Carita Feliz and I Love My Gecko Friends

I just finished my second day of volunteer work at El Centro Carita Feliz. I am helping an art teacher with a class of about fifteen kids. It has been really fun so far, and it feels really good to be teaching again. It´s funny how a break from something can help you find the joy in it again. Trying to teach in a foreign lanaguage has been a great reminder of what little influence talk has on instruction. Examples and simply stated instructions really does work wonders. It´s especially cool that there´s a student in the class who is deaf and mute and I have the easiest time instructing him because I don´t have to worry about recalling specific vocabulary and using the correct verb tenses. The center sells the students´ canvas paintings for $30 per piece and the student gets half and the center the other half. It's definitely student art - nothing mind blowing, but I plan to buy one. If anybody is interested, I could take some photos of the work and email them to you.

I also wanted to write a quick note about the awesome geckos that are all over my bedroom. They´re a really pretty off-white almost clear color and every day I get to see at least one chase down a mosquito on the wall and eat it. I caught an ant the other night and tried to feed it to one of the geckos, but the gecko was too skittish to notice I had food for it. I even found a rather large gecko in my purse when I was leaving the house after lunch today. I´ll have to check my bags before I leave so I don´t subject any to a probably deadly trip to Colorado. Oh yeah, they also make this cute chirping noise all night that helps to distract from screaming children, loud tv shows, and family debates.