may 23, 2011

May 23, 2011

            Today was our first day of school! My roommate and I were up early today because before we went to El Sol for our Spanish class, we decided we wanted to go see the Monday morning ceremonial formations at the FAP Air Force School, where we will be teaching English later in the week.

            It was neat to see all the school kids lined up in their uniforms outside on the basketball courts listening to their school officials give small presentations on such things as tardiness. Yianni and Andrew spoke on behalf of us American students by going on stage and introducing us and telling the kids what we had been doing so far in Peru, as well as what we are planning for the upcoming weeks.

            I enjoyed seeing the morning formation, however the cab ride there was a disaster. If there were one thing I do not like about Lima it would be the taxis. The drivers never have any idea where they are going. Granted, we are spoiled living in a country where now if the drivers don’t know where to go they have a GPS, but none the less, it is stressful when you have to be somewhere at a certain time and things get delayed because of a lost taxi! But, I’ll just call it part of the adventure!

            We then returned to the El Sol language school where we had to take a placement test that consisted of written work and a oral conversation part. I unfortunately missed my first day of language class because it took them so long to place me in a class, but I made it to my culture class. I was very intimidated by the culture class when I had originally heard about it because I knew that it was going to be taught in Spanish, and previously the only class I had that was taught in Spanish for the majority, was a Spanish language class in high school. But, I actually enjoyed the culture class a lot. I really like my teacher too and have found myself understanding everything he is saying without having trouble.

            After classes at El Sol we returned to the FAP Air Force School to learn more about what we would be doing there in the next two weeks. Again, taxi trouble getting there, but all thirty of us managed to find it nonetheless. We feel like celebrities at the Air Force school. The kids get so excited to see us and immediately swarm to us. I met my language partner today. Her name is Conny and she is sixteen, and has an endless supply of spunk. I can tell how excited she is to have met me, as well as the rest of the kids to be able to interact with American students. They immediately all wanted to find us on facebook and be our friends. It was also apparent that Andrew and Yianni had become instant celebrities since giving their speech to the school this morning. All the girls at the school were gushing over the American boys. I am very excited to teach English and interact with these kids. I think it will be very easy to feed off of their enthusiasm.

            After we left the Air Force school  few of us met up at a café to get some work done, which was a nice way to unwind and catch up with each other.