Feel Loved, Eat Beans!

If you are wondering why you should feel loved, it's this: if I know you, and you know me, chances are I miss you. :) I hope you feel miserable for making me sad. Ha ha.

Anyways, yesterday I wrote about my culture shock "recovery." That was a wonderful thought, but it was slightly premature. For dinner tonight we had what looked like a thick hot chocolate. We'd had something similar previously and I was actually pretty excited. It was cold here in comparison to other days so a warm drink with chocolate as one of the ingredients was quite a deal. However, it didn't taste quite right. Half way through our drinks one of the girls asked us if we knew what it was. I really regret having asked. I soon found out that I was drinking something hot made of blended/boiled beans, powdered milk, water, sugar, and cloves. That would explain the thick texture of bean skins throughout the drink. Our sisters were impressed that we were drinking it and kept saying that we were African now instead of American, but I have to say that it was probably the most revolting thing I've eaten before. If you ever want to try it I could probably get you the recipe. ;)

Anyways, today was also a hard day in my 6th grade class. Mondays are always hard days because I teach four classes back to back and 6th grade was my third. I am embarrassed to even try and explain the complete chaos of my classroom, but try and understand that there was nothing I could do. The room looked like this: a girl and boy in a physical fight in one corner of the room; two more boys holding the door closed with a third locked outside; another boy refusing to attend class and swinging outside the window; not to mention the boy refusing to put back on his shirt. I had already taken away recess, two desks, and my Spanglish was not cutting it. I tried to take one boy to the principal's office but chasing him in circles outside was not improving my control of the class. I finally walked to the office alone and stood there looking completely defeated. One of the other teachers had a free period and was quick to help me. Thank God for Richard. He put back on the boy's shirt, re-situated the desks, retrieved my missing students, said some magic words, and class was back underway.

Now I just had to keep the class under control for the remaining 25 minutes. Easy right? My director randomly decided that it would be a good day to sit in on my class and evaluate my teaching style and progress with the students. Luckily, she arrived just as I had the class under control, but I don't know if I have ever felt so exhausted after a 30 minute class. It took all of my strength to walk out of the classroom. I'm already counting down my classes until the weekend. Just 12 more. I'll definitely need your prayers.

Unless by some fluke I change my mind, I know that I couldn't be a teacher for life. Ten days and I can only make it by counting down one day at a time. God help me. Give me the words. Saying "no mas" only works so many times. It would be great if I could talk to my students withouts spending minutes thinking of each sentence, and then still saying it wrong. But tomorrow is three weeks in a foreign land and I'm still alive. Perhaps a clothes size smaller from the small rations of food, but no new bug bites in a week and only 3 large spiders, 33 lizards, and 5 frogs.

Thank you God. Continue to keep us safe and relying on you. Amen

Ashley