Michelle reads to us!

Today was a weird day. I was supposed to go work at the school at 1pm because there were no classes this morning. Yesterday, I told Joaquín, the director of ESNA and the man who's been driving Lacey and me to work every morning, that I didn't have classes until 1 today. He said he would talk to Alvaro, our other contact, about it since Joaquín was going to be gone today. I was letting him know that I didn't need a ride in the morning but I needed one in the afternoon. So this morning, I stayed at the house while Lacey left with Guillermo. I assumed that the ESNA employees would actually follow through with what they said they would do and communicate, but, as has been the case since I first signed up for this program, there was again a blatant lack of communication. At 1:15, I called Alvaro and asked if anyone was coming to get me, and he said that I was supposed to go with whoever came to pick us up in the mornings because at 7 and at 4:30 were the times that someone could drive us. I was supposed to be at a school, either Casa Maya or Republica de China from 8 to 4 every day (even if there's no work, as was the case this morning). I said okay, that I didn't know because yesterday I had talked to Joaquín who said he'd talk to Alvaro. Alvaro sighed and said that he was with Guillermo, and they weren't near Izalco to get me. He said he'd talk to Guillermo and call me back. He never called me back (big surprise...). So, I basically just worked on my Spanish blog in the morning, took a nap, read Harry Potter in Spanish, called Alvaro, and then went back to reading Harry Potter. That was my "work" day. Around 2, Lacey returned to the house and told me that they had said that no one was going to take me to the school because no one would be available to pick me up afterward. I then wondered what the big deal was if no one could have taken me home at 5:15 when my day was originally supposed to end. There's just a huge lack of communication and it has caused problems since I first signed up for this internship. At least I get to do what I came here to do. I came here expecting to teach English, and I get to work as a teacher's aide. Lacey, the other intern, however, has definitely gotten the short end of the stick this whole time. She applied for an internship in agriculture, yet when she gets here she finds out that there's no agricultural work but they want her to teach. It's been a little bit of a bumpy road for each of us. I think this whole experience has been a lesson in patience and going with the flow. Even though sometimes things don't go as planned, that's okay because I'm still in El Salvador and I still get to have a great time enjoying the food, the culture, the people, and I have gotten loads of practice speaking and listening to Spanish.

At any rate, since I wasn't working today, when Lacey got home, Michell read some stories to us. Here is a video of Michell reading to us. Video of Michell reading to Lacey and me