What´s new now (or what´s not)

My chickens roosting in the tree that I prepared for them and taught them to sleep in




kids playing at my house




me eating crema de arroz (cream of rice cereal) as taken by my neighbor Loli


The high school

the elementary school

The new classrooms that were started about three years ago and haven´t been touched since I´ve gotten here

Well here I am again. It´s a good thing I wasn´t here writing this yesterday, it would have been another rant session. However, I feel better now, so you´d better feel lucky.

This Wed. I gave my lesson about self-esteem to the high school kids, and although the attendance was lower than I expected (or maybe to be realistic, exactly what I expected) it was still a decent-sized group. It actually was probably better for the dynamics of the class to have only 20 kids instead of the 50 that are signed up for the course. The ones that did show up had fun and hopefully had a little self-esteem boost and learned a little bit about how to not damage the self-esteem of others. They love the games that we play and also the activities that they can apply to their own lives. I think that this course will actually be able to survive until the end in October.

However, I am completely giving up on English classes for now. Although every time I go anywhere people keep asking me to teach them English and I tell them to come to class, absolutely nobody shows up. I just had the last straw two days ago, when the English teachers didn´t show up again. I had spoken to all of them and everyone said they would be there, but when nobody showed up I went looking for them only to find them playing bingo. So if they are too incredibly busy to practice the language that is their livelihood, so be it. I have better things to do than show up every day, wait for an hour, and then have one person or nobody show up to a class. If they want my help from now on they will have to invite me specifically, but I am not going to do any more formal classes until people are ready to participate.

The women´s group also cancelled their reunion for today, so that is why I am here instead of there. I hope that they will be able to pull their act together enough to succeed.

The other day I was invited by one of the English teachers in the Elementary school to teach some songs to the kids. They loved Old MacDonld Had a Farm, even though the only part they really learned was the E I E I O part. Yesterday as I was walking down the road some kids sang me that part, and I had some requests to sing it again but at that point I just feel like the gringa sideshow. Anyway, the same teacher wants me to come back often and help him teach his classes, so that maybe will be a good thing. I just hope it doesn´t turn into me doing all the work, but I don´t think it will.

I am so sick of chickens, they just don´t get it that I hate them and don´t want them to come into my house. It´s bad enough when my own do it, but when the neighbor´s come in and jump on my table and crap on my floor then I get really mad. The neighbors aren´t feeding their chickens, so they come to my house and chase away my chickens to eat the corn I give them. So I have to crouch by mine while they eat and whack the ones that don´t belong so they won´t eat all my corn. It is ridiculous.

I got rid of the fence around my porch that I put up to keep out the animals, first of all because it was infested with termite-like bugs that just kept throwing dust everywhere, and second because it didn´t do much to keep the animals out anyway. I think I will try buying some chicken wire and see how that works, and maybe even make a screen door for the back door with it so the chickens won´t feel such an urge to mosey in all day long. I have been locking myself in the house with all the doors and windows shut because when they are hungry they have no other goal in life but bother me.

Yesterday I was really angry with the English teachers and with Panamanians in general for not being more responsible in their own projects, and also with the chickens, so I shut myself in my house and blasted music with my iPod until I no longer felt so angry but just down, and then I just sat around an sulked all night and all the next morning. But I decided that I needed to get up and do something, even if it was just go for a walk, so I did just that (only avoiding the school because I was still pissed off). I felt better after that, and I talked to a few people along the way. I wish people would realize that I´m here to work, not just to hang out, but whatever.

TTFN!