EIL Intercultural Learning

Hola de Barra!It is my forth week here in Barra and I feel I am really beginning to settle into daily life here in this picturesque little fishing village! Today is Monday, and this morning when I went to my english class I was delighted to find the usual kids waiting for me, plus some new ones! I call it my english class as I really feel that I have put my own stamp on it, which I love! The children run towards me when they see me coming and they welcome me with hugs and the occasional flower! They show so much enthusiasm for the english classes, this encourages me to pre-plan better classes so I can help them to expand their knowledge of the language.

After we finish the english classes I help them to look for a book which they like. We have a great system which enables the children to check out a book for the night and return it the next day. We just had a big donation from Larousse, a big publishing company. This has been excellent and has encouraged the children to enjoy books even more. Today, as we have some spare time I take out the hurleys and sliotars which I brought with me. Of course the kids, so inquisitive, immediately want to know what this strange sport is and more importantly, how to play it!!

After dividing them into fair teams, I teach them the basic skills like pucking the ball on the ground, soloing and roll-picking the ball. Then we have an exciting game where the teams compete against each other! The atmosphere is really tense with both teams chanting the names of their competitors!..It´s been a busy Monday morning!

Just like the weeks, the weekends seem to fly by, presenting themselves with lots of opportuities for sight-seeing and adventures! Saturday, we go kayaking on the lagoon and on the open sea and Sunday sees us on a trip to Manzanilla - an island which is half an hour away in a boat. The Island is absolutely breath taking.It is surrounded by coral reef so we jump at the chance to go snorkelling and to see the beautiful tropical fish which it has in abundance! It really is a little piece of paradise on earth!

This week is set to be a busy one, two new volunteers have arrived from Germany, and the volunteers who were here for a year are leaving tomorrow. We have lots of work to do, besides planning a good-bye party, we need to start organising the supplies for the school distribution. As everyone returns to school here on the 24th of August, we organise a package for each child. It will contain notebooks, pencils, pens etc, so that children will not be discouraged from going to school if they don´t have adequate school supplies, which has happened in the past. But with our help it has been happening less and less!

Last week, Carmen, the volunteer national co-ordinator who is based in Mexico city, came to Barra. We all got to work and made lots of notepads with our supplies, I couldn´t believe how easy it was to make them! We also counted all of the supplies which we have, so now all we need to do is put the packages together!

In the afternoon class we do a paper making class - this is a workshop which we run in order to recycle paper. We have designated a special area in the library for waste paper. The night before the class, the paper needs to be shredded and soaked in water over-night.The next day we take the paper and make pages with it, then clamp it so that the pages will be as thin as possible. When it´s dry we make booklets and photo frames. The children really enjoy customising their individual projects with glitter and stickers!

After art class we have ´´hora de cuentos´´ which is story hour! We gather in a big circle in the story corner, last week we made a big sign and drawings and hung them in our story corner. One of us maestras takes a popular story and reads it for the children. This encourages their interest in books even more and afterwards they are free to look for more books! After this the kids have play hour where they can inside or outside in the library garden.

After a long day, a cool, soothing swim in the ocean is the perfect remedy. This place is truely a little piece of heaven on earth!