Last Day of Summer School!

Posted on February 24, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

Can you believe it? Today was the last day of summer school! I’ll admit that part of me is a little sad, but a bigger part of me is excited for no more late nights of hot gluing antennae on 30 robots.

Our morning was relatively uneventful. I spent about an hour fixing a couple of the robots that we ran into trouble with yesterday, including the one that started smoking when we put batteries in. I’m still not really sure what happened with that, but after I switched out the battery holder, it started working fine. I’m happy to not question it anymore and instead just be pleased with the fact that it works and is potentially no longer a hazard. I say potentially because you really never know… Who knows what happened to it this time, so who’s to say that it’s not going to happen again?

A couple of butterflies and a spotless lady bug

Anyway, not my problem anymore! All of the kids took their things home, so I wash my hands of any responsibility for the well-being of the robots. I give it a week until everyone’s robots are completely destroyed from the kids handling them like they’re indestructible. On the contrary, they are quite destructible and have already managed to be a pain in the butt with all of the repairs we’ve had to make. Granted that has something to do with the quality of assembly when we first put them together, but that’s not the point. Point is, you need to be careful with these things, and the kids are anything but careful.

The room set up. Our tables are all the way in the back of the picture

Two of the kids who volunteered to talk about their robots

Okay I’m getting sidetracked. Back to business. Since it was the last day, there was a bit of a showcase in the afternoon before the parents took their kids home. All of the teachers put out/hung up their kids’ work from the program, and the students showed off some of the things they learned. The three older classes got up and recited the weekly Bible verses that they have been working to memorize, the oldest class did a dance that they learned from Madeleine (she’s been helping Ingrid with her class), and Debbie gave a bit of an explanation about what the mini-engineers course involved.

The cities looked so cool!! The parents were all taking pictures, and I don’t blame them because they turned out so well. Debbie and I also had an extensive photoshoot before the showcase started. The best pictures were the ones taken at street level that kind of make it look like you’re a tiny person in a cardboard city. The older class especially did an awesome job, even adding some stop signs, traffic lights, trees, light posts, and street names.

The most epic museum. Yes, broken CDs are giving the roof its shimmer

The stadium with chess piece fans in the bleachers

The little kid robots from the kit. Cute, right?

After the performances and such were over, everyone was invited to walk around and check out the work. We pulled apart the city models so that the kids could take their buildings home and handed out batteries so they could finally play with their robots. I also ended up fixing something like six robots which means that, inevitably, they’re all going to break again.
Endings are when you get all sorts of surprises. For example, the kids who thank you the most and give you hugs are the ones that you thought hated class and wanted nothing to do with you. I had some good moments with a few of the kids which was nice. It’s those things that make the whole teaching thing seem like slightly less of an overall bummer. Without a little bit of positive feedback, you’re left feeling drained and tired and wondering if it was even worth the effort. Between today and what Irma said about more kids saying that they want to be engineers when they grow up, I feel pretty good about the whole teaching experience.

The municipal building, compete with balcony, streamers, and glitter

Another thing… Time here moves so much more quickly than in Ghana. There’s nothing to mark the passage of time, like new volunteers showing up, and I definitely feel like I have more of a purpose here in what I’m doing. That’s a nice feeling (but I also makes the days go by even faster). It will be interesting to see what the rest of my time here is like! I know that there are a bunch of projects they want me to get involved with before I go, so I’m not worried in the least that I’m going to find myself without anything to do. It will just be a less routine/predictable something to do than it has been during the summer program. (Don’t even talk to me about how much time I have left here. It’s something I’m consciously choosing not to thinking about.)
I know I said that last weekend was going to be a real relaxation weekend, and it mostly was, but THIS weekend is the real deal! No Sunday evening lesson planning, no random class-related tasks that need to be accomplished. We’re having an actual WEEKEND! Wish me luck… I might not know what to do with myself with so much leisure time.

More Robots and Cities!

Posted on February 21, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. I don’t remember a lot of the details, but I do remember being in a car with my mom, driving up a very steep road. When I say steep, I’m talking probably an 80-degree incline. We were halfway up when these massive spools of wire started flying down the hill towards us, and we avoided every one of them until the very last which left a foot-long gash in our back left tire. What does this dream mean? Who knows? But if we’re taking guesses, I’m going to say that those giant spools were probably filled with solder wire, and I’m officially having robot-inspired nightmares.

