Sunday, April 14: Day 1

Overview:

Today I got my first view of Escuela Especial. There were no children to be seen, only a lot of work. There were a couple of the translators, and the principal there, so we started off with a brief introduction, followed by a brief tour of the school, although there really wasn't a lot to view. 

After the tour, we got right to work. Some of us were assigned to the classrooms, while others were assigned to trash clean up. I started with trash clean up. After the initial cleaning was done, the jobs spread. I managed to work my way from trash cleaner to dish washer, and due to my affection for cleaning dishes, there I stayed. 

Highlights:

I had two main highlight moments. The first was while cleaning the dishes, and the other was cleaning one dish. The first highlight was looking down at my self at lunch, then later as we were about to leave, and noticing that my white shirt had turned a dark gray color, and parts of my shorts had turned a black color. While cleaning I had managed to get the dirty water all over the rim of  my shirt, and the black "stuff" from the pots on my shirt. 

The second highlight of my day, and my favorite highlight of my day, was cleaning one of the dishes. The dish was a large black pot that looked fairly clean, but felt like it had never been cleaned.  I was scrubbing hard in order to try to get the layer of black "stuff" off of the outside of the pot and noticed that the pot seemed to change colors. I rinsed it of and realized that the "black" pot was actually a steel color. The entire outside was coated in black, so I spent the next hour working at getting the black "stuff." 

Lesson:

From cleaning the pot, I learned a valuable lesson. Actually, I believe that I learned a couple valuable lessons. The most important one is that the cover might hide what is inside, so don't judge based on the looks. I also learned, or more re-learned, not to judge a book by its cover. 

Photos:

Plan For Tomorrow:

Tomorrow there will be children at the school. Each of us were assigned a classroom to work in, some of us with another person, some of us without. I get to help out with pre-school, along with Nathaniel. We were told that sometimes the students will just sit in there, doing nothing until it is time to go home. Nathaniel and I are going to do our best to make the children actually do something, and get them out moving around, not sitting there, doing little to nothing. 

Hasta Luego,

Morgan Kromer