Good morning!

... is the first thing we hear these days, when we step into the classrooms at Colegio Santos Niños Inocentes, the local school in Parramos, where we are teaching English.

Our first day at the school was Monday. We went there in the morning at 8 with Efraín - our contact person in Parramos, whos house we are also living in - and we met with the school director, the same lady that we met with last Saturday to arrange the English classes. We agreed that the first day we would teach together, Shiu-Jene and I, and we started out with the first grade students. 30 small kids were waiting for us and we spent the next 45 min teaching them sentences like My name is..., I'm ... years old, etc. The first graders were maybe a bit too small for these sentences; they were just learning to write. But they tried really hard. We had the 2nd, 4th and 5th graders that day as well. At the end of the day we had been introduced to all the classes but the 6th grade (there is no 3rd grade at the school) and we knew a bit more about what they could do. After the classes we met with the director again, and we made a schedule for the next to weeks, were one of us would teach the 1st and 2nd grade and the other the 4th, 5th and 6th grades. Shiu-Jene really likes the small kids - they are really cute! - so she got the small once and Rasmus took the big ones (the annoying once, according to Shiu-Jene).

Now we have had classes for three days. Every morning we met in at the school at 8. Shiu-Jene then has the 1st graders for 45 min and then the 2nd graders for 45 minutes as well. The last two days she has tought them simple words - dog, sun, mother, father, etc - the numbers and today they learned a song and the basics of the clock.
Rasmus has the 4th graders at 8, followed by the two others. He has tought them sentences like What is this? (and they should then answer: that is a pencil.), the clock, the numbers, greetings and for the 6th graders, Rasmus has been trying to teach them that when you have English class you speak English, no habla Español!!! There are these four kids who talk all the time during the class!!!

In the afternoons we prepare the classes for the next day, study a bit Spanish, read a lot, and take walks in Parramos, looking at all the people .. and dogs! There are dogs everywhere!!! More dogs than in the Pikey camp in the movie Snatch!!!

It's a completely different kind of world than Antigua. We try to blend a bit more in with the locals, which they really don't seem to mind. We get by with our limited - but existing - Spanish vocabulary. Most of the times it works, although we are sometimes left guessing...

We don't really have any pictures yet, but as soon as we do, we will upload them for you all to see.

All the best from here.