day 10: jungle gyms, break dancing, tetherball, and english
so previous post about wednesday being the busiest day… falso. tue/thurs are hectic as can be if you are in the half of the group that does comedor and creative arts (which is right after lunch and right before men’s soccer). anyway- it was a marathon and very much one of those days where you go solely by the grace of God.
we kicked off the day with chureca trip- i went to juntos to teach some kids literacy and spanish. dealing again with the tribulations of ridiculously short attention spans and juggling around 4 kids that speak a different languages, we messed around with what different sounds letters make. per advice of my sister, i knew a little bit what to do—but not much. engineering doesn’t prep you much for doing this specific kind of work, go figure. not knowing what to do when attention spans head south, i defaulted to the playground to have them play on the jungle gym of sorts— an a-frame with two handles on chains to swing around on. the kids had a ball and it was fun to release some pent up energy after helping them study.
creative arts today was led by a lanky white canadian woman who taught the kids how to BREAK DANCE (yeah, i know— just what i was expecting)! haha it was a blast and the 11 volunteers, 8 PD’s, and the 40ish? kids all had a ball. we learned a few new things but because the class was in el farito we didn’t have a lot of extra space— so the “adults” aka 19+ year old volunteers (i still think we’re just grown up children) didn’t do much dancing.
robert convinced me to go the the land after CA to play with some kids while he and some other guys play soccer “futbol.” it turns out that another team was playing a game on the field, and the backup field is being restored, so soccer got cancelled and we all played con los ninos instead. a few riveting games of tetherball (nica vs gringo) revealed that americans have the advantage because not only are we taller (as in older, and yes, genetically taller than the hispanic genes here), but we also grew up playing this game so we know the subtle nuances of just how to hit a volleyball tied on a string. we also taught the kids the following games:
- big booty
- freeze tag
- bang (the clapping game)
- duck duck goose
- and many many more
quick dinner-meat! and rice. holler.
advanced english was incredible, as always. i sat with the nicayuda people, next to gabriel (the larger one) and across from aldo (the white-ish? or pale nica with some sweet piercings… he wears trendy tees a lot. we’re friends). apparently in nicayuda i am known as “chase, el sucio” because i always show up dirty to english after playing with kids all day. hahaha i guess next time i’m gonna have to be intentional about not going with a dirty shirt and taking off my trademarked and very grungy/dirty vandy hat. advanced english kids read an article from CNN.com and then learned new english phrases that don’t translate- like “piece of cake” and “cut it out.” in true nica fashion, we also instructed them that, like “a breeze,” a piece of cake cannot be used to describe how easy laid back a person is. great laughs and great conversation with fabricio and the gang.
we made brownies and ice cream tonight… while technically still in a third world country, we survive get great joys from binge eating like college students, still.
mucho paz,
**nica fun fact: june is worse than july in terms of rain according to our house mom, elena.
