Its been a while. I know, BUT there are picture in this post so that has to be worth something? For those of you who were concerned, LAN did find my luggage in Miami and delivered it to the hostel. Thankfully the weather in Bogotá was great and I wasn't sweating through my clothes. Also my fellow volunteers didn't seem to complain that I stank.
That adventure was almost three week ago. In the meantime I've done more TEFL lessons than is humanly reasonable, I've attempted to teach a class of 30 2nd graders how to ask to go to the bathroom in English and I've played a game where the purpose is to throw something heavy a piece of paper that has gun powder in it so it explodes.
The great news about orientation is that we have a great group of volunteers. Unlike most WorldTeach groups we only have 6 volunteers. We also found out during orientation that we are working with WorldTeach, their normal in-country partner, Volunteers Colombia, and their brand new partner, the Ministry of Education. We are working in three different schools in two cities with the future teachers of Colombia. These schools, all Escuelas Normales are similar to American vocational schools except all of the students are training to be teachers. While we don'e know what our actual roles and responsibilities are yet each school is having a meeting with the volunteers, the English implementation teams place at the school, the school administration and the ministry. Fortunately for my and my fellow volunteers we have two days in our new cities to explore, buy groceries and figure out where we are going.
While we were in Bogotá we had a two and a half week introduction to Colombia, teaching English and the WorldTeach program. As part of that program we do a 4 day practicum at a local school. We taught at a school in Ciudad Boliviar, one of the poorest and least accessible neighborhoods of Bogotá. The school is build into the hill and whenever we were walking around we had to be careful of running children, steep stairs and stray dogs. Each volunteer taught a 75 minute lesson to one of three classes, either a class of 30 very excited 2nd graders or one of two classes of 12 onces, their version of senior year of high school. On the last day four volunteers had to combine together to co-teach two one hour lessons.
On the last day we also had a little celebration with both once classes and in true Colombian fashion they wanted to take pictures of everything.
After our mini-celebration we had a chance to climb up the stairs in the barrio that lead to the other side of the mountain.Which lead to a great view of the city. This view, similar to when we took the cable car up to Monserrate (picture of all of this to be on facebook), demonstrated how massive Bogotá really is. During orientation they were telling us that to drive from the southern border of the city to the northern boarder could take four hours.
I'm going to post pictures on facebook then go explore Manizales. I'll hopefully blog again soon and update you on my new home. For now, here is a picture of Napoleon, my host family's cat who has come in every five minutes as I'm writing this to investigate all of the clicking and clacking of my keyboard.
That adventure was almost three week ago. In the meantime I've done more TEFL lessons than is humanly reasonable, I've attempted to teach a class of 30 2nd graders how to ask to go to the bathroom in English and I've played a game where the purpose is to throw something heavy a piece of paper that has gun powder in it so it explodes.
The great news about orientation is that we have a great group of volunteers. Unlike most WorldTeach groups we only have 6 volunteers. We also found out during orientation that we are working with WorldTeach, their normal in-country partner, Volunteers Colombia, and their brand new partner, the Ministry of Education. We are working in three different schools in two cities with the future teachers of Colombia. These schools, all Escuelas Normales are similar to American vocational schools except all of the students are training to be teachers. While we don'e know what our actual roles and responsibilities are yet each school is having a meeting with the volunteers, the English implementation teams place at the school, the school administration and the ministry. Fortunately for my and my fellow volunteers we have two days in our new cities to explore, buy groceries and figure out where we are going.
While we were in Bogotá we had a two and a half week introduction to Colombia, teaching English and the WorldTeach program. As part of that program we do a 4 day practicum at a local school. We taught at a school in Ciudad Boliviar, one of the poorest and least accessible neighborhoods of Bogotá. The school is build into the hill and whenever we were walking around we had to be careful of running children, steep stairs and stray dogs. Each volunteer taught a 75 minute lesson to one of three classes, either a class of 30 very excited 2nd graders or one of two classes of 12 onces, their version of senior year of high school. On the last day four volunteers had to combine together to co-teach two one hour lessons.
They were happy we were there, I promise.
I'm going to post pictures on facebook then go explore Manizales. I'll hopefully blog again soon and update you on my new home. For now, here is a picture of Napoleon, my host family's cat who has come in every five minutes as I'm writing this to investigate all of the clicking and clacking of my keyboard.
