Charla Week

Ok, so this is another on the fly blog entry. It has been a busy week and I didn't have time to write it ahead. So, cut me some slack.

This week Katie and I gave 9 charlas, one to every class in our school! It was a lot of work, especially Kinder and 1st grades, bleah! Still, it had some great moments and interactions. I think we made a big impact on the social side... though whether they learned anything is a different story.

Here is Katie with some of the kids. This is probably the main accomplishment of the charlas. We now are the talk of the town! Yesterday, we were down near the cancha to watch the kids play soccer and softball for PE. A girl came by and said "hola" and told us that her Mom was making Pasteles... which are these great empañada like things. When we went up to the house to check it out, the little brother (maybe 3 years old), shouted "Katie" when we walked in. Then the Mom whom we'd never met said, "you must be Katie and Jon, I heard all about your drawings". It was all very weird, but it has helped open up a lot of people to us, and that's important.Backtracking some... our charla was on separating the trash into 4 different groups. We want to us the organic stuff for composting later, then the school wants to save cans and plastic bottles, plus paper...which at the very least we will use for an activity making recycled paper. Anyway, for the younger kids we decided the best way to teach was to have them color. So, Katie drew up the different trash items in the various groups and we copied off enough copies for Kinder through 2nd grades. It worked great, they loved it! The amazing things to us was how excited they were to be able to take it home! Most things at school, stay at school. Of course, in the end we just contributed to the trash that will be burned at home...but, they did learn some...and it made us the talk of everyones home.

The other interesting thing was how little they have in the way of supplies. All of you who at some point sent us packs of pencils, know that they didn' go to waste! We used them as prizes for winning teams, or good answers, or participation. It was a BIG deal to get a pencil. Also, many didn't have colors (they should, but the teachers don't want to enforce because the parents might stop sending rather than buying the colored pencils). The next time we hope to give prizes of colored pencil sets, big prize, so we'll have to have a big game of some type.

After they finish class, the kids have to do all of the clean up. The group pictured above were the sweepers in my Kinder class (one second grader, far left, snuck into the picture). They also do all of the outside work, cutting the grass, cleaning the restrooms, ect... No janitors needed here!
One last picture. This is Katie and some kids again. Also, "our" dog, Happy (or Alegre)... he isn't really ours, but he really likes us gringos because we actually pet him, and occasionally give him some food. It doesn't take much effort to get a dog friend here. I am working on a blog entry on the dogs and cats here... at some point in the future.... Till then, Salud!