Bits and Pieces

"Why is it raining?"
"BECAUSE GOD WANTS THE MANGOES TO RIPEN!"
Yes friends, it's mango season, and every day little boys have brought me mangos for breakfast, I must say, I can't complain! Of course, the beginning of mango season also means that it's the beginning of the rainy season, and for about two weeks it has rained every afternoon, making the roads impassable, especially on motorcycles! Every time I travel I have to plan my returns for the morning so that I don't get stranded in the rain.

An exciting trip
So I have a volleyball team of twelve girls between the ages of ten and fourteen years old, and we are planning to visit another volunteer's team where we will have a little camp in the morning, and a workshop on nutrition and sportsmanship and then a tournament in the afternoon. The girls are so excited because they have very few opportunities to leave Las Pajas. They have begun to sell raffle tickets to help pay for the trip, and though many people have signed up to buy them, here people have the bad habit of not paying for things. If the girls keep up the good work, we probably will raise about forty-five American dollars which is a good chunk of money here! Even though the girls at times have ehm, shall we say, poor sportsmanship, they are trying very hard to work together as a team and go on this trip, which I think will be good for them.

"Teacher, you are beautiful"
--Say the 11 year olds I am teaching English to. I have been teaching English in the school as well as to a group of high school and college students, and I must admit I like it more than I thought I would. It is one thing that everybody is very enthusiastic about and wants to learn. Since here the kids address their teachers as "profesor" in Spanish, they address me as "teacher" in English. It cracks me up every time when they say things such as "teacher, you are beautiful" or "teacher no tengo pen" (i don't have a pen). I also really enjoy inventing fun games for the kids to play in order to practice English--when trying to teach classroom objects I placed all the objects on the floor and had the kids race to see which team could find the object I named first--they ended up on the floor trying to hold one another back from reaching the object. I can't say how much they actually learned, but it was a lot of fun to watch grown men grab onto each other's legs and be pulled across the floor when trying to reach an object!

That's what's going on with me for the most part. I hope you all are doing well. Keep in touch!