Jan 7 2010

Today was a pretty normal day. We woke up and had the same delicious breakfast as yesterday. To our surprise our water was out again. After a few minutes of trying it returned, only to be followed by a brief power outage- Quite an interesting start to the day. Reflections were great because we remembered some of the songs from yesterday and could join in. Afterwards we returned to our house to finish doing the dishes and clean the bathroom. For two girls we sure do make a mess. But Mary and have are good about splitting the chores and we get it done. By the end the place is always spotless. While cleaning, we worked on our lesson plan for today. We had scheduled an English class and decided that for the older kids we would work on simple phrases and conversation pieces. For the younger kids we would focus on colors and numbers. Since we had nothing else to do that morning, we chose to work off some of our late night snacking with an hour long workout. We put on our tennis shoes and headed down to the playground where we incorporated playing with the kids and working our muscles into fun activities. While hanging on the monkey bars, we would do upside down crunches, pull-ups on the parallel bars, and best of all… see-saws are great for squats. After our super intense exercise we went to San Martin for lunch. Those boys sure can eat. There was absolutely no talking at the table because they were too busy assuming the role of human vacuums. And guess what! WE GOT A BANANA! Fresh fruit is so delicious and such a rare occurrence. After lunch, we played more spoons and a little bit of hacky-sack. There was a conference in the internet room so we did not get to check email or post blogs, but I will tomorrow. When it was time to start our English class I was completely lost. Since I am not too good at Spanish it was hard for me to teach English. But while Mary was explaining words and phrases, I would learn more Spanish. It was a win-win situation. We learned that for the older children it works best to ask them what they would like to learn and for the smaller children it is best to create some kind of hand on activity. The lessons will hopefully improve by the end of our stay. With the free time after our activities we got to do some laundry!! So exciting! While we hung our clothes on the line outside our apartment in front of the huge mountains I realized how great the pace of life here is. There is no rush. Clothes dry with the sun, water comes with the rain, and there is no hurry to get things done. It’s so refreshing. Dinner time was fun. The silence, or sound of chewing, was so awkward at times that Mary and I would choke on our food because we would laugh so hard. After dinner we headed outside to the court to play a late night game of barefoot soccer. Mary, a bunch of guys, and me playing soccer, without shoes, in pitch black with thousands of stars, and the mountains hovering above us- I had to take a break and soak it in because it is moments like this that I am going to miss the most when I come home. After soccer a few of the boys agreed that Mary and I were like their sisters which, once we thought about it, made so much sense. We really do act like brothers and sisters. I absolutely love it. I wish with all my heart that all of you reading this could meet these boys and all the children in the villa. I wish that they could change your lives like they have changed mine. Until tomorrow! Adios