I realized the other day that I have been MIA for the last month. Sorry. Some of you may have heard that the little village at the bottom of Machu Pichu flooded and a lot of tourists have been stranded. Thankfully when I was there everything was fine and we made to back to Coch alright. Peru was amazing! God’s beautiful creation was around every corner and the intelligence of the Inca empire was astounding to witness. Highlights will be in the next post. Also, I loaded all of my pictures from the trip under PHOTOS. Just click on the picture of the Cristo and it will take you to my Flickr accound.
School has begun again and we are already three weeks into the semester. Everything is off to a good start and most of my students have been interested in the topics we are studying. In Socials we are going through the Revolutionary War and I have particularly enjoyed taxing them for certain items. After two weeks of having to use our class money to go to the bathroom, get paper, go to recess and sit in their chairs they were ready to revolt. After reading about the Boston Massacre one of my students even asked me if we could have a massacre in class! I couldn’t help but laugh because he said it with such a straight face. We actually had a Second Continental Congress meeting and they created their own Declaration of Independence. Needless to say the afternoons have been quite fun in fourth grade.
Another rather interesting issue to mention is the coming of Carnaval. Yes, I personally have experienced the feeling of being hunted and attacked by hoards of guys with water balloons. Around the time of Carnaval (Mardi Gras) people start selling, carrying, and throwing water balloons at any breathing female within their aim. I have had a fair amount of experience with this from summers of water fights and looking for boys with water guns (thank you Sean and the rest of the gang). However this is much different. Everytime I go out into the street I am staring at cars and any person approaching me to see if they are going to nail me with a water balloon. For instance, two Sundays ago a bunch of us were walking to the Cristo to hike and as we are minding our own business a truck full of AT LEAST 20 guys spoted us. I had a brief moment of panic as I dove for cover behind a very small Volkswagen Bug. The onslaught of balloons was ridiculous and we were very wet by the time they went past us. Thinking back it actually makes me laugh but the thought of that happening again is very annoying. Carnaval is only two weeks away so I hope I can make it until then without getting wet again.
Bolivia and Beyond... 