i'm going to be sore tomorrow...

after this busy weekend!
On Saturday I went on a hike with some other volunteers to the Largest Crater in South America! It is called Pululahua Crater and it was formed by a volcano. It was super foggy when we went so I don't have any really nice pictures but here is one from Google Images to give you an idea (:

It was about a half hour hike down into the crater and then we walked around for about an hour while inside. There is a lot of agriculture because the ground is very fertile from volcanic deposits. There was also a restaurant and hostel that seemed very cool. Then we ate pb&j's before starting the 1 hour straight up hike to get out. It was really nice to get out for some fresh air!

Today Julie, Krisin, David, Alexis, and I signed up for a Minga at the Soto's house (Not to be biased but they are probably one of my favorite families at the Center (: (: ) We left our house at 6:20 a.m., got to La Marin by 7:00, met the other volunteers doing the Minga, and bused 1 more hour south to the Soto's home. They had recently bought a new plot of land a little higher up in the mountain and the foundation was already poured. We had to move a pile of dirt about 5 ft high and 30 ft long! It was a lot of hard work but super fun! I enjoyed this Minga a lot more than the first one because it was a mix of us volunteers and then other members of the Center whereas the first time it was only us volunteers. I raced one of my students, Darwin, to see who could fill, run, and empty their buckets of dirt the fastest. We also had a great lunch together afterwards and then I had a great nap on the long bus ride home (:

 

Gretty Soto on the far left wearing the awesome white fur vest while we made chocolate covered raisins in Girls Program. 

 

Cassandra Soto on the right with her friend Karen after they "borrowed" my camera for the afternoon and had a photo shoot in the bathroom. 

 

Jefferson Soto (front right) in art class working hard when we made decorations for the Center's birthday party.

 

Tatiana Soto (again when someone was "borrowing" my camera for a photo shoot) striking a super cool pose during our last study hall party. 

David and Julie took lots of pictures of their actual house & the giant pile of dirt so I will post some more photos soon (: Hasta Entonces 

Achachay

means burrrr in Quichua, the indigenous language here. And man it has gotten cold & rainy

School Snapshot 3

Hi everyone! Thanks for checking in on this entry. Before I start I just want to ask all of you to say a little prayer for Madre Miguel. She has been sick lately and was in the hospital for two days. She is home now and I just saw her getting ready to go to Church this morning but prayers for a full and speedy recovery would be great. Thanks!

Well in my last post I talked about my study hall ending. Here are a few pictures from my "party". The girls came 40 minutes late and tried to run away to the internet cafe while we were getting our dinner of Mote. Although from 2 pm- 7:30 pm I now have 5 hours of direct instruction with nothing more than a 30 minute break, maybe working with some more mature adults won't be such a bad change ;) haha

 

Back Row: Diana, Tatiana, & Me

Front Row: Tania, Sabrina, Nancy

Adult Education classes are really interesting right now because we are starting to teach MATH!! In the first class from 5-6 Kristin and I teach the most basic level students. Right now we are working on counting and writing the numbers correctly. We have about 6 students between the two of us so we can really give them lots of attention. In the second class, 6:30-7:30, Kristin and I teach the middle level students and there are about 11 adults between the two of us. They are focusing on counting, adding, and subtracting money (good thing they use the USD here or I'd be in trouble!! haha) Since this is a bigger group, we usually divide the class into different "stations" and have a pair review basic addition facts, a pair work on problems and the board, and then the rest of the students work with play money and worksheets. This system seems to work well so far! 

It is also cool that I have both Adult Ed classes now because I will know almost everyoneee at the La Marin School. Already teach every elementary age child from La Marin in art classes, every 1st and 2nd year high school girl, and now all the adults too! Love you & miss you all! xoxo

School Snapshot 2

 Hi friends and family! I hope you are all having a wonderful day & getting super excited for the PACKERS to playyy! Today I thought I would describe a little bit more what I do with my colegio (high school) classes. Here the boys and girls are separated full time once they enter colegio. Then by their second and third years they have picked their specialty area and take classes just with that small group. Areas for girls are bakery, cosmetology, business, and sewing. Areas for boys are bakery, carpentry, auto mechanic, and industrial mechanic.

