26 Nov

Eileen returns to the blog

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. I have lots of excuses, but no one likes to hear excuses so I’ll spare you. My last few weeks have been pretty up and down. I was fairly sick (I’ve never experienced vertigo like that before and I’m SO glad it’s over). Tim took good care of me and my wonderful worldteach co-teachers at the cec subbed for some of my classes. Last week I had a fantastic birthday. My students were amazing: both of my classes brought in a cake and my morning class also had a beautiful traditional Ecuadorian shirt as a gift for me.

I can’t believe we’ll be home in less than 4 weeks. The time is flying. We are thoroughly excited to see all of you back in Wisconsin.

Happy (late) birthdays to Angie Storm and Eva Payne. Congrats to Rob and Emily! We heard it was a beautiful wedding. We can’t wait to see pics and wish you well in person.

To all the lightweight crew ladies out there: sorry I never got a chance to say congrats on kicking some Princeton butt earlier this month. Keep up the good work. I think about you guys when I’m at the gym on the bike.

“the girl”
So our landlords are great. We’ve been invited for Sunday lunch twice. They’ve taken us fishing, given us rides various places, answered any questions we’ve had and overall been very kind to us. They have two kids: David is 12 and the girl is 16. And of course, Bella is the family dog: pretty cool for a “two-biter” little white yippy dog. About a month ago, the girl knocked on our door with some English homework questions. Before this she was very quiet: she barely said two words to us. So I invited her inside and sat down to help her. I’m fairly certain she has a learning disability, and to make things even more difficult her English text book was WAY too advanced for her level. Anyhow, we struggled through the book and afterward she hung out to talk a bit. At first it was nice. But she is very difficult to understand, definitely the hardest of the family. She speaks very fast and doesn’t rephrase when you ask a question. So anyway she was here for about 2 and a half hours. When she finally left she said in Spanish, “so we’ll do this tomorrow.” (We’ll do this tomorrow???? AAAHHHHH). I told her that maybe every once in awhile I can help her out, but I don’t have time everyday. I felt bad but I couldn’t bear the thought of daily sessions like that one. She and David have come a few times and Tim has also done his part tutoring, but I think his patience ran out Sunday.

PS: we called her “the girl” because we didn’t catch her name when we first moved in and no one ever referred to her by name. So yesterday Tim was working on spelling out English letters with her and he asked her to spell her name. Very clever boy. So at least now we don’t have to call her “the girl.” Her name: Mireya.