Los Almendros & Ana Dolores Arias

This week Galina and I went to Ana Dolores Arias, an all girl’s school on Monday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, Natalia Laura and I went to Los Almendros. There is a big difference between the two school, on one hand the student body in Ana Dolores was excited about us going to give the English classes, but in Los Almendros only some students were happy and actually willing to collaborate with us. It’s interesting to see this because even though the girls in Ana Dolores have more opportunities than the students in Los Almendros, they are more thankful and more willing to take advantage of this opportunity. First, I thought that the students in Los Almendros were going to be happier to take English classes than the girls in Ana Dolores because in Los Almendros they have not have any volunteers while in Ana Dolores a few volunteers taught English before. Since I am going to a school every day and it is too much work for me from now on I am only going to two schools instead of three. I decided to keep going to Los Almendros and not go to Ana Dolores; I know it would have been easier for me to teach in Ana Dolores because the girls are more interested, but I decided to go for the challenge. Today was my last day in Ana Dolores and I went with Kate who is the other volunteer who will take my position in the school. Changing the subject, this week I had all the fruit I wanted and that makes me really happy. I had nances, mamones, paternas, coco, lichas, and marañones japoneses. Also, this weekend we went to the beach and to the San Salvador volcano. It was fun and interesting. On our way to the beach Medardo was telling us that the government here gives preferences to the wealthy families. He gave us an example of a golf course that uses ten times more water than what a family would use in one day; he said that some communities in the country do not have access to clean water and the government does not do anything about it, they prefer to provide the water for a course that only few families have access to. Another thing about this week is that my classes keep getting harder because they are getting bigger and bigger; and with the new students I have to start from the beginning and that takes almost the whole hour and for those students that already learned the basic is more like a waste of time to be hearing the same thing over and over. It is more difficult for me to make a lesson plan right now because I do not how to meet everyone’s needs. I do try my best to do review, but at the same time teach something new so the class does not get boring. At least for my computer classes is not that difficult because everyone has a computer and they do the work individually. I know it will get better though.

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