Winter is Only a State of Mind

My alarm sounded at 8:30 this morning and I woke up feeling guilty, like I needed to be somewhere.  It took me a minute to remember that school was out and all of the students are now on vacation until early February.  For me this means I need to change my mindset and start using a “winter” break state of mind.  For us Peace Corps english teachers this can mean a few different things.  One thing is for sure though, almost everyone will somehow be involved in a camp.  Over past breaks volunteers have held tons of camps involving numerous sports, team building exercises, and gender issues.  

Form the week of December 9th through the 13th I am going to be teaching one of my 3rd grade classes how to swim, with the help of a few good PC friends.  The idea all started in class, about a month ago, when my counterpart and I were teaching I like and I don’t like with sports.  One student said, “I lie eh-swiming.”  Than another admitted that she didn’t know how to eh-swim so I took a quick poll and to my surprise more than 90% of the class, including Gerledis who just said he lied eh-swiming, didn’t know how to eh-swim.  So after handing out a permission slip, we are ready for 5 days of eh-swiming lessons.  I am currently in the process of making kickboards out of styrofoam. 

For the rest of break I will be hard at work on the grant supported Mi Boquilla Florece project.  The goal is to finish the tree nursery before school starts up again.  Also we now have a symbol and a big event this Sunday so I will be back with more updates soon!

The design a 10th grade student made for the Mi Boquilla Florece environmental group