We had our last Friday! It was full of good byes, happiness, sadness, celebration... the whole mix.
First we said goodbye to our culture teacher, Irma. She has been so great to us. Every Friday we did some kind of activity with her like cooking, swimming, exploring a new area of the city, etc. She's a total fresa - she lives in Tehuacan's equivalent of the north end in Boise, but she's still completely down to Earth. And so fun!
She brought us a cake, we took some pictures, exchanged emails, and said good bye! We love you Irma!
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| Cake! One of the MANY that we ate over the last few days. |
After this we had some time to kill before school started so we walked around the centro and market for the last time. It was funny because basically until that point I had been really excited to go home. And then all of a sudden I started to get a sad. Who knows when I'll get the chance to go back there again? I hope it's soon.
Then we had Spectackle - don't ask me why there's a K in that word, but that's what ILP named it! SpectAckle! Like you're from the bronx or something. Anyway, it's basically a primary program the kids do at the end of the course to show their parents that they have indeed been learning English.
It ended up being really fun! I really enjoyed it because the kids moaned and groaned through the whole process of learning and practicing the plays. It's a tedious process. But then for the actual performance they were really into it. Most of them showed up with the food they had been assigned (surprising), wearing what they were supposed to wear (even more surprising), and a little nervous to perform in front of their parents! It was really cute.
Here's some pictures I took with the kids.
We wore these ridiculous party hats to try to get the kids pumped. And to make ourselves laugh.
Eduardo (in blue) and Roberto (in orange). Don't tell the other kids, but they're some of my favorites. These two are cousins and they are both just the cutest things on the planet. I wish I could take them home with me!
Eduardo blows me away. He is so smart and actually cares to learn English. He's probably the only one. All of the other kids take every advantage to speak Spanish, but even on the rare occasions when I gave them permission to speak it, he spoke in English. And he would ask me all the time how to say certain things. And he's so well behaved. I could see him being bad because his mom is single and really young so he spends a ton of time on the computer and playing video games... Which seems to me to have a pretty significant effect on the kids' behavior, namely their attention span. But he's an angel!
And Roberto is just hilarious. He's only 7, but he speaks really well... When he wants to. Sometimes he just refused. His dad went to English school too so I was always telling him he should speak English to his dad. One day he said, "My dad does speak English to me!" I said, "That's awesome! Do you speak English back?" And he said, "No! I just talk back in Spanish!" What a little devil.
Cindy. She's one of Jen's girls and a complete sweetheart. She wears that adorable little grin 100% of the time - it's either mischievous or sweet, depending on what she's doing at the moment.
Maria! One of Sara's girls and the granddaughter of Luigi and Mago (my family's friends from Chicago). This girl is a princess... See her tutu? I didn't even teach her but I loved her so much! It probably didn't help that she brought treats for us all the time :)
Chucho (in blue) and Julian (in black). These two boys are HILARIOUS. They were both mine in the beginning and then Julian got moved up to Jen's class... Sadness. Even though they drove me nuts a lot in class, I really like them. That's the funny thing about teaching. When you are responsible for their learning it drives you crazy when they misbehave because you know you're not doing a very good job. But then when you're allowed to play you realize how much you actually like them. They're good kids. I'll miss their cute faces! Things I remember about these two.
Chucho:
1) Walking in the door every single day saying "What's up man?!" And then repeating that every time the door was opened.
2) Me: "Chucho, what did you do this weekend?" Chucho: "Nothing." Me: "You didn't go to San Lorenzo with teacher Ashley?" Chucho: "Oh, yeah." Every single Monday.
Julian:
1) Acting like a rebel whenever Jose Alberto was there egging him on but then being a total sweetheart when he was alone.
2) Jumping to attention with his arms folded, lips zipped, and eyes wide when I said, "Who wants to do it? Whoever's the quietest!"
This is Angelica, another one of Jen's girls, with her baby sister. When we told Angelica she was cute and that she looked just like her she said, "No, I'm pretty. She's ugly." Hahaha. Angelica is incredibly smart and well behaved. For the first few weeks she begged Jen to give them homework. That girl is going places.
Andrea. I feel like Andrea is my personal little success story. I had a lot of problems with her at the beginning of the semester. She refused to participate in class and acted out a lot.. I specifically remember her standing on her chair and shaking her bottom at me one day. That was a killer. She had zero respect for me and was not exactly my biggest fan. It was so frustrating!