Explaining/demonstrating the soldering process

It’s amazing how wrong you can be when you take a guess at how long something is going to take. These robots are one of those times. Our time estimate: 3 classes. The actual: hahahahahahahaha. TBD. We got the kids as involved as possible in the assembly process, but some things, like the soldering, are not in the scope of things we’re comfortable letting the kids do. If we had only three kids in the class and could fully supervise and give them some training, maybe it would be a different story. With these circumstances, though, Debbie and I are doing all of the soldering. That led to a late night on Friday and another late night yesterday as we tried to get the C4 kids’ robots ready for their shells to be glued on today. We also had to do some jerry rigging to get the antennae to stay in place (it involves a complex system of dental floss – the strongest thread known to man – and hot glue), and the method we came up with was way too precise for most of the kids to handle (a lot of them are still at the age where detail work is a challenge. As architect and engineer, Debbie and I are trained in painstaking detail work).

Aside from the extra hours yesterday, things went very well! We only have 2 classes with each older group this week, and we need to assemble our cities!… while also finishing the robots… Yesterday, we reviewed the city project, did some city planning by deciding where we wanted to put each building, and split into teams to paint/name streets, make stop signs, traffic signals, trees, and street lights, and glue the buildings into position. Everything is starting to look really cool! We had the C4 kids again today, and their city is almost completely finished. The trees, street signs, and other details got installed today. I’m excited about the work the kids have done!! I think they have a couple things left to finish, and hopefully Ingrid will give them some time before Friday to wrap everything up.

The last robot steps are to glue on the shells that the kids decorated and test to make sure everything is functioning correctly. It was a lot of fun to see the kids play with their robots for the first time and how excited they got when the robots ran into walls and turned around like they’re supposed to (I was also excited because it seems almost inevitable that someone’s robot out of the 29 we made shouldn’t work… but fingers crossed because at this point, we’re still doing okay). At the risk of sounding like all I ever say is that everything is “great!”/“awesome!”/“so cool!”… the robot shells that the kids made are all of the above. I’ll work on some new adjectives, but for now, I’m going to back up my claims with photo evidence so that you can all agree with me.

The C3 kids have one more class on Thursday, and they still need to finish up the details of their city. They’ve done some awesome (yeah, I know) work so far, though. Even the kids who seemed completely disengaged produced great buildings! Debbie and I also have to finish up their robot soldering and antennae installations before class so that they can glue on their caps. Thank goodness for class-less Wednesdays!

One of the girls working on her “stores”, complete with window displays, a swingset, and little puffball people with sequin eyes.

Finally, this afternoon was our last class with each of the younger classes. Julie deserves a round of applause (and a paid vacation) for helping me out every week. We started in her class (2-3 year olds) and decided to do another lego day because our creativity was wearing thin, and we had to mentally prepare ourselves for what we were doing in the C2 (4-6 year olds) class. No matter though… the kids loved it and stayed engaged for an entire hour. You count it as a win when you have seven 2-3 year olds doing ANYTHING (besides freaking out and trying to escape) for more than 20 minutes.

Making a hand-wall to keep the robot from falling onto the floor

Laughing about their three robots getting stuck together

With the C2 class, we were making robots! Nothing to the extent of the ones we did with the two oldest classes, but it was complicated enough. Debbie found these kits online (https://www.teachersource.com/product/scooterbots/electricity-magnetism?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=bots) which are nice and basic. In hindsight, it would be easy to get the parts for these on your own and make them for a lot cheaper, but it was nice to have something that we didn’t have to think about. Forty minutes and a lot of troubleshooting later, we had 10 working scooter bots! The kids loved them! I thought they were kind of dumb because they just vibrate and wiggle around, but even I have to admit that they’re fun. If I was 6, I would be pumped about them. After finishing the construction, they spent the rest of class running around and finding different places to play with their robots.
I may be exhausted, but I feel really good about the last couple days! Everything is coming together, and I think I understand why people keep teaching. There are some tough days, but when you get to see your kids grow and show them something new and exciting, it’s super rewarding.

You know what else? This is my favorite thing: Irma said that a ton of the kids are saying they want to be engineers now. How cool is that?!

