En la Escuela (in the school)

This morning and yesterday morning, I volunteered at a local elementary school, Jardin de Infantes Mercedes Boboa.  The school is only one block away from our homestay.  The children in my class are 5 and 6 years old, so I assume that the class is kindergarten or first grade.  They are so cute!  On the first day, I walked in with Rosita and a girl (who I now know is Josephina) jumped up and gave me a hug!  I was worried that I might have to teach, which would be muy dificíl but my work mostly consists of copying patterns into the children’s notebooks for their homework, and cutting out shapes from worksheets.

I don’t remember too much of Kindergarten, but I feel as if school here is a lot less structured than in the United States.  The kids get about two hours of recess in a five hour school day.  Today, I played with them in the courtyard, which is huge by the way.  I wonder what they eat though because those kids have tons and tons of energy.  We jumped up and down steps, collected dandelions, played on the firemans pole, hung on the bars and made a big dog pile.  The kids seem to like me, they call me either “brook-ah” or “profa.”  They talk to me and sometimes I can understand what they are saying, which is a lot better than where I was three days ago.

 The time in the classroom is spent either counting words in the sentence that the teacher says aloud, or coloring one part of a picture in the color that the teacher tells them.  It is a little bit strange to me, because I remember doing stations and the alphabet in kindergarten.  I might also just be accustomed to structured classtime.  I also haven’t been able to find out much about the education system because my Spanish is so weak.  Even if I knew how to ask the questions, it would be difficult to understand the response.  Hopefully, I can find out more as my Spanish improved.

After working at the school from 7:30 – 12, I stop by home to make lunch from the groceries that I bought.  Then I had more Spanish classes from 1 – 4 pm.  We really are learning so much that it’s almost too much to process, but I am trying to make connections in conversation to the things we learn.  I am really happy with the teaching style; it is pretty similar to how I learned German.  I have no idea how “fluent” I will be by the end of this trip but I am certainly becoming more competent every day.

Tonight after dinner we are going out on the town.  Tomorrow we don’t have Spanish class in the afternoon, but I will be back at the school again in the morning.  Then we are leaving for Baños at 6 pm!  They have hot springs, white water rafting, bungee jumping and lots of trails to hike and bike!