Day 108: The El Hato School

Well, today was my first day working with the children at the school in the village of El Hato north of Antigua.

I got up this morning at 04.45, had breakfast (alone, of course) and left the house to walk to the bus stop. I arrived at the street by which nearly every bus passes in the mornings at about 12 minutes before 06.00, but I missed the 05.50 bus by probably seconds. I did not know it at the time, so I waited around for about 10 minutes before paying for a cab to take me up. 

Still, I arrived quite early for school. The classes start at 08.00, and today I got plopped into the kindergarten full of 4 and 5 year olds who were all learning the number 6. The teacher was absent today, so I stepped in to do as much as I could with the school director who was acting as a substitute. Since she had other responsibilities during the morning, I just did my best and ran the morning lessons. We counted to 6, we saw how the number is drawn, we colored in 6 ducklings on paper, we complete an exercise where they traced about 35 sixes in a connect-the-dots fashion, and we had them glue rolled tissue paper onto large sixes on sheets of paper. It was all very exciting, and we got glue everywhere.

We had a break part way through the morning where the entire school, which is very tiny, gathered in the central courtyard and sang the national anthem and learned the definition of 'perseverance.' Their anthem is extraordinarily long. Especially for the little ones who do not really know what is going on around them.

Claudia

I left with Emma, who is the English teacher with whom I have made the arrangements, after the children had their snack. Everyone brought their own plates and silverware, and the kitchen served some food that included rice and a red sauce and another item that I do not what it was made of, tasted yummy though. 

I went back with her to the Earth Lodge. I think I will probably be doing that most days since the bus down again does not come until 6.00p on three of the five school-days. There, I got a chance to chat more with Emma and Jonathon.

They are a married couple who have traveled the world teaching in Europe and Asia. They recently came to Guatemala (for the second time) to help run the Earth Lodge in exchange for free lodging while they work with the Las Manos organization that provides English lessons to Guatemalan students. Jonathon is the volunteer coordinator, and Emma (as mentioned before) works as an English teacher for three different classes. They have also started up working a bit in the Art department as well, since the school director is very open and grateful for whatever services are offered to the school. 

Jonathon and Emma had a Spanish lesson with a tutor that comes up to the Earth Lodge three times weekly, and they let me sit in on it and listen. They are working with stuff a little more basic than where I finished off in Argentina, but it was a great review for me and very interesting to see how the same material was presented in a different environment.

Jonathon tells me that there is a beautiful hiking trail loop that runs through the mountains right by the lodge, so hopefully this week or the next I can walk it at least once.

I took the bus down at 6.00, I was the only passenger for the first bit, which was funny, and just had dinner (eggs, beans and fried banana) with two of the other guests. Now, I think that I will go to bed early so that waking up early tomorrow is as painless as possible. 

I was feeling a little poorly yesterday, some stomach issues, but today everything felt much better. I think I am probably a bit dehydrated still, but I had a good day today.

Chao.