More Robots

Posted on February 17, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

If I never have to solder another connection, it will be too soon. The fact that I’m going to have to do it again on Monday means that it’s DEFINITELY happening too soon. I’m going to have robot-filled nightmares tonight.

Measuring a wire before cutting and stripping it.

Next week is the last week of summer school, so we really have to get this robot project wrapped up so that we can finish the city project too. Even though the robots aren’t finished yet, I’m happy with the progress we’ve made, and I don’t think we could have possibly worked any faster than we did. There’s just too much to explain, and every single step has to be almost fully supervised because they’re using tools and are way too likely to jump ahead and mess something up if you don’t keep an eye on them. Today, all of the groups were finally at the point where they were ready to start soldering, and there was nothing we could do to put it off any longer.
I would love for the kids to have a chance to try to solder, but I don’t know that we’re going to have the time for that. With all of the explanations and safety stuff we have to do, there’s no way that we would be able to get through all of the kids. Maybe we’ll try to at least let each of them do one connection so that they have the experience… And maybe not… We’ll have to just play it by ear and decide if we think they can handle it.

We had class with the older kids in the morning, and it was a bit chaotic. I always expect the younger class to be somewhat out of control, but not this class. Someone must have been giving out pixie sticks at the door when they got to school today or something because they were all over the place. Debbie gave them the whole talk about how soldering is dangerous and the iron is very hot and they need to listen and be careful, and then as soon as we started working, the whole class was crowded around the table and touching things and stressing both of us out. She basically told them that if they couldn’t behave, they weren’t going to get to work on their robots anymore. That did the trick, at least enough to make it through the end of class without anyone getting a burn.
The younger kids were in the afternoon, and working with them was like something out of a dream (for the most part, excluding the one girl who was pouting instead of participating because “this is a boy project”. I won’t even tell you how I felt about that comment. I’m sure you can imagine). They were all so calpm, they listened and followed directions, and they did a great job. Vanessa must be working some magic on them because their behavior today vs. the first week of summer school is like having a completely different group of kids. I still think that part of it is the excitement of the robots (kids keep asking when they’re going to get to work on their robots again), but part of it is absolutely also them being much improved in general.

Debbie, finishing up the last robot of the night.

The kids got all of their wires cut and stripped, and we started soldering them during class. We got through most everyone in the afternoon group (which is only half of the class, keep in mind), and after all of the kids left, Debbie and I decided to keep on going to finish up the connections so that next week can just be putting the finishing touches on. That was the most exhausting part of the day. All I wanted to do was snack and eat dinner, and we didn’t end up eating until 8PM.
I’m falling asleep while typing again, so I’ll do you a favor and wrap things up before my writing really starts to tank. Hooray for Friday, and hooray for weekend days when you can actually sleep in!

Bear Boats

Posted on February 14, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much the team week threw me off. I’m currently feeling a little stressed and overwhelmed, and I was trying to understand what is different about this week that has me feeling that way more than usual. I think that it’s partly because I didn’t accomplish much of anything last week since we were so busy, and now I have an extra week’s worth of things on my to do list. The other part of it is that I’m in the planning stages of a few different things (including my trip to Machu Picchu before I leave Peru, some stuff for my time in Armenia, and some randoms), and that always gives me a feeling of unrest until the planning is finished or at least underway. No need to worry about me though… I’ve done a re-write of my to do list, and that’s making me feel a bit better. Now I need to get to crossing some things off!

Robot construction in progress! Debbie has been making the kids wear safety goggles even when they’re not doing anything that even remotely requires them. It makes them look like they know what they’re doing though, doesn’t it?

Otherwise, things are going well! We had our second robot class with the oldest kids this morning, and the excitement of making robots hasn’t worn off yet (thank goodness!). The half of the class we worked with today hadn’t even started their robots yet. We got them through the entire assembly process, and they had time to get started on cutting and stripping the wires to prepare them for soldering. They all did a great job with that, and I was excited because I want the kids to do as much for themselves as possible. The older class is definitely capable of doing most of the work with just a little guidance. Soldering will happen next class, and hopefully we can figure out a way to get them involved in that as well without having any safety issues. I think they can handle it, especially if they keep behaving as well as they have been. They’re taking this project really seriously.

Spaghetti, chicken, yuca, and carapulcra.

