Down In My Heart: I'm feeling good

Last weekend marked my first experience with my new schedule, I was free from the four walls of my house and liberated in Bogota. It was fabulous, our jefes (bosses) were in town so I got to spend time with them, I stayed at a fellow MMCer's apartment (see Shalom, below), we ate great food (veggie burgers, dumpling soup, Cambodian noodles), visited the Botanical Garden, and had great conversation. I headed back to Cazuca for work on Monday and then Tuesday, Diana and I traveled back to Bogota to turn in paperwork and it just happened to be another MMCer's (see Luz, below) birthday, so we got to celebrate with her! All in all I had a wonderful long weekend of being with friends and eating well.

I'm realizing that with every other weekend off, I always have something to look forward to, and this helps me to feel less bothered by spending the majority of my time here in Cazuca inside of one building. So, although my physical living situation hasn't changed, I feel much more at peace with it now.

My work hasn't changed much. The school is still disorganized and frustrating most times, but I'm letting it bother me less. I'm am now helping out with the transition classroom, which is like kindergarden here, and although I miss seeing my first graders everyday, I'm learning to love a whole new group of children, behavior problems and all. Another change in my work is that I am starting weekly english classes with the five teachers at my school. Personally, I don't feel like it is the best use of my time or their time, but all of the teachers have expressed a real interest in learning english with me, so I'm happy to use this time to get to know m y fellow teachers better and maybe in doing so teach some vocabulary and grammar. Unfortunately my class last week was canceled a few hours before because the arrival of a month's worth of produce which needed to be cut, peeled, and bagged took precidence, so this week hopefully we'll start.

In other school news, we've had a lot of really sick kids this week. Here in Colombia there have been quite a few cases of the H1N1 virus, so we all had to wear mouth guards this week, and even had to shut the school on Friday until we hear more news about one of our little girls who had to be hospitalized. I'm feeling the beginnings of a sore throat and I headache, so I'm doing what Joel always tells me to do: think positively. I really don't want to get sick.

Today I didn't get out of bed until 10 and the only thing I had to do was Saturaday school for two hours (basically Sunday school, but just on a different day). So until 2pm I lazed around, made an omlet, and read my book. Good day. I took a few photos of the Saturday school kids, most of them attend my school, but others are just from the church. They are really great, they all call me profe (teacher) and give me lots of hugs and kisses. Again, good day.

Santiago and Andres, two great little stinkers from my first grade class.

Luz, birthday girl, and I--we couldn't get her to smile for the life of us.

Wendy, Laura (in purple), and Karen's eye's. Wendy and Laura are both from my school, they are both really smart, Wendy is quiet and Laura is a chatter box.

Shalom and Diana! Shalom was my gracious host last weekend, and Botanical Garden friend.

The Rodriguez girls, Sarita, Dayana, Brigitt, y Daniella. These four are the cutest cousins and sisters, they were so excited to see their picture, we were all joking about how the little ones didn't know how to smile for the camera.