Up, up, up and away

It’s been a very busy few weeks, so sorry about the delay in posting. First piece of news- I am no longer sick! I took a day off from classes since I felt like passing out every time I moved and was still running a major fever. A day of rest plus some serious antibiotics curtesy of the PC doctors and I was feeling much better.

Second piece of news- Happy Halloween! That particular holiday doesn’t exist here and our language teachers were fully onboard to help us have a party in exchange for teaching them about some of our traditional Halloween activities. We got candy and made popcorn and put the movie Halloween Town on the projector. They even got us some pumpkins, normally for eating here, but I showed them how we carve jack-o-lanterns. I carved the Peace Corps logo on one side and a very traditional scary face on the other. It was all good fun. A bunch of us also muddled together costumes, mostly by borrowing clothes from each other. I did a pretty successful Rey from Star Wars, if I do say so myself.

That same week, we also had micro-teaching. That means that we observed classes at the local high school and then co-taught and then actually taught. I taught matrixes and trigonometry to Form D students for a week. I have now actually taught a class!

We also received our site placements this week. For the first three months in country, PC trainees live with host families all in the same village. We get trained in teaching methods and local language and culture. We get evaluated throughout the first few weeks, all in order to figure out which area and which school will be the best fit for us to live at for the next two years. Site placement announcements tell us this monumental decision. The suspense is over. I know where I’m living! I got a tiny school in a tiny village way up in the mountains, 2 hours on a dirt road from the nearest town. I will be teaching math to grades 8 and 9 and life skills (sex ed, HIV prevention, and confidence building) to grades 8, 9, and 10. How do I know all of this? I went and visited.

First we had a workshop where we met our principals and talked about cultural differences, corporal punishment (illegal here but still used), and co-teaching methods. The workshop was held at a hotel that was way above our normal living conditions. By this I mean it had WiFi and running water and some rooms even had actual showers. I am comfortable enough living the way I do, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t take advantage of these perks while they lasted. The workshop went well and I really like my principal. She led the way as we took taxi after taxi to get to the village after the workshop was done.

After a full day of travel we arrived in town and the principal of the elementary school gave us a ride down that 2 hour dirt stretch. About half a mile from the town the welcome celebration began. A dozen men on colorfully decorated horses came galloping down the road toward us and started circling the truck. They escorted us to the village like this, shouting and waving flags. We were also joined by two herds of cattle and their herd boys. At the village, all the students were waiting for us. The car music was turned up and all the kids surrounded the car and started dancing and singing as they mobbed us into the village. The villagers were also all waiting and they too started dancing and singing. I will be staying in a house on the chief’s home compound, so when we arrived there they had everything set up. The school choir sang a few songs, then a group of girls did a traditional dance, then a group of boys, and then the girls again with a different dance. Needless to say I was in complete overwhelm but the amount of thought they put into welcoming me was heart warming. Some of the mmes had prepared dinner and that was the end of it. After everyone had dispersed, they showed me my house. It’s similar in construction to the traditional houses, except that it’s rectangular instead of round. It has a thatch roof, blue inside walls, and is bigger than I was expecting. I was quite pleased! Except for the rat. During the night I became aware that there was scratching rat living in the thatch roof, irritating but not overly problematic. That being said, I had already been planning on getting a cat and now I am absolutely getting one.

The next morning some students showed me how to get to the school. The walk is beautiful, staying relatively flat while clinging to the edge of mountains. There is one section where buildings are not visible, only grass and cliffs and mountains. As it happened, I was wearing a long skirt that first day and it was very windy. I felt very dramatic and rather like I had stepped into a Lord of the Rings location. As such, I got the soundtrack stuck in my head and there it stayed for the entire three day visit.

I think I win the competition for smallest school among volunteers in my cohort, with a total of 30 students. Oddly, the school also has a solar panel and a smart board because they are part of a STEM pilot program. Should make my teaching experience pretty different.

Anyway, home again in the training village. We’re a few days late, but I’m leading the charge for holding a Dios de Los Muertos party today. I’ll let you know how it turns out but we’re all pitching in on the food and it should be a fun time.

That’s all for now, folks!

My school!