chairs equal danger

Time is going by so fast here. The weeks are starting to fly by, unlike in the beginning when time was dragginggggg. Everyday I have something to do whether it be something planned for training or something I'm doing on my independent project stuff. I can't believe it's February. The crazy thing is that this Sunday we all leave for a week for what's called FBT (field based training) where we will be going to sites of volunteers in our program and checking out how they live and seeing all different aspects of the program. While there we also have to give workshops and lessons to some teachers and students, which I think will be fun. I'm gonna be in a town called Huehuetenango, which is about 8 hours away by car, at least that's what they told us. I'm going with 7 other trainees. It will be nice to see something new, be in a new town, do different things, and see how these volunteers are getting by. There are also some Mayan ruins up there in a town called Zacaleu and we're gonna be checking those out so I'm stoked for that! 

Today I gave my very first charla, or lesson, to a class as part of my independent project. I am working with a class at the school in Cerro Niño (I spelled it wrong in my last post, oops). It is one class but it has both second and third grade in the class. It's really difficult having two grades together. The first time I went to observe, the teacher ended up asking for my help because when she's working with one grade, she leaves the other grade to do an activity, which means they just fool around the whole time. I can tell the teacher gets easily frustrated but who wouldn't? These kids have NO CLASS MANAGEMENT set in place for them. This may not seem like a very big deal but oh how it is! The kids get up, talk whenever they want, don't know to raise their hand, all talk at the same time, just get up and talk to the teacher whenever they want something, it is purely chaotic. So today I gave an hour lesson with another PCT named Allison. The topic was the five senses. It went well all in all but it took a lot of discipline and reminding them to raise their hands, to not shout out answers, to listen, to pay attention. It was tough. Another big problem was that the second graders don't know how to read yet and so when we would write stuff on the board only the third graders could participate. It's hard getting across to both grades when only one can read. It was still fun though and the kids are really cute and love to give hugs! I'm still working on the stove project for them. I want to talk to one other organization and find out how much they charge for the stove that way I can propose two options for the school. Once they decide we can go ahead and ask the municipality, or mayor essentially, if they will fund it. Also, good news! The other school I had mentioned earlier on called Cambiando Vidas, the NGO one, has verified that they are interested in the World Map project we proposed to them. I don't even remember if I mentioned this last time but Peace Corps does a project in which we can go to schools that don't have any maps and we offer to paint them a large world map on a wall in the school. We also give them lesson plans for the teachers to use with the students utilizing the map. So I thought this project would be good for Cambiando Vidas because I did not see a map when I was there. They loved the idea and I'm gonna get to do it with a few other PCTs. We're planning on starting right away once we get back from FBT in a week. I'm eral excited about that!

Another update I have is that I almost seriously hurt myself last Saturday. I was standing on a chair in my room at about 8:45 pm trying to kill a mosquito that was on my ceiling. It's bad enough that I hate killing bugs and feel terrible when I do it but this time I was standing to close to the edge of the chair and my chair tipped over. I fell off the chair obviously, which may sound funny, but my floor is hard concrete and tiles. I came crashing onto the left side of my lower back and then my head proceeded to fly back and hit the ground. It hurt so bad. I thought I broke either my neck or back. Luckily, I was fine. I got up and was in a lot of pain but nothing serious happened to me thank God. I think I gave myself a mild concussion and some pretty large bumps and bruises. I'm feeling better now, my back and neck are still a bit sore but nothing I can't deal with. I think I gave myself bad karma from all the bugs and spiders I've killed in my room. I'm terrified of spiders and bugs though so I don't know what to do. I've stopped killing bugs for the time being and simultaneously they have also seemed to frequent my room less. Note to self: don't stand on chairs without supervision. I am clearly not capable of doing so without injuring myself. Until next time, much love...