First Day of School

Went really well! Not nearly as bad as I thought it might be ... obviously there is room for improvement. The first day is bound to be a bit rough around the edges especially when you've never been inside the school or your classroom, you haven't met or talked to your director, you don't know how many kids you have or when/if you're teaching each grade. School starts at 7:00 but I was the first one there at 6:45. Parents and students started to roll in. Literally coming down out of the mountain from every direction. We all sort of stood around for about a half an hour and then we had an "assembly" of sorts. The school consists of a long narrow building with each classroom opening to the front yard. On one end the building becomes L-shaped and that's the bathrooms. There isn't really a hallway, just a wide cement walkway covered by an overhang, sort of an extension of the roof. In front of that there is a small grass area and everything is surrounded by a chainlink fence. The students lined up by grades under the overhang and the parents made a sort of semi-circle around them in the back. The flag was presented, we sang the national anthem, pledged allegiance to the flag and then the director said a few words followed by the kinder teacher and then the 1-3rd grade teacher. Then the director put me on the spot to introduce myself... in Spanish... to the entire school. Yikes! But I managed to squeak out a sentence or two and everyone has been really nice, saying hi and everywhere I go it seems there is at least one person willing to chat with me. After this the students dispersed to their respective classrooms.

Can I just say how freaking excited I am to have my very own classroom!!?!?! It's filthy and needs lots of love and its not huge by any means but it's comfortable and I'm looking forward to sprucing it up. I met with the 6th graders and the 5th graders today. Like I said, considering I had no idea what was going to happen I think I did pretty good. With the 6th grades the bell rang but I wasn't sure if that meant the class was over because it felt like we'd just started and no one was getting up to leave. Then two separate messengers came trying to explain to me that the director wanted me to come to the cafeteria for cafecito. I kinda just left my class with the students there because I didn't know what else to do and then when I got there I couldn't explain that I needed to go back to my class to dismiss them so I just sat there hoping they would figure it out. So odd.

Looking forward to cafecito though. Got to sit with the director and other teachers and the cook (she is so sweet!) and have bread and fruit. I turned down coffee though explaining that I was nervous enough without more coffee. I didn't understand much of what they said but it was still nice. I tried this really strange new fruit. Not sure what it's called. Its greenish-yellow on the outside and the size of an apple with skin the texture of a pomegranate. You kinda cut it in half and scoop out and eat the insides. First off, let me say that its delicious but if you have any texture issues when it comes to food this fruit is not for you. The insides essentially look and feel like fish eyes. The seeds are contained in these slimy goo-pods (that's the official term) and the seeds are pleasantly crunch much like a pomegranate or kiwi. They taste kind of tangy and sweet like a mango or kiwi. Something new everyday!

With the 5th grade class things went well but I was waiting for the bell and running out of things to do. Finally I asked them what time class was over and they told me 10:00. It was 10:10. Oh well. Better luck next time. I think the director is going to give me a schedule at some point. Not sure when. We only had a half day today and the same tomorrow. Thank goodness. Good way to start the year in my opinion.

Looking forward to giving my classroom a seriously scrubbing tomorrow and making some more fun visuals to put up in the classroom. Also have my first project! I'm going to repaint the blackboard. It sorely needs it. I'm going tomorrow afternoon with my host dad to the town up the "hill" to find some paint.