Better Late Than Never

Hola, from Michigan!

It has been a whole month since I've been back from my trip, so I figured it was about time I wrote my final post to my blog. I'm disappointed that I did not post more on my trip, but it was always a hassle to get on the internet and the few times that I did it was very slow.

I just wanted to write a little more about what I did my last two weeks and then my overall thoughts upon returning home.

The second week I taught English once again in the morning with Lukose. This week, however, we were teaching the scholarship students, or the becados, which were older students in grades 7, 8 and 9. We taught one class for an hour and a half and it was definitely different that the previous week. We had less students in a more open space and had more resources, like a projector as well as worksheets to use with the students. I found this week challenging as well, because some of the students knew the information fairly well and were eager to learn more, as they thought what we were teaching them was pretty easy. There were other students, however, who disrupted the class and did not participate, and when we would try to work one on one with them, it was clear they didn't understand what was going on. We worked on a lot of present tense verbs as well as some other grammar points, and at the end of the week introduced the past tense as well. At the end of the week, Lukose gave them a quiz and was happy to see the progress some of them had made, and disappointed in the ones that still did not understand. It was a learning experience, for the the students and the teachers as well!

In the afternoon, I did biometrics with Alex in the clinic. We would take people's temperature, measure their height and weight, and take their blood pressure. It seems like an easy task, which it was, even in the stifling hot clinic, but at the same time, it was a very important job. As Lukose said during reflection, even though you're just doing biometrics, it's really more than that, because these people coming in are trusting you to do this and letting you be a part of your community. It was really interesting to talk to people as they came back, and one of my favorite parts was getting to see the little babies that came into the clinic. We always were done early, so we would get to help Jessy in the pharmacy or talk to Katia, who is the secretary of the clinic.

One of the highlights of the week was after school everyday we had salsa lessons at Mariana's house, where Nyelah, Rachel, and Joanna lived. Engels, Mariana's neighbor, takes salsa lessons and said he would love to teach us some of the stuff he knew. It was very fun even though we were no where near as good as Engels, and we did it on the front porch area, so it looked a little funny when people walked by and there was a group of gringos trying to salsa.

That weekend we left for a town called Granada, where we got to take a boat tour on Saturday, go out to dinner and then on Sunday went for a hike around a volcano, and got to see amazing views as well as climb a lot of stairs back up to the top. It was a fun weekend and good to relax and spend time together as a group!