Lunch today was spaghetti, yuca (which is apparently the same as or similar to cassava… which I spent all of my time in Ghana not knowing what it was – even though we had it at the farm and I planted some – and too lazy to look it up), chicken, and carapulcra. Carapulcra is a Peruvian stew that probably varies dramatically depending on who makes it and where you are. From what I could gather while eating it, Delia’s carapulcra consists of potatoes, sauce that I couldn’t identify even if I tried, pieces of chicken (watch out for stray bones), garlic, and I have no clue what else. I know, that description couldn’t possibly be more unhelpful. All I can say is, I’m no food connoisseur, so that’s the best I can do. In summary, it was pretty good, even though I was sure I was going to choke on a hidden chicken bone.

Julie’s class loading their boats with bears.

Tuesdays are little kid engineering afternoons, so Julie and I teamed up to make aluminum foil boats with the two youngest classes. It’s questionable how much the kids actually did in her class (the 2-4 year olds) vs. how much we did for them, but it kept them interested for close to an hour, so that’s all that really matters in my book. Each kid got a piece of foil and as much tape as they needed, and after they finished, they put their boats into a tub of water and loaded them with these little plastic bears we found in the supply closet. Julie even fit in some teaching about how the bigger boats with higher walls held more bears and got the kids to compare the numbers of bears that each boat held to see which boat worked the best.

In the slightly older class (4-6 year olds), there was a bit more chaos, but the kids actually built their own boats (some with a little help from us). They had way too much fun splashing around in the water, but somehow we survived and the kids possibly enjoyed it and learned something? We’ll just say they did. None of you were there, so I can make things up like that. Let the records show that class today went perfectly according to plan and the kids were totally under control and engaged and they built fabulous aluminum foil boats and now they all want to be engineers. Wow! We did a great job, huh?

Robotics Class!

Posted on February 13, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

We started the robot project today! It went so much better than I was hoping for, and thank goodness for that because my expectations were incredibly low. We had the oldest kids (C4) in the morning, and it was nice to have a chance to figure out the best process and work through some of the kinks while having a more controlled and engaged class.

I didn’t take very many pictures because I was mostly running around and trying to help different kids with the assembly, but here’s one of the two that I managed to snap.

We decided that the best approach was to split the class in half and have one group working with us on the robots while the other group watched a robot-related movie (today’s pick: Wall-E). Things went extremely slowly in the morning, and we didn’t get nearly as far as I thought we would (shocking, I know. One of the hardest parts of teaching is managing your own expectations of what you’ll be able to complete in a day). We wanted to get all of the assembly finished for all of the kids in the class, but we only managed to do it for half of them. We’re going to need to alter our plans a little if we want to have a chance of finishing these things on time. Good thing we have those flex periods next week!
The process went a bit more smoothly with the younger kids (C3, Vanessa’s class of 7-9 year olds), and we were shocked by how well-behaved the kids were. Her class especially is at that age where they’re usually running all over the place and kind of out of control, but today they were waiting patiently for instructions and did an incredible job of listening!

How cool does this look? There’s something about electronics and wires that makes anything look impressive. As soon as you have some wires in front of you, it looks like you mean business.

I think that a big part of the reason for the good behavior is that all of the kids are super excited about this project. When we showed them the demo of our robot, they all got wide-eyed and were clearly pumped about the fact that they were going to make the same thing. Even the kids who act like they’re too cool for school were getting excited. Hopefully this good behavior lasts the entire time that it takes to make the robots because this isn’t exactly a quick process, and having a bunch of kids running around and screaming would make it about a million times more painful. All in all, I’m very happy about how things went, and I can’t wait to see how the robots turn out!
In other news, I’m falling asleep at the computer again, so please excuse me if anything I wrote makes zero sense because it probably happened when I was asleep. I think I caught all of them, but my brain isn’t functioning quite well enough to go back through and process everything. I need to see if I can find time to hibernate this weekend.

Robot!

Posted on February 10, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

**This is from yesterday, but I literally fell asleep writing it.

THE ROBOT WORKS!!! This is BEYOND exciting news!! To sum it up really quickly, Tony got the idea that Debbie and I should teach a robotics class, and we gave in slightly and agreed to do one robot project in our class. We found an instructable online that doesn’t require any programming (because that makes things WAY more complicated) and decided that was going to be our project. We brought the motors, wires, switches, and battery holders from the States, figuring that the rest of the parts would be easy to find in Peru.

