sunday morning

the power was off all last night. it is not so hot right now so i barely noticed until i realized that i had slept until 8am. i have not slept that late in months. because the power is off the baracca’s cannot blare their music and for the first time in months, was not awakened by michael jackson. at the moment i am having my morning coffee. the fan is blowing. the power came on about 8:30 and i quickly rushed into the kitchen to put the electric kettle on. i cannot find my lighter and i am out of matches, after lighting candles when the power was out last night. so i knew that i could not put the kettle on the stove. the power came on just in time. i keep forgetting to buy matches. they never make the obvious shopping list. no clue where that lighter might be. need to find another one.

i have had some sort of sinus infection for weeks. i am on antibiotics now. i am starting to feel normal.

this week has been amazing in school. rodrigo is the success i knew he would be. the boys love him. the girls too. we have about 75% boys. many of them stay after class to talk to rodrigo and they will all sit and listen as long as we will talk. we are hoping that in this next two weeks we can get some photos and video footage for you. i am going to ask henrique if i can go home with him one day this week. i would love for you to meet his family. i have told you about him before. his father died christmas day. we are still waiting to hear about a huge potential business opportunity but making our plan B. i am going to go into town this week and buy our students “uniforms”. we will be setting them up with shadowing opportunities and they need something to show they are in our program and set them apart. i will be giving an english test this week too. i am trying to establish a system for teaching english to our kids. because we have a good many english speaking volunteers here at any given time, i want to get them involved. i want to create a checklist of sorts on each child. each student has a folder and in that folder i want to put a checklist of what they know and what areas the teacher can introduce to the student. i would then like to provide a variety of resources so that anyone can come in and have the tools that they need to teach any one of our students. that would just include instructions, example sentences, vocabulary and game ideas. i know it can be done. when i am home, i will be looking for more resources. we have a friend of Iris coming while i am gone to teach Character Development for two weeks. i think the timing is perfect and it is a vital part of our curriculum. i only regret not being here to learn from her. 

i went to the beach yesterday. i do not go often enough. it has maybe been a month. i have no idea how i could let that much time pass by. the beaches here are breathtaking. we went about 10am and i packed a straw bag of capalanas and a book and camera and those ugly Target water shoes. we perched on plastic lawn chairs. there used to be 8 there but now there are only 3. i am fairly certain i just stared at the water for at least an hour. i had to just sit and take in the view and didn’t want to be distracted by a Novel. i absorbed and soaked and watched. the water is at least 10 different shades of turquoise blue. the little wooden boats don’t seem real. there are women gathering small fish and snails and mollusks, men with large nets. they are working and i have a two month old edition Vogue magazine in my lap. i admire a Marc Jacobs handbag and i look back up at the women with the baskets on their heads. i am a stranger here. the bottle of pink nail polish on my toes costs more than she made this week. if she even has a job. just an observation and the thought that enters my head. and of course i would never pay full price for nail polish. i got it 75% off when i was with Laura at that hair salon in the mall in Kansas. i saw them in the window. Essie Polish 75% off. 

so now i am getting ready for church and by getting ready i mean writing this and thinking about which of my three skirts below the knee i want to wear to church and reminding myself to pack water and wondering how big the mud puddles are going to be after last nights thunderstorm.