Steven: June 10th 2007

Well it’s been a few days since my last update, so I figured it was time to get back up to speed. Last Friday since one of the teachers fell ill I filled in and taught my first math class with the 4th graders. I could tell that they were initially very apprehensive, but this quickly went away after a few minutes. The topic of the day was writing out numbers and recognizing which number is bigger/smaller. I found the children very obedient and eager to learn, although petrified of making mistakes. I really want to get away from a ‘gestapo’ type environment so that they can feel more relaxed and have a little fun. I think right now they have a perspective of a very rigid and unyielding structure to the classroom. Trevor (T-Bone) and I also started perusing the course textbooks. The English text is really bad, with numerous errors and awkward phrasings. The Math book is decent, although I’m sure I’ll find some shortcomings.

The weekend was nice and relaxing as we spent it at Tom and Diane’s hacienda by the sea. There were quite a few visitors there joining us, 4 to be exact. Among them was a sixteen year old from St. Louis named Cole. I got a real big kick out of him due to what happened the first night he was there. Cole slept with Trevor and me in our room on the floor. Now since this room is quite infested with ants I predicted that it would not be the most comfortable place to fall asleep. The last thing I remember when turning out the lights was Cole flicking a few ants off his shoulder. Throughout the night I heard him frantically swatting away at ants on all parts of his body. Finally, he gave up and went and sat at the kitchen table where he fell asleep with his head in his hands.

We also took a trip to Macao Springs, which is located really close to the school. The water was ice cold, but refreshing compared to the blistering heat. It was particularly crowded, probably because it was a Sunday. Kids were drinking rum along the spring, and kept offering me some. They were also discarding used candy wrappers in the water, clearly not sanitary. We almost went on to ‘white island’, but as it was very hot we decided to hold off on that for another weekend. There’s still plenty of sites left to see on this island, we’ll try and squeeze most of them in.