La Escuela!

This photo was taken by Bridger.

I went with my classmate Bridger and Elena, an intern from Britain, to the school where we would be working. The public bus was another van that was packed with people. Everyone was basically sitting on each others' laps. We drove up the road and arrived at the school. The school was pretty small for the number of children attending. Oh and the school was called Escuela Ruben Dario. 

We met the teacher who would be telling Bridger and I what things needed to be done. We went into a small room unattached from the classrooms that had a sign that said "Biblioteca" on the outside. "Biblioteca" means library. In the room, there was a table and several bookshelves and drawers for supply storage. The person who was showing us what to do was named Julia. Also, Austin's Mom Sue had joined us in working at the school for the day. Sue was working at the bakery but they weren't open on Mondays. Julia told us were were going to be making 10 sets of letters glued on to fish in alphabetical order to help decorate the classrooms. 

Julia told us that the classrooms have kids of different ages and grades. One of the signs above the door to the classrooms said 1st and 4th grades. I find this set up similar to the one I had at my elementary school in Portland. In both cases, there were mixed grades and it worked very well. I am pretty sure the other classroom was younger students. Maybe kindergarten or preschool. It was fun making the letters and fish. When the children came out of the classroom to greet us, they held their hands together as a sign of saying hello. I guess the custom was to shake the child's hands while they held them together. I had never seen this gesture back home. I think I like it. Also, it was considered good manners to greet people this way. If only this was true in the classroom where the students made a lot of noise. 

I would have enjoyed the morning even more if we had gotten the opportunity to read and interact with the students. When we were about the leave to go back to El Pescacho for lunch, we asked Julia if we could read and interact with students the following. She said yes but we still had to finish making the fish to decorate. Yay!

Adios.