Laughing is good for the soul

The evil steep hill

At Fundacion

Activities for today:

Help the kids with their homework

Bible study

Christmas decorations

Home ec.

Used to be a project, is now a foundation

I helped Viviana with her math homework.  I let her borrow my fingers since hers can’t go up to 17.  Again, she expected me to help her out with the homework by giving her the answers.  I am not giving in.  Bible study was really neat.  The kids were gathered around and there was a lady and a man who came to talk to them about the baptism of Jesus.  Some were listening, others weren’t.  Then again, some of them are too young to have a long attention span.  Viviana was not being cooperative.  She didn’t have enough time to finish her homework so she was upset to have been interrupted.  She was doing a lot to try to get her backpack, her notebook, to the table where she can finish her homework.  If there’s one thing that’s impressed me, or made me very intrigued, is that the students really want to get their homework finished, especially Maria Jose and Viviana.  Both of them girls have gotten very upset and given an attitude if they are not given enough time to finish their homework.  And, by the way, they are cousins, many are family.

     -Henry is brothers with Viviana and with Mariana who is on the second floor.  They’re all cousins with      

       Maria Jose.  Maria Jose is a tough cookie.

     -Anita is sisters with Melisa, Daniel, and Alex who is on the second floor.

Yonseili giving a hand to Marlo

Helping them make the Christmas decorations was fun.  They turned out really nice.  The students who finished their decorations first advanced on to the next activity.  They made strawberries and cream.  It was funny when I heard Yonseili all of a sudden say, “No le vayan a meter el dedo, eh?”  I wasn’t facing them because I was helping Anita with her snowman.  Apparently the kids looked suspicious when they were making that because they kept looking back.

Mi almuerzo (not dinner)

We took the taxi home because we had a lot to do.  We are teaching English tomorrow so we printed out a lot of material for them and for us to use at the internet cafe.  I left out that we will be teaching English for two hours.  I have great confidence in us.

Yonseili left to school and I got online to talk to my grandma.  I got a message from Nadia, my cousin, that she was at the hospital with her and some fam.  I was able to see them and talk to them.  I could not hear them however.  I was very happy to hear that possibly tomorrow she will be going home.

Dinner was good, Yonseili joined me for it.  Then Adri gave us pie for dessert.  Between you and me… and Yonseili, I dropped my pie running up the stairs behind Yonseili.  I didn’t want to tell my host mom so we just picked it up, Yonseili helped me clean, and I wrapped it in toilet paper, and put it in a plastic bag so that Yonseili could take it home to her trash can.  We couldn’t leave any evidence behind.  Geeze, this sounds horrible when I read it.  I MUST clarify my host mom is not mean at all.  I simply felt bad.

Tonight there was a Liga game.  Liga played against an Independiente from Argentina.  I believe the final score was on Liga’s favor, 3-2.  The goals scored were very good.

Highlight of the day: I cracked up tonight with several YouTube videos.  After Yonseili tried to make a cracking sound by saying "crack," I remembered the good sound effects skits that Whose Line Is It Anyway had.  I loaded some of them and showed them to her.  Then later my brother was letting me listen to some videos through his computer that were bloopers by news anchors.  It was hilarious.

If there is one thing I cannot and will not forget about this trip abroad, is that I have laughed a ton.  Yep, laughing is good for the soul.