Back in Venezuela!

So, after a lovely three weeks back in the cold, I am back in Venezuela. I've already been back here for about three weeks which is crazy. It definitely does not feel like it's been that long. I can't believe how quickly time as gone. A lot has happened since we've been back. I'll start with the boring political stuff. Mainly, our president seems to have fell off the face of the Earth. Chavez was in Cuba getting cancer treatment, but no ones heard from him in a month or so, so more or less no ones really running the country. One outcome of this is food/supply shortages. This is typical for where I live in Venezuela, but it's been exceptionally bad since we've been back. We are missing really key things like flour, sugar, chicken, and worst of all, toilet paper. I have been lucky enough to stock up on toilet paper since coming back, but I haven't been able to find any of those other things these past three weeks. The other major problem is that the private oil company here isn't getting paid by the government. The result of this is all the workers are being transferred and a lot of our kids are leaving and the school doesn't have the money it used to. It is highly likely that my director leaves next year because of this so I will probably be working under someone new. Even more upsetting is that at least three of my ten kids will be leaving. Unfortunately they are also three of my strongest kids who give me the best stories because they actually speak English fairly well. The other majorly unfortunate part of this is that all us expat teachers will lose our fun benefits like having a beach house and getting sent on cool caribbean vacations every couple of months. We will have to be like every other international teacher and just get a working visa, stay in our country and pay for ourselves to leave. (Granted I still like 45 minutes from the Caribbean and its only about $15 round trip, so I'll still be getting in some great beach weekends.)

Now, speaking of the beach, I get to talk about the fun things. First, I spent my 23rd birthday weekend on the beach. This was awesome since as a January baby I NEVER get to go to the beach for my birthday. I feel like I usually just spend it snowed in, so laying on the beach was awesome. Dereek and I rented a hotel room in Puerto La Cruz and stayed there Saturday night. We got to go to a nice little island for the day on Saturday, come back and go out to dinner, then have breakfast overlooking the beach in the morning which was a particularly great way to spend my birthday.

The beach we were at

Spending my birthday laying on the beach

Palm trees

Sometimes Dereek likes to bother me and take pictures while I'm trying to relax.

Leaving the island.

We've also been doing fun things in the classroom. This month we're almost at the end of the alphabet, working really hard on remembering the numbers in the teens and learning about the weather and community helpers. Rather than explaining I'm just going to show cute pictures of my kids because that is way more interesting. There are some from around Christmas time as well that I forgot to ever put up and are super cute. 

Before their Christmas show

Thought this was just too cute. Glad I've gotten my kids to enjoy reading.

Sometimes my kids like to hide in the bathroom and try to scare me.

Practicing our teen numbers by painting them on a giant piece of paper

They worked so nicely. Everyone stayed in their own spots for a whole 20 minutes painting.

Even when they finished they were so responsible and went a read a book on the carpet. I feel like they're puppies I've finally trained.

Michelle painting.

Arya gave up on the chair while she was painting, but still stayed at the table.

Marian painting.

We're learning the words "I am" so I had the kids make pictures of themselves and write "I am (there name)" This is Marcel's. He is the best four year old artist I've ever seen.

Hakim looks a little like a monster, but pretty good fine motor skills for a preschooler

Michelle wrote everything all by herself with no help. 

Luis was funny. He struggled with a mouth, asked for my hope, said I made him look like a girl and almost cried, then just did it himself because I'm not a good enough artist. 

What our wall looks like with all their painted numbers hanging up.

That's about it for now. Nothing too exciting coming up besides parent teacher conferences. Dereek, Erin, EMak and I are going to Margarita Island for the week of Carnival in February though. That'll be a long fun update I'm sure. 

Araya

This weekend as our Christmas presents to ourselves/each other Dereek and I decided to take a trip to Araya. Araya is a Peninsula that you can access via ferry from the town of Cumana. Cumana is about 3-4 hours away from where we live in Anaco. We left Friday at about 12:30 (I left school early since I don't have classes Fridays after 12) We were on the ferry at probably about 5-5:30. It took about an hour to get across the water to Araya. It was a nice trip since we were on the ferry during sunset.

