I walked as usual into the central area to catch a micro to the guardaria. I knew that the main buses weren´t running through the country, but after buying a cheese empanada and waiting way longer than usual, I realized that the the micros weren´t running either. No one knows much anything about it, but there´s some sort of bus strike in all of Bolivia right now. No worries - not violent at all, just making life complicated for everybody. I ended up taking a taxi up to the guardaria, which took a while because nobody knew where it was and none of the roads nearby have names.
When I finally got there, I just about walked out because it seemed like there was nothing I could do whatsoever. It was late but the kids weren´t split into their age groups yet. Most of the older kids were sitting at the table fairly quietly doing nothing, aside from a few of the trouble makers, and all of the little guys raced around the room, climbed on the chairs and tables, and crawled all over the place. I wanted to start my C lesson with the older kids and tried to get the little ones over into their room, but to no avail. The room was complete chaos with hair pulling, punching and hitting, screaming, and kids on top of all the furniture. The teachers sat in the corner talking amongst themselves and I went up to them and asked if they could help take the little ones into the other room so that I could work with the older ones. I´m fairly certain I said it in clear Spanish and also gestured to the little guys on the table, and they said they would help. But what did they do... they got up and walked outside to consider chatting and laughing. At that point, I almost just gave up and left for the day, but it wasn´t the kids fault at all so I made myself stay. I let a couple of the better behaved little ones stay at the table, and picked up a few of the others and plopped them into a room with toys. Some of the rascal older boys were racing around, but I just tuned them out because there was no way to get all of my kids to sit still with the teachers being oh so helpful. I started with my review of B and went into C, and the kids who were sitting at the table did a good job of paying attention and calling out the names of the images I had printed. Even a little girl who is barely three joined in with the others in calling out the names of things and that they started with C. There continued to be chaos all around us, but the more focused kids are very good at tuning that out. Handed out papers and they all got to work coloring and gluing. The little glue bottles I had bought last week had mostly disappeared already, so I went around with a big tub of paste and put dabs on their papers once they told me what the picture was and what letter it started with. I also had a bunch of face (cara in spanish) stickers and put those on the table, which they loved. The faces were of all different colors and emotions and to my surprise, the kids actually described each of the faces outloud before sticking it on their paper. Randomly in the middle of the activity while the kids at the table were clearly engaged, the teachers came in, made everyone sit down on the floor against the wall, and gave them oranges. Um, ever think to wait for snacktime until they are done with the activity since they are actually focused on something for once instead of running wildly? But luckily, most of the kids liked the project so much that they quickly finished their oranges and came back to take their places. I got them all to write their names on their papers, or at least trace over the letters that I wrote - we´ve been doing that at the end of each day´s project and some of them seem to be getting better at that. The teachers continued to be of absolutely no use - I looked in on the room of one and two year olds and they were just playing by themselves, no teacher in sight. The room was open to the main area I was in with the older kids, but still, quite unbelievable. There was such constant noise that I ignored most of it, but occasionally went over to break up one fight or another. I got the girls to help me clean up the project and put away the chairs and tables, and the older boys went off into the room usually meant for the three to four year olds and actually sat calmly to do puzzles, very odd. Since Nicky was sick, I was the only volunteer there and there was no way I was taking my usual group of crazies outside, so I took just five girls with me who happened to be nearby - three of my older girls and two younger ones. Gave them my usual lecture that they needed to listen while we were outside, and they did a good job actually holding hands and singing a song the entire time we walked over to the yard. After we were outside for a bit, another girl and boy from the oldest group came out - I was not excited to see Miguel outside because he was the most troublesome last week. But being outside with just girls seemed to keep away his rascalness and everyone behaved. Getting them to go back inside was the usual ordeal with most of them thinking it was funny to run away rather than get into line, but we eventually made it inside, washed up, and went to lunch. Apparently the guardaria had gotten a big gift from somebody of a bunch of children´s dishes including patterned bowls, plates, cups, and little forks and spoons. They were all incredibly excited about it, but it seemed a weird gift, as there are other things that they could have used much more. They already had enough plastic dishes for everyone and although they were adult sized and the spoons were a bit big for the kids´ mouths, they sufficed just fine. I think money could have been much better invested in more books, supplies, training for the teachers, etc. rather than just a more appropriate set of something they already had!
Because of the lack of micros, I was going to leave early to be on time for lunch with Isabel, but when I told the teachers, they said to wait half an hour because they were baking me something. Of course that turned into nearly an hour, but it was really, really sweet of them and completely unexpected, as I hadn´t seen them do anything for the other volunteers that left a few weeks ago. They made me a big circular cake and wrote ´safe travels ilana´ on it and thanked me a ton for working with the kids. There was a whole separate cake in the oven for the kids and they said the whole cake was for me - I ate one slice and ended up giving the rest to a homeless guy who always begs on a corner that I pass. While I was waiting for the cake to finish, I just sat in the lunchroom and played with the kids and broke up some fights. I stayed longer than I have in the past, to the point where they are completely done with lunch and clean up, and as expected, they just had the kids running around like crazy as usual with nothing to do but wrestle and fight each other in a small space. Would have been a nice time to have my camera and get the kids focused on that and get some good shots, ugh! I wish I could have made more of an impact on center when I was there - I know that the kids who participated enjoyed the activities I did with them and liked having me around, but I don´t think I was able to make any changes that will last. I tried talking quite a bit with the teachers about different ideas and things to do with the kids and they happily agreed to it all, but from what I´ve seen, it all went in one ear and out the other. Well, I tried...
Eventually left and tried to catch a taxi back to the center, but all the taxis that passed were full because that was the only form of transportation available today. Eventually caught a collectivo (shared taxi) with a couple of others and was way overcharged for the short ride. Got to lunch just before the place closed and gobbled down my food as they were turning off the lights and shutting down for the day. Missed Isabel, but I might see her tonight at Fox since she has classes while I´m there.
Then it was time to find out about the road block situation. I asked around and can´t get any clear information about what´s happening. A lot of the roads around the country are blocked off and even taxis can´t leave Sucre today - they don´t know yet about tomorrow. One tourist agency I asked told me to come back in a few hours, which I will do, and also ask a bunch more until I find somebody who can tell me something. I was planning on taking a 6:30am bus to Potosi tomorrow morning and had a pretty tight schedule for the next week, culminating in a plane flight that I have booked from a place I don´t know if I´ll even have time anymore to make it to! Fingers crossed that the roads open tomorrow, otherwise I have lots of rearranging to do.