Drenched (doesn't come close to describing it)!

On Saturday 31st March I went to a concert by an Argentinian group, with the youth from church. The concert was organised to promote a "Paraguay without drugs or violence", in remembrance of some youth who had lost their lives when they were fired upon at a peaceful demonstration against the government in 1999. The event was held at a football stadium. It rained the morning of the concert, which was great because it cleared the air and the temperature dropped to a bearable level. The sun came out in the afternoon and we all trotted off to the concert without a care in the world!

I felt a few drops of rain during the second song of the headline act, but didn't worry too much. However, by the beginning of the third song, we were in the middle of a full-blown tropical storm!! The rain came down at an incredible rate, accompanied by thunderclaps and lightning. The band kept playing but the audience scattered as fast as we could to escape the downpour. As we were leaving the stands, the electricity got cut so the sound and lights went out. Suddenly we were in darkness, with just the sounds of rain hitting every surface with a thud and of people calling to each other to make sure no-one was lost. Within a minute of the downpour starting, I was drenched to the skin. I couldn't see properly because the rain was coming into my eyes and stinging.

The thousands of people at the stadium were all leaving in order to make their way home. We were squeezed through the tunnel under the stands because lots of people had chosen to stand there to avoid the rain and there was a hairy moment or two as I found myself in the middle of an immense crush of people, half of them wanting to stay where they were and the other half wanting desperately to get out. Once outside the stadium gates we had to cross the road to find the car that had brought us. By this stage, the road was becoming a river and I was very grateful I was wearing flip-flops rather than trainers! It took us another 5 minutes of walking through the deepening waters to find the car. The rain just soaked right through my clothes and by the time I sat in the car, there wasn't a square millimetre of my skin that was dry. I would not have been wetter if I'd gone swimming fully dressed!!!

The water kept rising. Fortunately, we were in a pick-up truck, so the river that the road had become wasn't such a problem as for other vehicles. However, there were 16 of us altogether and, while 5 of us fitted inside the cab, the other 11 had to brave the storm on the back of the truck. And it kept raining. Some roads were impassable so we had to take the long way round to take some folks home. Asunción is a town with lots of little hills, so the roads become the drains taking the water to the river and, within an hour of the rain stopping, the roads are practically dry again! By the next morning, the only evidence of the storm were gatherings of mud at dips in the roads, where it had been carried by the water.

I do enjoy a storm but I definitely prefer to watch it from the shelter of my own home! It was a shame about the concert, a lot of people had been looking forward to it for ages. Still, not much you can do about the weather!

Fun English for Kids

My workshop on Saturday was a success!

Thank you to all who prayed. It was a miracle, but everything got done in time and I was only a little bit nervous! I spent last week running around doing last minute things like getting my flashcards laminated and recording the songs onto CD (yes, I am officially a Recording Artist!) and supervising the printing and photocopying of the booklet (see the photos below). As you can see, Leo (the graphic designer) did a fantastic job making the booklet look fab. There are similar designs throughout the booklet and it's just wonderful to see my work looking so lovely. The booklet is manual for how to teach English to young children, including advice on classroom management, lesson structure, curriculum development and a prepared curriculum for 5 year olds, including a list of games and songs as well as advice for the first ever lesson. It's taken me about a year to put it together with the flashcards, worksheets and songs, which are now on CDs the participants were able to buy. (All proceeds going to FEISA, of course!)





12 teachers came from different schools in and around Asunción; we sang songs, played games, did a worksheet and looked at how to structure a lesson and how to design a curriculum. I enjoyed it very much and the teachers were very enthusiastic. One has asked me to do a workshop with the other English teachers from her group of schools. There's also the possibility of doing another workshop in the next couple of months, for teachers who didn't hear about this one. We need to work on the publicity a bit more!

Last May we did a workshop on learning through play at the Paraguayan Conference of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). Then in September, we went to Argentina to do the same workshop with the Argentinian ACSI Conference. Well ACSI seem to be quite keen to have me do a workshop on teaching English at the Paraguayan Conference this year... Watch this space!!!

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.