2 birds and a banda

The kids can play

Pictures as promised from the parade. My students had about 5 songs that they played for the kilometer or so we had to march. They recently banned Tequila. I asked them if it was because of the theme of the song and they said, ¨nooooo...because we tried playing it at another festival and everyone messed up, so it´s banned.¨ Interesante. It was nice going out to the event with them, took me back to the Saturday ACI outings with the Jr/Sr Scholars (must I compare everything to Jr/Sr? yes, I can´t help it). The students were screaming to the bus driver to turn up the music and if the song sucked, they´d start booing. Some things are truly universal. Things that I am currently working on: translating icebreakers and bellringers into Spanish (do I really want to do this? It could be hell.); planning a session on study skills (because these kids do not study and I saw many cheating); trying to get to APROFAM to get ahold of those damn electronic babys (give me the baby); a recycling activity called Schools of the Future; and I have to plan out a 30 min activity for Monday...it is International Youth Day (although I think it is technically the 12th). That and much more. Ok, I just read something Perla posted about Bernie Mac dying and that makes me really sad...tear.

Books and villages

Hola a todos y todas, I am trying to start up a small school library as there exist no books in one of my schools. If you or anyone you know has Spanish books (not grammar books) that you could spare to donate, please hold them for me. I will probably be coming home for Christmas and can bring them back then. The books would be for middle to high school aged students; all topics, themes, genres are welcome. Or if you know of any Spanish book stores that I can bother for books. Also let me know. Moving on to other things...today was the feria of one of the towns where I am working so of course, I was all up in that piece marching with the band. The director had told me that he would be introducing me in front of all the teachers of all the schools that would be participating. I woke up at 5:30 to prepare a most inspiring speech that evoked Mrs. Clintons, it takes a village. It was so good. But alas, they didnt present me and the people were not able to be inspired by my words. It was deep, man. So deep. There will be a next time.

My castle and surrounding faraway lands

These arent the best pictures but you get the idea. My little town is completely flat but the surrounding areas are made up of hills. Every day I wake up and go get the water from a well in the backyard only to be greeted by a cow or buey. Every time, it never fails, I say out loud (but quietly)--What up cow, dawg? Then I start chuckling to myself.

Gastritis and gluttony

Originally, I was going to post pictures of where I live but apparently I need to install my camera software in order for it to work at this internet cafe. I will just fill you in on my weekend--best described as gastritis and gluttony. I threw up on Friday--thrice! after being sick every other day this week. The nurses think that I may have gastritis. Woohoo! I told Mom and she is trying to come up with all these reasons for why I got gastritis (It´s the water you are drinking!...No because I am drinking bottled water only. It´s because you don´t have running water!...I doubt that´s it. It´s the food you are eating...No, I am eating better at my new site than I was before yet I continue to lose weight.) I am going to blame it on worrying about Phillip and egg poisoning. I don´t think such thing exists (getting sick from seeing and eating too many eggs) but it makes me think of that radio contest where that lady died from drinking too much water. Last night, I had...eggs! for dinner...again! with a side of mystery meat (some kind of bologna thing with pieces of carrot and peas and who knows what else stuck in there). I think I am going to have to break it to my host family that I now hate eggs. Hate. Strong word and it most certainly applies here. To continue with this food theme, this weekend was Carmen´s birthday but it might as well have been mine because I tore it up. Mind you, I was throwing up all Friday night, decided that I could go out on Saturday to Xela and eat the following things (ice cream yogurt...twice; Indian food ...spicy!; Taco Bell...I know gross right?; crepes with bacon). The whole time I was thinking I shouldn´t be eating this. All these foods will probably make me sick. But they didn´t and they helped blanket (at least in my mind) the fact that I had eggs again for dinner...again.