The water is still pretty cold here, so we slipped on some wet suits. Slipped is probably not the right word. A better phrasing might be 'struggled and squeezed into some wetsuits.' Then we went for a little jog, stretched, and practiced standing up on the board in the sand.
After that, they gave us a rundown of how it would go and then we went out into the water. There was an instructor for each of us. Mine was named Javier. Paddling out was pretty difficult. My arms were tired within like 5 minutes. Then we would lay there and wait for a wave. When a good one was coming, they would tell us to paddle, and then when we felt them push us we had to bring our shoulders up and then stand up.
Last time I took a surf lesson was with my cousin Chelsea when I was in San Diego. I remember standing up one time, very briefly, the whole day. So I was not expecting much, but I ended up getting up on the first try, and I made it up most of the time. There were a couple times when I wiped out, and got some nice gulps of salt water. My ají de gallina that I had for lunch was becoming dangerously close to being fish food.
But despite the nausea it was a lot of fun. I wish I would have made it to the beach earlier so that I could have gone more often. Time's running out now! And I still have so much crap to do.
Speaking of which, I went to visit Joel's old school this morning for my thesis research. I got there at 7:30 to watch their formation. Three sections of every grade (1st thru 5th) line up on the playground (cement soccer field) for the morning formation. It's an all boys school, yet somehow all of those boys manage to stand quietly for about 20 minutes while the faculty makes announcements and does the morning prayer. Fourth grade has mass on Wednesdays, so we went to that with them. Me and Joel sat in the back, and it was cute because during the "peace be with you" part about 5 of the boys came back and shook Joel's hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and they had no idea who we were.
After mass Joel headed out and I went with the 4th grade section B class. I sat in the back and observed while they had their communication and math lessons. It was extremely different from the public school where I work. First of all, the classroom had tile floor, not cement, was painted nicely, had lots of windows and natural light, I could go on and on. Secondly, the behavior. The kids were quiet. And even when they were getting kind of restless, it was still better than my kids on their best behavior. They raised their hands and waited to be called on. They paid attention to what the teacher was saying. They read aloud in class and were definitely better readers than the majority of my kids. They had class until 10:30ish and then they went outside for 15 minutes to eat their morning snack and get some fresh air. That gave me a chance to chat with the teacher a little bit. She was super nice. Afterwards, I went to Section C. They were having their Religion lesson. At 11 they had a city-wide earthquake drill, so we went out to the playground and stood on the circles painted there. Because what I've learned in Lima is that apparently, in the event of an earthquake, if you stand in a circle, you are safe.
At 12:30 I headed out so I could get to class. I didn't get to observe their recess, so that was kind of a bummer. And it ended up being unnecessary for me to leave early anyways, because once I got to campus, I found my classroom empty. Apparently, when my prof said that we were having class this week, even though it's finals week, he was just kidding. So I wasted away the afternoon drinking beer on Jorge's balcony with him and Raquel and trying to write a Quechua composition, while severely lacking one important ingredient: knowing how to say anything in Quechua.
No comments:
Post a Comment