Ecuador-bound: Diga

6-16-11

A good day for writing: clouds in the sky, nice breeze and time on my hands. We all had an early morning, as we had to be at the school at 8:10AM to teach English back to back. Today was more of a success. I have found that one-on-one learning or small group learning is best. I was working with a usual naughty boy today, but was convinced that if I spent a little more time with him separately, that he would be good. My theory was correct. I couldn’t believe how focused he was and how much he truly wanted to learn how to read English. I had him write the word and say the word as he was writing it. This seemed to work, because afterward he could say all the words. Also, we went around the room and wrote smiley faces on their work if they finished. This really motivated them, because they really wanted smiley faces (the simple things, right?) I was impressed by even the naughty kids who actually accomplished things in class. I think they are starting to respect us a little more, as we’ve been there for a few more days. One of the boys, who is a trouble maker, started giving me hugs today as well as asked me to play soccer with him and his friends :-) For lunch today, we were tricked into eating liver. The sauce that was with it was tasteful, so I didn’t notice it at first. However, one of the girls asked them (our host parents) if it was beef and they said yes. Someone else asked again, and they started laughing, saying it was liver. They just wanted us to eat it without us turning it down before we tried it I think…haha. Later in the evening, about an hour before sunset, another volunteer, John and I went out for a run on the beach. The tide was really high, so two of us ran barefoot, so as not to get their shoes wet. It was a good two mile run :-), but very difficult since our feet sunk into the sand a lot and we had to run through some waves as they came in. It’s a great feeling-- running barefoot in the sand, looking out into the ocean and hearing the waves crash. I can say that I don’t regret coming here ;-)