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mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States
government or the Peace Corps.
Things I love about teaching:
Every day when I go to the school, the little girls will come up to me (they call me Profe Tom) and its customary when kids show respect to a teacher to extend their hands toward the teacher like they are praying, and you clasp your hands around theirs and wish them good morning.
Its like, really really cute. It almost makes me want to go to the school every day whether I have class or not just to greet them in the morning. It doesn´t even matter if they are in my class or not. I teach 6th grade, so most of them are too cool to do it, but all of the little kids come up and do it.
What its like in my school:
Not every class had 42 kids, but mine does. There is one textbook for my class, and its the teachers. The students all have one notebook, and that is their textbook, homework book, notebook, and drawing book,and whatever else, all in one.
Most every student wears a uniform, which is a dark blue skirt for the girls and blue pants for the boys, and a white shirt for both, and whatever shoes they want. All the profe´s wear jeans and a polo. They must be dark jeans though, always dark jeans.
A recap of last week:
On Monday I taught for the first time in a 6th grade classroom in the school in my pueblo. There were 42 students, about 35 of which could barely contain their energy and it was damn year insanity (which can be a good thing if you have a marathon planned for them to run, or are a well seasoned teacher, or know the language the kids speak, and maybe have more than 0 classes under your belt in the past).
It actually went pretty terrible. Like, I felt really defeated after the class. I couldnt wait to go back home, and go sit in my room and think about America, my grandmas house, or Monterey and the beach, or anything but where I was and all the responsibilities I had to do. But when I got home, I had some fairly serious host family cultural misunderstandings to deal with, that I felt even way shittier than I already had. (I promise, the story gets happier soon!).
But what happened next is exactly what the Peace Corps is during the first 3 months of training; no more than 2 days after having an awful beginning of the week, I gave my second class, changed some things, and had a really successful, bangin class. The kids enjoyed it, I felt respected, and all was well in the world. In fact, I was on top of it.
PHEW.
I actually still cant believe the turnaround. My mind must be like... "Tom, wtf are you doing. One day Im up here and the next day Im down there. Make up your me!" (get it? I got so much more clever since I got here).
Whats an average day like for me?
I usually wake up at 545 for the first time by my choosing (the times I wake up before that are because of the roosters directly outside my window). My dad is already working out in the back porch area. He is always fixing things and building some serious stuff. My mom is cooking, and I grab a shower. About 50 percent of the time its a bucket shower because theres no running water at that time.
To bucket shower, we keep a huge barrel of water in the bathroom and a little kind of cup to pour water on you. I love bucket showers.
I eat food that my mom cooked, thats always fresh. And always it contains rice and beans, and usually some other things. But always rice and beans, for all 3 meals.
We have 6 hours of spanish class, and when I come back at 3 pm, I have time to change for baseball practice thatgoes til 6. Then I have dinner, and a hundred things to do to prepare for a class I am going to give, or for homework I have, or reading the same book every day about Taky the Penguin with my little sister who is 4 and never tires of the same book.
Both of us have memorized the book.
Its somehow like 9 pm and Im exhausted, and sleep, after tucking my misquito net, that hangs from above mybed, under my mattress. So basically its like I get to sleep in a cool fort every night like Im 5.
In the mean time, I walk in the streets, run into about 5 kids that are in the school who know my name, and every single person in the streets (everyone is always walking everywhere) says hello to each other, or "Adios," in spanish. It sounds like goodbye, but its also a passing hello kind of thing.
How my spanish is coming:
I only speak with my group members in Spanish, and its getting better every day. Sometimes I feel like its terrible, and other times I feel like I got my message across and did well. But I cant wait til its even better. I still hate when I can´t understand a word people say, and I hate asking people to repeat themselves a few times.
My host mom and dad are pretty damn hard to understand still.
As for the the language I used in the classroom, I prepared a decent amount, stressed quite a bit about it, and wanted to say so much more to the kids and the professor than I knew how. But little by little, Im getting there. Its tough to coplan a class when you cant speak wellwith the prof. But we get our point across.
And when I am not clear with the kids, she just clears up the confusion. The prof I work with (its mandatory we work within another teachers classroom) is really good with the kids. She seems like she has a lot of years under her belt, and is really good with them.
How often I have diarrhea:
All the time. And its totally a normal discussion here between the volunteers. Of the 40 in my Peace Corps group, we have lost all shame in telling our stories of our sicknesses, fleas, diarrhea, dengue, vomiting, or internal pests, or whatever they are called. I have thankfully only had diarrea.
