Premonition of Chaos

I’ve hit as much of a rhythm as possible. My main project has yet to begin, due to delayed meetings with the necessary individuals, but hopefully things will be under way this weekend. But otherwise we have a speckled pattern.

The past few days haven’t been very stressful. The more obnoxious tough-to-control crowd hasn’t shown up, so the smaller group is easier to entertain and control. Each morning has started of with reading a story (or a few). Whether or not the kids help out in reading the story depends on their literacy capabilities—but everyone seems to enjoy it. It’s good practice for me reading Spanish too.

All this week has been spent creating a show. The first day was a rough cut. The second day included a set with trees and flowers glued to a wooden board and puppets. Today, we continued with the set and puppets, but I read “Pocahontas” out loud, and the puppets acted out the parts. Some of the girls had even used a few pesos to buy small pieces of candy to hand out to the audience.

I’ve been locking the classroom during lunch (save one day when there was no chaos) and it proves useful. One day, Miguel tried to trick me by throwing his shoe into the classroom, complaining that I must open the gate so he doesn’t walk around without a shoe. I merely told him it was his fault and he’d have to walk around shoeless. The boys ended up getting the shoe by using a broom and sweeping it to the gate anyway.

My only biggest concern is Valeria’s warning about next week. Next Monday, winter vacation starts. Normally its only two weeks, however this year it is starting earlier because the flu is so common. Buenos Aires gets a whole month off!

This presents itself as a potential problem since I will likely have a LOT more kids ALL day at el comedor, which will make it much harder to keep peace.

But a small break to look forward to is a holiday on July 9th. It better be a big event, especially since Salta has a plaza called “9 de Julio.”