Celebrate the small successes!

We've now spent 3 whole days in the school in Zambiza. In my last post, I talked about our first day at the school. It was extremely, extremely challenging. I've never been in a situation where it is so impossible to communicate with people and I find it so difficult! Although Monday was a challenging day, Tuesday was the most amazing day! We sat in on a math class in the morning and the teacher was welcoming and was communicating with us about what he wants from the students. What I understood was that he wants students to increase their confidence, which is what we also want! After the math class was over, there was supposed to be an anatomy class. Carlos joined us at this time so we were talking to the students while waiting for the teacher. We went around the class getting each student to introduce themselves and say their name. This was in the third year of the baccaleurete (grade 12) so the students are from the class are between 17-20. The teacher never showed up so we asked them what they were learning in anatomy, hoping it was something we could just pick up and teach. Turns out it was the reproductive system, which isn't something I want to try to teach! but luckily they had a skit they had prepared for the prof as an assignment so they performed it for us. What a soap opera it was! Quite a long story they had. It was basically descriptive of two couples falling in love, getting married, having a baby and then their lives start to be different. One couple has lots of money and is happy and the husband of the other couple loses his job, they start fighting a lot, get divorced, and give the child up to a rich family because they can't care for it!! Crazy for us to even think about! After this, we went to biology class with the grade 11's, where we found out one of the girls in the class is pregnant and two have new borns! The good thing was that the two new mom's were very good at school and seemed to be very motivated. Luckily, we still had Carlos to translate for us so we were able to understand. They were learning about lung problems, such as asthma, lung cancer, bronchitis, etc but they didn't have cystic fibrosis so, through Carlos translating, Justin was able to teach the class about cystic fibrosis and its symptoms. They haven't heard of it here but the teacher appreciated Justin's input. Then we joined the grade 9 class for "legislacion" and "cooperativismo". Legislacion is like labour laws so they were learning about not being able to come to work drunk and what not. They were also learning about overtime and double time wages and figuring out how much they would make. Cooperativismo was the students doing an organizational chart for a small bank or loan company I think. Either way, it was nice to finally understand something and feel like I would be able to help! During this class, the vice principal came in with some other teachers and made us stand up but she was talking Spanish so Justin and I couldn't understand. Carlos translates for us that since today was Justin's birthday, they wanted him to feel at home. Specifically, they said that they know he's away from his family on his birthday to be here with them and that must be hard so they want him (and me) to think of them as family and that they hope he has a great day and that we are comfortable and happy here. I was in tears!!! What an amazing feeling! For them to say they want us to feel like they are our family is truly an honour in my eyes, especially since we've only been here 2 days and haven't even done anything. We haven't even given them all the supplies we brought yet! They brought in a birthday cake with candles on top and sang Happy Birthday to him in Spanish and then in English. So unreal.

This is Justin and I with some of the teachers from the Zambiza school. To my right is the custodian, to Justin's left is the vice principal who doesn't speak English but has been very welcoming to us. Beside her is the gym teacher, and then the anatomy/biology teacher who is truly amazing and has so much energy!

After he blew out the candles, they took us to the teacher's area to eat the cake. They presented us with a small pouch with a hand sewn design saying it was a gift for us and through Carlos again we were able to communicate with them. It was a great feeling to finally be able to talk to them, especially since the first day felt so challenging for us. The day was definitely a high for us!
We had been looking forward to today all week since it was full of English classes and gym class, which are the classes we're here to actually help with! We had enjoyed the morning classes of English, helping out in whichever way possible. In the third english class of the day, the teacher didn't tell us her plan for teaching or anything, but had to quickly run out and left the class up to us. We were a little bit like deer in headlights but we quickly gathered ourselves and started going over clothes in english. We played a little game and got them to repeat the pronunciation since they have the most difficulty with that. We also  played "head, shoulder, knees and toes", the song with actions, so they did it in English and then taught us in Spanish! During the break I was able to, with a little difficulty, communicate with a girl in the grade 12 class. She's outgoing and not as shy so I've identified her as a potential mentor in the school. She asked if I had a boyfriend and I said yes, in Canada, which she told the rest of the girls who were too shy to ask themselves. They then asked if Justin had a girlfriend and I said no, to which I got a response that one of the girls has a bit of a crush on him! Oooolala! It was nice to finally break the ice and talk to them. Later in the day, that same girl asked me how old I was and then said I looked too young to be 24 after I had told her my age! After the break, we were told by the English teacher that the grade 9 teacher for the afternoon portion (although not really afternoon because they're break is from 10:00am to 10:30am but it feels like afternoon to us) was not going to be there so asked if we could entertain the kids... for 3 hours. We agreed although these students knew the least amount of English, there are about 40 of them, and they are loud and rowdy so I was definitely nervous!! We took them to play some volleyball and basketball for a while, then taught them how to play heads up 7 up, which took a little while but they finally understood. They were actually supposed to have computer class for this 3 hours and luckily we had sat in on that class on Monday, so we asked if they had work they could do if we went to the computer lab. They said yes so we took them to the computer lab for them to work. They kept asking us a question (tempo libre) which we translated with my book as free time, so we responded no, you have to work (trabajo)! But they kept asking and they seemed confused so finally, two girls went to google translate and translated that they were saying they needed a topic to work on! They were using html formatting for creating webpages but wanted a topic so we chose Canada! This kept them entertained for quite a while and they had lots of questions, although it was very very difficult to understand what they were asking. They actually did a good job so we spent the last part of the day playing soccer with them. I'm impressed we survived for 3 hours with no preparation, very very little Spanish, and the rowdiest class in the school. We can do anything!!! So although today was very frustrating at points, its nice to know we can do this and with a little more work, and with them speaking a little slower and in simpler words, we can communicate with them. Since there have already but lows and highs and it has been 3 days, this month is sure to be a rollercoaster, but at least the highs easily make up for the lows!! We've officially been here a week here now and it feels like we've fit enough activities in for a month! Every day feels like at least two days..

P.S. If you want a different perspective on the trip, you can check out other blogs posted on the right of my page. Andrew, Justin L, Justin C, and Dana have all created blogs as well so feel free to follow them or read their take on the events from this trip!