Where is your feather?

Hola! We have now been in Arequipa for just over 1 week.

Wow! what a week... it has been very full on. Life in the fast lane in a quaint little town. Cobblestone streets, old Spanish style buildings, good food, a great host family to live with (more on that next week), clear blue skies everyday. I have never seen a single cloud in Arequipa. And to top it off, there are some stunning mountains surrounding this little city - (dormant) volcanic and snow capped -- and simply stunning. Here is a picture from our bedroom window of "Misty" the flagship icon of Arequipa.

On Monday we visited our school - Victor Maldonaldo. Chris & I teach at the same school. We are assigned teaching of Grade 1, 2 & 3. The school is tiny, compared to schools back home - just 2 rooms. Upstairs a single room hosts Grade 4, 5 & 6; Downstairs room hosts Grade 1, 2 & 3.

The kids (los niños) are absolutely amazing. On our first morning, all 40 of the kids greeted us with a big hug & kiss. We have since learnt that they hug & kiss all teachers every morning -- pretty amazing. Even the 15 year old boys are happy to hug and greet us every morning and evening.

We start our school day, by giving the kids breakfast - a warm drink with bread. Thats it! Then we assist the teachers during the day. On our 1st day, we taught grade 3 kids "Multiplicacion" -- very good refresher for us too! The kids are so amazingly intelligent. It is a bit sad to know that without a good education, they would not have a chance to achieve their true potential -- of which they have a lot!

At break time, we give out the fruit to each child (I have never seen kids so happy to eat fruit).

This is a picture of the kids standing in line to receive fruit.

At lunch time (1 pm), we feed the kids a proper meal - rice and veges. Thats the end of the formal school day. But, we keep the kids back until 3pm to do homework, as they have no parental supervision at home until late.

This is a picture of a field trip we took the kids on for Arequipa Day. They are showcasing their art work from art class from the previous day. We taught them to make flags with the Arequipenian coat of arms.

Once we are back from school, we usually have an hour of Spanish lessons. Oh yes, Spanish -- we are coming along very nicely in our Spanish. We are not fully conversational, but can understand a lot of what is being said. Sometimes, we use the wrong Spanish word and the kids look at us funny. For example, I had been saying to the kids "Donde es tu pluma?". I had intended to say "Where is your pen?", but instead I had been saying "Where is your feather?". No wonder I got strange looks from the older kids...

After Spanish lessons, we usually start lesson planning for the next day. We usually have to have 2 or 3 ideas for lessons for the next day, as it is SOOO HARD to keep the kids attention for more than 10 mins. We always need a planB to keep them busy, especially the littlies.

This is a picture of our very first art class.

Oh, I almost forgot: on Thursday, 14th August - we hosted a party for the kids at the school for "Arequipa Day". Peruvians love a good party, and the kids certainly enjoyed the music/ dance and no lessons. Chris was the highlight of the day - the kids simply adore him and are amazed by his height. This is a picture of Chris with little Felix from Grade 1.

The older girls affectionately call Chris "Professor Hulk". The little boys want to climb all over his shoulders. I am called "Senorita Liz".

For the school party, all the volunteers teachers and teachers got dressed in "Peruvian costumes" -- here are some interesting pictures of us. The kids loved it.... Chris even tried Guinea Pig (cui, in Spanish) - picture below.

On a final note: I would seriously say that teaching is HARD work (even harder than 1 week of responding to storage-related RFPs). It takes a lot of preparation, planning, standing on your feet all day, continuously inventing new ideas to keep the kids attention -- and even harder still is doing it all in Spanish! We are simply wrecked at the end of the day... so apologies for the infrequent posts.

Until our next update next week...

Lizelle