Matt Merrill: Teacher?

Today (Sunday) was a fairly light day, I even got to sleep in to 8:30! I proceeded to continue sub-categorizing reciets, and saying the many holas y buenas dias to Keyla. I was then asked to help Jesse with his homework, especially in English. This proved to be a difficult task, but I was happy to help in whatever way I could. Jesse and I worked on basic sentences, pronouns, and verbs for a little over 4 hours. He was obviously tired and frustrated, and I had to play the "diciplined parent" preventing him from watching TV or other distracting activities. It was not a role I enjoyed, but after a while he seemed to be getting better. I let him study some other subjects while I continued with the tedious reciets and expense reports. It was a boring but exhaustive morning with a wide spectrum of emotions. I saw tears when Jesse had to stay home and study with me while Nancy and the other kids went to a movie, and the amazing smile and high five after I confirmed that he answered a question correctly. Such swings in such a short time...

When Larry returned from "Al otro lado" or the other side (US). Jesse and I went with him and a volunteer group from Oklahoma to visit the Colonia Santa Maria, which is the construction project in which we are building a small school and where a woman and her 11 year old autistic twin boys live, and to visit Casa Bugambilla, the main refuge. The group wanted to see what work they were going to be doing this week, which consists of raising drywall, painting, and several other small construction projects. I will be working alongside them tomorrow, and working on a special project: I will be trying to construct a very basic bench with the help of Alexis, one of the autistic boys living there. This will entail me trying to get him to turn the screws and drive a few nails in its construction. No telling how this will go, but I love the idea of this project.

One of the highlights of today was spending a lot of time with little Jesse. We played for the most part this afternoon while the volunteer group looked around and found out what they were going to be doing all week. I felt like a big brother as I played with and translated for the 7 year old. He kept me laughing all afternoon, whether it was by climbing up on things only to jump onto me, coming up behind me and squirting me with little squirt guns, or asking me to blow bubbles so that he could run and smack them with his hands (Imagine him clapping loudly and yelling POP!) As tiring as the morning was trying to teach Jesse basic English, the afternoon proved to be very fun and refreshing. I go to bed tonight with high expectations for tomorrow.

Until later,

Matt