Working at Promesa

My time in Cusco has been flying by! I arrived in Cusco on Tuesday morning very exhausted from the trip. In addition to sleeping a lot the first day I also met many of the teachers from Promesa, the school that I am volunteering at while in Cusco. I am staying with three of the English teachers:Emily who teaches 4 and 5 year olds, Malinda who teaches first grade, and Rebeca who teaches 2nd and 3rd grade. The school is a bilingual school so the students learn their core classes in Spanish and then have English classes as a special. As a volunteer I try to help fill in gaps and help wherever I am needed. Two days I worked mostly with 4 and 5 year olds. For part of the time I was just an extra person in the room helping keep the kids focused and help them with cutting or pasting or whatever needed to be done for the class to run more smoothly. At other times I was left in charge of the kids while the other teacher had to step out of the room. Another day I helped run stations in an English class for 3rd graders and helped prepare notebooks and homework for the first graders. I have also served as computer monitor for the 5 year olds and gate keeper at the beginning of the school day. I also have worked some in the library organizing books. If I get a chance this next week I am going to put some of the books into the computer. A couple words that I have found very helpful while I am at school are ven: come, sal: go, sientense: Sit down, escuchame: listen to me, cuidado: careful, muy bien: very good, and Que Bonita: How Pretty. Sometimes things get interesting when I mix my words up. For example I was trying to ask a student if I could borrow her eraser: borrador and instead asked for her boring: aburrido. Another time I was trying to tell a student to close: cerra his notebook and listen to the teacher and instead I told him to get close to: cerca his notebook and listen to the teacher. Both times I quickly discovered my mistake as both students just stopped and looked at me like I was going crazy. :) I have learned that children are very forgiving and my blunders can be the source of laughs for both the children and myself.
My favorite part of the day is after school when I can spend time with the kids on the playground. This also has helped me expand my vocabulary. For example one day some of the kids decided it would be fun to pretend to eat me. As they would "eat" my different body parts I would respond with, "No come mi cara!"(don't eat my face!) or, "No come mi brazo!" (Don't eat my arm!) If they started to eat a body part that I didn't know the name for I would stop and ask before continuing the game. Another time some of the kids decided to run around and pretend to throw arañas (spiders) and serpientes (snakes) at me. Finally I thought it would be good to stop and ask exactly what arañas were.
Working at the school has been very stretching as I have had to learn how to work with my language limitations while interacting with both teachers and students; however, it has also been extremely rewarding. Friday after school was the first day I had kids come up to me after school and tell me goodbye. As I heard them say, "Miss (pronounced like meese)Risa, Miss Risa, ciao!" as they gave me a big hug and kiss I had to smile.