nicaragua. ANDDDDDD I had to translate the whole time for everyone and I could actually do it! So I am learning my Spanish. The house was FULL with people while my family was here. My mom, dad, sister, boyfriend and me, Bayardo, Francie, Derick, Joel, Joshua, and Heyler, and all the other people that would come by everyday to meet my family or do other things in the house. So after my family left and I came back, the house felt really empty and I was soo sad because my family left. But its ok, because I am almost half way there and I still have a lot of things to do here!

Now that the holidays are over I’m going to start teaching again next week. Yesterday I climbed the horrible mountain again. The only good part to the mountain is at the bottom is the Lagoon of Catarina and it is sooo fun to swim in! It's just hard, because we leave early in the morning and spend all day there in the sun with not a lot of food, so by the end of the day when its time to climb back up, I am almost dead. I am even closer to dead when Nestor, a boy from the church who is in really good shape, grabs my arm and practically drags me up the mountain running. It was really horrible, but I am actually getting in shape now, which is good!

So everything is going good. I had a great time with my family, I now have a new sister in the house, Derick's new wife Julisa, and I am beyond ready with school supplies to start teaching again soon! Thank you so much to everyone who sent school supplies, presents for the kids, presents for me, and prayers. It really all helps so much and makes such a difference in my teaching and the kids lives. Thank you so much for all the support!