Mi Aventura de Sudamérica: You want me to do WHAT?!

This title might be a little dramatic, but this is how I felt! Before I get to that, I'm going to talk about Thursday. At my school, Zambiza, the grade 9's are the only ones that have classes on Thursday and Friday since the older students do a practicum of sorts. Since this is the case, Justin and I joined Andrew and Dana at the Inca campus to participate in classes with them and the students at their school. We had a lot of gym classes, which is great. Except their courtyard is a small area that's all concrete so they leave the school area to head to a park. It takes about 15 minutes to walk there but there's a huge basketball court and a soccer field there so I guess it's worth it. We had to walk there and back twice during the day with gym classes. We were able to play some handball with the kids and a little volleyball, which was nice. We also sat in on an English class where the teacher split the kids into 4 groups so each of us could work with one group on their pronunciation. After this class was over, the English teacher tells us that there won't be teachers around to teach after 10:30 am tomorrow so would it be possible that we each take our own class? Ummmmm. What? We agreed of course but the weight of this soon weighed on me and I wondered how I could teach a class of 40 students by myself for 1.5 hours! Especially with the language barrier. Oooooh my goodness. Well I guess I'd have to suck it up because we agreed! In the afternoon, we split up so Dana and I went to geography class. We thought the teacher wasn't coming so we started do a Canada geography lesson plan. The teacher did show up but she let us teach our lesson plan. We handed the kids out a copy of a map of Canada and then had them fill in the provinces name. We showed them where the capital is (approximately) and where Winnipeg is and then let them color the map. They seemed to like it and it was fun for us! After school was done, Andrew, Justin, Dana and I spent time preparing for teaching the next day. It seems everyone elses schools had empty spots too so we all brain stormed together. Typically, if a teacher doesn't show up, the students sit in the class room talking or go outside to play. Its nice that we're able to help out while we're here. Justin C had a great idea of doing a Dr. Seuss book so he read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and we decided we'd read it out, get them to copy it down and then get them to separate into groups and make a book with pictures matching the description. This would help them understand words they may have not otherwise and leave them with a great book! What a fantastic idea!
Friday came around and I was freaking out. Like freaking out. I'm no teacher! Forty students who can't speak English and I'm a long ways from speaking Spanish! Luckily, I have an extremely supportive group who got me through. We spent the morning in gym and English classes and actually had some time to get to know the English teacher. She asked us questions about Canada and told us her favourite animal is a beaver. She asked if Eskimo's were real and if using wolves (which we corrected as huskies) for pulling sleds were real. We told her they were and she was shocked since she thought it was only in the movies! She also told us that it used to be that people wanted the American Dream but it has now become the Canadian Dream! It's unfortunate though because the Ecuadorian visa's go through Columbia so its apparently extremely hard for them to even get a visa to come to Canada. We asked her a few questions and she told us that private university in Ecuador is extremely expensive (possibly $15000 to $20000) but a teacher in the country only makes about $200 a month. A MONTH! At max, a teacher would make $1000 a month but that's the most. Insane. This leads to overcrowding in the public universities since they are a lot cheaper. It was nice to finally get a chance to get to know the teachers, as we've mostly only seen them in classes. I know we have a lot of questions for them and they definitely have a lot for us. Hardly any have had the opportunities we've seen so they're extremely interested in us. We then had the break time so we played volleyball with the kids. Each day, more kids seem to come and play, which is so great to see. After the break, it was time to teach a class on my own! I was still scared but had to do it! They giggled a lot at the One Fish, Two Fish story but they listened attentively and I was extremely thankful. The class turned out to be alright, but being perfectly honest it was stressful for me! I know it will get easier and it's been a great experience for putting myself out there, but whoa man. A week in and we're asked to teach classes by ourselves. I'm proud of myself for getting through. The last half of the class, we all met down in the courtyard and taught them to line dance. It was so much fun! Some picked it up but they had a hard time with the turn. Hopefully we can try it again. I survived! We got off school early so we were able to go up to the rooftop of the hotel where we played some crib, listened to music, and read in the sun. Such a relaxing afternoon. We ended it off with a swim in the pool and went out for dinner. THE best mexican food I've ever had. Oh. My. God. Delicious. Well to be honest, all the food we've had here has been unbelievable. So much flavour and the fruits and veggies are so fresh, plus you can tell everything is homemade. What a great day! Here are some pics I've missed uploading: