Tickle Me Elmo!

Thanks Mom for the title. She suggested this a couple of weeks ago so time to use it!

Today I went to Spanish class that Bryson is teaching to the family to learn about direct object pronouns. Sounds interesting huh? It is fun relearning some of the details of Spanish that I have forgotten. After class, I worked on the Infectious Disease Unit. The start of 4 out of 9 units. Woohoo! I actually found a pretty cool online resource that Scott had saved previously called Migrant Health Promotion and it is a program that offers basic health training to migrant workers to teach them about the basics of hygiene, safety, etc. and has a lot of great information!

This afternoon I hung out with the kids for a little bit. I was hanging out with several of the younger children, getting my hair brushed and then got my hair braided by one of the older girls, Nicol. She had to wet my hair as she braided it but instead of just sprinkling water on my head, she was pouring water from Sam's sized plastic jelly container. She would spill some which would clearly go down and get my shirt wet. Eventually my shirt was quite damp and at one point I said "why don't you just use my shirt to wet my hair". Well, bad idea! She then poured the rest of the container on my head, soaking the entire upper 1/2 of my t-shirt. She assured me it was okay because it is hot here so it cooled me off! ;) It was all in good fun and free braids so I can't complain!

I worked a couple more hours on adding some information I received to a different unit until time for Spanish class again this afternoon. Class is taught from 9-10 and 4-5 but from 10-4 the family is expected to study, do homework, do online listening activities, etc. They have a lot of Spanish to learn in very little time. I don't envy them because they are studying so hard!

After class I hung out with the kiddos before dinner. I was tickling Lisy who is about 4 or 5 and she got excited and wanted me to stop so she bit me on the arm. Apparently I'm a tasty treat here! I put her down immediately and told her to sit on the wall for 1 minute. Miraculously she sat there until I said it was time to get up (maybe not a full minute ;)) and I said, what do you say and she said Sorry! Supernanny at work right here! I was impressed though because she can be mean and not care many times!

Luz Maria was playing with a Clorox bleach box and laying in it, putting it on her head, etc. Eventually it was flat on the ground and I went over and rolled her up in it like a hotdog in a bun. I walked around offering "salchicha" to others and they were eating part of the Luz Maria hotdog. Nena and Arianni wanted to be hotdogs too so we rolled them up and ate them. So much fun with so little resources!

Edison was "riding" a bike from that consisted of the handle bars, the cross bar that connected the handle bars to the seat, and maybe the frame where the tire would fit into but without a front tire or any back parts to the bike. The seat was a 5 gallon water jug, like the Highbridge spring water gallon buckets. Obviously they didn't go too far but these kids are crazy creative, and they destroy things at the same time! :)

After dinner I spent some more time with the kids, tickling Joanni, Arianni, and Lisy again. Joanni and I went and sat on one of the benches and sang a sing and repeat song in English that they learned this past summer. "There was a great big Moose", Repeat back, "Who liked to drink a lot of juice", Repeat back, "Say Weh O Weh O Weh O", etc. It was fun because she was actually singing it to me and I was repeating back to her. Although they probably don't fully understand what they are signing because it is all in English, they still all love this song.

We had a conference call with Tom and Bryan, the director and associate director, of OO who lives in Arizona and Michigan, respectively. We all discussed what we are working on from them recruiting volunteers to us working down here. They already have around 400 health people signed up for this spring so looks like I'll be busy!

Tomorrow I've designed a fun workout run that I'm excited about. We are going to do a run that is about 30 minutes there and back but in the middle of the run we are going to switch it up by stopping to do jumping jacks, squats, walking lunges, side steps, pushups, and standing abs so I'm excited to try it out and see how it goes! Better get to bed!