A boat from the view of the ferry on the way to Araya at sunset.

Once we got there we were met by a friend of the owner of our posada. He was very talkative and gave us ALOT of information (all in Spanish of course, thank god for Dereek) and it was slightly overwhelming. We were taken towards the beach for dinner and ate there. The beach definitely did not look as pretty at night as it did during the day. Being that we were tired and slightly overwhelmed at this point we decided to go to bed early so we could get a good start in the morning. 

The next morning we got coconuts right from the tree at our posada. There was a windsurfing competition going on so we stopped and got some empanadas (for 6 BsF each, this is about 50 cents USD) then headed over there. There was really nothing there besides the windsurfing and no shade so we opted to go back to the private beach that we were allowed to use. We stopped and filled a cooler with beer and headed to the beach. This turned out to be the best decision we could've made. Here is what the private beach looked like. It was owned by an Italian family, but they know the owner of our posada so we were allowed to use it to. The grandsons of the family were fishing while we were there and it was really awesome to sit on the dock, drink some beer and watch them try and catch these really cool looking tropical fish. 

View while sitting on the dock

Fishing poles on the dock

View off the dock again

Blue water and boats

The private beach

Dereek with our cooler leaving the dock

After sitting on the dock, drinking beer and watching the boys try and fish for a while we decided to go for a walk to see this old fort. We walked along the beach and were able to go up into it. The fort was built by the Spanish in the mid-17th century to protect the land that is rich in salt from invaders such as pirates. When we got to the fort we were lucky enough to catch part of the windsurfing/kiteboarding races. The fort was the turn around point for the race so we got to sit on the fort and watch everyone compete.

The fort from the beach

Entering the fort

Panoramic view from the top

Nice view of the water and the town

Kiteboarders!

Windsurfers and pelicans

Old steps leading down towards the water.

After watching the races for a little while we went to the other side of the fort and hung out on the beach there. On the beach we got this jar of seafood that cost 40 BsF. (Less than 4$ USD) We also had a delicious fish lunch while sitting on the beach. The large plates of food below cost 75 BsF and 65 BsF, I believe. Divide everything by 10 and you get about how much it is in dollars. (Or at least the rate that I'm using so I don't get carried away by how cheap everything is...) After lunch we swam and walked back to our posada. On the way we found a lot of these little crab things in the sand. You could see all their little antennas sticking out  with each wave. I caught one and it felt really weird squirming around in my hand. We got back to the dock at the perfect time because it was sunset and had some gorgeous views of the water. 

The tables where we ate lunch

Dereek with our jar of seafoods. There were LOTS of shrimp

Our beach lunch

View on our walk back

Weird little crab antennas

Strange crab thing we caught

Sunset over the dock

Sunset again

When we got back we were given some fish soup and cocktails by the owner of the posada. We went to bed pretty early since we were tired. When we got up we ate some coconuts off the tree. We also discovered this little white cat that liked to eat coconut so we were feeding her and named her coconut. We then went for a short hike with the owner of the posada up the hill to get a good view. We were able to see the beach, the fort and the salt mines. We also stopped at this little house and picked some fruit called anon. I tried it this morning and it was very good. Dereek says its similar to guanabana, but I know this is a useless comparison for anyone who reads this blog since no ones likely even heard of these fruits, let alone tried them. Just for fun I've also added some silly pictures of Dereek washing his hair. With hair like his sometimes he misses some shampoo and rather than getting back into the shower, this was the solution...

