Day 20

And another work week has come and gone (off tomorrow to travel with Joaquin and the other volunteers to Suchitoto, a colonial town in El Salvador). The highlight of this week was probably working at the orphanage for the first time on Monday. Joaquin took us to meet the kids and get aquainted. We started by helping a few kids one-on-one with homework. Having worked all morning in the school I was a little tired and not focusing so well on the whole academic thing, but then a couple of the boys were going with Joaquin outside to play basketball, so I of course jumped at the chance! We played Around the World and "Burro" aka "Horse"- I'm proud to say I won Around the World (and no, the kids were not like 5 years old...at least 12 or 13.) One of the boys needed to go inside and told Joaquin something I couldn't quite catch- then Joaquin asked if I wanted to go learn to make bread with them...of course! They have a huuuge kicthen area, one large room lined with firewood and a large table with a ton of baking pans underneath. The other much smaller room houses an industrial size elecric mixer and multi-layer oven. It was really cool too watch all the kids pitch in measuring the flour, yeast, water etc. and use the mixer they could pretty much fit inside to make the dough. After it was formed, Samel (I think he's my favorite already) showed me how they roll the dough into these little balls that lined the huge pans to make what I think will be like small dinner rolls. If playing and baking can be part of my volunteer work I think I'm going to be very happy there :) Joaquin really wants me to make pizza....there are 60 kids sooo this could be a bit of a challenge, but I think it would be awesome if we did it!

I had my two favorite classes at school on Tuesday and Wednesday- both sections of 4th grade for a double period and then I was home for lunch...I'm not gonna say I have it too rough right now. The only major downside is the transportation, which I'm still trying to figure out. I went by myself this week and while I left about 10 min before Vicki and I had on Monday (the day we arrived on time) I managed to be 30 min late Weds & Thursday. Apparently my bus driver on Wednesday knew everyone in El Salvador and pretty much stopped at every corner to wave or shout some sort of greeting, in addition we had to stop for gas (definitely not a quick stop off for these buses) and got caught behind another bus that had broken down and was being towed. So I figured it was just one bad day and left the same time this morning, only to have a similar experience. The bus drove all around in a circle doing the same stops, then going back to the station where I had gotten on in the first place to park and wait for more passengars -thennn we stopped for gas again. I was so embarassed when I go to school; I didn't want them to think I didn't care, but no one seemed to even notice. (I love how laid back people here can be) Generally the minute I walk through the gates I am just swarmed by a group of children....its really cute though :) ...There was one "incident" in my class today. I'm in the middle of my lesson on "la familia" when I see one of the boys in the back corner standing over another and combing his hair? I walk to the back and ask what's up? Just as I get there I notice the boy sitting down had a wad of gum stuck in his hair and the other was trying to get it out. I honestly didn't even know how to react....I was kind of trying not to laugh. The kid with the gum in his hair didn't even seem phased. Apparently one of the other kids did it, and I contemplated sending him to the principal, but that would be so complicated so I just made him go with the other to the bathroom to try and get it out. I later realized they don't even have running water in the bathroom so it kind of made no sense that I told them to go there...but oh well- they were probably just happy to get out of class. More to come after the weekend!