Jai HO!

For the last several months, we've been learning a dance with other ECA teachers to perform in the school's annual AIDS Benefit. Pauline, one of our PE teachers, choreographed and taught it to all of us. She was wonderfully patient with us as we learned, practiced, and messed up over and over again! We have had so much fun learning the dance with everyone. Last night was the performance. We were the last act in the show.

After the show, we all gathered at our friends' house to celebrate, hang out, and watch the video OVER AND OVER AGAIN! I can't think of very many times in my life I've had that much fun. I think 2009-2010 in Venezuela will be remembered as The Year of Jai Ho!

Enjoy the video. I'm in the bright pink scarf, front row on the right side. Jason's in the lime green t-shirt. And, by the way, Luke knows all the choreography and could've filled in if necessary! :)

Up to the Minute!

Luke had a project assignment to report to his class on a rainforest animal. He chose the sloth. (What, no jaguar?) I asked him how he would like to present his animal to the class, suggesting several choices (mobile, poster, video, puppet, etc.). He chose to make a puppet and interview it in front of the class.

We read books, watched videos online, and learned all we wanted to know and more about sloths. Did you know there was once even a giant ground sloth, which is now extinct? I didn't, but I do now!

Luke and I made a sock puppet sloth, complete with algae-covered fur and button eyes. We wrote down six questions Luke (the interviewer) could ask Slowpoke the Sloth. He came up with a cute little voice for Slowpoke and everything.

His presentation was about 20 minutes ago. He ditched the voice and was pretty shy about asking Slowpoke the questions and making him talk to the class, but he got all the information across. I'm not sure if his presentation was anything like what the teachers were hoping for, but it's done!

Here is Luke setting out his notecards so he would remember which questions to ask:

And Luke giving the presentation. No video this time. :(

And... in other news... Jason and I are both participating in the AIDS Benefit Gala tomorrow night at our school. I am singing as part of two different groups - one song called Nozanina, which is in an indigenous South American language, and another called O Sifuni Mungu, in Swahili. Then Jason and I are dancing with a bunch of other teachers to Jai Ho. It's going to be lots of fun! We've been practicing like crazy, and we'll all be glad when we're through after tomorrow night. Jai Ho has definitely been one of the highlights of our first year here, though! I hope to post pictures this weekend.

Disney Trip Part 1

For October break, we traveled to Florida. We booked our timeshare at a great resort - the Wyndham Bonnet Creek, bought our Disney tickets, and met Mom and Dad there for a great time!

Our first night in Orlando, we stayed in a little Comfort Inn and rented a car so we could get all our stateside shopping done, and our grocery shopping, too. It was a FULL day of running around. Once we arrived at our timeshare, Jason dropped me off at the door with all the week's groceries and luggage and left to return the rental car. We were pushing it as far as getting the car back in time - so Luke and I had to load it all up on the cart and get it to our room by ourselves. It was quite a challenge, but we made it!


The resort had a resident balloon guy, who instantly made Luke a pirate hat (complete with parrot perched on top) and a belt for his sword. (He'd gotten the balloon sword at Chili's earlier the same day.)

Here's Luke swashbuckling on the balcony of our room.


Our break was the week before Halloween, so we bought 3 pumpkins and carved them.



This was Luke's first pumpkin-carving experience. He was a little grossed out by the guts (me too) but loved the finished product.

Happy Birthday, Bill Darnell!

Dear Bill,

I know this is not much of a birthday present, but in honor of YOUR DAY, I've decided to comply with your requests for MORE pictures, MORE video, and MORE blogs. (Also honoring your request for LESS WORDS!)

So, for you, here are some pictures of our daily life. I will take some more today and add them later. Hopefully before your next birthday.

Love,
Katherine


You walk in the entryway of our apartment, and to the right is our dining room. This is it. There's a desk in there, too, and those built-in cabinets hold all my scrapbook stuff. We haven't done much decorating in our apartment yet, so even though I took this picture a long time ago, it still looks a lot like this.


There's a partial wall separating the dining area from the living area, but it's basically all one room. Here's the living room.


(We will probably buy paint and ask the school to paint our apartment over the summer. The green was here when we got here.)

Here's our kitchen.



t

It's to your left as you enter the apartment, through a sliding wood panel which can be closed off if necessary, but we usually leave it open.

Through the living room there's a little hallway that leads to our bedrooms and bathrooms. Here is the bathroom, or router room. You can see the router wire coming from the vent.



This is Luke's room, which is now decorated a little bit with his pirate toys. There's still lots to do.


Here's our bedroom, which is plain, plain, plain, and will probably be the last room I do anything with.




When we leave our apartment, we use the elevator. Here is Luke outside and inside the elevator. You asked for details.





More to come! :)