I turned 23 on Saturday and had a great day celebrating here in Cantel. My sitemates Kate and Travis along with another Peace Corps friend Sarah came over to my house for lunch and carrot cake. Kate even brought delicious rice krispie treats! My camera unfortunately got stolen a couple of weeks ago when I was on my way to climb Volcan Tacana (so frustrating!) but Kate posted a picture on her blog-- www.katalinachronicles.blogspot.com.
Then at night, my entire entire extended host family of about 25 people came over for a special dinner of tamales, hot chocolate and more cake. One of my host sisters made me a beautiful cross-stitched pillow case and I got to participate in the Guatemalan tradition of doing a ¨mordita¨, which means ¨little bite¨. The person celebrating their birthday gets to take a small first bite of the cake but inevitably someone pushes their face into the frosting-- unfortunately no pictures of that! It was a really fun night, though, and I feel so lucky to have found a real second family here.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
English Classes
I taught a very non-formal English class to a group of Cantel kids last year, but this year I'm getting them started in a bit more organized way. The Muni bought me a whiteboard, the market is giving me one of the store areas to use as a classroom, and today I went and promoted classes at Cantel's biggest middle school. Giving the same speech 11 times made me really appreciate the intercom system for announcements that I very much took for granted throughout grade school and high school!
The most interesting part of promoting classes today was how many times I got asked questions like ¨What color pen should I bring?¨, ¨How many pages need to be in the notebook?¨, and ¨Should it be spiral or not?¨. After finding out where, when, and the symbolic sign-up cost of 5Q (about 75 cents, so that kids keep coming) these were the things that worried them about learning English. It's interesting to see how much emphasis is placed on details like these in the educational system here and less on critical thinking skills. I'm very excited about starting teaching next week and I hope people actually come!
The most interesting part of promoting classes today was how many times I got asked questions like ¨What color pen should I bring?¨, ¨How many pages need to be in the notebook?¨, and ¨Should it be spiral or not?¨. After finding out where, when, and the symbolic sign-up cost of 5Q (about 75 cents, so that kids keep coming) these were the things that worried them about learning English. It's interesting to see how much emphasis is placed on details like these in the educational system here and less on critical thinking skills. I'm very excited about starting teaching next week and I hope people actually come!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Back to School
Classes just started here in Guatemala on Friday, with inauguration ceremonies at all elementary and middle schools. I went to the middle school where we're building the recycled wall to hear a singing of the loooooong Guatemalan national anthem, introductions of the teachers and staff, and general first-day-of-school excitement.
This year, the president of Guatemala made all public schools free. So, instead of charging a fee to enroll, the principle made it a policy that kids would have to turn in 5 filled bottles for our wall. Of course, not all parents were thrilled about this and some said they'd rather just pay. I think it was my favorite part of the day on Friday when the principal told me that some very enterprising kids had thus set up their business outside of the school, selling filled bottles for 2.50Q each (about 30 cents).
I've been a little bit sick lately, but have also had some good times teaching my friend the librarian at Cantel's public library to swim, having Peace Corps friends and a friend from the states come visit Cantel, and climbing Volcan Tacana-- Central America's second highest peak. This weekend, I'm excited about celebrating my birthday with my host family and sitemates on Saturday and then watching the Super Bowl with an American family who lives in one of our rural communities on Sunday. I'm not sure who I'm cheering for, but there will be American-style food, so it's bound to be a good time.
This year, the president of Guatemala made all public schools free. So, instead of charging a fee to enroll, the principle made it a policy that kids would have to turn in 5 filled bottles for our wall. Of course, not all parents were thrilled about this and some said they'd rather just pay. I think it was my favorite part of the day on Friday when the principal told me that some very enterprising kids had thus set up their business outside of the school, selling filled bottles for 2.50Q each (about 30 cents).
I've been a little bit sick lately, but have also had some good times teaching my friend the librarian at Cantel's public library to swim, having Peace Corps friends and a friend from the states come visit Cantel, and climbing Volcan Tacana-- Central America's second highest peak. This weekend, I'm excited about celebrating my birthday with my host family and sitemates on Saturday and then watching the Super Bowl with an American family who lives in one of our rural communities on Sunday. I'm not sure who I'm cheering for, but there will be American-style food, so it's bound to be a good time.
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