English teaching workshop

On Wednesday this week, I went with Ana, the head of teaching practices at FEISA, to a meeting with the director of ACSI Paraguay (the Christian schools network), to ask for ACSI's help in publicising and organising a workshop for people who teach English to very young children. It was a great meeting, Esteban, the ACSI director, was very positive about the idea of the workshop and the materials I've produced so far. He was very helpful in getting us to work out how best to organise the workshop and so it looks as though it's going to happen on the 3rd March!!! That's now just two weeks away and there's a lot to do before then.

I've written a booklet on how to teach English to young children, including advice and a sample scheme of work, together with songs and a list of games. I've also produced worksheets to accompany the scheme of work and vocabulary flashcards for use in games. We have a graphic designer who is going to help with making the booklet look attractive for pre-school teachers here (they like pictures!). Please pray that he has enough time to do that! I've got to finish the worksheets and possibly put them into pdf format, and finish the flashcards then get them laminated. Then I've got to plan what I'm actually going to say to the teachers!! Please pray that I can get all that done and feel happy with the standard of work I've produced.

I am very excited about the chance to share with teachers here the skills and knowledge that I've gained over my teaching career, it's as though this is the culmination of all my previous experience. I'll let you know how it goes!

wildlife

This is an insect (some kind of cricket?) that spent a week on (the outside of) my kitchen window, munching away on this plant that had grown up from the ground below over Christmas. It's body is about 3 inches long. I could see it breathing! I was very glad that we were separated by glass!

Dengue fever

I arrived back in Paraguay at the end of January to find the country in the middle of an epidemic of dengue fever, which is a disease carried by mosquitoes. There has been a lot of rain recently, which has led to an increase in pools of standing water in gardens and gutters all around. The mosquitoes have taken advantage of these new breeding grounds and are multiplying like crazy! The symptoms start a few days after being bitten, and include aches and high fever, which can last as long as 10 days. The official figure is 8,000 cases since the beginning of January, but everyone knows several people who have had it, so some people think the real figure may be as high as 30,000. There is no vaccine and, if you've had it before, you can get the more severe haemorrhagic version, which can kill you. Five people have died so far.

It is a real problem in a country where people only get paid for the work they do; sick pay is very rare. And, of course, when there are so many ill, it gets hard to find cover and so those who are not ill are working twice as hard. Estela, the director of FEISA, had dengue fever just before the new school year started in February. Marina, one of the teachers, has it at the moment.

The authorities are trying to control the spread of the disease by encouraging everyone to empty out any standing water they have around their house and yard (the photo is of a banner in the street emphasising everyone's responsibility to help). There have also been teams out spraying insecticide in the worst-affected areas. However, their efforts have been criticised as being ineffective and ill-organised.