How is this already week 3? Part of me is feeling like I can’t believe 2 weeks have gone by, and the other part is amazed that it’s only been 2 weeks because it seems like I’ve been here forever. Somehow though, waking up for the farm hasn’t gotten any easier. This morning was even worse because my legs are still incredibly sore from Saturday, I woke up with a crick in my neck, and I didn’t get to bed as early as I had hoped last night (typical).
Luckily, the farm wasn’t bad this morning. We sowed another corn field, so it wasn’t as labor intensive as hoeing or as icky as shucking. I actually think sowing is pretty fun. Sometimes though, the ground is so hard that it’s impossible to drive the machete in to make a hole. Then I basically put my entire body weight on it and try to wiggle the dirt loose. Anddd then I feel like a total loser because one of the guys is nearby in the same hard ground, and it doesn’t even slow him down. But all in all, it was a good morning at the farm!
The thing I was really worried about today was school. Since Maria left on Friday, someone needed to take over her P2 class. Nico and I basically had an hour long stare down last night trying to decide who had to switch classes because both of us wanted to keep P3/P4 but neither of us wanted to kick the other out. In the end, it seemed like it was somewhat assumed that I would switch, so I sucked it up and said okay.
Besides the fact that the kids are younger in that class, there are also usually way more of them. There were days when Maria had almost 20 kids! I can’t deal with that… She’s one of those people who just has a way with kids, and I’m absolutely not. Anyway, I put together a lesson plan last night and was feeling kind of okay about it until this morning when Avy woke up feeling horrible and asked if I could take the P1 kids as well. AHH!
I shifted my plans to focus more on just trying to keep the class under control rather than getting through all of the material I had prepared. I started them out with coloring while I attempted (and mostly failed) to learn their names. In English, I read them a story and we talked about the animals in the book. In Math, I had them solve some problems, and we went over them together. Yay! I survived. And it wasn’t really that bad. They behaved well, so that was definitely a big help.
The rest of the day was great! The power went out right after we got back from school, so Fernanda and I sat on the porch and just enjoyed the day. It was so nice outside, and the kids weren’t yelling their heads off so it was actually possible to relax. I think we sat out there for like 5 hours until dinner and then went back out afterwards to play cards.
I was planning to go to sleep early tonight, but of course that isn’t going to happen. It’s just a matter of time until I get sick.