Fracciones heterogeneos

Pues, hoy fui al Deporte y Vida.  Deporte y Vida is the place that I will be volunteering this semester.  It is located in in a very poor (but new) neighborhood in the district of Salvador and it's about 45 minutes from where I live.  I wish it was closer because then I would be there all the time when I was free.  It was a blast today and I look forward to going back there next week!  At Deporte y Vida children come to play, learn, do homework, eat, etc.  When we (four other girls from my program who decided to volunteer there and I) got there we met two of the head women of the project and we went through every room.  There are four rooms total.  Each room is a different age group.  There's 3, 4, and 5 year olds, plus the room for kids in elementary school.

I started out the morning helping a boy do his homework, which consisted of cutting letters out of a newspaper to form different words.  Also, he was practicing his cursive.  It seems like so long ago that I learned how to write in cursive.  After this I started helping a girl with her English homework.  Again, that was fairly easy.  She is learning basic nouns and adjectives so she had to make basic pharses like "The big house...The red apple, etc."  And then...and then she whipped out the math.  At first I was like "Okay, I can do this" and then she handed me her assignment and (insert duh-duh-duuhh cliffhanger sound effect here) ...FRACTIONS!!!  I haven't done fractions forever so first I had to remember and then I had to explain them in Spanish!  I don't even know how to explain them in English!!  Also, it was adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators!  So I had to try and explain why you have to find a common denominator.  I gave it my best shot and the girl was looking at me like I was crazy.  Two other girls joined me in trying to explain it, but we had no luck.  I would have to say after 3 weeks of being here, this event was the most challenging thing for me so far.  We turned to the Resident Coordinator of CIEE for help, who joined us for the day to introduce us to Deporte y Vida, and she did a way better job then we did!  She of course did something that we should've done from the get-go!  Draw pictures of pie!!  Duh!  That's what you do when you're learning fractions!  Anyway, she was a lot more successful at it then we were and we moved on to helping other chicos.  It was kind of sad to leave even after one day!  One girl I swear thought we were never coming back.  You can tell that they love having people there and I am sooo excited to spend this upcoming semester volunteering there!

Deporte y Vida is up on that hill :)



Houses in the district of Salvador or Chorrillos

 After we came back to Miraflores (where I live), Tonisha and I took a little trip to the Cruz del Sur bus station because rather than going to Nazca next weekend we are going to Ica so we had to switch our bus tickets!  What's the reason for the change you ask?  Well our Resident Coordinator told us about a States warning about the airport in Nazca and that 17 people have died in the past few years while on flights over the Nazca lines, however Ica is a safer place to fly out of to see the Nazca lines.  Therefore, rather than risk our lives we decided to change our tickets to Ica instead.  I figured all of you would be happy to know that we switched destinations, too!  Also, we walked A LOT today.  And the nerd that I am Google-mapped it and I'd say we walked around 5 miles today!  I'd say that's great.  Definitely makes up for the Canelitas y frosting from yesterday!!

Walking over a main street (Javier Prado) in Lima
on the way to the bus station.



This was a sign on the highway.  Care for your life.  What a good message
for life, in general, not just for crossing the street.

Buenas noches!!!  Happy Birthday Dad!!!