But I finally figured out that she acted that way because she was embarrassed. You see, she had Eduardo in her class, who speaks SO well, and Andrea is a little bit behind the rest of the kids. So she didn't want to talk in class, but then to still be cool she would act out.
Once I figured this out, I started being a lot more patient with her and only making her talk when I knew she knew what was going on so that she didn't feel threatened. I can't say she made a TON of progress with speaking, but after this she started becoming less afraid and a lot better behaved. And by the last few weeks she just hung on me like a little monkey! It just took her longer than the other kids to build that teacher-student trust that is so essential. Which makes me sad because now she has to get a new teacher and go through all of that again! Ahhhh.
Ary. This girl goes to school from 8 to 3, then takes another class from 4 to 7, then goes to English from 7 to 8. What a life for an 11 year old! She never whined about it though. Ary was so sweet. One day her mom took me and her out to tortas after school! Plus she was often the only girl in my 6-8 class, so she was like a blast of sanity in a mass of crazy.
Narda. Narda is another one of Sara's girls. This girl is a complete diva. She came to school all the time wearing teeny little skirts, dress up heels, and full make up. So. Funny. What a cutie!
Hiram, who likes to be called Chucho. Hiram was in Mandy's basic reading class and is the son of the bishop of some of the girls' ward. (Follow that?) I didn't teach him, but he was in my group for Spectackle, so I got to know him a little bit during the last few weeks. This kid is a complete trouble maker but has a heart of gold.
On one of the last days he and another little girl took the key out of my classroom door, leaving it locked, locked and shut Jen's door (my classroom was inside Jen's), and buried my key outside in the garden. Luckily Cindy saw what they did and told us. Unfortunately it ended up there was no key to Jen's door and they ended up having to chop the handle off... Oh children. But anyway, the day after they did this Carol confronted both kids. Lyah lied like most children would, and this is how it went down with Hiram.
Carol: "Hiram, what did you do yesterday?"
Hiram: "I didn't listen to the teacher. And I didn't do my work."
Carol: "Mmhmm. And what else?"
Hiram: "Ohhh. Yeahhhh... I locked the door."
He owned right up to it! Another time when he was in trouble and talking to Carol he said, "I'm so sorry teacher, I'll never do it again. I want to make this right." Hahaha. He'll turn out so good.
Here's Jose Alberto (on the left) and Erick (on the right).
Jose Alberto is also a complete trouble maker but good deep down. He speaks really well and is hilarious, but goes a little crazy in class. Poor Jen had to deal with him a lot. But when you didn't have to teach him he was hilarious. And an amazing soccer player. Give him like eight years and he'll be a stud.
Erick is a funny kid. He drove me a little crazy because he wanted so badly to be cool that he would always do exactly what Chucho did in class, which was usually misbehaving. I would think, "Erick, come on! You're better than that!" He's a smart kid though.
Leslie. I love this girl. She was the mastermind behind my birthday party. She speaks really good English but ALWAYS wanted to speak Spanish with me just because she knew I could. But she is so sweet and fun to have in class. I will miss her!
Jose Alberto (the little one). This always got confusing. "Jose Alberto!" "What?" "No, not you, the little one!" Luckily he didn't have a problem with being called the little one. I think some kids would have thrown a fit. This kid is golden. I felt bad for him a lot because he's light skinned, small, rich, goes to a fancy school, and speaks really well. All of which are good things but mean that the rest of the kids liked to pick on him. So I tried to defend him a lot and show him that he's awesome! Because he's so smart.
Here's all of the teacher's with Nydia and Valeria, who are sisters and two of Jen's girls. They are both really smart and hilarious. Nydia (the bigger one) is kind of shy but adorable, and Valeria (the little one) is just wacko. She always came into my class and called Roberto a little baby, even though we established many times that she was in fact younger than him. What a little crazy.
Carol! Oh Carol. She is a secretary in the school, but she was hired just a few weeks before we came, so we were her first group of girls. This girl is hilarious, sweet, and just awesome to be around. Plus she has beautiful hair :) I will miss her smiling face!
Here's all of us in front of the school. The goal was to get a picture of the sign above the Convisa one (It says Help, which is what the school is called) but the sun was too bright. Anyway, there we all are! I'll miss that school.
It was a great day! So nice to finally have Spectackle done and not have to worry about it, but also sad because it finally hit me that I would never be seeing those kids again. The kids were honestly one of my favorite parts of this whole experience. I got so close to them in so little time and loved being their teacher. I just hope their next teachers see all of the wonderfulness in them that I do!
