Talents are noted and utilized !!!

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

Thought for the day: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” Helen Keller

Our day began early as the bell rings at 8:15 for most of the classes at which we are assisting. Our large, delicious breakfast is available at 7:00am each day. All 12 of us are quite happy with our assignments.

There has been some reassigning of volunteers to be certain we attain the total hours needed to complete our contract. Additional hours are added at some schools as the week progresses. As the volunteers’ talents are noted, new assignments are given. Bryan, the actor, has been asked to work with the drama class. Babs and Carol were invited to stay and volunteer at a “Catholic Issues” session where current and political events were discussed. They couldn’t believe how closely this correlated to what’s happening in the U.S. One volunteer was approached by a student indicating how disappointed she was that English was not being taught in the 12th grade. Leonard volunteered with six special needs children and was also quite pleased with the professional help he gave to a teacher in a short period of time. Some of us had issues getting our US money converted to Euros. Ann was pleased that she finally was able to complete a transaction for conversion.

We ended our volunteer work with a meeting where Joaquin presented another session in learning to speak Portuguese. He brought a special treat to us in that his niece presented a history of Portugal in very fine English. From this presentation we learned of a must-see museum that has lots of artifacts to continue to tell the story.

Dinner was served family style with salmon-to-die-for and many local dishes that were quite tasty. Six individual desserts were shared by all which just reinforces how well our group can share with each other.

Bonnie

First Day of Teaching in Beja!

Monday, 27 September 2010

Thought for the day: “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” Walt Whitman

The day begins with marmalade (a Portuguese word), morning chatter, meeting. Off to library to meet teachers. Leonard and I go to Dom Manuel H.S. with Maria João, get schedule. In first class, we are supposed to talk about teenagers back in the 1950s and teenagers today. Rehearsed some memories over lunch about life in the 50’s—much laughter.

Then Leonard and I went to teach our 2:30 class with Maria João. Each of us spoke briefly about the categories on Senhora Joao’s handout which included entertainment, dreams and anxieties, signs of rebellion, fashions and styles of American teens in the 50’s and early 60’s. Students very polite though, as expected, hesitant to speak English. One boy asked me if I went to Woodstock, (answer: no) another about what women did back then if they didn’t go to college. Teacher made valiant efforts to elicit feedback from students about what they learned and assigned a composition topic for homework that asked them to summarize what Leonard and I said. It would be fun to read them, but we won’t get a chance.

Meeting; language, culture lesson, dinner, bed…

Barbara