My first week of school is finished. I went to registration on Monday for the Elementary School. It was good because I got to meet several of the students and their parents. I was in charge of the giving change when they bought their school supplies so I got to know Mexican money pretty quickly. It is almost identical to Thai money so that wasn't difficult. Also, I spent the morning learning my numbers. I can now count to 1,000 in Spanish.
I've been spending a lot of time trying to learn Spanish. I made it a goal to spend at least one hour each day. I checked out some pre-school level books in Spanish. It's been fun. I've got conjugation of regular verbs down. I understand more every day so that is nice and encouraging. I feel like a greenie again but I am enjoying it.
Hermana Vizcaino speaks no English so I now have at least 4 meal related phrases memorized.
1. Do you want more?
2. Do you want an egg?
3. Do you want to eat?
4. Will you say the prayer?
The weather here has been really, really, really hot. The first few days we didn't have a fan and we just died. Luckily, it has poured here every night. That has helped keep it cooler but it still feels like we are sleeping in a room that is at least 85 degrees if not hotter. Yesterday, we went to Sister Jameson's house and borrowed a fan. It helped a little bit.
I have eaten pretty good food so far: peaches and apples galore, tostados, chimichangas, tacos, etc. The salsa down here makes my mouth burn for minutes and I love every minute of it.
Now, for school. Things are going well. I'll talk about 4th grade first.
The teacher is Mrs. Robinson. She is from Star, Idaho. She has taught here for 16 years. There are 20 students in the class. I believe that 8 are Anglo and the rest are Mexicans. Some of the Mexican students are almost completely fluent. Some really struggle. It should be fun. In the English program, you learn English/reading and all that goes with that, and math. So, I'll be teaching reading and math in both 4th and 5th grade. Mrs. Robinson is a fun teacher and the students seem to really love her. I'll write more about that later.
Mrs. Farnsworth is the 5th grade teacher. She got her degree in El. Ed. more than 25 years ago. She is an awesome teacher. She is really fun and believes that learning should be fun. I think that our teaching styles are pretty similar. One great thing she did yesterday that the kids loved was writing some information on paper, crumpling it, then having a snowball fight for 1 minute to get the papers mixed up. Then, we grabbed the nearest one and read what was on it and tried to guess who it was.
I'm not looking forward to the TWS but hopefully it will all work out. I still don't know what address to use to get stuff to me. They adopted a new reading program here-nothing I love more than teaching reading, grammar, and spelling from a textbook :(- and so we are going to El Paso tomorrow to get trained on how to use the program. I'm sure I'll have to keep my mouth shut a lot but hopefully I'll get a few good ideas.
Picture 1: The bridge we have to cross over to get from the road to the Vizcaino's house.
Picture 2: We have two very ferocious German Shephard living in our yard. They don't bark at me anymore. Their names are Lobo and Loso.
Picture 3: The neighbor's house
Pic 4: A house down the road by the river complete with bright yellow paint, VW van, geese, chickens, goats, etc
Pic 5: The river down the road from our house and the swinging bridge used to cross the river.
Pic 6: Pretty sky
Pic 7: The horse that lives on the side of the road next door.
About 3 Saturdays ago, I was feeling bored. We all know how I am with rash decisions, I tend to make them. Well, I decided to let Brittany chop my hair off. The shampoo down here and the water were not doing good things to my hair. So, now it is gone. I don't love it, but it has made things a lot easier. I haven't had short hair since high school so it has been an interesting adventure.
We went to this place in Casas Grandes that makes pottery. They showed us some of the steps. In this picture, Brittany is polishing the pot with a rock. It takes about 2 weeks from start to finish to make a pot.
Wall of pots!
After the potttery adventure, we went to this really nice Mexican restaurant. I ordered Platilla Mexicano. It had enchiladas, peppers, toquitos, avacado, and other things of deliciousness. We had to wait forever though before they took our order even though we were the only people in the room. I'm learning patience down here. (22 September)
My first week of school is finished. I went to registration on Monday for the Elementary School. It was good because I got to meet several of the students and their parents. I was in charge of the giving change when they bought their school supplies so I got to know Mexican money pretty quickly. It is almost identical to Thai money so that wasn't difficult. Also, I spent the morning learning my numbers. I can now count to 1,000 in Spanish.
I am here in Mexico. My plane got in to El Paso at 4:30. We had lots of errands to run and so we didn't get to Colonia Juarez until 11pm. I got to pay 237 pesos for a tourist visa. The house we are staying in is really nice, but there is no fan so that has been interesting. I also took my first cold shower in 8 months. We had Stake Conference on Sunday. It was all in Spanish so I used headphones. I definitely don't speak any Spanish and right now I definitely wish I did. I've been learning vocabulary and phrases the last 2 days. I'm thinking that Thai must be easier than Spanish. The temple is pretty here. The high school is really pretty too. More pictures and more details will follow. My first day of student teaching is tomorrow. I will be in 4th grade with Mrs. Robinson in the morning (she is from Star, Idaho). I'll be in 5th grade with Mrs. Farnsworth in the afternoon.
