HOLA!!
During the past two weeks the work we have been doing has been fairly similar to before. We continued going to the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays to teach and Wednesdays to paint the playground. Last week we stayed on Thursday to continue painting and then we also went on monday this week. This is because we were keen to paint all of the designs that we had planned to do. We have made good progress and there is just a tiny bit left to do which lizzy will finish off tomorrow. On Monday there was a large group of Americas that came to the school to do some community work. Most of them just played games with the kids but some helped us paint, which was really useful!
We have managed to teach the kids some new vocab while we were there. With the youngest ones we covered numbers 1-10, geertings and colours. We managed to play some games using numbers and colours outside. We used the paintings we had done on the floor of the playground. This works really well because they enjoyed it but also managed to learn at the same time. With the middle class we covered a bit more, got them up to 20 with the number and did the basic family members, as well as colours and greetings. The oldest group was the easiest to teach because they were the best behaved and we could get them to write vocab out and then decorate it for their english board. Once we told them what to do they got on with it, making our job easy! I really enjoyed teaching the kids altough playing with them was more fun! The most difficult part was trying to control them in Spanish. It was also sometimes a bit tricky when they asked me a question and I was not sure what they were saying! Once a boy was asking me something about chocolate (but I was not entirely sure what!) so I was just agreeing with him, hoping he might then leave me to clean the paint brushes. Lizzy then shouted at me that he was asking me to take him in chocolate, the next day. I quickly said that I didn´t have any and that we were not at the school the next day anyway! It certainly has not put me off teaching children and doing the lesson plans was fun. To begin with is was hard to know how much to plan because we didn´t know what they already knew or how quickly they would learn but we got the hang of it after a few lessons.
Last Friday it was Lizzy´s birthday. We did not do anything particulalry special (I had given her some socks the previous weekend as a present!) but I did give her the little parcel that her parents had given me a few months ago. Lizzy had no idea I had it, so it was a nice surprise! On Friday and Monday we got to go tree climbing. It was great fun. We had ropes and harnesses and climbed up to 17m on Friday and then 25m on Monday. The view from the top of the second tree was amazing. It was not too hard work. You had to push with your legs and pull with your arms to get yourself up. Last weekend we went to Mindo with David (a dutch boy staying at the same palce as us doing research). It was brilliant! We had a really great time. We only went on Saturday and got back on Sunday but we managed to do plenty of things. We went zip wiring. This was GREAT! You go on 13 zip wires across a valley. They zig zag across. The views were stunning. There was also a chance on some of them to go as a shape - either superman or a butterfly. Superman is where you are attached fromn your back and face downwards and a burrerfly is where you are turned upside down. I went as a butterfly on one of the zip wires. It was so scary but brilliant at the same time! I was slightly worried I might fall out of the harness (even though I was with an instructor) because they are just normal waist harnesses. David went as superman and Lizzy also did the butterfly one. We also managed to go tubing. Lizzy and I had gone in the jungle but this was a bit different. Before we just floated downt the river on the gentle current. This time there were lots of rings joined together and it was much rougher. Nobody actually fell out but there were times when we derfinately had to hold on tight! It was good fun. We walked to the river a couple of times and sat there because it was very peaceful and there was a lovely cafe that sold the best ever batidos´that we walked past! On the Saturday night we went out. We had dinner out then went to a bar and then a club. It was really good fun!
I am now back in Quito and not looking forward to my alarm going off at 3.30am tomorrow! My flight is at 6.40 and I get in to London on Friday morning. It will be nice to be home again but I have had a fab time here too. I will miss this country. I am looking forward to seeing friends and family and also eating certain foolds (like pasta!) that I have not had for 10 weeks!
ADIOS!! Hasta pronto!
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