Early Mornings

Yeah it’s been a while since I’ve written. Done a million blogs in my head but not many free seconds recently…

So, what’ve I been up to? Well here’s an idea of my daily routine…

5am each morning my alarm goes off. It’s still dark outside. I turn it off quick hoping Chayo will sleep a little longer. I force my body out of bed. Into the shower - cold shower. (Yeah, hot water’s not that common here.) I brace myself, then take the plunge. At least it wakes me up. Downstairs I put the water on to heat to bath Chayo.

6am it’s almost light and we’re out of the house on our way. Chayo eating breakfast in the back of the car. I like the drive in. The roads are clear and sometimes it’s misty and the volcano looks great.

6.15 we’re at school. Chayo finishes his breakfast in my classroom while I check my school email and get things ready for the busy day ahead.

7am Chayo in his class and me with mine. This week we're all learning Rivers, Bones, Newspaper reports, Adding money... and a few songs that I'm squeezing in.

Th kids leave at 1.30 but I don’t finish till 3pm. Most days I drive home with Chayo whose tired and grouchy after his long day. Some days I work late and have a run at about 5pm when the sun is less intense.

Home. Sort tea, handwash Chayo’s uniform, then stories and bed for him by 6.30pm. Sort packed lunches for the next day and collapse in to bed, by 9pm if I can.

Kinda tiring... but good.

My own classroom

The keyring still said Alicia on it, but it was mine.

Room 24.

I opened the door slowly and walked in. Tables covered in dust sheets, a globe (great), fans on the ceiling, teacher’s desk in the corner… I went over and sat down. At my desk.

‘Wow... This is my desk’ I said to myself. ‘My classroom’.

I sat for a while in a daze looking around and around. A big smile on my face and forcing myself to breathe. I felt simultaneously excited and terrified.
Panic as I counted in my head. Only three days to change this place from a dusty packed up room to a lively, attractive classroom. I felt like I’d forgotten everything I knew about teaching.

‘Let’s see if the computer works’, I said to myself. It did. And the internet, and the printer and even iTunes!

Grabbed some CDs from the car and got to work. Within half an hour I was happily knee deep in papers, my head full of possible seating arrangements and display ideas.

Chasing Cars

I feel like I’ve spent most of the last 2 weeks looking for a car.

I ended up going down “carros traidos” route – cars brought down to El Salvador from the USA… There aren’t that many other options here.

So I trailed the city under the scorching sun, going from one auto-lote to another. It’s pretty big business here and the way it works is kind of interesting:
1. There are alot of car crashes in the USA.
2. Cars are written off (too expensive to repair).
3. Salvadorean entrepreneurs buy them cheaply.
4. They bring them to El Salvador.
5. Once in El Salvador cars are repaired and often resprayed.
6. Salvadorean number plates are sorted for them.
7. Cars then get put on the market.

So, the first thing you do, when you see a car you fancy, is ask which bit of the car was hit or damaged when it crashed… and then you go from there.

In the end, after test driving quite a few that weren’t quite right, it turned out that Yesy’s neighbour “brings cars”.

And he had a 2002 silver Kia Sportage.

At last I got my car.


(Yeah, I’d never heard of Kia either before coming here… Korean apparently, which brings the price down – Salvadoreans tend to want Nissans or Toyotas. Actually she’s kind of posh and a bit big. I feel strange and somewhere between a poser and a fraud… But, safer then I would in a little car, and glad of the air conditioning, which not only keeps us cool but avoids the having to put the window up at every single traffic light hassle, and also pleasantly cuts me off from the mayhem outside.)

Rain

I love the sound of the rain here. Most nights it wakes me up, sometimes with quite a start as it beats down on the roof above me. The noise is incredible. Sometimes huge crashes of thunder too. I’m always amazed that Chayo doesn’t wake up. I lie there, listening, enjoying the coolness of the night and the need to pull the sheet over me, a pleasant change from the stifling heat and constant sweat.

Today was very unusual – grey, rainy and cloudy. It was wonderful. Respite from the fierce, scorching sun and the endless glasses of water to keep us hydrated. A world away from Manchester, where we woke each day hoping for sun, sick of day after day of rain and grey skies.

Context is everything.

Chayo's question

The other day I went to the most fantastic shop in 'downtown' San Salvador. It's called the Tienda Morena and is plastic paradise. I bought plastic crates, plastic boxes, plastic colander, salad bowls, veg rack, washing up bowl, buckets... everything you need for setting up a new house... and of course a whole load of plastic toys for Chayo.

Back at the house: me happily putting stuff into my boxes and crates and trying to rub off the large permanent pen black 0.45 or 0.60 written on each item (I later discovered that nail varnish remover does the trick)... and Chayo happily playing with swords, magnetic letters, super hero figures and spidermen, he decided to ask me to read him what it said on each toy, including all the others that his Salvadorean aunty and grandma had bought him since getting here... 'Made in China' I said again and again... and again...

'Mum' he said, 'Why is everything here made in China?'

Fast Food in Central America

Bliss... Good coffee, wireless access, fancy play area to keep Chayo amused, yummy breakfasts... Yes... 'Pollo Campero' is definitely going to become one of my San Salvador haunts...

Things are going pretty well. We've been here 5 days now and are slowly recovering from the ordeal of the flight. Actually the flights themselves were ok, but 4 hours of queues, security checks and lost bags in Houston were pretty tough...

Our house is lovely. We've got a little garden with swings and a slide, tropical flowers, papaya and banana trees. From the window we can see the volcano and more trees: almond, mango, lime, orange and coconut...

Mosquitoes tho, and Chayo lots of bites despite sleeping under mosquito nets and covering him with insect repellent in the day. So yesterday we got to work... I borrowed a drill and we spent the day putting up fans on the walls, netting on the windows, mopping the floors with bleach, and putting 'mosquito poison' in all the puddles near the house... Hopefully that'll help.

4 days to go...

i'm so relaxed... only 4 more days to go and then FREEDOM... teacher training finished! HOORAY...

these last few weeks have been crazy - up at 6am each day and working late into the night. into school by 7am and feeling like a bad mother.. hardly seeing my own little one - too busy trying to be a good teacher...

the kids are breaking my heart though...drawing me pictures and writing me messages:
YOU ARE A BRILIANT TEACHA
PLEASE DONT LEAV MISS PAIGE
FANKYOU FOR TICHIN ME HOW TO RITE A LETTER

yeah it makes it all worth it
i'm knackered but it's cool, and yeah depite all the shit i do wanna be a teacher (well for a while...)