That was a bit of a mistake… We have managed to find the essential parts and pieces, but it certainly hasn’t been easy. We eventually tracked down a soldering iron, flux, and solder, but then we found out that the solder was too thick. Debbie bought some thinner solder this morning, and that has made all the difference. We also bought sheet metal here, which they didn’t have at the two big hardware stores we shop at, so instead we were directed all over Chilca to this construction supply warehouse where we bought a piece of sheet metal that is at least 20 times bigger than what we need.
Anyway, everything finally came together today, and we finished assembling our robot! We were having soldering issues which were quickly resolved after buying thinner solder. Now it works!! And thank goodness for that because I wouldn’t know what to do to troubleshoot if it hadn’t. The basic description of the robot is that it goes straight, and when it runs into something, it turns itself and keeps going. AND OURS ACTUALLY DOES THAT!! (You can watch a video of it on my Instagram @larakaiserian… If you’re on a computer, there’s a link on the right sidebar. The internet is too slow to directly upload it here.) Debbie and I are ecstatic, even though we still have some logistics to figure out, because we didn’t have a backup plan. No problem though because it worked!!

The rest of the day was pretty cool too. This morning, the team went into Chilca, got split up into groups of two or three, and had a shopping list of items that they needed to find. All of the Spanish speakers (myself included actually) were assigned to groups and told not to intervene unless someone was in desperate need of assistance. It’s a valuable exercise because it helps to give the group an idea of what it’s like to be in a situation where you’re completely out of your element and trying to figure things out without speaking the language. It definitely required some creativity (and charades skills) and confidence to go up to people and sound like an idiot while trying to find your things. If anything, the whole exercise made me realize that I know a lot more Spanish than I thought. I would have easily been able to ask shopkeepers about the things on our list. The groups all did well, and I was impressed with how willing they were to just go for it.

The afternoon was filled with more vinifan-ing notebooks. I’m getting good at it and have my pace down to a science. In about four hours this afternoon, I wrapped 15 notebooks that needed paper and plastic coverings and 10 that only needed plastic. That means, I did 40 wraps in 4 hours, 10 wraps each hour, or 1 wrap every 6 minutes. I had previously estimated my pace at 5 minutes per wrap, and I think that might still be correct because I probably spent about 10 minutes per hour doing other things like helping people, organizing notebooks, cutting paper and plastic in bulk for everyone to use, etc. Exciting because I now know my exact pace… discouraging because at that rate, it would take me close to one eternity to finish all of the notebooks… hopeful because the team is still here, and anything they get done is less for me to do. In conclusion, sometimes it might be better to know less.

The Beginning of Kid City

Posted on February 2, 2017April 27, 2020 by Lark

Time moves incredibly quickly here. I wake up, I blink, and it’s time for bed. That’s a good thing though, right? That means I’m keeping busy at least. Ha… as if that’s something I was worried about. The fact that I go to bed every night with a list of things to do the next day is enough to prove to myself that I have plenty to do. No complaints about that though! It’s nice to feel useful.

This isn’t a great picture (because I took it from the parking garage so there wasn’t much choice), but you can see enough. I love how they build houses and buildings all over the hills and mountains here. It looks super cool! I don’t completely understand how you get anything to your house, but that’s beside the point.

I didn’t write yesterday because I was exhausted, and nothing very exciting happened. Debbie and I went shopping to get food and supplies for the team that’s coming this weekend. Six hours and 230 eggs later, we were back at Esperanza de Ana, nearly ready to collapse… and then we had to prep for class today. So yeah, needless to say, I didn’t really feel like staying up even later to write something.

I’m falling into a nice pattern of life. I love routine, and that part of me is thriving here. I wake up around 6:30AM, and by 9AM, I’ve already: either gone for a run (MWF) or just vegetated in bed for a little, spent time reading my Bible/reflecting/praying, eaten breakfast, and gotten ready for the day. From 9-9:30AM, we have community worship (me and the missionary staff – Tony, Jim, Debbie, and Julie), and after that, the day is nonstop.

Debbie and I usually have some prep work to do from 9:30-11AM, class from 11AM-1PM, I help with lunch at 12:30PM, lunch is from 1-1:30PM, prep again from 1:30-2PM, class again from 2-4PM, pull myself together from 4-6PM (more prep/other things I need to get done), dinner from 6-7:30PM, and then maybe work a little more/practice my Spanish (I have a lot of children’s books in my room right now)/journal/blog. And then I go to sleep for what feels like 10 seconds, wake up, and do it again.

