Cleaning day...

We did not teach English class today at the hotel because the staff was busy with new guests.

Today was a big cleaning day at the hotel. Cleaning was going on every where, and they were doing some minor painting as well. We learned how to properly clean the rooms at the hotel here. It was...interesting...for those of you who know of our night last night and the problems that we had...well...it...uh...was that room...so yeah....But Jess and I learned where everything was, and we ended up cleaning our room as well.

Today was the first day that we were having an English class at Shalom. We planned on teaching the alphabet and basic phrases for greeting people. We figured we would take it slow at first just to evaluate the levels of the students. So Jess and I got there a few minutes before five to set up the board and write some things done. The caretaker of the church was there and he let us in. We wrote some phrases down and then...we waited...and waited....and...waited. 5:05. 5:10. 5:20. 5:30 rolls around and Jess and I were a bit discouraged. And than we heard a noise by the door!

There was a boy! His name was Orestesa and he was ten years old. He knew no English. So we started with the alphabet. We forgot to bring the pronunciation guide with us, but Jess remembered some of it, and he did decently with the alphabet. Than we decided we were going to teach him some simple phrases. But...here we encountered some difficulties. He was having trouble understanding that como te llamas meant what is your name in English. It was really frustrating because we tried a number of different times to help him understand that it means the same exact thing...just in English. We would ask him what his name is in English and he would repeat back: what is your name. And we were fine with that, but I told him, now, we would like the answer to the question and so I would demonstrate--My name is Courtney. And he would repeat: My name is Courtney. He didn't seem to understand he needed to say his name. But he did (I think) make the connection between como estas and how are you? Because he answered in English after we had taught the words to him. And he learned the days of the week. I think it was all very confusing to him, and I think he felt self conscious being the only student that we had. So please pray that we can figure out better ways to communicate. And also pray for our lesson with the teens and the adults on Wednesday.

We have a Rotary Club meeting we are attending with Tere in the hotel lobby, so peace for now!