Day 31

Today marks our one month milestone here in El Salvador...I really cannot believe time has gone so quickly. The month of October also brings some new changes here: a new house-mate, a little bit of a new schedule, and A LOT of rain :(.....I guess two outta three isn't bad right? This Friday Marla (another volunteer from the Netherlands who had been on the island) arrived and will be staying at Joaquin's with us for the whole month. Even though space here is limited, I really enjoy having another person around! We celebrated her arrival with a few bottles of wine from Chile- I have to admit, it was worth the hype- muy delicioso! As for the slight schedule change- I will still be working at the school in the mornings, but may be staying in the afternoons some days to help out Marla until she gets aquainted. It's nice to have a bus buddy...ya know someone to grab onto when the bus barreling down a muddy road at 90mph makes a swift turn. And I say muddy, because while I had hoped it was an exageration, the rainy season seems to have kicked into full gear. Joaquin said its going to be like this for at least the next 2 weeks...quite depressing, but at least so far it doesn't rain allll day...but when it does rain it POURS - I don't think the term "sprinkle" exists in the El Salvadorian vocabulary or at least it shouldnt because it doesn't ever seem to just lightly rain (unless thats also what they call the things you put on ice-cream? I'll have to check that out).

We did manage to make the most of the sunny afternoon on Sunday. Vicki, Marla, and I navigated our our way back out to one of the beaches called ZunZal (or Sunzal? It was spelled differently on every bus so who knows really). Perhaps it may seem like a little victory, but we were proud to have been able to commuincate with the various bus drivers and natives well enough to actually find our way safely there and back. Notice I safely though, not "comfortably" the second bus to return to Santa Tecla was PACKED, and I witnessed for the first time why they are nicknamed "chicken buses"...one of the passengers across the way from me was in fact a large rooster, nestled between two other 2-legged passengers. Apparenly there was also some kind of parrot in the back aswell, but I unfortunately missed that one...somehow I feel like that won't be my only chance to see bazaar animals on the buses here.

Teaching is still going really well...for the most part. This week my students are learning about parts of the body and as I do try to make class a little bit entertaining, what game seemed to be a great idea? "Simon Says" of course...or for my classes "Deborah Dice." Eitherway...nooot so much. We didn't even get to the game with first grade- apparently they all inhaled a pound of sugar before coming to class today because they were literaly bouncing off the walls, and chairs and tables. Even with the help of having another person there, Marla and I had no chance of controlling them. Does anyone think using tranquilizers in central america on children would be legal? As for my fifth grade...they were much more focused, but unfortunately having just learned the vocabulary today they were not able to react to the words in english. Action: I say- "Deborah dice toce su...head!" Reaction: a bunch of kids staring around the room guessing at random which part of their body to point at. (I realize that sound kind of weird, but I don't know how else to put it haha). ANYWAY I made up another game that worked much better for their level of knowledge. We'll see how the other sections do this week...