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Well, after an exhausting dispensa where the mean old ladies told on us cos we only did 50 piles as there wasn't much food, and made lui say that we had to make 10 more OUT OF NOTHING!, and some VERY tedious tarea time, it was swimming day yet again.
I swear to god, I lose half of my body weight in that pool, we do so much lifting and dragging around and splashing. I managed to teach one of the lads to do backstroke and crawl in a passable style, and got a few more to float on their backs without grabbing me every second, and I also managed to coax Patty (who is so cute!) from shivering on the steps to holding onto my neck and kicking her legs as a dragged her along so that she thought she was swimming. It was well ace, cos normally shes way to scared to go in the pool properly. Honestly though, I must have done the same thing, 'caballitos' or 'horsey' for evey child under the age of 8 in the camp. Argh! Consequently, as we had our FIRST FREE NIGHT that evening, I had no energy, and we found a bar with a sofa and ate nutella pancakes and tried not to fall asleep.
We've had some good english classes with the becarios though this week. With the older ones, as we have to work through a super easy rubbish text book , we vary things a bit, and did descriptions. We then got them to describe an Emo, and lizzie drew it on the board. They had to leave the class after about 20mihs, but they all whined and asked if we could finish the emo next lesson, and Luisa let them stay in the end because the class was so 'fun'. Result. Our class with the same year groups yesterday was also ace, we did descriptions and stuff again, but they all actaully listened, and we even managed to teach them some grammar, AND Luis and Luisa were watching, and they looked really impressed, and were actually even joining in the translations and stuff. Yes, it may sound sad and wierd to get so excited over doing good english classes, and in front of the people in charge of the becarios, but trust me, if you have never tried to teach the becarios at 8 at night, and have never met luis and luisa...... you have no idea how happy it made us!
Wednesday was fairly boring, we got to paint the cabaña again, and there is now a few wiggly marks where I can't reach really high up on the front wall. The ladders were NOT straight, and I swear I risked my life going up them. BUT Rocendo the superparamedic was about with his little daughter diana, and Urbano and Abraham, so if I fell, he would save me. He is a verdadera legend. I think we actually spent the whole 2 hours gardening time painting, but we gave up after Urbano jumped round the corner and said hello really loudly which caused me to jump out of my skin and nearly fall off the ladder and say something fairly rude very loudly. Luckily they don't know many english profanities.
Anyway, thursday was a good day, morning off and stuff. We ate tacos and then regretted it during the really hot walk home with the becarios. Although now,havin gmade friends with Adrian, we actually have the odd real conversation... this week we learned that mexicans do not need to pass a driving test to get their licence. This, explains a lot.
So, we've also had a vouple of run throughs of Cenicienta, not overly successful, the mice always distract everyone else, but all the kids are dead keen to know what their costumes are and have started trying to learn thier lines, so it looks fairly promising. We skivved off after the Wendesday practise because we were so exhausted from the day before. We went to the fence and got hte tienda man,Pepe, to chuck us some mars bars and cokes over. Unfortunately, we were caught by three of the older lads, who caught our cokes for us, and made me miss throwing the change over in a bag weighed down with a role of tape, as one of the stood up just as i threw it. This meant the bag went in the huge ditch by the fence, and the guy had to climb down and get it, and as I went to apologise, I knocked the fence, and the recorder that saul has to play for mother's day also slid off the wall and into the ditch. hahahahaha. it was very funny. And we all sat behind a cabaña and ate our crisps and chocolate and stuff, whilst we told them that yes, we would get told off too if Guicho (Luis) found out about our illicit purchases.
The classes in school this week have been exhausting. We are a bit fed up with some of them, but when we get a class that actually learns and remembers stuff, its really good. This week, we have continued with directions.... which inolves lizzie and I shouting RIGHT! LEFT, ACROSS; ON THE CORNER and waving our arms about like fools. All good fun.
And today, we have managed to get out of gardening, and had a TOP lunch with Urbano, Abraham and Rocendo. We are going to catalogue all the sings Rocendo puts on the infermary door to say where he is at any one time. The one in the picture is new today. I completemented him on the one that says hes on the playing fields with a picture of a football pitch, and now we think he drew the one of the slide just for us! haha.
Right, ice cream time I think. Hopefully we'll get something nice for tea too! (yes, our day does revolve around meal times and food in general, but it makes us so happy. Lizzie and I were a bit miffed this morning though when the teacher of sexto grado in santo domingo called us gorditas this morning. No mate, you are not funny.)
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