Things I love about teaching:
Every day when I go to the school, the little girls will come up to me (they call me Profe Tom) and its customary when kids show respect to a teacher to extend their hands toward the teacher like they are praying, and you clasp your hands around theirs and wish them good morning.
Its like, really really cute. It almost makes me want to go to the school every day whether I have class or not just to greet them in the morning. It doesn´t even matter if they are in my class or not. I teach 6th grade, so most of them are too cool to do it, but all of the little kids come up and do it.
What its like in my school:
Not every class had 42 kids, but mine does. There is one textbook for my class, and its the teachers. The students all have one notebook, and that is their textbook, homework book, notebook, and drawing book,and whatever else, all in one.
Most every student wears a uniform, which is a dark blue skirt for the girls and blue pants for the boys, and a white shirt for both, and whatever shoes they want. All the profe´s wear jeans and a polo. They must be dark jeans though, always dark jeans.
A recap of last week:
On Monday I taught for the first time in a 6th grade classroom in the school in my pueblo. There were 42 students, about 35 of which could barely contain their energy and it was damn year insanity (which can be a good thing if you have a marathon planned for them to run, or are a well seasoned teacher, or know the language the kids speak, and maybe have more than 0 classes under your belt in the past).
It actually went pretty terrible. Like, I felt really defeated after the class. I couldnt wait to go back home, and go sit in my room and think about America, my grandmas house, or Monterey and the beach, or anything but where I was and all the responsibilities I had to do. But when I got home, I had some fairly serious host family cultural misunderstandings to deal with, that I felt even way shittier than I already had. (I promise, the story gets happier soon!).
But what happened next is exactly what the Peace Corps is during the first 3 months of training; no more than 2 days after having an awful beginning of the week, I gave my second class, changed some things, and had a really successful, bangin class. The kids enjoyed it, I felt respected, and all was well in the world. In fact, I was on top of it.
PHEW.
I actually still cant believe the turnaround. My mind must be like... "Tom, wtf are you doing. One day Im up here and the next day Im down there. Make up your me!" (get it? I got so much more clever since I got here).
Whats an average day like for me?
I usually wake up at 545 for the first time by my choosing (the times I wake up before that are because of the roosters directly outside my window). My dad is already working out in the back porch area. He is always fixing things and building some serious stuff. My mom is cooking, and I grab a shower. About 50 percent of the time its a bucket shower because theres no running water at that time.
To bucket shower, we keep a huge barrel of water in the bathroom and a little kind of cup to pour water on you. I love bucket showers.
I eat food that my mom cooked, thats always fresh. And always it contains rice and beans, and usually some other things. But always rice and beans, for all 3 meals.
We have 6 hours of spanish class, and when I come back at 3 pm, I have time to change for baseball practice thatgoes til 6. Then I have dinner, and a hundred things to do to prepare for a class I am going to give, or for homework I have, or reading the same book every day about Taky the Penguin with my little sister who is 4 and never tires of the same book.
Both of us have memorized the book.
Its somehow like 9 pm and Im exhausted, and sleep, after tucking my misquito net, that hangs from above mybed, under my mattress. So basically its like I get to sleep in a cool fort every night like Im 5.
In the mean time, I walk in the streets, run into about 5 kids that are in the school who know my name, and every single person in the streets (everyone is always walking everywhere) says hello to each other, or "Adios," in spanish. It sounds like goodbye, but its also a passing hello kind of thing.
How my spanish is coming:
I only speak with my group members in Spanish, and its getting better every day. Sometimes I feel like its terrible, and other times I feel like I got my message across and did well. But I cant wait til its even better. I still hate when I can´t understand a word people say, and I hate asking people to repeat themselves a few times.
My host mom and dad are pretty damn hard to understand still.
As for the the language I used in the classroom, I prepared a decent amount, stressed quite a bit about it, and wanted to say so much more to the kids and the professor than I knew how. But little by little, Im getting there. Its tough to coplan a class when you cant speak wellwith the prof. But we get our point across.
And when I am not clear with the kids, she just clears up the confusion. The prof I work with (its mandatory we work within another teachers classroom) is really good with the kids. She seems like she has a lot of years under her belt, and is really good with them.
How often I have diarrhea:
All the time. And its totally a normal discussion here between the volunteers. Of the 40 in my Peace Corps group, we have lost all shame in telling our stories of our sicknesses, fleas, diarrhea, dengue, vomiting, or internal pests, or whatever they are called. I have thankfully only had diarrea.