Last night we had to cut some foam board for class today. It reminded me of late nights in studio in college. It’s a little funny that Debbie and I can totally relate because our experiences were so similar, but our majors had such a rivalry in school.

Today we thankfully only had a morning class, C3 with Vanessa. The kids are starting their first big project, making a “kid city”. We started off the class with some origami to get the kids thinking in 3D. We weren’t sure how it would go, especially since this class can get a little out of control, but the kids were into it! They got so excited when we finished and they all had little foxes that they used to nibble on each other’s ears.

After that, we transitioned back into talking about cities. We listed out some building types again and had the kids draw numbers to find out what building type they had. In an attempt to spark some creativity, we pulled together a few of our favorite/wacky buildings to show to the class. We don’t want them all making buildings shaped like boxes, but for some of them, that’s the only kind of building they’ve seen. It will be interesting to see what we end up with!

Another Day of Capturing Escaping Toddlers

Posted on January 31, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I think Tuesdays might be the most exhausting day of the week. I have 4 hours of classes on Tuesdays, which is also the case on Mondays and Fridays, but Tuesday afternoon includes the two little kid classes (C1 2-3 years and C2 4-6 years). I’m wiped and really need to get to bed, so I’m going to keep this short(er) and put in a few more pictures.

The morning class was with C4, Ingrid’s kids. We had them do the same activity as the C3 kids yesterday, making their own city “maps” and including a bunch of different building types and other things that make up a city (roads, rivers, bridges, walls, etc). The kids have been so awesome with all of the activities we’ve done so far. They’re being creative and producing some really cool stuff. I’m excited to see what they create in the coming weeks, once we start building models and doing more interesting projects.

This was one of the more detailed ones in the class. How cool is that??

Lunch today was one of my favorites so far, Ají de Gallina. Debbie and I met once in the States when she was home for the holidays to talk about our class, and she made a Peruvian dinner… yup, you guessed it – Ají de Gallina. That was my first exposure to Peruvian cuisine, and I think it might have a special place in my heart because of that (and also because it’s good). Here’s an attempt at an explanation… I’m going to try to get this right. There’s a bed of rice and lettuce, a thick sauce on top that is made up of chicken that has been boiled and shredded plus some ground yellow pepper and other things, a hard-boiled egg, and potatoes. I don’t know how to describe it beyond that, so the picture is just going to have to be enough.

The sauce looks a little weird, but just trust me when I say it’s good!

After lunch, Julie and I attempted to wrangle the little kids. We decided to do an activity with crayon rubbings of different objects to explore texture. Yes, I know… not the most “engineering” like, but it’s hard to find stuff that will entertain the kids in this age group. For the youngest group, we just showed them what to do, dropped a bunch of objects on the table, and helped them scribble all over their papers. For the older kids, we drew shapes on the papers, had them do the different rubbings inside the shapes, and then cut them out and made a picture. Shockingly, this managed to amuse them for a full hour, and some of the kids got really excited about it, running around trying to find other objects in the room that they could use for cool textures. Nice! Today was definitely busy, but at least it was a busy day with lots of successes.

The fact that this many of them are at the table is a miracle.

I couldn’t get over how well they were doing! Very engaged and attentive!

More Bricks and Maps

Posted on January 30, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

I can’t believe it’s only Monday. The whole “work every day” thing is starting to mess with my head to the point where I have no idea what day of the week it is anymore. It’s like I’m back in college again, and that’s an experience I vowed to never repeat. When we finally get to a day when I have nothing scheduled, I’m going to need to do some hardcore vegetating (preferably on a couch with a blanket and snacks) to make up for all of this go go going.

The winning tower. It was exactly my height 5′-7″ (170 cm), and I was terrified that it was going to fall on me when I was measuring it.

The kids doing a team building activity where the ground is lava and you can only stand on the bricks to get from the start to the finish.