Dereek getting our coconut

Cutting it open

Cocnut water with breakfast

The cat that likes coconut

So we named her coconut or coco if you're using Spanish (It's a bilingual cat)

Panaramic from the top of the mountain

I was introduced to a new fruit called anon

The bees really liked it because it was so sweet

View of the fort and our posada

Again

Dereek washing his hair

In a garbage pail

hahaha

After our hike we spent the morning on the beach before heading home. We had some food and went for a swim then took an interesting boat ride home. There was a group of drunk girls who were offering us shots. They loved Dereek's hair and were talking about us the whole time. I was apparently told that he is "too cute" and I need to take good care of him. Oh, and they had a pig in their bag. Wish I had some pictures of this debacle, but I don't.

Check out the color of this water

Perfect color

Outside of our posada

This is going to be the end of the post just because we are getting ready for our holiday show/party at school right now. I'll try to write about that sometime tomorrow. Then I get home this Saturday!!!

Iguana in the classroom

Just an update on my past week. First, and most importantly, while we were outside on the playground a couple of days ago Luis told me he had to use the bathroom. It was the end of playtime, but they're 4 so I told him just to go ahead of everyone. He came back while we were lining up. He left the door open and usually I would make him go back and close it, but since we were lining up anyway, I ignored it. Well... that was a bad idea because as soon as the kids walked into the classroom they ran back out screaming my name and that there was an iguana in the classroom. I then had to usher the kids out of the classroom because they wanted to touch it and I'm assuming a trapped iguana would not respond kindly to 10 four-year-olds trying to catch it and the last thing I want to explain to anyone is why one of my children got eaten by an iguana. Once they were outside I had to find Leno (the one matainence worker we have) and he came and caught it using a broom and his hands. It was impressive.

Yes, that is an iguana in my classroom.

Leno with the iguana

Caugt it with only a broom and his bare hands.

Other than the iguana, life has been pretty normal here. We've done lots of Christmas crafts which I will be sure to take pictures of sometime next week and the kids have been kind of crazy. We also found out that we do not have school Wednesday-Friday which is awesome. I'll have a few days to organize and pack before I come home Saturday!

First, I am looking forward to this weekend though. Dereek and I leave tomorrow at 12:30 to go to Araya. It's about three hours away and supposedly has amazing beaches and we'll be there until Sunday. Everyone, expect to be jealous of how tan I am when I come home. =)



Happy December!

Just saying Happy December to everyone and that I'll be home in two weeks!!! This weekend has been pretty uneventful, more or less just stayed in and cooked food with Dereek. I love our dinners, we put on salsa music and drink wine and cook. It's kind of cute. I introduced him to grilled cheese and tomato soup this weekend, but you can't buy tomato soup here so we had to make it from scratch. Came out pretty well.

Our Saturday night meat, tostones and vegetables with red wine 

Homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese! We had to peel sooo many tomatoes for this

Maybe tomorrow I'll try and post some pictures of my classroom. Dereek helped me decorate it this weekend too since I'm too short to reach the ceiling, even when I stand on things. 

We're getting closer to Christmas so in class we're working on Christmas songs to sing during a Christmas show that the PTA puts on after school. We have this show and the parents cook us dinner. I'm starting to feel like class is getting a little more relaxed as it gets closer to the holidays. The kids keep talking about Christmas and honestly, I'm enjoying doing Christmas crafts as well. I'm trying really hard to get the kids to start writing and reading more. It'd be awesome if some of them were reading, I have one girl who already tries to sound out words which is amazing. (Even though it sounded like D-eh-K-eh-Mm-B-eh-RRRR when she tried to sound out december, still pretty good for a 4 year old though.)

We also got the results back from our writing tests. They are all so awful, I'm at a slight loss of what to do. We use the 6+1 traits so the kids have 6 categories each graded out of 6. From everyone grades 3-high school there was one kid, who got a 5 in one category. Everyone was at 4s and below with far more 1s and 2s then I'd want to have seen. What's even more sad is that I showed these results to the director and he just looked at me with a smile and said this is good! They've improved. 

This isn't a very excited update. Really just wanted to complain about the writing abilities of these kids and show off my awesome dinners from this weekend. =)