Elev yo la!

School started on Tuesday! It has been great so far…the whole feel on campus is different; busy and colorful and always a dull roar outside. Walking around, I am accosted by continual greetings of “Good morning/afternoon, Ms. DeAgostino”. Learning names is overwhelming and the students expect that you should know their names after hearing them one time. My largest class is 30 senkyem students (8^th grade), and I have no idea how I am going to learn all of their names, yikes! I made them some desk name tags so hopefully those will help me out. Their English is not stellar so we have been going very slowly/using a translator sporadically. Luckily the class is a very basic introductory science course with a smattering of many topics in not much detail, so we will be okay. Overall, I LOVE teaching. Standing up in class talking for 80 minutes during double-periods is quite tiring, however. It makes me hungry. One of my favorite parts about teaching is actually the planning and the organization between classes. Thus far I have really been pouring myself into it, using any and all free time to hash out details of specific lessons and plan overall units with objectives and methods laid out weeks in advance.

The students leave every Friday afternoon, so campus is quiet again now. I think the weekends will be a much needed respite, especially as the year goes on. I am living in one of the girl’s dorms with another volunteer (since there is not enough room in the volunteer house for all nine of us), and this makes things a little bit awkward with the students who live there. Not having a place to retreat away from the eyes of my students is not ideal, and the girls also use up the running water very quickly so I have been taking bucket showers all of this week. It is funny when I show up back at the dorm at 5:30 am after running and the girls see me all sweaty and dirty and think that I am crazy, haha.

And now, an appeal…this year the school is having a lot of financial trouble mostly because of the US economic problems. Many less people are donating and are donating less money. Louverture Cleary School is dedicated to keeping its students through all 7 years of their secondary education and properly feeding them, giving them a strong education and spiritual formation, and instilling in them the importance of hard work. Obviously to do all of these things, donations are imperative; it costs U$950 to house and educate one student for a year. Part of my job as a volunteer is to raise money for the school, and so far as a group we have not raised many funds. I am sure this is because people in the states are struggling themselves somewhat, but I would urge you to think about making even a small donation to help the school and support the work I am doing. Without generous donors, the school could not function…and right now LCS is one of the few bright spots in Haiti, a place of hope where the children of Haiti learn that they can change their country. Please check out their website (http://www.haitianproject.org) and make a donation, even if it is small. I would very much appreciate it, and the students here would even more so. Donations can be made online or be mailed to: The Haitian Project, P.O. Box 6891, Providence, RI 02940. If you have an idea for a fundraiser or would like someone from the Haitian Project to come talk to a group, feel free to call Elizabeth O’Connell, Director of Community Development, at (815) 484-8623 or email development@haitianproject.org. You can also let them know your connection to me so that your thank you note will be personalized!

Mesi anpil!