We had Ingrid’s group, the oldest kids, for class this morning. Debbie had to bail on me to work on a time-sensitive project, so it was just me and Ingrid trying to manage the class. That’s great, except that Ingrid and I have some communication issues (aka she only speaks Spanish, and she speaks really quickly which makes it even harder for me to comprehend). Debbie explained some things to Ingrid ahead of time, but we still had to work out a few kinks during class. That consisted of Ingrid asking me things in Spanish, me squinting at her like I was brainless, her repeating herself, me responding with something that may or may not actually be relevant, her giving me a weird look, and me resorting to miming and charades (luckily, I’m a master of charades). To say that things went smoothly would be an outright lie, but I think I can honestly say that things went okay. The kids finished all of the challenges way more quickly than anticipated which left us with a bunch of extra time at the end, and we just gave them some free time to play until lunch.

Working on his map… Check out those road lines!

After lunch, we were back with Vanessa’s kids. Thankfully, Debbie was back. We talked about what kinds of things there are in cities (building types, roads/parks/plazas, rivers/hills/mountains, etc), looked at some examples of cities around the world (in video and photo formats… never have I ever before watched so many drone videos), and had the kids draw their own “maps”, including some of the building types we talked about, plus roads and a city border. Some of them took a little coaxing to get involved in the activity, but for the most part, they did a great job and came up with some cool drawings. One kid drew his dream beach house on one side of the paper and his city on the other, with a road connecting the two. Another kid got so detailed that he even put yellow lines in the middle of the roads.

I was feeling pretty wiped after classes, but instead of having the usual free time before dinner, we had a meeting (Tony Kay, Jim, Julie, Debbie, and I) to talk about the service team that’s coming down next week. Esperanza de Ana, like many other international ministries, gets teams coming in from the US for weeklong service trips. I really appreciate the way those trips are approached by the team here. Often, weeklong trips are not very successful at utilizing the skills of the team members and filling a real need of the ministry. Here, everyone puts a lot of thought into how the team members will spend their time. They take an inventory of skills before making a plan and then try to come up with projects that are necessary and utilize people’s talents.
That’s all beside the point though. The point is, we all have a lot of extra things to do this week and weekend, plus next week, in order to make the whole process go smoothly. My biggest responsibility is cooking for the team. Luckily, since Delia (the chef) is here during the week, that only consists of one dinner and making scrambled eggs in the morning. I can definitely handle that.

For now though, I need to get to bed. If I’m going to survive the next two weeks, I have to take advantage of every opportunity to rest.

Sunday Work Day

Posted on January 29, 2017March 14, 2019 by Lark

It’s starting to seem like we have a seven-day work week here. I don’t think there’s been a single day since the very first day that I didn’t do something work related. I’m happy to feel like I have plenty of things to do here and am being useful, but at some point, I’m going to need a day off. For now though, everything is good!

It is somewhat of our own doing because our work on Sundays has been class prep for the week, but there’s just too much to do the other days. I am definitely understanding the first-year teacher struggle of having to plan your curriculum for the first time and start from scratch. Thank goodness I have a co-teacher! It makes a HUGE difference to have someone to bounce ideas off and to know that you don’t have to come up with everything yourself.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Today wasn’t a work day from the very beginning, at least. We started out the day by going to a new church in Lima that Debbie wanted to check out. It’s a Christian and Missionary Alliance church, which is the same alliance that my church at home (Citylight) is a part of. I liked it there, but I did have a WAYYY harder time understanding what the pastor was saying. He spoke much more quickly than the pastor last week, and I’d have to put my comprehension at 50% at best.

One of the breaches we drive by on the way to and from Lima. I love the big rocks out in the water.

By the time we got back from church and grocery shopping, it was about 2:30, and Debbie and I took a little time to pull ourselves together before sitting down to figure out our classes for the week. We came up with a general plan for the week first and then made a detailed outline for the class we have tomorrow. We’re talking about urban planning and building massing this week, and the kids are going to use all of their newfound knowledge of maps and cities to create a kid city for their first big project.
It took us about four hours to come up with a plan and gather the materials that we’re going to need. Totally exhausting. Fingers crossed all this planning means that things will go smoothly in class!

The neighbors are blasting music AGAIN tonight. Debbie said that last night’s party went until 5AM! The only thing making tonight slightly better is that it’s Peruvian music rather than the party/rage/electronic dance mix playlist they were using last night. I think I’ll be able to convince myself to fall asleep relatively quickly even with the extra sound (my eyes are trying to close already, so I think we should be good).