This week has been interesting. i havent talked much about whats been going on! monday at the proworld office there was another womens group meeting. lisbeth, who formerly was in charge of these meetings, told me an hour beforehand that i was going to be in charge of the whole meeting and supposed to talk to the women about microfinance and teach them english. well, that isnt really enough time to prepare an hour and a half lesson! Adriana, one of the staff members helped me a lot and after this mixup, she is now going to be in charge of the womens groups, and i will be her right hand man for the rest of the time im here. lisbeth is great but a little scattered and over committed, so i am excited about the changes for the women! adriana is also REALLY sweet and only one year older than me.
tuesday i started teaching english at a primary school the next town over, yucay. this was something lisbeth asked me about doing last week and i said i would try it because ive had some extra time. i taught 5th and 6th graders for the first hour and then 3rd and 4th graders the 2nd hour. they really had no prior knowledge of english besides the alphabet and numbers, so we reviewed those and then i taught them basic phrases. it is good that i speak spanish because they didnt understand much when i tried to tell them what to do in english.

wednesday, was my first day working with promujer and they were having a campaign in the market. to make a long story short, though the work they are doing is really valuable, i didnt feel comfortable around their staff and the proworld staff agreed that i should concentrate on other projects! i wish i could go into more detail but i really cant. now i have more time to concentrate on developing the womens groups on mondays and thursdays. also, in addition to teaching english at the school in yucay on tuesdays and thursdays, on wednesdays and fridays i am going to be a teachers assistant at another school on wednesdays and fridays.

today and tomorrow are another strike, so the only things i can do the next two days are research for my womens groups and do some work around the proworld office.

i still have my spanish class tonight however, which i love. it is just me and my professor for an hour and half and i am learning so much. i can tell that when someone asks me a question, my answers in spanish are becoming more automatic and natural. usually in class my professor has me read an article and then she'll ask me lots of questions to test my comprehension, and then the rest of the time we work on verb tenses and writing sentences and vocabulary as it comes up.

prayer requests:
-i have had either a cold or allergies this whole week (lots of people are sick right now)
-my spanish teacher knows that I am a Christian and she seems really curious about it. pray that i have more opportunities to share with her!

thanks for reading and praying! hasta luego