Week of January 14 - 19

Nothing really earth shaking went on during this last week of classes. We had put together an agenda for the entire week on Saturday, so the actual planning during the week went a little smoother. Linda from Minnesota was now with us to help but mostly to listen to what we had been doing for the last week. We had more break out sessions than before where we concentrated on specific aspects of English for the given grade level. Every day we started with a prayer in front of the whole group. We also continued to go over the Hail Mary in English and the Sign of the Cross. In the breakout groups we spent time on verbs, what your day was like and played word bingo and UNO. This process was repeated during the first 4 days of the week. On the final day it was decided to have a mini festival. We did not have to organize this one as it was left up to the kids and the teachers. In the meantime our evenings after dinner was spent playing cards and one time have a long talk with the Padre who of course always has big ideas on how to improve the school.

In the evening we played cards, we decided to play the game of Hearts. I had not played for some time but the rules came roaring back. We invited Marta and Fidel to play. Fidel is the interpreter for us and has good English skills. In any case they enjoyed the game but had not played Hearts before. In fact they had not really played cards before. For some reason it appears that they do very little of this in this country. I do not know why since it takes up time and is inexpensive. In any case I liked the game because I won!!!

Friday was fiesta time. The plan was to have songs, games and then pizza for about 2 hours. All of the kids like doing this. So the teachers sang and the kids sang to us. We did the prayers for the Padre and then the music and games started. All of the teachers had to participate. One game was sitting on a balloon until it breaks. Another was the limbo and the rest was just dancing with a very loud speaker going on and on. All of the group of the US chipped in and bought pizza for everyone and we then called it a day by packing up the materials in suitcases to be used again by another group in the future.

So ends the little workshop for the kids. I think they learned some more English and learned a little about working together and having some fun. It was a good time.