I’ve survived! We had our first few days of classes this week, and I am still here to speak of it. Things actually went really well. On Tuesday, our students came in with their parents to meet their teacher and drop off their materials. They were divided into groups by half hour; it was a great way to meet a few at a time and to eliminate some of the chaos of the first day of classes.

Wednesday morning I had the whole group: 20 little Mexicans (11 girls and 9 boys). They are so cute. But chatty! Everyone had been trying to prepare us for this aspect of their culture. It wasn’t so much their chattiness that I noticed but the fact that they chat in Spanish. This, of course, at an English school is a no-no. So that is something we are going to need to work on.

Wednesday was mainly a day of getting oriented, playing some games and coming up with our class rules. On Thursday and Friday I started to get into some of the actual teaching, but still mixed with some of those get-to-know you activities. This coming week, we’ll be right into the curriculum. The school has a pretty intense curriculum, with a lot of material to cover, so we’ve got to get right down to it.

Friday night we had “Canyon Night”. It has apparently become a tradition at the school to spend the first Friday evening out at the Huasteca Canyon and introduce the new people to climbing and rappelling. I had a chance to try both (see the pictures). I’ve been climbing once or twice before in an indoor gym but this was totally different. It isn’t obvious at all where to try and put your hands or feet. Rappelling (when you have control of the rope going down) was pretty cool. But the beginning, where you have to walk yourself backwards to the edge and start lowering yourself, until you are basically perpendicular to wall was a little nerve-racking. After that it was fun. I can’t say that climbing is going to be my newest hobby – but I’m glad I’ve done it once. We stayed in the area until 11 or so; people made a campfire and had brought camping stoves so we could BBQ some dinner.

This week I also played Ultimate Frisbee with a group that meets at my school on Monday nights. I’ve played casually a few times before, but I definitely some practice. I’m happy running up and down the field and maybe catching the disc a few times, so I think I’ll go back. I’m working on recruiting some other inexperienced people as well.

This morning I’m off to go hiking at Chipinque with some people from school. You just have to take advantage of the surroundings down here. It still amazes me every morning when I walk out the front door and see mountains.

I have now got internet at my house! So I am going to figure out how Skype works (it lets you talk to people for free over the internet) and hopefully be in better communication that way.

I would love to hear from you!