So I put out a bunch of extra candy on my desk so the kids will come talk to me. Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.

What a week. It has been one of those whirlwind types and I am not sure what I should tell you first. One would think lacking the ability to identify a quality starting point would be problematic. It is not. The beauty of blogging is that I am justified in blabbering on indefinitely. I apologize in advance for lack of intrigue, as I enjoy giving more of an anecdotal account of our interesting happenings rather than weekly overview. But due to interest expressed by certain family members about to our daily life, I am going to try to bring you all up to date. So… our library is coming along slowly. We have gone through about 250 books so far, but progress is slow because everything is so dirty and requires cleaning. We are planning on color-coding the books by reading level. So any of you librarian types wishing to donate some colored spine labels should feel free to contact Laura or Jill (thanks Moms for coordinating). Were shooting for 6 sections: Early Readers, Everybody, Intermediate, Advanced, Adult, and Non-Fiction. I can feel all of you out there with library science degrees shuddering at our lack of alphabetization and careless disregard for the Library of Congress shelving system. Sorry about that. Our aim is to create a system easy enough to operate that di pikni dem (children for those of you who didn’t pay attention during patwa lessons) can run the library without Erin and my supervision. If any of you are so inclined on one of you trips to visit us, you are more than welcome to add a true librarian’s touch to our modest work in progress. Everyday around 3 o’clock we leave the library and head to the multipurpose room at the orphanage to begin our homework help sessions. The kids look so endearing in their little uniforms that it lulls you into a precariously elevated sense of confidence about your ability to control one’s classroom. Instead of calling what we do there ‘homework help,’ I think a more accurate expression would be ‘melee in which a modest amount of homework gets completed and even less learning takes place.’ Generally speaking the kids are very respectful calling us ‘sir’ and ‘miss’ and listening to us when we discourage negative behavior. It is only once we have turned our backs that they return to their running amok-edness. Despite being turdballs when we do not give them our undivided attention, they really are quite fun and undeniably endearing. Last weekend when our beach clean-up was over, I walked with one of the aunties to accompany the 10 children back to the village. About halfway up the large hill home 8 of the ten spontaneously and simultaneously scampered off into the dense brush alongside the road. The kids did not look back and the perturbed auntie and I finished our walk with two kids. The auntie, still fuming, storms into the director’s to find the social worker (2nd in command) and detail the blatant disobedience we experienced. Just then one of the hooligans walks in with a june plum in each hand and a mouth full of the same. The social worker and the auntie took him outside and were preparing to give him a stern talking to when they were interrupted by the blaring horn of a 2-ton flatbed truck. As the truck rolled up, reggae music cranked, the remaining 8 troublemakers could be seen gyrating to the music, each sporting a large Cheshire grin and holding a box full of ‘borrowed’ june plums. It was hard to not crack a smile and marvel at the audacity of their arrival (so I lied about the anecdotes). Anyway… We are struggling with how to deal with the disparity amongst the children in their learning. Some kids can function at their grade level and some kids that are supposed to be doing fractions do not have addition/subtraction understanding. But that is why we are here. Today we meet with the principal and counselor of a nearby school to discuss starting a HIV/sexual health/life skills program at their school. They were very excited and even volunteered us to join the ‘Guidance Committee.’ Throughout the week we have continued our search of new living arrangements. Hopefully by the time we have company coming to visit Oct 12 we aren’t homeless.

Patricio out!!