My classes are all with the girls in the business specialty area. I teach all three levels of Human Relations which was a little bit difficult at first because there was no curriculum from previous years. All Madre Cindy gave me to go off of was that I needed to teach these girls how to behave well when they begin working like how to bathe and how to dress. Well that lasted me about three classes and then I had to start getting creative (: We had and awesome unit on Conflict Resolution and Problem Solving. Right before break we finished a unit on Internet Etiquette where we talked about writing professional emails, having an appropriate Facebook, and other modern issues. My favorite class was right before break when we walked to the internet cafe and all the students created Gmail accounts just with their first and last names which they can now put on an application or resume proudly! (An improvement from sexybarbie13@hotmail which was one of my student's emails before!! haha) This is a picture of the girls in the 3rd (highest) level class. They are super creative and behave wonderfully in class!!

 

Below is a picture of the 2nd course girls. They are also awesome although they are a little less well behaved/engaged in class but there are only five of them so it is fairly easy to manage. 

 

I don't have any pictures of my 1st course girls because they switch every six weeks. They spend six weeks in every specialty area and then they pick their favorites and the teachers talk it over and assign them to their specialty. I also teach these 1st course girls in Computers which is basically a typing class. 

My sad news for the day is that I will not have my colegio study hall at night anymore :( :( It was from 6:30 to 7:30 every night with 5 second course girls from all different specialties. It started out as one of my hardest hours of the day. After a short time I got the girls under control, we still have fun and can talk the last ten minutes of class, and all the girls improved their grades last semester. It is so entertaining because these are mostly the "bad girls" who get in trouble a lot but really they are super sweet and lively and I have learned a lot of casual Spanish from them. The girls in my class are Tania, Nancy, Tatiana (who is to my right on the picture above), Diana, and Sabrina (who are in the picture below. They "borrowed" my camera on our girls program field trip and took about 20 of these selfies! haha) 

I'm going to miss our special Candy Fridays where I always bring some chocolate. I'm going to miss trying to explain Algebra 1 in Spanish. Oii I will miss study hall a lot!! Hopefully the Adult Ed class which I am moving too will be fine. Please let me know if you have any ideas that might be good to cover in a very open ended Human Relations class!! My new unit on Personal Development should last a while but I would love some fresh ideas! Thanks so much xoxo

P.S. We have a visitor coming at the beginning of February so if you were planning on sending anything it could go to Jane & she'll bring it down for me!
 Jane Pruhs, 5719 Rees Street, Omaha, NE 68106

P.P.S. GO PACK GO!!! I'm so nervous alreadyy!! #toogreattohate #yotto2

School Snapshot 1

I realized that lately all my posts have been about places that I've visited or events that I attended even though these make up about 5% of my time here in Ecuador. The other 95% is hard at work at school so I thought I might fill you in on some of the things we were learning and doing before Christmas break (also before I post about my most recent trip to the beach haha)

 

This is Gloria and I in the Resource Room where I spend one or two hours every day. We have to keep track of what teachers borrow what resources and we make a lottt of posters to hang around the school. Mostly I love this time because it is the only thing I don't have to make lesson plans for & I get to practice my Spanish when I just chat with Gloria who is super nice and funny.

 

Meet half of my 3rd level girls English class during our Christmas celebration! (The other two girls are in the choir and missed class to practice for a Christmas presentation a little later that day)  We played Jeopardy during class and all the girls got an Arther book, a new pencil, and some candy to celebrate at the end (: 

Okay well the internet is intolerably slow right now because everyone is on so I will post more updates later in the week (: love you all! xoxo