It's hard too pinpoint why my lust for blogging has began to lag. My best guess is that with only two weeks left in La Manzanilla, I have stopped wanting to share, analyze, and summarize, choosing instead to simply experience. Things have stayed relatively the same throughout my time here, and this simplicity has escaped stagnation. Despite the drastic changes in coloration (all of a sudden I am surrounded by green. SO MUCH GREEN) and daily schedule, the pleasant, tranquil way of life I have grown so accustomed to goes on unaltered.

Some examples of the green. After a month or so of rain the creeks have filled and the entire landscape has changed.

  Friday marked the end of the first week of Curso de Verano, LCEF's summer camp for local kids grades 2-6 (or whatever grade their parents say they are in... we have some very little ones). In English class, our theme for the week was "The Five Senses," which gave us lots to work with including fun vocab about the body, textures, smells, and tastes, and interactive games. Neither Steph nor I had worked with so many kids before, especially of such varied ages, and we definitely found, over the course of the week, what types of classroom interaction work better than others. We generally stuck to 15 minutes of vocab teaching, a 20-ish minute experiential game, and 15 minutes with these workbooks we made which have lots of coloring and word games. The station-to-station games, like the one where you stick your hand into dark mysterious containers and guess the texture, worked the best, because there was a lot of movement and everyone got to do each activity. Things like hangman and charades, which we do a lot of in the after-school classes, didn't work as well because it left some kids to look out the windows and wish it was time for art.

Speaking of art, Isa's classes were awesome. The projects generally went along with the English themes: fruitloop jewelery (taste), textured solar systems (touch), origami frogs and crocodiles (sight), and the beginnings of painted drums made of big old yogurt containers (hearing). Throughout all of the classes the space gets pretty hectic, but we are learning to go with it. Luckily we have handfuls of teenage volunteers (LCEF's scholarship students have to do a certain number of community service hours) to help out. And a perfect end to the week: a swimming trip!

Even as I write this I'm struggling not to fall into a factual sentence + piles of pictures blog strategy. I am sleepy from a lovely evening swim wherein there were currents of really cool water flowing through the warm water. It felt amazing, and also reminded me of swimming in cool river water, which I will probably do pretty darn soon. This weekend has been well balanced between relaxing, planning for the coming week, and doing some cool stuff. Really cool stuff, actually. Saturday morning we went on a gorgeous hike in the mountains, and on Saturday evening we took a little boat tour in the marshes where the crocodiles live with Jens, a 17 year old boy who is studying at the Spanish school. The marsh is right in town, blocked off only by a chain link fence, and there are raised wooden paths running through it. Crocodiles are pretty scary from afar, not to mention from a rickity foot bridge over the marsh.

Our boat ride was surprisingly peaceful, despite the pools of tiny bubbles that would form around the boat from time to time (crocs under water). We went in the evening, and all of the birds were flying around the mangroves as the sun went down slowly. After our tour we stopped by a hoppin birthday party, with a full band and tons of cake and balloons. Then we hung out with Jens for a while, I ate too many Japonesa flavored peanuts and almost choked on my water when Jens told me that instead of cars or limos, the kids of suburban Minnesota now take pimped out Party Buses to prom. Glad I'm still learning so much in La Manz. Finally, I must share this picture of the rather epic entrada to La Manzanilla.