An overall, wonderful first weekend.

A few more random things:

• I can count the number of strollers I have seen on one hand… yet there are sooo many babies. Everyone just carries them around.
• Parking spaces are very, very tiny.

A story that I can’t believe I forgot to write about till now:

The first night I was here, I woke up in the middle of the night around 2 or 3 am. I breathe pretty slowly when I sleep. One of my nostrils just so happened to be stuffy, so I could only breathe out of the other. Well, every time I was starting to actually fall asleep I would wake up (very startled like) totally out of breath – like I had been holding my breath! It was horrible because I wasn’t getting enough oxygen because my nose was stuffed and because there’s not nearly enough up here! So that was comical/very frustrating.

Okay, so Friday morning my teacher came about 25 minutes late to school. One of the workers had to unlock the door so the kids and me could get into the classroom (we were just stuck waiting out in the courtyard). Luckily, I knew what the plan was for today. Friday was a “read in” day where we were scheduled to basically read the entire day. So, Miss Celiberti (actually they just call me AnnMarie) had everyone put their things away, sit down in their desk, and start reading. Within 5 minutes of being let into the classroom everyone was quietly reading in his or her desk while we waited for Cathy to arrive. I felt like such a teacher! I could actually be responsible for 22 eight year olds! A TA or two walked by a couple of times and gave me a look like, “Wow! They’re all quietly reading in their desk!”

Cathy is just fantastic. I found out this is her first year teaching 3^rd grade. She was in 6^th grade before. She said the other 3^rd grade teachers aren’t very good about sharing their materials with her and plans for what they are teaching, etc. Which is odd because they are all very nice people and you would think they would want to be helpful since it is her first year! So we have decided we should try some new things and do some planning together. This week we’re going to try to implement some math centers for the classroom, which should be fun J I really like working with her! After class we looked for some books for guided reading and then went to a movie with another teacher. We saw the movie “Nine”. It came out in December but after seeing it I realize why I had never heard of it before. It was not a very good movie…

Today was just wonderful. This morning I woke up around 8:30 and spent some much needed time with God J It was a fantastic way to start my day! I met Steve Nelson at church at the English Fellowship Church about 10 minutes from our apartment. While waiting outside a girl named Kristen started talking to me. She’s from Virginia but is studying abroad in Quito for the year. We talked for a little bit and then sat together at church. She’s seems like a very nice girl and we exchanged numbers and she told me to get in touch with her if I wanted to hang out sometime. J Steve Nelson and two other men talked about their time in Haiti serving at a hospital just outside of Port-au-Prince. Their stories were incredible. I think it is so amazing the servant hearts God has given them, to help the people of Haiti. They were working at a hospital that had only 86 beds and by the time they arrived on the Friday after the earthquake, there were over 300 people there. It was an emotional service with pictures, a few video clips (one of which had Psalm 121:1-2… my favorite Psalm!), and many stories. One video clip was of two Samaritan’s Purse people talking to this boy named Watson. His leg had been broken and he had been waiting for many days for surgery at the hospital. They talked about how he had known what the Bible had said but had just accepted God as his personal Lord and Savior. Then he started singing this song:

This is the day
This is the day
That the Lord has made
That the Lord has made
We will rejoice
We will rejoice
And be glad in it
And be glad in it
This is the day that the Lord has made
We will rejoice and be glad in it
This is the day
This is the day
That the Lord has made.

This was so incredible to see. Here was this young man, in so much pain from a broken leg, waiting for days and days to get the care he needed, singing a song of praise through it all. What an example of real, living, breathing, faith.

After church I had lunch with Steve and Dorothy Nelson. I was able to hear more about Steve’s time in Haiti and learn about some amazing things they’ve done in their lives. (And just for the record I thoroughly believe in the “6 degrees of separation” theory, as you are all now only 3 degrees away from many, many people in Haiti and Africa and many other places they have traveled). After lunch we went to a park and walked around where we met some llamas J

Well, that’s about all for now! It’s time for another full week at Colegio Americano de Quito! I hope you all had fantastic weekend. xoxo

annmarie