I've got my first week of volunteering under my belt and have realised that despite all my years of saying I don't like children I was entirely wrong! My first day I was supposed to begin at the local high school at 1 p.m. but when my co-ordinator and I arrived to meet the principal and begin classes we found that the students had all gone home for the afternoon and the teacher's were in a meeting for the rest of the day! We returned at 7 the next morning, school starts really early here, and I was put into a class as a relief teacher for 22 15 year olds! Ligia, my coordinator and I discussed this and realised that as lovely as the kids were, my Spanish isn't quite up to having full control of a class of kids and so decided I would go into the local primary school where they are desperate to have volunteers.

I've spent the last two days with Jerson, an ex volunteer who is now an English teacher in a primary school about an hour up in the mountains away from San Ramon. The kids were absolutely adorable, and so eager to learn English, they found my accent completely hilarious though, especially when I tried to explain what a "shed" was, they thought that I was saying something entirely different, and not exactly primary school appropriate! I now have two new boyfriends as well (sorry Scud!), one is 11 and his name is Gerarldo, he gave me a lollipop when I arrived and anyone who knows me knows I can't say no to lollies! The other is an adorable 7 year old whose name is Oscar, he has an extremely tough home life and school is apparently the only place he really seems comfortable. As soon as I walked into class yesterday morning he latched onto me and didn't leave me alone all day, luckily he's very sweet and loves practicing his English. Being around these kids who speak a million miles an hour and laugh at me when I ask them to "despacio, por favor!" (slow down, please!!) has really made me work on my Spanish, I do still need them to slow down though! Jerson and I spent a lesson teaching the 6th graders about the kiwi and rugby, I think we might have some converts on our hands, and all the girls wanted kiwi's as pets when we showed them a picture! (Sorry dad, I never got around to explaining there were two different codes of rugby and rugby league!)

On Monday I will finally being my official placement at the primary school here in San Ramon. I'm going to be assistant teaching English and PE, it should be entertaining, especially given I have absolutely no coordination! I'm really excited though, I'm looking forward to getting a bit more involved with these kids learning!