First Day of School

  

Julisa

Today was the first day of the new school year. Susan, Larry and I walked up to the Mazapan School in the colonia where the kids get free English (ESL) classes in the afternoons. This is their designated "bus stop". We have hired a man to be the dedicated driver for the 15 sponsored children who attend the Luisa Trundle Escuela (school). He has a very nice van, just the right size to hold them all. He will pick them up at 6:30 a.m. sharp and deliver them back there at 12:30 p.m. He will not wait for stragglers. If you snooze, you lose! (He's not being mean - these are our instructions to prevent the kids from being late to school.)

Julisa was the first to arrive. She was so excited; she ran to us when she saw that we had come down to send them off and gave me a huge hug. She was just grinning from ear to ear. (Thank you everyone who helped make this possible for her!!!!)

                                                            Leidy, Karla, me, Julisa

Leidy and Karla also had hugs for us. That Karla is the best hugger around! She is really strong and squeezes you tight!

It was so much fun watching the kids arrive at their bus stop. They were all (almost!) very happy and excited about the new year. For some of them, this is their first time to go to a private, bilingual school, and they are thrilled at the opportunity they've been given.

Here are all of the sponsored kids from our church. There are four more who are being sponsored by some other people and who arrived a bit later. That's their driver behind them. I lined them all up to show off their new shoes which were donated by my wonderful ladies' Bible class back in St. Louis. The kids were very proud of their new duds and looked so cute.

                                                       All loaded up and ready to roll.

When I got back home, our gardener, Oscar, arrived for work and told me that his son, little Oscar, was so excited that he had gotten up at 4 a.m.!! Can you imagine any kid in the U.S. doing that? Me neither!

After school, when Tommy dropped the kids off at their "bus stop", Julisa and Leidy didn't go home; they ran to Susan and Larry's house to tell them all about their day. Susan called to say that they had homework and would need some help, so I went to join them. Susan uses one of the classrooms at church to tutor. The kids can come there three afternoons a week. Don and I will be helping tutor at least one day a week. Leidy and Julisa had checked out library books (fairy tales!) in English and we helped them with their reading.

I'll write more about the tutoring and post some more photos next time.