Back to School- from Myra

We went to our first elementary school on Monday to teach our first group of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. We slept-walked about 20 minutes through Granada and eventually arrived at our destination where we anxiously awaited our first gym class! At first, a line of about 20 girls filed out the door, followed by another single file line of 20 or so boys. We figured a group of 40 would be large but manageable. But the kids just kept coming! Total count: 100 (give or take a few) We didn’t have time to panic; we just kind of laughed and took it in stride. So, as a huge group, we walked a few blocks from the school to the nearby “field” that gym classes are held. (It was probably about a 60 by 60 yard area, mostly dirt, with a few patches of grass. I wouldn’t have thought it could be used for gym class, but just goes to show how spoiled we are at home.) Chepe took the 50 or so boys.. and the three of us gathered the girls together and after a brief introduction, jumped right into our routine circle energizer game. It was a totally different experience because we only had 45 minutes with this group, and really just wanted them to get the chance to play. We are hoping that many of them will start coming to our Saturday practices and that we can get to know them better that way. After our energizer, we set up a few relays that the girls seemed to enjoy…. Although it was pretty obvious they just wanted to play. So, for the remaining 20 minutes or so, the girls scrimmaged and they were just all so excited to have access to a ball that the surface or crowded area didn’t phase them a bit! Before we knew it, maybe even before we were all really awake, our first gym class was over. We’d be back in the afternoon though for the second group of kids.

We split up to try and get our grocery shopping done quickly and efficiently because we had promised to be at a secondary school by 10:00 am. One of the girls who lives in our barrio and comes to a lot of the practices has an older sister who has been eager to get Ali, Becky, and me to her school to speak in front of her English class. A few days ago, she told us that she had finalized a day and time with her teacher and that they were all really looking forward to us sharing some stories from the U.S. and talking a bit about our families. The plan worked and Alexi had coordinated all of it! We met her outside of her school at 10 am and she escorted us into her classroom. The kids all stood up from their desks to greet us, which was way over the top, and a little awkward, but definitely made us feel welcome. We spent a few minutes talking about each of our families and then wanted to field any questions the students had about the U.S. There were a few girls who spoke very well, and seemed to understand a lot. It was hard to gauge the class as a whole, but we got a few laughs and answered some vocabulary questions, so we think it was a success at some level. And… we are going back tomorrow! A few of the teachers approached as we were leaving and asked if we wouldn’t mind coming back and doing a little lesson for some of the younger kids. Maybe talk about our hobbies, or food, or some sort of theme… so we will head back tomorrow after our morning gym class, and get to do a little work in the classroom! Ali had a great idea about maybe including some of the older girls (the few that spoke well and seemed really engaged) in some of the workshops we do for Soccer Without Borders. We have our first workshop tomorrow at the office…we will meet outside of Yelba’s house and walk with the girls over to the office for an hour or so. Teamwork is the theme of the first workshop… we are REALLY excited to see how this goes, and are keeping our fingers crossed that we get a pretty good turnout.