Hokey Pokey

So the week did not have a stellar start. The business adventure that I had embarked on with the women's group was not successful on Monday. They didn't sell all of their cupcakes and, from my observations, didn't really try that hard. As a result they had to pay for most of them themselves. Wednesday's class was out of control and the kids didn't seem to care about the material. They were shocked when I took away the notes they were passing and the photo album they had their noses in. Worst of all the teacher didn't seem to care either. On top of it all, my teacher canceled the class for next Monday because she's "sick" again. I keep trying to tell her, she's not sick, she's pregnant and they're called appointments, because you can schedule them, like for when you don't have class to teach.... Wooo sah, wooo sah. So I decided as a way to keep myself from spontaneously combusting, I would cancel English Club on Thursday afternoon and just take a moment to catch up on my reading. Just as I was easing into my hammock 6 little girls showed up at my house. "Carolina, are we having class today?" I told them no and thought they would just run a long, but they were persistent. I figured since I usually complain about not having enough work, I should take advantage of work when it is knocking on my door, or in this case surrounding my hammock. I changed out of my soccer shorts and headed to the school. Since I wasn't planning on having class that day, I didn't have anything planned, but I could tell these girls were pretty much starting from square one. We pronounced "Hello How are you?" and "My name is..." for about 20 minutes. When I could tell they were as done with that practice as I was we started with another topic, body parts. I asked one girl to draw a picture of a person on the board and then labeled the important parts. I could already tell their minds were saturated with "Hello, how are you?" so we ended the day with a fun song, the "Hokey Pokey". They put their left foots in, their left foots out, and really got into it when they shook it all about. I'm pretty sure they didn't memorize all of the body parts there and then, but then I also realized that wasn't the point. They did the hokey pokey and that's what it was all about. I know, I know really cheesy, but it really turned my week around. I can't make kids memorize all the common parts of the body in 5 minutes, or 5 hours, but I am helping in a little way and maybe not even in ways I can see now. And now friends and family that is what my life in Nicaragua is all about.