Back on the Grind...

Hey all,

I see it's been two weeks since my last post! Where has the time gone! January was a blur, as I said in my recap I had Christmas, New Years visitors, then off to the states which you read about, came back for a hot minute to say hi to my Sua crew and then I was off to Quito for the rest of the week, when I came back in to Sua the last week in January I had yet another visitor and it's been bliss ever since. January 2011 I Love You!!

Well, February brought the reality back as I had to go back to work. Alright, I know people in the states are like, um I went back to work January 2nd! I'm not looking for sympathy points I'm just Sayin! lol. So yesterday actually was my first day with a new group. Teenaged Boys...and girls but mostly boys. I was neeervous. I didn't know why. I mean the first day is always crucial and I know that so I always tend to mount a ton of pressure on myself. Besides that though I was like What is your Deal! I kept having to repeat one of my favorite Bible verses just to get me out of the door! Yeah it was like that!

So it was great seeing everyone back at work. The new schedule for vacations (the kids that live on the coast are on their school vacations now until April) is a packed one. I have kids ranging from 5 to 17 all in one day. Well that was the plan. It was kind of a mess. Since people show up 30 min to an hour late, having a class that's 1 hour or an 1 hour and half is really difficult actually.

I had had a meeting with all of the "madres" of each house and the Director and we all agreed on the schedule I had. However, yesterday it was all..."the tarde is better for the kids to come" , "the kids have this and that so they can't came at this and that time" I was like ooookaaaay, thinking clearly I'm going to need to revamp the schedule, and not sure why this wasn't brought up in the meeting but hey, I've been here long enough to know that one.

Moving on. So the chicito kids I have always had (the small kids) barely got to have a class because the bigger kids came and were all in the spot. So I had a ton of activities planned and the super active activities they were good, but man if I had them sit down and write or do anything, even if it was partner work, those kids were aaaaaaalll over the place. I didn't get to do my intro, set the rules as structured as I liked to since the classes overlapped. SOOOO it was mayhem. If you're EVER in a classroom setting you Can't miss this step and you Cannot breeze through it. Is there any going back!?!? Well either way, we had fun EXCEPT for the fact that two kids got in a scuffle and one kid that had a huge scrape on his arm was bleeding from the fight. Since I broke it up I also got blood on me. ICK! I didn't even realize it until I was walking to the directors office to tell him. I was like can I tuck my shirt in so he doesn't see it? I was like ooooooh man that is A LOW point in your volunteer service Jen! Hiding the blood on your shirt from the director from the fight you just broke up that happened in YOUR class. I took it all very personally.

Well I tell the Director and he's like "Yeah?" I was like sooooooooo don't we tell the "madres" of the house? Do they get written up. Don't you at least want to know their names? He's like it happens. All the time really. He's like look at those too. Sure enough. One of the boys that was SO good in my class was pounding some other little kid I was like whoa whoa whoa about to run out and break THEM up, but then a "madre" came and pulled one of them in the house and sent the other one away. Dangerous Minds is all I could think of. Sheesh. I had been at La Aldea since November and with the little kids this didn't happen but geezaloo, people were on 10 yesterday.

All in all though I like my new group. Those boys are nice, they obviously have a LOT of pent up energy. I think like I did with the little ones, we are just going to dinamicas , or ice breakers for awhile. I'm going to have those guys outside playing whatever running around like crazy game I can find.

I'm also changing my schedule, I'm going to be working with little kids, bigger kids, teens and my girls group. So for those four days I'm going to have one group for each day. So instead of having EACH group Everyday, I'm going to have tiny tots on Monday's, Bigger kids on Tuesdays, Teens on Wednesdays, girls group on Thursdays and Friday's a wild card. Like, computer class, or the Women's Group or something like that. I think that sounds a lot less crazy. Why couldn't we all have just come up with that in the meeting we had weeks ago? Well that would have been too much like right and that's not the way thing go here. Seriously, not to sound cynical I'm just starting to see that there is a process with things.

It was absolutely necessary for myself, the madres and the Director to have a huge meeting, make the schedule together, agree on it and have me work on programs and activities that fit that schedule, only to come game day and it all falls apart and then from the ashes of that idea is born the real function idea that is probably going to work from here on out. I don't know why thing happen that way, but I do know that it happens that way a LOT and as a volunteer from the United States that has it's own set of "rules" and way things go, you can either beat your head against the wall wondering why things can't just be done in a "normal" fashion, or you can get with the norms with where you are and see that everything has a process and a way, and maybe your "right" way isn't right for everyone. Wish me luck with this new group and new sched!!!