The sisters have started asking me to fill in for parent meetings and take the girls to Doctor appointments and what not. It has been a great opportunity for me to see more of the bigger picture, and understand why we do things the way we do at the home. Granted a few of the experiences at the doctor's office I could have done without. I got to take our little Drama queen to have blood drawn. To top it off, the nurse was far from helpful!
I have been blown away by the frustration the parents have of lack of parent involvement. It is so hard because some parents can barely pay the tuition money, and then don't have enough to stretch for school supplies, to buy toilet paper and paper towels for the classroom each month, much less to help with raffles and to pay $20 USD for an end of the year party. Here in Chile you get about 1/2 the parents coming to parent meetings and each class meets individually! In the states we would die for that level of involvement. On the positive side of the parent meetings, every group of parents has been so generous in supporting our girls when they find out that they live at an Hogar. Everone ends up pitching in.
Matt and I were also invited the end of September to speak at a school assembly in front of 380 high school kids at Colegio Maria Auxiliadora. It was a bit last minute, but it went great. It was part of their activities they had for the month of gratitude. We did a round table on different opportunities for volunteering. Matt was shy to talk in front of the group but in the end he did a great little speech about what a great impact even just 1 person (like Don Bosco) can have on the lives of so many. The kids loved him, and it was a great confidence boost for his Spanish.
The garden has been going fabulously and the kids have loved it. We had our first harvest, and while all the girls were so excited to try their first radish... they weren't too thrilled about the flavor. The peas are coming along just fine, and we even have a potato plant that popped up in the most bizzare location. The girls kept digging up the potatoes that Matt planted last June and moving them around the garden. My Yoga class is just about over, and we've transitioned into doing a power point for the girls to do a presentation on the benefits of yoga. They've been loving working on the computer and have learned a lot.
I have been blown away by the frustration the parents have of lack of parent involvement. It is so hard because some parents can barely pay the tuition money, and then don't have enough to stretch for school supplies, to buy toilet paper and paper towels for the classroom each month, much less to help with raffles and to pay $20 USD for an end of the year party. Here in Chile you get about 1/2 the parents coming to parent meetings and each class meets individually! In the states we would die for that level of involvement. On the positive side of the parent meetings, every group of parents has been so generous in supporting our girls when they find out that they live at an Hogar. Everone ends up pitching in.
Matt and I were also invited the end of September to speak at a school assembly in front of 380 high school kids at Colegio Maria Auxiliadora. It was a bit last minute, but it went great. It was part of their activities they had for the month of gratitude. We did a round table on different opportunities for volunteering. Matt was shy to talk in front of the group but in the end he did a great little speech about what a great impact even just 1 person (like Don Bosco) can have on the lives of so many. The kids loved him, and it was a great confidence boost for his Spanish.
The garden has been going fabulously and the kids have loved it. We had our first harvest, and while all the girls were so excited to try their first radish... they weren't too thrilled about the flavor. The peas are coming along just fine, and we even have a potato plant that popped up in the most bizzare location. The girls kept digging up the potatoes that Matt planted last June and moving them around the garden. My Yoga class is just about over, and we've transitioned into doing a power point for the girls to do a presentation on the benefits of yoga. They've been loving working on the computer and have learned a lot.
'Ommmm.'
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