a quiet two weeks and a 7 hour meeting

I`m on descanso in Granada at a hostal with free internet (although it doesn´t have headsets so I can´t skype, in case anyone was looking for me to show up on skype). But since there´s free internet I thought I´d write to you all!

The past few weeks have been fairly uneventful. I´ve been working a lot in Aula de recurso, which is nice for a change. Mostly things there have been going well, although I´ve had a few kids get mad at me recently. My 4th graders and II ciclo (3rd and 4th grade combined) have all been working on long division, so that´s been quite a bit of work for them. They mostly all understand it. Their mistakes come in multiplication, or subtraction usually. Also sometimes they misread larger numbers and aren´t sure which one is bigger. They had a quiz yesterday on 2-digit long division, so hopefully they did ok!

I also did a family event this week with Elba (one of my aula de recurso students) her sister, and her cousin. We baked cookies and played games. So that was fun, and they enjoyed the cookies!

I also took some pictures this week for passports for some of the dance group. They´re leaving near the end of september for another trip to the US, this time to the West coast. I´ll send more info later about where exactly they´re going, in case anyone lives nearby and wants to go.

Thursday Jayden came and found me at the school and told me we had a junta (meeting) at 1 in Yader´s office. I wasn´t exactly what it was about. He said it was comite de la casa (House committee) but I wasn´t quite sure what that was. So made sure I got to lunch early (usually we eat at 1) to pick up some food before the meeting. I got to Yader´s office at 1, and no one else was there. Typical Nica time. So I waited for a bit, then wandered back over to the ranchon and found some other people heading over to the meeting. People slowly drifted in, but the directors and the psychologists didn´t show up until 2. (the psychologists were in another meeting, so they sorta had an excuse, but I don´t know what the directors were doing). So we finally started the meeting. The point of the meeting was to discuss problems with specific kids, so it was all really important stuff. First we talked for a long time about one 14 yr old boy with developmental problems. His body is developing normally, so he´s been having problems dealing with puberty changes and has been behaving inappropriately (although he doesn´t realize that it´s inappropriate). The psychologists are going to give him some sex ed, and everyone´s going to try to keep an eye on him.

Then we moved on to 7 kids who failed geography (a semester class) and then also failed the two make-up tests offered. Here, if the kids fail one class, they have to repeat the whole year. So technically all these kids had to repeat the year already, which would not give them much incentive to try in second semester. The school offered to pass them in geography as long as they got a good grade in history second semester. So then we had to talk to each of the kids to see why they thought they failed. From the input of the tios, we had a pretty good idea who tried, and still failed, and who didn´t even try. So we started calling kids in, mostly one-by-one, but sometimes in pairs (for example, two girls who both tried really hard and only missed passing by 3 and 4 points were called in together). So that took a long time, because we started out by giving the kids a chance to talk. Mostly they were nervous and hesitant at the beginning, so it was a while before they really told us anything. So that took between 20 and 40 minutes per kid, depending on how willing they were to talk and how emotional they got. Then we offered them two choices (that we had decided on before)
#1 they could keep studying. They need to get at least 70% in all classes for 2nd semester and they need to have good attitudes and behavior both in school and in the house. They also have to work in the kitchen or in maintenance for 4 weekends.
#2 they could stop studying and start working in a taller immediately. (the tallers (workshops) are sewing, kitchen, carpentry, metal work, electricity, bakery) They would work the normal hours of the people employed there and then spend the evenings working in the comedor (dining room) washing dishes and cleaning up after dinner. That would continue until March of 09, when technical schools start their school year. They would go to Managua to spend one year in a tech school, and then they would leave NPH. (NPH provides transition support, but the idea is that then they would start to support themselves.)
We were hoping that with these choices they would try harder in whatever they were doing, because they chose to do it, rather than were forced to do it. All but one chose option 1, and the remaining girl hadn´t chosen yet when I left yesterday, but I think she´ll choose #1 also. So that was good, because that´s what we were hoping they´d choose. But we felt like we needed to give them another option because we couldn´t force them to study. So we´ll see how that works out.

So by the time we were done with all that it was 8PM. It was a VERY LONG meeting. It really was important stuff, but seriously, I think it could have been a little shorter. the time with the kids was all important, but there were times before they came in that we talked around in circles a bit. Also a few times I think some of the adults talked a little to much to the kids. But overall it was important. But I hope I´m never at a meeting that long again!

So after that I was really excited to leave on descanso. I really like Granada, and this hostal, so it´s nice! I came here by myself (most of my descanso group is on vacation) but today Kiki (a volunteer on vacation) is coming here with her brother and her friend, so I´ll have company soon.

I hope you all are doing well! Watch the Olympics for me, ´cause I don´t think I´ll get to watch very much. I´m going to go see if the tv here at the hostal has anything on, but I know once I get back to the island I won´t be able to watch anything. Oh well...