Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
E week 5
Thank you everyone who had been posting on my blog. I love signing in and seeing that people have written me! It means so much to me to be able to here from everyone and it makes me less homesick. Lucy, I can’t believe you’re in DC! I want to hear all about it. And Mark I need to know more about LA and how it’s going, if there have been and Paris sightings etc. Kristin, I want to hear how everything is going in FHS and how Braden is doing in preschool! Sara, I loved your posts and of course I miss you and our out of line commentary during class. Please everyone that posts put your email so I can write to you if you don’t have facebook. Thank you so much for writing. And parents I am thoroughly impressed with your Internet abilities, especially certain parents who just learned how to text a few short months ago. I love you guys and can’t wait to see you all soon!
The beginning of this week was awesome. I was teaching a class on Tuesday and we were watching a blue planet video about oceans. I was trying to entertain Tug, since he usually is not very interested in the movie since he can’t hear. All the sudden, I realized that the water bottle I was holding was vibrating with the sounds from the TV. I immediately remembered hearing a story in my ASL class about a person who was deaf bringing a balloon to an opera to feel the music. I went and blew Tug up a massive balloon and brought it back. As soon as I put his hands around it, he looked up with a shocked look on his face. He pointed back and forth from the TV to the balloon excitedly. The other kids, who I thought would be jealous that he got a balloon, immediately understood and came over to feel the vibrations. I had tears in my eyes as I watched him pressing his face against the balloon; enthralled by the way it moved with the actions he saw. After this, he uses the balloon to feel his own voice and we talk into it so he can hear us. Sometimes he can even copy some of the sounds we make. Other good news, AAI finally got a signing teacher for him! It’s been going really well and he’s catching on very fast. I got into somewhat of an altercation with the head teacher on Friday when I found out that he was not allowing Tug and the signing teacher to attend Tug’s classes, because the other kids were distracted. It was very frustrating trying to explain that isolating Tug because he’s deaf is not good and that the other kids will get used to the signing teacher. I really love the head teacher, but it was definitely a moment of culture shock seeing how differently teachers here deal with kids with special needs. He agreed to try it for a week and see if the other kids are not too distracted.
I am falling more in love with my 8-year-old son I have here. I can’t believe I will not be taking him home with me. I feel like he is my child. He is the most wonderful kid, but of course he is a challenge at times. Every morning when I see him I open up my arms and he runs and jumps up and gives me a bunch of kisses on the cheek. He is the cutest most hilarious child ever. He has a little speech impediment, which reminds me of one of my brothers. He is very competitive and takes soccer very seriously. He always rides around on my back and we’ll even play soccer like that. Recently we have been playing catch together with the two mitts at Layla. He’s really good at throwing and he’s learning to catch the ball too. Whoever adopts him is going to be the luckiest family in the world.
I love my group of volunteers. Quickly, we have become good friends and it has been a lot of fun. It’s so boring at the volunteer house I think it has forced us to like each other more. Alan and I are like brother and sister and fight accordingly. We are the youngest one’s here at 19 and 22. Everyone else is 25 and 26 and somehow it does make a difference, I hope he’s just more mature and not that I am less mature. We have the same sense of humor which I have found in an only a hand full of people in my life. Nicole is definitely like an older sister to me and it has been very comforting. Both her and I find the same things frustrating about issues here. It is always hard to work in an agency that deals with the lives of people because decisions are directly affecting these kids. So it is easier to get attached and upset at choices made within the organization. It is nice to have somebody to talk to about that stuff.
We leave for our trip in 2 days. Yesterday, we were getting pretty pumped and looking up more info about the lakes and park online. Alan is the most excited about seeing hippos. Surprisingly, hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa. They are very aggressive and will trample anything in their way. They also have large tusks that have been known to “gore” people. Well, they seem pretty chill on Safari Cruise at Disneyland so it will probably be fine…
- comments