Since we are finally bug free, we have officially joined the ranks of teachers at Monterrico Christian School. And of course, we absolutely LOVE it. It is a bilingual school, so although the kids are all native Spanish speakers, they have most of their classes entirely in English. The school goes from preschool all the way to 11th grade, which is the year they graduate high school, so it's a good variety. Renae and I basically help with anything and everything the other teachers need: homework corrections, art projects, organizational projects, and classroom help. We spend lots of time in the library helping kids pick out books, and lots of time reading to different classes. Renae has mainly taken on the 2nd graders, whereas I spend the most time with the kindergartners. Don't worry, I've only gotten gum stuck in my hair once and had to clean poop off one shoe so far, so doing pretty good I'd say. We have been put on the spot multiple times to take over classes, and although we obviously haven't been trained to be teachers and usually end up improvising quite a bit, we love it! Today we even got to give an hour and a half long presentation to the 10th and 11th graders about our trip so far. They were especially interested in hearing about our jungle adventures and the backpacker lifestyle, and we had way too much fun getting to show them lots of pictures and everything we lug around in our packs. Basically, the kids are all SO much fun, the teachers are all incredibly friendly, and we've found ourselves adopted right into the amazing little community the school has around it. I can already tell you there's NO WAY we're going to be ready to leave in a month.
We've also had the chance to check out a couple other volunteering sites in Lima. Last Wednesday night we went with the principal Nancy and 2nd grade teacher Gail to visit the kids at an orphanage across town. It is mostly older kids, and lots of teenagers, so we had lots of fun getting to know them and plan to go back at least once a week to hang out there. Then on Friday we toured a prenatal center, which I was especially interested in seeing after my work at the hospital. We are definitely trying to take advantage of all the different site hook-ups we have here in Lima and plan to check out at least a couple more as soon as we can.
Don't worry, we've definitely had time for lots of fun stuff too, once all the correcting is done. We already feel like family with our roomie Natalie, and she and her Peruvian fiance are always dragging us around and showing us things. They took us to the mall (we now have school-appropriate-non-trail-clothes... pretty exciting), brought us to church, and introduced us to some of their friends. One veryyy early morning last weekend, Renae, Natalie, and I along with a couple other teachers from the school went for surfing lessons, too! We obviously made fools of ourselves but all managed to stand up at least a few times and had TONS of fun. We plan to rent some boards and practice on our own this weekend so we'll be pros before you know it. One day we spent over an hour talking to a man in the park about his pet vulture, which was a whole lot more interesting for Renae than it was for me, but still very cool. He had the thing trained to fly straight to his arm from across the park when he called it! We have also tried some new Peruvian foods, although I wimped out on eating the squid. It was straight whole; looked like it was alive just 5 minutes ago! So no thanks on that one.
Basically we already feel at home in this amazing country, and can't think of any better way to spend the next month than loving up on all the little cuties at the school and exploring the city. Let the adventures continue!
Eating popcorn on the daily (we're all of a sudden addicted, don't ask),
Jenna Flynn
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