My First Few Days

My first days teaching at the Heslington Institute have been a success! I got ready for my first day of teaching on Wednesday. My host family was very nice and they gave me a tamal for breakfast. It was good and even a little bit spicy. When I finished my breakfast, Gaby [the host daughter] and I headed to the bus. The bus to most people would be a large public transportation bus – but this was not the case. The public bus here is more like a tiny van. You have to pay 5.50 pesos to ride and it’s super crowded. As I mentioned before the driving is super crazy in Mexico, and the bus was no exception to that. . Gaby has been riding with me these past few days, but she's teaching me how to go and where to get off and all. My family lives just on the outskirts of the city. It’s still a part of the city, but it’s too far to walk. The bus ride is about 15-20 minutes long. This morning when I got on the bus there were about 20 people. Let’s just say my claustrophobia was raging at that point.

One of the classrooms I teach in

my view from the classroom window

 

 I am scheduled to teach 4 classes daily. My first class is at 10 AM and it is a high beginning class. The first day only one person showed up, but today it doubled in size and TWO people showed up!! That was pretty exciting for me. The students are really great. My second class of the day is at 11 AM and it’s an advanced conversation class. Unfortunately no one showed up for that class yesterday or today. My third class of the day doesn’t begin until next week, but when it does it will be a kindergarten class! I am co-teaching with another girl from the program named Jerica. She’s actually from about an hour away from where I go to school in Idaho! Finally my fourth class of the day is another high beginning class that begins at 6 PM.  Last night 4 people showed up to it which was a good turnout compared to my other classes. The school I am teaching at is where people who want extra help can come. We have people of all ages coming here and signing up. The place where I am teaching kindergarten is an actual school though. The HELP! people work with the private schools here and send teachers, I am just not teaching any of those classes, except the kindergarten. 

me in front of the build

I have been eating great food with my host 

family so far! I have had chilaquiles, tamales, pollo enpanado, huevos con frijoles, taquitos, and lots of other random stuff. I want to take some pictures of it, but I don’t want my family to think I’m weird. I will try to snap some photos when they’re not looking though J