Chocobanana

So quick update on things-all´s been very busy here- teaching (first teenagers, then younger kids), doing the art workshops, moving places (still in San Salvador, now having some hostal life) .

School is closed for Holy Week here at the moment. The teenagers were fun when chatting to them but I still have no idea how you are meant to teach spelling to a room of 30 or so of them. The class is so clearly divided into little clicks, the boys like to be cool, hit each other, play with the girl in front´s hair whilst the girls were happier chatting amongst themselves. This is what my classes looked like. Amongst the words I was expected to be teaching them for a spelling bee were ´hibachi´(´small Japanese burning grill´), ´cabal´(unsure on the meaning of this), ´frieze´and ´antifreeze´ (not very common in tropical San Salvador), which everyone seemed to think meant an anti-frizz hair product, i didn´t manage to persuade them otherwise. The collection of words seemed most peculiar to me so we did some other chaotic activities. The last class was fun, they were acting out a story using some of the words, and some of them were pretending to be animals andf fighting, a little too realistically on the floor, whilst others made moustaches out of paper for their stories. Chaotic and I´m sure it makes no sense to read.

The following week, 30th March to 3rd April, I was teaching reading to the 2nd to 5th grade which are 7 to 11 year olds. Very sweet mainly, when you come in after they´ve droned ´Good-mor-ning-mees- Marietta´they like to come up and hug your legs too. We did things like reading stories about mice, and rescuing baby puffins which was quite therapeutic after the previous week. It´s chaos allowing a class of 7 year olds to try and organise themselves into groups, it´s funny how segregated and stubborn kids are at this age, not wanting to work with so and so and so on, ´c´mon guys, collaborative action for the greater good´i enthused, but to no avail. I was also helping out a group of the children with preparing their topics for an upcoming English language speech contest. One 7 year old girl, Arielle, after not being allowed to speak about the Pope as someone else had chosen it, was speaking about Princess Diana and was going to dress up as a princess for the contest. She seemed more interested in running around with her friend Brian than perfecting her monologue which included such topics as Princess Diana´s charitable AIDS work, and the members of her family such as Viscount so and so. Some of the students had written the speeches themselves as opposed to downloading impossible to pronounce words from the internet and were speaking about the importance of the family, having a dog and so on, which were fun. They all seemed quite relaxed about the contest which was amazing given they are so young.

The other teachers were friendly, and they also have a psychologist at the school so I chattted to her to find out what she does. As I was leaving I indulged in another snack from the cafeteria (which serves up healthy donut and chips to the kids everday). I´ve been enjoying their pupusas and quesadillas, but went for a chocobanana- amazing, frozen and chocolate covered. Just as I was about to sneak a bite, one of the teachers came up to say bye, unfortunately it was particularly large chocbanana which was left dangling uncomfortably between us whilst we chatted awkwardly. I remembered during the teaching also what it was like to feel bloody tired again. It´s a tiring thing. It was great though to get the chance to work with all the different ages so I´m very happy for having done it. I also got to observe the new teacher teaching my old class of teeneagers . He seemed to have the whole thing a lot more under control.

Aside from this, I´m finishing up the art workshops, last one on Monday next week. They´ve been so great. the end of one of the classes recently there was a hairy moment when a guy came in brandishing a handful of knifes. ´Cuchillos, cuchillos!´he shouted and all was ok, as we realised he was just trying to sell them to a class of children and not do anything else with them. That´s fine then. The community is known for being a place for crack trading and muggings so you hve to be careful. We´ve been using all the materials in class (watercolours, pastels, ink, charcol, crayons, making collages) which we´ll give to the community when next Monday when hopefully some of the parents are going to come and look at what their children have been up to. Lots of the children seem to be looked after by their grandparents as their parents are in the U.S. working and sending back money. I got to have a look further into the community at the last class when we had to go looking for the key to open up the room. The houses get even more makeshift the more you go in, so many people, I walked past one of the girls that comes to the class and is funny but likes screaming a lot, Daniela, who must be about 13 who was having a bath in a big bucket.

Amber´s been having a tough time recently, and her and Balta are moving back to B´s old place for a bit, so I´ve moved into a hostal. First night last night, it´s a little place, I chatted to a few of the other people, there´s only about 8 or so people here. I seem to be in a room by the door which means sleep punctauted by doorbell. Am going to have a look around the area and see what´s happening and so on. More later.

Bye bye xxx