Doing What We Came to Do

October 6, 2007

Today was a full day of orientation preparing us to be Global Volunteers. In the afternoon, we finally met our host school leaders through a long process of welcoming speeches, introductions, and entertainment by children. Rich and I will be in Rainbow School of about 2500 students of all ages up to 18. The first week we will be working with 17-18 year olds, second week 12-16, and the third 8-11. They want us to let them practice their conversational skills as if they were in America. They want to learn American culture. Rich came prepared with a wooden alphabet set, a deck of cards, and a pile of consumer Reports magazines. Tomorrow is our first day.

October 7, 2007

Rainbow school is about an hour away. We were picked up at the hotel by the school driver and an English teacher. We each were led to 3 classes of 40 min each from 9AM-12 noon. We could do whatever we wanted to encourage the students to speak English. Some were very shy. Today we had the “best” students. These are the ones who aspire to go to university. After a lovely lunch, we returned to the school for “English corner” which is an informal set up where we make ourselves available to just talk with students. We are told anything goes and students are free to talk or ask us about anything. These were young students who are more interested in American pop culture. Unfortunately Rich and I are not real versed in American pop culture so I’m afraid came across as fuddy-duddies. It still was a fun day. We will be doing this for 3 weeks with different groups of students.