Friday August 22nd

Yesterday, I went on a religious retreat, like we do every Thursday, with 2nd graders. It was interesting and very different from the other retreats we had previously had because they were so much younger than the other kids we have taken. We spent a lot of time talking about the difference between right and wrong and trying to instill in the kids a basic sense of morality. It is interesting to note the amount of kids that come from broken homes. In this neighborhood it seems to be all too familiar. I am trying to be the best example possible, but I find it sometimes difficult to relate to the kids. Not simply because of the language barrier but also because I come from a phenomenal family and I have been blessed with having a functional loving family. We have a very busy next couple of days coming up, we have work tomorrow and also have to go pay the bills, which seems to be a bit more of an arduous task than in the States. Then on Saturday we are going up with the 10th graders to the mountains, which should be fun. But sometime this weekend we have to prepare for next weeks classes along with come meetings that we have. On Monday we have a meeting for the planning of the mission trip that the school goes on in January. I personally don’t have anything specific to do because I a) don’t have any musical or artistic talents and b) don’t have a mastery of the language so the jobs have been split between the rest of the people in the group. Then on Tuesday we (Brian, my roommate, Michelle, a good friends and also the last member of the old program, and I) are giving our spiritual journey reflections to a conformation group, in Spanish. So, that is one of my big tasks this weekend. It is weird to think that this upcoming Sunday it will already have been 4 weeks here. Time is just flying. I can remember like yesterday getting onto the plane to come here, but at the same time I have created good relationships here and I am starting to create relationships with the kids.
Today is Friday and i went to school and helped out with some of the classes but i spent a majority of my time setting up lesson plans for next week, because we are not going to have much time this weekend, becayse we are going up to the mountain with the 10th graders. So that should again be interesting. Being chaperones to High School functions was not something that i intended to be doing for a very long time. But later today i am going to play soccer with some of the other professors, which should be fun. Then we got invited to a going away party for the Juliens(two Canadian kids that have been here for as long as we have, i acutally taught both of them). But i think Brian and I are going to go to that so taht should be fun and interesting. Gotta say again that i love you all and hopefully this blog is giving a bit of insight into what i am doing.