Red Tan

Last night we taught our English classes and we had new experiences. We were split up in to different groups to help with certain classes. I helped Otto with the beginners class, Roxy and Breanne helped Lydia with the Elementary 1 class, Dave and Sarah helped with Elementary 2, and Laura helped Kevin with advanced. It varied from class to class about how many were in each. My class had 5, some had up to about 8 or 9, and the one had only 1!
The class I helped with had very little experience with English. We started off by Otto reading a paragraph from a story he had printed off and then letting them repeat him and we corrected them when they made a mistake in the pronunciations. After each read and we did another paragraph… my turn to teach!! Scary eh?! I had to write words on the board and pronounce them and each repeated. They were the difference between the letters ‘v’ and ‘b’. These letters are very hard for Spanish speakers to tell apart. I didn’t realize how hard it was to teach them. I loved it though. Later Otto told me that the students had commented about how it was hard to get used to my voice when they were used to Otto’s Spanish accent. I totally understood. I know what its like. Its just like us trying to speak Spanish. Hard!!! I had fun and that’s what I’ll be doing every Tuesday and Thursday for the time I’m here!!
After class, we had cookies and drinks set out for the students. We sat around and chatted with them. They love talking and they love asking questions. I have a notebook where some guys wanted to teach me things. The wrote things and talked in Spanish/English and tried to make us understand. It was tough and I do have notes to prove it!! I was given a website and was told to study and study!!! That’s my homework!! We had a lot of fun. We are learning so much and we have only been here 3 days!! Lots more to learn!!
One thing we have figured out here is that... it DOESN'T rain!! After being in Canada you would think that we would be ready for a break from rain and have sunshine... but I think my thoughts are beginning to change. I'm not a fan of rain all the time... but sometimes, I love to just see how God waters the earth and it gives you an excuse to relax inside and keep from going out into it. Here, its not that case. There is no rain and you don't have an excuse to sit inside.
Today we hit the beach for the first time and we enjoyed it. We packed our lunch and we headed out. We used so much sunscreen but it didn't seem to help or work for most of us. We all got a 'red tan', as we call it. We walked about an hour down to the beach and just hung out there... taking pictures, practicing our Spanish with some students of our English class, and just having fun by the water! Lunch here is the major meal so we always eat later then normal. Lunch is between 1 and 3 here… and then you just snack for supper. So when lunch time rolled around… we walked about another hour and a half to ‘Parque de amor’ which in English is ‘Park of Love’. It was breathtaking!! And as the name describes it… there was a lot of love in this park. We set under shade trees and watched others expressing love to each other.
We sat and ate and decided to head home. We were tired, hot, and out of energy. We had walked about 2 miles in the sun and we were exhausted! Thank God for water and cold showers!!