Muchas cositas

First things first: I'm famous! http://www.mennonitemission.net/Personnel/Current/Workers/International/workers.asp?RID=172873

So, where to begin? I guess I'll start with the family. I'm still not sure on everyone's names, but I'm starting to fall into a routine. Unfortunately, the routine involves getting up at 7 am every morning to go have breakfast. Oddly enough, most of the time when I'm eating meals "with the family," I'm the only one at the table. It's kind of an odd set-up, and not quite what I expected. But back to the important things, 7 am. Those of you who know me well know that I don't even talk in English before about 9 am, so you can imagine how little conversation I can come up with in Spanish at 7 am. My typical routine is to get up, eat breakfast, and then go back to sleep until I need to get up to get ready for work. Also, we did finally work out the financial issues. It's not quite what the agreement was, but I'm just happy to have it done with. When I told Cesar (MMN missionary) that, he said, "Ah, Amelia, you're such a good Mennonite! Making sacrifices for the greater good!"

This week is my introduction to my work here. There was a time when I was somewhat worried that I wouldn't really have enough to fill up my time, but now I'm feeling exactly the opposite. I'm going to be teaching English to four different classes at the Hazel McCallion School, and having an hour of "counseling." It's odd, people here hear that I have a Psychology minor and all the sudden I'm supposed to support everyone psychologically! I'm not sure that the concept of a minor translates... Anyway, I may increase to two hours for each class, but I have to come up with my own curriculum so I really need to see how things go before I try that. Also, I found out that I'm teaching my own class, not co-teaching like I had thought. So that throws a bit of a wrench in my plans.

For another 20 hours a week I'll be visiting the refugee children to see how they're doing and identify what their needs are. There are 6 or 7 families and some live VERY far south in Quito so I don't know how much I'll be able to visit everyone, but I'll do my best! I visited my first family yesterday with Cesar and Paty. It was good, but also frustrating because I get lost when people are talking all at once in Spanish. Sometimes I don't feel like my Spanish is improving at all!

I'm also going to be teaching Sunday School at the Mennonite Church every Sunday except one, and will be helping with the Peace Education program the last Saturday of every month. And if I have time, I'd like to start a tutoring program for all the children in the church one or two Saturdays a month. But, I need to see what kind of time I have to see if that's even a possibility. Right now it seems like I'll be very busy. But I am managing to keep one weekend a month to myself so I can have the opportunity to travel a little.

Whew, so that's where things are at! I take on more buses every day, some with more success than others. Visiting families is going to require me to increase my bus knowledge by a great degree. Let's hope I survive it... Also, I added pictures on Facebook, so hit me up there. I thought about adding them here too, but it's just too much work to upload everything twice!

Stay tuned...