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| Dan's first planking experience |
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| Christmas day in San Miguel |
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| Dad trying to turn on the stove |
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| Annie at the capilla |
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| Catherine and Kiera in Jalpa, our first day back |
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Recent photos
New Semester
Hey lovely people,
Here I am again, after a much-needed rest and excellent Christmas holidays. The break was relaxing and involved drinking a lot of wine, watching a lot of movies, and enjoying a visit from my family over New Year's. The new semester started on Monday, and our first week back went pretty well. New intern Kiera did an amazing job of jumping right in with the afternoon class in La Palma and the primaria is Jalpa. Her interests in public health led to a pretty hilarious activity called "Guacala!", or "Gross!" Kids wrote stories about the most disgusting, dirty, unsanitary activities they could possibly imagine, and had a lot of fun out-grossing one another. I was personally very impressed by their... creativity.
In my classes this semester, I've decided to do more theatre-based work. It was fun watching the shy morning class come out of their shells when we played trust games and did other theatre warm-ups focused on encouraging teamwork and building confidence. We also finally received letters from our Canadian kindergarten penpals, and the students liked reading their adorable and often non-sensical letters. I especially liked the kid who wrote, "I like pretending about birthdays. I also like rocks." We are now working on learning some new vocabulary so that we can send letters back about our own communities, and we plan on taking some photos of important places in La Palma as well.
I had missed the secundaria kids a lot over the break - I had spent over three weeks without seeing a single eye-roll or one of those looks that says, "OMG this is SO dumb, she is SO weird." We played some trust games with the middle-schoolers, and as anticipated there was much giggling on the part of the girls and much (fake) reluctance on the part of the boys. We are going to be working with some ideas and techniques from Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, using drama to animate discussion about social and cultural issues. We're also going to be writing our own short plays/films, and taking weekly short film classes from Dan. We watched our first film on Thursday, a Mexican short called "La leche y el agua" ("The Milk and the Water"). I was expecting a bit of boredom but they loved it! We followed it up with a computer class about research skills, where they had to search for information about the film. It took me a while to figure out what they meant by "Gogg-lay". Finally I realized they were asking if they should use Google.
Although things are already crazy busy, it's nice to be back with the kids again. And to be receiving lunch from the La Palma mothers - it's been really cold the last few days, and on Thursday they brought us apple cider. We're also trying to start a new secundaria program in Jalpa, and this coming Wednesday will (hopefully) be our first class. Wish us luck!
Here I am again, after a much-needed rest and excellent Christmas holidays. The break was relaxing and involved drinking a lot of wine, watching a lot of movies, and enjoying a visit from my family over New Year's. The new semester started on Monday, and our first week back went pretty well. New intern Kiera did an amazing job of jumping right in with the afternoon class in La Palma and the primaria is Jalpa. Her interests in public health led to a pretty hilarious activity called "Guacala!", or "Gross!" Kids wrote stories about the most disgusting, dirty, unsanitary activities they could possibly imagine, and had a lot of fun out-grossing one another. I was personally very impressed by their... creativity.
In my classes this semester, I've decided to do more theatre-based work. It was fun watching the shy morning class come out of their shells when we played trust games and did other theatre warm-ups focused on encouraging teamwork and building confidence. We also finally received letters from our Canadian kindergarten penpals, and the students liked reading their adorable and often non-sensical letters. I especially liked the kid who wrote, "I like pretending about birthdays. I also like rocks." We are now working on learning some new vocabulary so that we can send letters back about our own communities, and we plan on taking some photos of important places in La Palma as well.
I had missed the secundaria kids a lot over the break - I had spent over three weeks without seeing a single eye-roll or one of those looks that says, "OMG this is SO dumb, she is SO weird." We played some trust games with the middle-schoolers, and as anticipated there was much giggling on the part of the girls and much (fake) reluctance on the part of the boys. We are going to be working with some ideas and techniques from Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, using drama to animate discussion about social and cultural issues. We're also going to be writing our own short plays/films, and taking weekly short film classes from Dan. We watched our first film on Thursday, a Mexican short called "La leche y el agua" ("The Milk and the Water"). I was expecting a bit of boredom but they loved it! We followed it up with a computer class about research skills, where they had to search for information about the film. It took me a while to figure out what they meant by "Gogg-lay". Finally I realized they were asking if they should use Google.
Although things are already crazy busy, it's nice to be back with the kids again. And to be receiving lunch from the La Palma mothers - it's been really cold the last few days, and on Thursday they brought us apple cider. We're also trying to start a new secundaria program in Jalpa, and this coming Wednesday will (hopefully) be our first class. Wish us luck!
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