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I am a Senior at Union High school heading off Ecuador through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. This will just be a digital documentation of my travels, Enjoy!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Summer Blues and English Courses

 Can you even believe it? I'm updating, JUST to update! It's a miracle, but here I am, typing away to give you pictures and more pictures! As I mentioned in my last post, I have started teaching English to the kids that live in my neighborhood. My neighborhood has it's fair share of poverty and the need for English was great, so a couple of friends and I geared up and took on an English course. It has been a challenge at times, given between the three of us there are nearly 100 kids, but we have managed to get through it and these kids have learned some English, even if it is just a little. It's been a month now and with Galapagos next week, we decided to take the rest of the summer off. 
THE CUTEST LITTLE KID EVER! His name is Robert.
Bob and Marlee. We're best friends! 
   To any teachers of mine who read my blog, I am sorry. Ever since pre-school I have been the "ring leader" or the "agitator" of the class and I know realize what a pain in the butt that must have been like to deal with. I have one kid in my class who does just that and it's almost impossible to keep him under control.  I have a new found respect for people that work with children. Before going into this teaching job, I didn't like kids all that much and coming out of it, I just know that I will never have the patience to work with children. It takes a special kid of person to work with kids and I am just not one of them. I really prefer older people, if you ask me. So a HUGE thank you to all the educators out there who have lasted through the years. I tip my hat to you! Now, pictures! 

My friend Rachel who teaches the 12-14 year olds

My class room and some of the kids in it! 

Working working! 

My classroom from the outside

My crazy kids! 

My friend Rachel's class

The playground


Some of the boys from my class, they're crazy! 
Maria (the white one..) and her little class

Maria and a little girl from her class

   In other news, Rotary took us on another little adventure in our providence. We headed to the "cascadas" or waterfalls to hike all around and to stay cool. It was so much fun and the waterfalls were so gorgeous! We basically spent the told day swimming and hiking. I'm sore today, but that's always a good thing to be! I forgot how much I seriously love hiking! Can't wait to get back and to hike all around my beautiful city!



It's just simply gorgeous here! 

Another view, this time from atop a mountain we had climed

Our attempt at a group picture, haha



First waterfall, WHOO!


Hiking, Hiking, Hiking! 

My goofy exchange friends! 

Scaling a mini mountain! haha


Fresh and ready to hike! 

More scaling! 

   Anyways, as the year winds down, I find myself more and more eager to just get home and start my post-exchange life. It's a big problem with a lot of my friends here. I really love Ecuador as a whole, but my city has been hard to live in. With not much to do here, we do a lot of sitting around. So all of us here are just twiddling our thumbs waiting for school to start up again just so we have something to do to occupy all of our time! I will be home in T-69 days and I am pumped as heck! Our Galapagos trip is next week and "excitement" doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it. Can't wait to update you guys on the hizhaps of the Galapagos! Toodles for now (: 

Marlee!