6 Julio 2011

Today I locked myself away in my room because I needed to do some paperwork and budget balancing for the VALE program. Four hours later my phone is ringing every 5 minutes because it is teacher appreciation day and the teachers are all playing volleyball together at the primary school. We played for a couple hours, all of us a little (or a lot) rickety, then we ate a pork feast. Being with the teachers is very familiar and comfortable, but my head was spinning with all that I had put on pause to come and be with them. And while we were eating, the Secondary school teachers asked me to come substitute for some teachers tomorrow, three. Then the Primary school teachers told me they have a parent meeting tomorrow, as well, that I could help with. Feeling so pleased to be asked to help, I agreed to both.
I left a bit early because it was world map project time. Today Robert and I traced all the penciled lines to prepare for tomorrow’s painting. He is a trooper, defiantly the world map king (irony that he is Milagros´ older brother?).



I decided that I wouldn’t do workshops tomorrow, as I usually do when I substitute (violence workshop, discrimination workshop, sex ed workshop, etc), but I would create kind of an assembly for each class involving questions about VALE and pumping them up for the fact that it is going to begin in a month.

But, alas, upon arriving home I was unable to prepare a single thing. First, a VALE committee meeting took longer than expected as I presented the updated budget and they visited the furniture and library space. Then, Doña Juana came in my room with freshly squeezed milk and a bucket of potatoes… mashed potato time. Then, a phone call with a much loved friend put me right to bed. But, for some reason, I couldn’t sleep. Perhaps it was the most recent kitten adoption making herself comfortable in my sleeping bag with me, or just the endless thoughts scrolling through my mind…