Thankful

After all that I've gone through over the past few months I have found that I have a lot to be thankful for. I'm thankful for my super supportive family. They're super awesome and have been my shoulder to cry on on many occasions. I'm thankful for Bobby who has been supporting my financially and emotionally. He's totally my rock and I couldn't get through this year without him and the laughter that he brings to the darkest of days that I've had here. He is amazing. I'm thankful for all of my friends who I know have been covering me with prayers. I'm thankful that I had/have a two parent family and that my parents believe in me and have always been there for me. I'm thankful for the public education that I received because not all public education is created equally. I'm thankful for all the amazing teachers that I had who knew how to teach and who knew how to capture my attention and who ruled out of love and never cruelty. I'm thankful for SPCC and all the amazing people who helped to shape the teacher that I have become. I'm thankful for Tracy and her amazingly compassionate heart. Without her I'm pretty sure this whole experience would be very different.There are too many blessings in my life to even have the words to name. All I know is that I am so very fortunate and having a full life does not in any way mean that you have to have a lot of money or a lot of material possessions. Having a full life is all about the people that you surround yourself by. I have amazing people in my life and I love every one of them and every one of them has helped to shape me into the person that I am now and for that I am so thankful. Love you all and I can't wait to see everyone when I come home for Christmas! (I'll miss you Bobby!!!)

Roaches

So this week I found out that the south has a roach problem. Tracy was telling me that in the cities in the south they get roaches the way that we get mice in MN. Here it's seen as really weird that I'd never seen  a real roach until I went to Nicaragua (and it's funny that I'd never seen a roach until last June, but now I've had 2 of them TOUCH me.... YUCK!) Anyways, on Wednesday I got to the school and I sat at my desk (which is up against the wall, in a corner by the door). I was sitting there waiting for the day to begin and enjoying the quiet and empty room. I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye and looked up at the door. There was a cockroach walking up the door. I froze. I didn't really know what to do since they're nearly impossible to kill. I sat and watched it walk up the door. Then it finally stopped at the top of he door frame. I decided I should do something about it since Tracy could walk in at any moment and the roach would fall on her head if she did. I didn't know what to do though so I pulled out my phone to text Bobby. I was looking at my phone when all of a sudden the roach came FLYING at my head. I jumped up, threw everything that I had in my hands and ran screaming to the middle of the room. My heart was pounding and holy cow did I get a rush of adrenaline. I stood there and wathed the roach as it sat near the wall. About two seconds later Tracy walked in the room. I told her what happened and we proceeded to laugh about it. Then Tracy got a broom and tried to get the roach with it. It ran under my desk and into the corner. Tracy shoved the broom back there and TWO roaches came running out (which means there was aroach at my feet THE WHOLE TIME! ICK!) she chased them around the room while I took pictures for Facebook... hahaha... She smooshed one of them... or so we thought... (later it came alive again). The Reading Coach came in the room and gave us some Raid, which I don't think is good for you, but at that point I didn't really care. We Raided the room and found another roach that Tracy sprayed and killed. BLECH....

That night we had Girl's Night. We made dinner and had some cheap wine and hung out at my place. I was headed into my room from the dining area when a roach ran across my path. NNNOOOOO!!!!! Not in my home too!!!! Tracy guarded my bedroom door while I grabbed an empty laundry detergent bottle (I knew I had saved that for a reason!) and beat the roach to death while I screamed "Die! Die! Die!".. A little dramatic, but I'm sure you would've done the same... Tracy and I popped in a movie and fell asleep. The next morning we were getting ready for a Habitat project and that roach that I thought I had killed came gimping out from under my bed. I scooped him up and flushed him down the toilet. Yuck. Stupid roaches. So gross!

I Know Why I'm Here

To say that this was a hard week would be a huge understatement. I think this was the hardest week I've had yet, and I'm sure that some will be even harder which honestly, kind of scares me. But I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. On Wednesday, Tracy and I were in our room and we could hear a child crying, which in itself is not unusual. The crying was loud and intense, not like the sort of whiny I'm-not-getting-my-way cry. Then we heard what most definitely sounded like someone being hit and instantly the crying turned to that shrieking I'm-really-hurt cry. Tracy and I froze and looked at each other. I'm sure that my jaw hit the ground. We heard the sound three more times and both of us got up and ran out into the hallway only to realize that the sound wasn't coming from the hallway, it was coming from the classroom next door. Pretty soon the class and the teacher came out of the room and the teacher was screaming all sorts of nasty things at the kids. I have no doubt that she did hit that child, but there's nothing that I can do about it. I didn't actually see anything. Tracy and I had talked a few times about going to see the documentary Waiting for "Superman" and we decided right then that we needed to see it that evening. It's about the public school system here in the U.S. (check out the website here) So Wednesday night Tracy, Owen and I got together and had dinner and vented about how horrible the schools are and then we went and saw the movie. Wow. It completely described that place that I'm working (read my review here). It told us why these horrible teachers can do whatever they want and not get fired (thank you teacher's union) and it made me see once again that I am not alone in this fight to make things better for our kids.

