Dude, May is coming!

Alrighty folks, it's been a while! Last time I wrote I was still a trainee and very much looking forward to becoming an official volunteer. Now it's official! All 8 of us made it through the long "exciting" process that was training.

During training I was going into town about 3-4 times/week which meant I was not in my community but instead, sitting in a classroom. Now, I am finally in my schools full time! I am very excited at this point. Like I mentioned in previous entries, I am at 3 schools. At the 2 in Gouyave, I am doing pretty much the same things at both right now, administering a reading assessment so we establish groups and to have a baseline of where the kidos are starting at. While this seems necessary, holy cow is it long and boring. Asking the same ?s and doing the same activities all day gets old quick. I have tried to find ways to entertain myself, like inventing games to go along with different areas of the assessment... however, the excitement only goes so far ;) Oh well, only a few more weeks of this (I HOPE!)

On a more exciting note, I taught my first recorder class today. I had no idea how many kids were interested but about 20 showed up. I think that number sounds about right. I was picturing like 50 kids showing up and having to listen to 50 3rd, 4th and 5th graders play recorder. Not looking good. They were actually really well behaved too! I guess I had worst case scenario playing in my head.

At my 3rd school I am doing MMMUUUUSSSSIIICC!!!!!!!! Im a little excited about this. I am going to be leading 4 music therapy session one day a week and also teaching 1-2 of the current teachers how to use music as a therapeutic tool. I really am enjoying this because I am teaching not just the students, but the teachers too. The biggest point I want to get across is that when the kids are in music, let them be more independent. It is possible to adapt the material to them if it seems to be too challenging or whatnot. Holy over prompting mania! But like quite a few things here, there are a handful of challenges. We held the sessions outside last week as to not disturb the other kids working but that meant no boundaries, no chairs, so the kids were either running free in the field or swarming my guitar, and rain is never really good for a guitar. I'll keep you posted on this adventure for sure.

Two weeks ago we had our swearing in ceremony. It was cool because now we are volunteers but goodness do some people have a lot to say. Or maybe it just felt super long because I was excited to go CELEBRATE. Either way, I got my patch. Hah

This past weekend ended up being quite the eventful one! One amazing thing after another. It started off with turtle watching in Sauteurs. We all took a bus up to Sauteurs, a town at the northern most part of the island where one of the other volunteers lives. They made enchiladas and homemade chips and salsa and I got to help by grating the cheese! Yay! Around 9 or so we headed out to the beach. We took 2 car trips to get everyone there but once we were all there we only had to wait a little while for the fun to begin. At first they saw some baby leather-back sea turtles in a bucket after just hatching and we got to see them make their first plunge into the sea. Oh life. Then, not too long after, they called us down where a massive mama turtle was laying her eggs. I completely reset my watch at some point in the night so Im not exactly sure how long it took her but I would say about an hour or more to lay 26 eggs and 90 something yolks. It was the kind of thing you see on the Discovery channel. Very cool.

Saturday afternoon I participated in my first Hash. A hash is a mixture of athleticism and sociability, hedonism and hard work, a refreshing escape from the nine-to-five dweebs you're stuck with five days a week. Hashing is an exhilaratingly fun combination of running, orienteering, and partying, where bands of harriers and harriettes chase hares on eight-to-ten kilometer-long trails through town, country, and desert, all in search of exercise, camaraderie, and good times.
Hashing began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1938, when a group of British colonial officials and expatriates founded a running club called the Hash House Harriers. They named the group after their meeting place, the Selangor Club, nicknamed the "Hash House." Hash House Harrier runs were patterned after the traditional British paper chase. A "hare" was given a head start to blaze a trail, marking his devious way with shreds of paper, all the while pursued by a shouting pack of "harriers." Only the hare knew where he was going . . . the harriers followed his clues to stay on trail. Apart from the excitement of chasing the hare and solving the clues, reaching the end was its own reward . . . for there, thirsty harriers would find a tub of iced-down beer.

Alright, so I just copy pasted that because I can. The hash I went on took about 2 1/2 hours, about 6-7 miles, and boy was I wiped out after. It was very very cool though and really want to go again.

Sunday was filled with even more walking! We had signed up for a Diabetes walk about a month ago and it turned out to be the day after the hash. The walk was about 3 miles putting me close to 10 miles walked this weekend. My body doesn't know what just happened. That is more walking than I would usually do in like a year I feel like. So, needless to day, Monday morning was a rough one. Hitting the hay early tonight.

So, I think that is a decent update on what's been happenin' here in the EC. I am still truly enjoying myself and continuing to learn more and more everyday. And I love that.