Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Miranda House


First of all, an LMU AB group came and it was so good to have them here. My dear friends Beth and Joanne were on the trip and I loved getting updates from home and just sharing my life with people who know me so well. I brought them to my classes, had Beth and Joanne play music games in music class and asked Kyle and Beth to draw animals on the board in English (Beth's animals always had cankles and Kyle's were a little too complicated-looking for my girls). I cried when they left and unfortunately I'm feeling a little homesick now. A lot of the students from the trip are thinking of coming back to volunteer, especially the seniors in the group, so we'll see what happens...

Last Sunday I went to the Miranda family house. A former volunteer was visiting the center and she wanted to go see this family--I thought, hey, I have all of their children in at least one class...I wanna go. So I asked my high-schooler (one of the older sisters) if that was okay and she said "sure, bring anybody." So four of us volunteers decided to go and we had a lovely time. We started out playing in the park, worked up a huge appetite before lunch, then sat around and played games and scoped out some of the toys the former volunteer had brought (a favorite: little sponge animals that grow when you put them in warm water).



They're a great family (9 kids, a sweet mom and dad works as a janitor at the center) and I'm so glad I invited myself over. As soon as I asked the older sister if I could go, my other high school girls started inviting me to their homes. And when the younger kids found out that I went to the Miranda house they started asking if I could come to their houses too. We'll see where I end up actually going, but I'm learning that it takes a little initiative on my part.

Today the choir kids are singing at a special memorial mass, then after lunch my high school girls are playing soccer in a tournament among the nivelaciĆ³n (levelization) and colegio grades. Should be a great Saturday. Oh, and coming up: the English Teatro will fire up once again for Easter. Expect photos of my second graders wearing masks and pretending to be animals, "What is it? It's a cow. What's it doing? It's watching TV." They love it, it's so silly.

Until then,
Marian

1 comment:

Unknown said...

you weren't the only one crying :) i cried all the way to the airport! haha. hugs, jo