Thursday, March 19, 2015

Meet the Children: Part 3

And now for the third installment in our favorite series- Meet the Children.






Valeria and Sarai were really hard for me to tell apart at the beginning, but not any more. Valeria is cute, but she is a little punk who refuses to do anything that we ask her to do. She's not one of me least favorites, but she definitely doesn't crack the top 25% either. I think people bully her a little bit which is why she acts out, so I try to have more love for her. Sarai loves me which makes me love her. She is a bit of a punk too, but at least she hugs me while being punkish.






Mauro (the little one) and Gael (the not so little one) are related, but I'm not sure exactly how. I am guessing cousins or something. But regardless of their familiarity, they have one major thing in common: their speaking level. That's right, Gael, an 8 year old, speaks the same amount of English as 3 year old Mauro. I think Mauro is a cute kid, but I am not too taken with him because he can't be unattended for more than a second or he will mortally injure himself. And Gael drives me up the wall, I don't think I would be wrong in saying he is one of my least favorite children.





Christian and Fabian hate pictures. Literally this is the best picture I have of either one of them. Christian and Fabian are probably the two kids who dislike the teachers the most. Never have they wanted to hug us or talk to us outside of class time. Actually we threaten Fabian with hugs. If he is being bad we tell him we are going to hug him, and you can bet your butt he straightens up real fast. 






Try telling me that Enrique (left) does not look exactly like the ogres from Ella Enchanted, and I will call you a liar. He even has the signature butt crack going most of the time. Enrique wants to grow up to be a luchador and I can see that completely. And then we have Gustavo. Oh Gustavo, what a perfect child. He isn't the best speaker and sometimes he gets a little distracted with Valeria, but just look at that face. He is just a compact little person with sweet little personality, and we all love Gus (pronounced goose).





Sebass (Sebastian) is the most perfectly round child I have ever come in contact with. I think of him as a baby bird because one time we were reading a story and it had  picture of a round little bird and Jorge pointed out that it looked exactly like Sebass, and he was right. So now I just see a tiny bird when I look at his round little face.



 


If I could only choose one child to steal and bring back to America, it would be Lunah. This little seven year old is super smart with a good amount of sass, and she is basically  every thing I want my future child to be. In fact, I have decided that she is going to marry my little brother Kason because that way she can be in my life forever. We all decided spirit animal children for each other, and I got lucky enough to have Lunah chosen as mine.







Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Baby Jota

Since I made a post for Maddie, it is only fair that Jamie gets one too.

Name: Jamie [Lou] Anderson

Years: 18

Hails From: St. John's, AZ

Likes: Easton, soccer, peanut butter, punching kids in the face, and Easton

Dislikes: Disorganization, spiders in her bed, Estetica Unisex (aka the lizard in our kitchen), and Jorge

Special Talents: Making herself look pregnant, singing like an angel, making pillow cases, and having really nice hands

Sucks at: Keeping her cool around lizards, not threatening the children with physical violence, sharing bed posts, and being as beautiful as Maddie











Maryline Walter

One of my roommates wanted a post all to herself. So I decided to give it to her, because I am bored and have nothing better to do right now.

Name: Maddie Walter

Age: 18

Hails from: Columbus, OH

Likes: Pigs, Trivia Crack, Reeses Puff cereal, and me obviously

Dislikes: Mexican doctors, food poisoning, and me obviously

Special Talents: Making the world's ugliest faces, singing terrible duets, and being more beautiful than me

Sucks At: Being healthy, looking her age, and disciplining children











Wednesday, March 4, 2015

One Half

Today officially marks the halfway point of my Mexican adventure! It is crazy to think about because in a lot of ways I feel like I just got here and that I still have so much I need to do. But on the other hand I feel like I have been here for a small eternity and that it is high time I get back to the States. It is funny how time can play tricks on you like that- and by funny I mean it is actually unfair that it has the power to do that.

I have a new favorite student. His name is Isaac. I gave him a shared post in one of my "Meet the children" posts, but he now deserves a mention all of his own.





This kid is definitely one of the good ones. He is super high energy, but he also cares so much about being good for the teachers. I had a talk with him a couple of weeks ago about how he needed to pay more attention and listen to the teachers, and ever since then he has been trying to hard to be a perfect little angel for us. And he has been living up to that. Every day after class he will come up to us and ask, "I was being good today teachers?" The answer is always yes.  Today he wasn't paying super close attention to me so I reminded him of rule number five which is "eyes on teacher" and he was felt so bad that he literally did not take his eyes off of me for the next 20 minutes. Other kids were running around telling stories and being crazy and Isaac didn't even glance at them, because he wanted to make sure that he was following all the rules and being good. Not many other nine year old would do that. I want to take him home and keep him forever. But I can't. Because that would be kidnapping. And kidnapping is kind of against the law.


Things have definitely been getting better here in Pachuca. I have stopped wanting to go home and now I am dreading leaving these kids. Even though they are wild and crazy, they have blessed my life a lot and I am really grateful that I get to teach them and play with them and love them. None of it has really been easy, but I am seeing more and more every day that it was definitely worth it.