thursday

Thursday got off to a rocky start. Larry turned away a child who came to the house looking for food during breakfast. It really upset me. I knew the child's back story and knew he came to the house because he was legitimately hungry. Larry said it was policy not to just give hand outs, but I really had a problem with not feeding a hungry child!!! I tried to let it go and packed some of Rachel's granola bars in my bag to give to the boy later at school.

The day got much better when I left the house. I went back to the school and for the first time on the whole trip, I knew my presence was appreciated and expected. The grade six teacher never showed up, so I spent the entire day with his class of four boys. They were a blast! We did some math (which I had to double-check without a calculator - yikes!) and then Language Arts. After lunch, we did a writing exercise. Afterwards, I taught them a song in about greetings in Spanish. Ironic, since I speak very little Spanish, but they wanted to learn.

After school, Rachel and I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the kids at the church. It was hot and exhausting, but a lot of fun. We stayed until dinner time and promised the kids we'd be back in the morning. Later that night we went up to the shop and were invited by Jennifer to spend the day in Morant Bay, the largest town nearby. We knew the next day was supposed to be a half-day as far as work was concerned, but we didn't know how Larry would react to our fieldtrip. We decided to risk it and made plans to meet Jennifer after lunch.