A new era of "Miss Emily"

August 31st, 2010
Yesterday morning started out early. Earlier than any of my mornings since arriving in Comayagua. Waking up at 5:05am before the sun was out, getting out of bed was a struggle. Thankfully, I succeeded though I did move very slowly for a while. As we were gathering our things, Dawnelle said that we should pray together before we left. It was then that I discovered we were going to be meeting the children that day. Somehow, I hadn't a clue about what was planned for the day. I think it has something to do with being gifted in certain academic areas and completely lacking in some areas of common sense. lol. But nevertheless, I discovered it before arriving at the school so I'm grateful for that. We were not supposed to have normal classes, but we did need to introduce ourselves. I only met with Prepa B and did not have to do much talking, because Miss Melissa introduced me. Then we went to an assembly, and after that it was time to go to kindergarten. Kindergarten pretty much just stared at me as I tried to sing with them. It was a little awkward, because I didn't have anything planned to do with them. Luckily it was lunch time while I was there, so I just got to sit and talk with them a little. They were so precious--sharing their cookies and chips with me! Even as the day was going on I was not directly informed as to what I was supposed to be doing, so I stayed in each room for a full class period and then spent the rest of the morning helping out in pre-kindergarten. Twenty-five 3-4 year olds. Can you imagine? Chaos was pretty much a constant factor. Some kids were playing on the floor, some kids were randomly eating parts of their lunch, some kids were picking candy up off the floor, some kids were crying, some kids were hanging on our legs, some were listening. One little girl offered me a piece of candy from her mouth. Sweet, but I gently declined. We were allowed to leave at noon which was a huge blessing, because I had a lot of lesson planning to do. When we got home we all immediately took off our teacher shirts and realized we were all wearing black tank tops. We though it was humorous, hence the picture. My roommates went "ugly teacher shoe shopping" while I stayed home and worked. They ended up going to the market and doing other shopping as well, but the sleep I got (even though it wasn't enough) made up for missing out on the experience. There will be many other opportunities for shopping :). We had a parent teacher meeting at the school tonight from 6-8pm ish. It was good to let the parents know my name, but Oh my--So many names and faces to learn! I have over 120 different kids that I teach Bible class for. We hadn't had supper and our house was out of water, obviously a really bad combination. Despite how tired I was, walking into the preschool area was like instant happiness to me. However, by the end of the night we were all feeling a little faint and very dehydrated. Thank goodness our friend Melissa took us to a little corner store to buy bag water, bag milk, and some sugar (just because). A very silly, sometimes crabby, completely exhausted, and rather random mood settled over our house last night as we worked on lesson planning.

We all survived our first real day of school today! The pre-kindergarten teacher, Miss Jessica, was feeling very ill and had to go to the doctor in the morning (just after 9). I was told to stay for the rest of the day to help her assistant, Rosita. Aside from maybe three kids, the pre-kinder class does not understand or speak any English. For many of them it is their first time away from home. The whole "No Spanish" rule pretty much goes out the window with these guys, especially at the beginning. I do not know very much Spanish, but I sure got some practice with the little I do know today. Normal lesson plans didn't work, because they didn't all have their workbooks yet. Rosita and I improvised which is impressive considering she doesn't speak English. With God's help we were able to make it through the day somewhat smoothly. I had a 45 or so minute lunch break and got to see Kadian, Melissa, and other friends. It was great, because preschool is kind of its own little world, so I don't normally see any of the other missionaries. After that I helped with pre-k pm kids that were arriving. A much smaller class, only 11 today, the room was much less lively. Almost half the kids came in crying or cried for a while during the afternoon. One sad little boy just kept sobbing saying, "Yo quiero mi mami," over and over and over again. He finally fell asleep, woke up an hour later, and started crying all over again. We tried everything we could think of but to no avail. I'm hoping tomorrow is less tragic for him, poor kid. A girl named Rosemary came in to help us in the afternoon, so I was able to leave at 2:30 still instead of 3:30 when pre-k pm gets out of class. Leave actually meant going to a teacher meeting, and then we went to Michy (our wonderful office lady extraordinaire) to get copies made. Pastor Trundle told me to not worry about my prepa or kinder classes until Miss Jessica returns. I'm going to be in pre-k doing my best to help these adorable little kids adjust to life at school. They are just so cute! Absolutely precious. Exhaustion hit me at the end of the day, but seeing those kids smile makes it all so worth it.
Well I missed my bed time 30 minutes ago, so that's all for now!