21-7, Florida–pass the tortillas…

Here we sit, stuffed with roasted chicken and veggies, beneath the dim lights during the evening hours when everyone in San Mateo wants more than his share of kilowatt hours.  But there’s still enough electricity–and high-speed, satellite Internet signal–to stream the Ohio-Florida Tostitos Bowl through low-quality laptop speakers.  Is it just that we’re sick of wiring the school and doing lesson plans, or is the world really that small?  Either way, it’s pretty dang funny.

This morning saw all of the school staff gladly taking advantage of vast quantities of child labor, as the girls swept and mopped, the older guys hauled computer desks and chalkboards up the side of the building with rope, and the younger boys marched like ants to and from the old school with smaller desks, planks of wood, and pieces of rooftop [all of which were at least 63 times the mass of their tiny, Herculean bodies] in preparation for building a new classroom on the roof of the new school.  None of the rooms can house the 40 students we [somewhat inadvertantly] enrolled in primero…but never fear–every roof in San Mateo is flat, so you can always build up!

The school inauguration is tomorrow at 2, during which there will be much marimba, festivating, and a few formal speeches.  All on the basketball court, of course.  Which is next to the Catholic church.  Where else would it be?

Now off to squeeze a few more lesson plans out of the perfectly useless documentation supplied by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education (Mineduc).  Of course, that means that I really can teach whatever I feel like teaching, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  But I won’t be teaching anything if I don’t have any lesson plans, Guatemalan or not, so until next time…

Excellent,
Chat