I thought travelling across the Atlantic away from work would mean no more early starts but how wrong I was. On most school days (Monday- Thursday) we have to leave the volunteer house by 6.30 am and the first day at school was no exception! The volunteer house is located on the outskirts of Puyo and all the schools we teach at are positioned along the Arajuno Road, the start of which isn't too far outside Puyo. However the Arajuno Road runs through many rural areas of the Amazon which can take up to an hour to travel to so we have to get the bus into school. The bus stop is located a few minutes walk away at the end of our road and once we get there you just have to keep an eye out for the bus travelling in the correct direction. This morning there were lots of people already waiting for the bus, the teaching coordinator pointed some of these out to us as markers as to when to get on and off the bus including a particular woman who always wears pink trousers and a jumper.

Once we got onto the bus it took about 45 minutes to get to Kilometer 22, the school we were teaching at (well the first day was an observation). Kilometer 22 is a formal school which has about 25 students and 3 professors (teachers) including the director (head teacher). As soon as we got off the bus we were greeted by almost every student who ran down the schools front drive and shook our hands and said "Good Morning". We spent the morning observing lessons from Grade 1 to Grade 7 in one of the schools four classrooms. Lessons are 45 minutes long and after 3 lessons we had a break, in which the children ate their school dinner (normally rice and or potatoes with some meat in a sauce) and then we had another 3 lessons. The initial lessons were with the younger children, JP (teaching coordinator) refreshed the children's ability to say "My name is…." and then went on to teach them the words "boy" "girl" "jump" and "fly". Then through a technique known as TPR, which I have to say I still don't fully understand, he got them to jump or fly between two drawings of a girl and boy, ultimately to test their comprehension of the words. All children actively engaged in these activities and were keen to learn. What really amazed me was even though the youngest were perhaps only 4 and they were able to say their name in English, and some even answer basic questions such as "How are you?". The lessons after break consisted of teaching the older children more English vocabulary and grammar, JP did this by telling them a story about a princess and castle. This involved the children being creatively involved in the direction the story took and ultimately learning when to use the words "the" and "a". Whilst observing the teaching style we completed a form recording what each class had done during their lesson and then gave each individual a grade for their homework, class work, participation and ability to speak English.

We were finished at the school by 12.30 and managed to get the 1 o'clock bus home, and luckily enough although it started spitting with rain it poured down after we had got back to the volunteer house. The roof of the volunteer house is made out of tin and therefore whenever it rains it's almost like being in a tent and the noise is insane!