Things are starting to pick up

A candidate's booth

Wow, so I guess where I left off I was getting ready to go to the elections.  It was cool to see how the process worked and what the voting customs are like here, but after about an hour or so I got really, really bored.  When I had accepted the invitation to go with them, I didn't realize it would be an all day thing, I thought it would just be a couple hours.  I'm grateful, though, that Priscilla, Cecilia and Herbert's daughter, let me stay in her house for a few hours when it was obvious to all that I was pretty bored.  So I got to rest and watch some T.V. for a few hours while everyone else was at a booth handing out flags, bumper stickers, t-shirts, and the like to anyone who wanted one.

Each candidate had a different color

After the voting booths closed (at 6pm) the whole group of Otto Guevara supporters that had been running the booth came over the Priscilla's house to watch the results.  Turns out, the guy we were supporting cam in last or second-to-last.  Bummer.  Because none of the candidates won the 40% required to become president, there will be another election held in April (like, the 1st or 2nd) between the two candidates that placed highest.  That means, either the current political party in control will not change, or it will change to be controlled by a man with communistic views, and is friends with well-known communist dictators--like Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro.  My host mom, Cecilia, is not very happy about this.  She says that because it is her civic duty to vote, she will, but instead of picking one of the candidates, she's just going to put a big 'X' on the ballot, indicating a vote for neither.  Not sure how that will play out in the end, but I suppose everyone is entitled to vote as they see fit.

As far as what's happening at Rahab, we have two new faces, Brianna and Liz.  Brianna is my co-teacher for the English class being offered, and Liz will take over when Brianna leaves at the end of March. They're both American, and Liz is also Dominican, and it's nice to have some more people around the office who make me NOT the "new girl" anymore, lol.

Our phonetic board

Speaking of English co-teacher, today was our first day!  The class is a two-hour time slot, and I was worried we wouldn't fill that time easily, but we didn't do too badly.  The class started out pretty roughly, but ended up....ok.  There are four students in that class, and they happen to represent pretty much the entire spectrum of English knowledge (ok, not the ENTIRE spectrum, but for four students, a surprisingly large range). Two students knew very, very little of English, and two knew a little more.  After teaching greetings and introduction words, we could pretty much tell something was off.  We then found out that two of our students wanted to learn the VERY basic, and start with the alphabet and the sounds of the letters.  A third student knew that, and was probably at the level we were teaching, if not a little more advanced.  The fourth student already knew all about introductions, can do the past and present tenses, and can make simple sentences, thus was waaaay ahead of the other three students.  We ended up playing Hangman for most of the day, so that people could practice learning how to say the letters of the alphabet.  Then, we went through the alphabet and had the more advanced students write out the phonetic spelling of the the letters for the other two.  Then we pretty much called it a day.

There's no way of knowing who is going to return and who is going to join in the coming weeks, but I really do hope that at least those four continue to come.  Yes, it'll be a challenge to teach at two (or three, ish) different levels, but they should all have the chance to learn more in English.  Brianna and I will have to work something out.  It's a bit tricky having never actually taught anything, but the students are understanding and giving us grace.

The next three months will definitely be a challenge, but I'm also really excited for the opportunity to teach English and just DO something that is relevant and important.  Not that filing and organizing is not relevant or important (it is definitely, definitely both) but this lets me be so much more creative and interactive than filing or organizing, and so I am grateful for the opportunity.

Oh, and as promised, photos of Suzanne and Edwin's kitten.

Peace and Blessings!
Kiki