Friday was so hard. I came up with a schedule that I had okayed by the teachers of when I was going to pull their kids. Well every Friday one of the teachers won't let me pull her kids because they're testing which is so frustrating because pretty soon I'm going to start getting in trouble for not meeting the requirements of how often I see the kids. She even had the audacity to ask me if I could see more of her kids, which I would LOVE to do, but I already can't see the kids of hers that I have. So I waited until their usual testing time was over and I walked into the classroom to start getting my kids. The teacher took one look at me, pointed and said "NO". I almost lost it on her. I am so sick and tired of being treated like trash! I just walked back to my room and banged my head against the desk a few times. Meanwhile Tracy was pulling her kids three at a time to try and get them all in so a couple of them ended up hanging out with me and making me feel better. Such a bunch of sweeties :) After the school day was over I went to the library for our afterschool tutoring. On Fridays none of the kids ever have homework so we sat with them and colored coloring pages. It was Tracy and I with two sets of sisters. Two of the girls are in 2nd grade and their sisters are both in kindergarten. We were asking them about their days and just chatting and goofing around when all of a sudden the older girls started talking about their older sisters' friend who was stabbed to death at 12 years old just last week. They knew all these horrible, grisly details about the incident and they talked for quite a long time about it. I didn't really know what to say so I just listened. Finally one of the younger girls ran over to me and grabbed me around the neck and held on. I didn't know if she was goofing around or what because 2 minutes earlier she had been making us crack up by laughing this goofy laugh. I sat there with my arm around her and she just stood there with me so finally I picked her up and put her in my lap. She curled up into a ball and cried those heartbreaking silent tears. Meanwhile one of the older girls said "you know, I'm angry that she's dead. I'm angry that she isn't here anymore because it's not right" Tracy assured her that it's okay to be angry and that she's exactly right that it isn't right that that happened. The little one sat in my lap crying for a good 20 minutes to a half hour. It broke me. I cried the whole drive home. Bobby called me and I cried to him and told him how angry I was and still am. No child should have to deal with such a violent death much less know all the grisly details. No child should have to live in fear that this will happen to them too. No child should have to mourn. Children should get the chance to be innocent and to laugh and to not be afraid. I'm angry that these parents can't get a leg up and take their children out of this neighborhood. I'm angry that these teachers are so incredibly horrible and rule by using fear instead of love. I'm angry that I'm not going to be here for these kids when this year is up and that I'll have to spend my life with their faces in my memory and wonder about them and hope for their futures and know that most of them won't get the education that they need to get out of there. I do know now that I'm here for a reason though. I was debating on going to part time so that I could get a second job and be able to pay my bills, but I can't do that now. These kids need me in such a huge way.

Getting Better

Last week was actually a really nice week. I now have two friends! Tracy became friends with one of our Americorps co-workers, Owen, and talked about me all the time and so we finally all got together and hung out. Tracy made us dinner and we chilled and whined about our crappy jobs... ha ha ha... But seriously, we kinda did.. I think we're going to try and make the dinner thing a weekly tradition. On Wednesday I went to the Water Festival. It was at a pretty nice private school and I sat in a classroom with 4th graders and assisted as this guy taught them about water filtration (apparantly Birmingham has some of the cleanest water in the nation.... and that's why it tastes like chlorine... I miss my St. Paul water. It tastes like dirt, but I love it). We gave the kids some stuff and challenged them to make a filtration system. They had a dixie cup, a coffee filter, cotton balls, beans and rice. The water had dirt, sequins, oil and vinegar in it. They had a lot of fun and I enjoyed watching them make connections about what they'd learned previously and putting it together with what they were learning right then. I love when you can see the "aha" moment on a kids face. Thursday we had a partial day and then got paid (yay!) and we had Friday off. I had another lovely weekend with Bobby :) we went to lunch and went and saw Hereafter (watch for my review here) and then split a piece of over priced, but super delicious Reese's chocolate cake cheesecake... The highlight of the day was skyping with most of my family :) It was so nice to see all of them (and my puppy!) and they got to meet (sort of) Bobby. He was really nervous, but I think they liked him!

Oh, the highlight of the week was buying my plane ticket home!!!!!! I will be home December 18-Jan1. I'm SOOOOO excited to see everyone (especially my puppy!). Although, I'm sure I'll be longing for the warmer weather that we have here (still in the 80s!)