Hello!
Where to start...
First of all, sorry for being so incommunicado. Our plans changed and we went to a place where it was difficult to communicate so I didn't really have a whole lot of time or opportunity to fill you guys in. I won't let it happen again. Or I will try not to anyways.
We just got finished with the first of the "practice what they preach" portion of this program. We spent the last three weeks in orphanages, schools, refugee camps, and homes for disabled children. We taught English, played with children, hung out and ate with some of the locals, cleaned toilets, and ate humus.
Man, do I love teaching English. I never ever, ever saw myself as a teacher. Especially English teacher. Ever. But I really enjoyed it. I have a whole new respect for teachers though. The first day, I spent about two hours preparing a 30 minute lesson plan that I ended up not using. Aside from being a lot of work, it was a really good opportunity to learn about the local culture. I taught an "advanced" class and we discussed everything from favorite foods to the situation over here. One of the really cool things was that we had people talking and interacting with each other that would normally not associate. The people are beautiful.
To the moms out there: Wow, you rock. We spent two hours a day for five days in an orphanage. Our job was to play kids. Simple right? Yeah, simple. Simple with 40 four to six year olds. No problem. At least they spoke our language. Oh, wait. No they didn't. The only words that we knew that were useful were the words for "no", "yes", "enough", and "1". "No" was useful when one little kid wanted to give one of the other kids a left hook followed by a right uppercut. That happened about ever six seconds. "No" was also helpful if they wanted to wipe a booger on you. "1" was useful when the kids where forming a line because they each wanted you to left them up by there hands and fly them around in a circle. When their turn was over they wanted to go again and not let the next kid go. We learned to negotiate before by saying the word for "one" before we would give them a ride. "Enough" was useful when your arms were about to fall off. "Yes" was useful when, uh. Hmm. Come to think of it, I cant really remember ever saying the word for "yes" throughout our time there. It was pretty hard leaving on our last day. The kids were great and really wanted love and attention. The staff and the facility were both great but the kids really lacked one on one attention. It was also hard because a lot of the kids had families but they chose to put the kids there anyway.
The sickest thing for me was wondering why I wasn't doing this kind of crap all the time. I didn't have to go all the way around the world to volunteer. For about two years I thought about volunteering at a hospital or somewhere but never did it. I always put it off for some reason. When I was in that orphanage, I was wondering why I had wasted so much time when I could have been so much more useful. If you have been thinking about doing something like that. Go. Now. Go. Seriously. If you haven't been thinking about doing that, you should.
There is a dish prepared by the locals here. They take four small chickens, and put em' in the bottom of a pot. Then they cover them with this rice with cauliflower and seasoning. Then they bake it. The meat literally falls off the bone. And the rice is about enough to make you want to plant a rice patty. They people here are ridiculously hospitable. We, eight of us, were invited by a shopkeeper to his house for dinner. The family included him, his wife, their three kids, two nephews that he adopted because his brother passed away. Their dinner table was plastic with plastic chairs. He stood and ate because there were no chairs left when we had all sat down. We tried to give him ours, but of course he insisted. Then we ate until we were all about to pop. I have never had anything like it.
I hope to be more responsible about updating this page. Feel free to shoot me an email.
First of all, sorry for being so incommunicado. Our plans changed and we went to a place where it was difficult to communicate so I didn't really have a whole lot of time or opportunity to fill you guys in. I won't let it happen again. Or I will try not to anyways.
We just got finished with the first of the "practice what they preach" portion of this program. We spent the last three weeks in orphanages, schools, refugee camps, and homes for disabled children. We taught English, played with children, hung out and ate with some of the locals, cleaned toilets, and ate humus.
Man, do I love teaching English. I never ever, ever saw myself as a teacher. Especially English teacher. Ever. But I really enjoyed it. I have a whole new respect for teachers though. The first day, I spent about two hours preparing a 30 minute lesson plan that I ended up not using. Aside from being a lot of work, it was a really good opportunity to learn about the local culture. I taught an "advanced" class and we discussed everything from favorite foods to the situation over here. One of the really cool things was that we had people talking and interacting with each other that would normally not associate. The people are beautiful.
To the moms out there: Wow, you rock. We spent two hours a day for five days in an orphanage. Our job was to play kids. Simple right? Yeah, simple. Simple with 40 four to six year olds. No problem. At least they spoke our language. Oh, wait. No they didn't. The only words that we knew that were useful were the words for "no", "yes", "enough", and "1". "No" was useful when one little kid wanted to give one of the other kids a left hook followed by a right uppercut. That happened about ever six seconds. "No" was also helpful if they wanted to wipe a booger on you. "1" was useful when the kids where forming a line because they each wanted you to left them up by there hands and fly them around in a circle. When their turn was over they wanted to go again and not let the next kid go. We learned to negotiate before by saying the word for "one" before we would give them a ride. "Enough" was useful when your arms were about to fall off. "Yes" was useful when, uh. Hmm. Come to think of it, I cant really remember ever saying the word for "yes" throughout our time there. It was pretty hard leaving on our last day. The kids were great and really wanted love and attention. The staff and the facility were both great but the kids really lacked one on one attention. It was also hard because a lot of the kids had families but they chose to put the kids there anyway.
The sickest thing for me was wondering why I wasn't doing this kind of crap all the time. I didn't have to go all the way around the world to volunteer. For about two years I thought about volunteering at a hospital or somewhere but never did it. I always put it off for some reason. When I was in that orphanage, I was wondering why I had wasted so much time when I could have been so much more useful. If you have been thinking about doing something like that. Go. Now. Go. Seriously. If you haven't been thinking about doing that, you should.
There is a dish prepared by the locals here. They take four small chickens, and put em' in the bottom of a pot. Then they cover them with this rice with cauliflower and seasoning. Then they bake it. The meat literally falls off the bone. And the rice is about enough to make you want to plant a rice patty. They people here are ridiculously hospitable. We, eight of us, were invited by a shopkeeper to his house for dinner. The family included him, his wife, their three kids, two nephews that he adopted because his brother passed away. Their dinner table was plastic with plastic chairs. He stood and ate because there were no chairs left when we had all sat down. We tried to give him ours, but of course he insisted. Then we ate until we were all about to pop. I have never had anything like it.
I hope to be more responsible about updating this page. Feel free to shoot me an email.
posted by Michael at 2:38 PM
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