May I?

Hello my intrepid readers,

Well, we´re nearing the end of May, only a couple of weeks until my one year anniversary with Ecuador (June 18) and a month away from my long awaited homecoming (on my side at least... I´ve been long a-waiting...). This month, as opposed to last month, has absolutely F-L-O-W-N by. Maybe it´s because I´m teaching 4 hours in the morning, 4-6 in the afternoon, followed by basketball games where I spend my time running around with kids of all ages (including some over 30). By the time I get back to my disaster of a room, it´s time for bed... under the mosquito net I crawl and have dreams or my recurrent nightmare where I forget the time my flight leaves for the Unites States.

Though I´m ridiculously excited to be coming home in July, and find myself fantasizing about it in my spare time, I have to admit... life is pretty freakin´sweet here. Now that I´m teaching in the two elementary schools here, not only do all the kids know my name, but I know their names too, and I´m learning to whom they belong, where the rivalries are, who has crushes on whom, who´s the teacher´s pet, who´s the outcast, the rebel, the class clown--it´s like an interesting book I can´t put down. I´m starting to have favorites too... like the little girl that´s a little fighter, who, if some little child happens to hurt me as they jump onto my back or almost cause me to fall because three are hanging onto my legs, will immediately rush to my side and start pulling them off, hitting them off, calling them names that little girls shouldn´t know... usually I wind up forgetting the other children to stop her and tickle her into submission. There´s the little boy that doesn´t care that the other boys are watching and comes over to shamelessly hug me, and be pulled up into my arms. There´s the little girl in the other school who knows that she´s misbehaving, and knows that I know she´s misbehaving, but puts on this innocent, bewildered expression that just makes me forget to punish her and gets me to laughing. There´s the little boy that follows me wherever I go in town.

In colegio, that´s high school, I have days where I´m Super Teacher, and all students love and adore me because I´m the cool one, and I´m much more popular than I ever was in highschool (where being a brainy know-it-all didn´t exactly lend itself to inclusion), and I have days where I´m pretty sure the kids are mocking me behind my back, where nobody understands a word of what I´m teaching, where kids look like they are going to sink into a boredom-induced coma. I have my favorites there too, but it´s based more on how well they do in class than how cutely they misbehave.

Then there´s basketball. I hated basketball when I was younger, and anyone who knows me can attest to how absolutely wonderfully I played (cough cough... NOT). But here, basketball, my loves, is a new sport, and I am all knowing and all powerful. I´m the woman with the Ball. I get picked first for the teams (something that never Ever would have happened in my childhood, not with basketball at least... I was a Dodgeball, Kickball, Soccer Reina, but basketball or volleyball--fuggedabout it). Here, I´m the point guard and the referee, the one yelling at members of both teams "Sola una mano!" (Dribble with only one hand!), "No empujes!" (Don´t push!), "No cojas!" (Don´t grab!). I keep the teams weighed evenly by picking the captains who then pick the teams. We play games up to 5, 7, or 10 depending on how many kids are waiting to play, with one basketball hoop, and the entire basketball court. At most I´ll let 5 on each team, and any others will just have to wait the next game. In the beginning, it was just me, hurling the ball at the hoop in frustration. The next day it was me and a little boy. The next, we were 3... and it just kept growing. Now we get anywhere from 10 to 15 kids and women wanting to play... Note to self: I really need to get the other rim fixed.

And that´s all I can write right now. Blast.

...Well, my Pretties. Duty calls. I had the morning free to update this darling blog, but alas, I have been summoned and must away. Until next time, adieu.