New Volunteer.

Yep, the rumours are true. We have a new volunteer from Canada. She´s also a gap year-er, also from Canada (actually Toronto), and she also happens to be helping with my grade 3 class for the next two weeks...and then we´re taking the same flight home, and apparently we have seats next to each other on the plane. Oh yeah, and her name is Catherine Taylor, and she´s also my girlfriend. weird eh?

So...partly due to a really big surprise this past weekend (the arrival of our new volunteer), I have been doing excellently. Sadly, the time continues to race by with no sign of slowing down. In grade 3 we are furiously working towards the deadline of December 14th (the Christmas performance), for the grand showing of a thirty piece accapella choir singing "we wish you a merry christmas" at the top of their little lungs. But by golly, you should hear the way the sound echoes along the classroom walls when they are at work. Frightening. Glorious. Ebert and Roper give it two thumbs up.

It´s been really helpful having Catherine here to help teach. All the struggling students now have the ability to go out and work with her in small groups, and we also get to do a lot of reading practice in groups outside. The last week or so should be fun...we´ve finished the science project, we´re working on an english project now, and we´ve got some pretty cool games, "science experiments", and final week festivities lined up. Should be ill.

The hospitality of the people here is very very cool. I may have mentioned this before, but I feel that this point needs re-stating. If anyone were to ever plan on going to a country like this to teach kids (or live and volunteer in some way), I strongly recommend getting involved in the community: reaching out to families outside of school (or wherever you are working), and accepting invitations over to their houses for dinner, despite the feeling of "you barely have enough for yourselves, why are you serving me!?". They WANT to have you over, they get so excited showing you their cd collections, serving you their best refried beans, and the parents are more than willing to be patient with a young white guys broken spanish. As amazing as the grade 3´s are, I´m equally blown away by the love and hospitality of so many of their parents and families. I DON´T WANT TO LEAVE.

Peace.