Monday evening:
I can’t believe it is only the start of the week! It feels like it should be Friday! I went to an Ecuadorian wedding at the weekend which was so much fun, but tiring! It was the daughter of the family I live with. It gave such an insight into the Ecuadorian culture, emphasising to me Ecuadorian time keeping when the bride turned up at 4:45pm for a 3pm wedding! She wasn’t the only late one… most of the guests had only just arrived at that time!
Sunday was a nice day at church, celebrating the churches birthday and an afternoon with the family. Monday came all too quickly! We had a lot of family staying with us over the past week and some of them were leaving to go home that day and I asked at what time. They were going at 11am so I reassured them I would be home by 10:30, during breaktime in school, to say goodbye. By the time I got home at 10:40 they had already gone. I was so upset. I don’t know why it had so much of an effect on me. I knew I probably wouldn’t ever see them again. The whole rest of the day the feelings of missing people were really close to the surface. I returned to school with tears in my eyes but you can’t help but smile when working with children, especially the special ones I am working with. Today was a really positive day for so many of them; achieving new things, being co-operative/doing what was asked of them or working well as a group. After lunch I set off to work in another school. I got a taxi as I was short of time and in hindsight, I think I was really rude to the driver… poor man! It really wasn’t his fault, I think I was just a bit sensitive and he caught some of the brunt of it! He didn’t know where the church/school was and he kept talking about something that I just didn’t understand. I did the whole, “say it slowly and loudly and hope he will understand thing” and kept repeating the name of the church! Fortunately I was with my friend and after trying to understand I just said to her “I don’t understand what he is saying” and she dealt with him calmly! I think he was new to the area, didn’t know where he was going and we ended up having a magical mystery tour of Santo… not what I wanted when I was short on time! Anyway, the afternoon was full of working with other children in another school and a set of twins in particular who have real potential. Their mum said they struggled to say their “r” and “l” sounds but once I heard them talking, I was so shocked. They don’t use any sounds except vowels! They say the right amount of syllables and use the correct intonation but that’s all. For example the word “carro” for “car” would be said as “ah-oh” I have a challenge on my hands to get them speaking but I am excited by that!
The day was rounded off with a swim in the recently cleaned pool (which doesn’t seem to happen often) and I carry on with the rest of my week!
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