Last day of August... and have already learned sooo much!

Monday August 31, 2009

Today I woke up around 6am and the family was already up. The children were already doing their chores. I took a shower and practiced some more K’ekchi.
Off to school I went and met Kevina and Greg at the bus stop meeting place. They were late because they were quizzing the children before they went to school on their multiplication math problems.
When I got to the resource center Ms. Ginnie taught us about classroom management. We compared classroom and behavior management in schools in Belize and the United States.
After the session on education we had lunch. I went to the internet café and wrote back to the people that have sent me messages in email and facebook. I had a lot of catching up to do because I didn’t have the internet for about a week since I have been in Maya Mopan. Greg told me today that there is an internet café right over the bridge (q’a… that is the word for bridge in k’ekchi). Amy and I went to the internet café for about an hour, which cost 3 dollars. I then went home for lunch. I felt so bad because I was very late… I was supposed to be home at noon and I did not get home until 12:45p.m. My host mom, Mrs. Kus, was very worried about me. She sent her daughter Marah over to Ms. Carmelina to check where I was. No one was sure. So now I will make sure I will inform someone before I go back to use the computers. However, I did have a delicious soup and a craboo ideal for lunch… delicious!
Then I went back to the resource center to learn more K’ekchi. We started with a very fun game where one person from each team comes to the middle and Ms. Carmelina whisper the word in English and we had to find the K’ekchi word in K’ekchi. It was lots of fun! However, Greg and Kevina’s team won instead of mine and Amy. We then did exercises in the Peace Corps K’ekchi workbook.
After that session Kevina came over my host family’s house because she was locked out of her host family’s house. So we sat and chatted about lots of things, such as poisonous snakes and making tortillas.
Then Greg, Kevina, and I went to meet the chairman of Maya Mopan. On our walk there this little girl with no shirt on yelled and pointed right at us… hey you Gringos… I am getting my first taste of being a minority. Anyway, the chairman was very nice. He only spoke in K’ekchi to us. I said Ma ‘sa achool and sa inchool then Greg did all the questions asking for the interview. We were all taken back on how fast he spoke in K’ekchi. However, we liked the part where he said that what he wants and the community needs is a shelter in case of a hurricane. He said the schools are doing well. The village is building more schools and they are okay with that. After the meeting we asked Ms. Carmelina what he said and she said she would tell us first thing when we come back to the resource center in the morning. So Kevina and Greg and I went back to have dinner with our host family. Now I am going to begin my homework for tomorrow. I have to journal on classroom and behavior management and I have to do a section in my K’ekchi workbook! I keep practicing and practicing (however, I having such a horrible accent) even though I practice and practice. Ms. Carmelina keeps telling me to practice with my host family my pronunciation!!!

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This website expresses the views of Grace Boswell, who is entirely responsible for its content. It does not express the views of the United States government, the Belize government, the Peace Corps or any other institutions named or linked to on these pages.