Travel Bound: Back in School

It's the end of the second day of class and the only thing I can say that adequately describes how I feel is ... blissfully exhausted. The days have been incredibly long, but every minute spent is more rewarding than the next. I can truly say for once that I feel as if I'm in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Absolutely nothing seems to be out of place. There are a total of 12 people in my group. Amy, Carly, Andy, Alex, Marissa, Kerry, Julie and I are from the US. Feike (pronounced Fyka) is from the Netherlands. Sara and Victoria are from Canada, and Gemma is from the UK. We are all drastically different, yet strangely similar. The fluidity amongst us seems almost too good to be true.

School has been brilliant! (Accents and language are mingling together it would seem. "Brilliant" is the first word that came to mind and is something Gemma says often.) Each day varies from hour to hour but we maintain an extremely structured schedule. We jumped right in on day one and haven't looked back since.

The first afternoon I was one of six that traveled to Kiato, a village about an hour away. We were set to attend an English lesson for class 'C' students on Monday afternoon. As we waited for someone to unlock the school we watched from a street-side cafe as one car plowed into the back of another. It was nothing more than a fender bender, but you should have seen the the reaction from the Greeks! Everyone in the area stopped what they were doing and meandered toward the scene. They were all speaking incredibly fast Greek discussing back and forth who was at fault and so on and so forth. I turned to Peter, our main instructor, and asked if accidents like this were common. Peter's response was "it happens ALL the time." This accident had merely become afternoon entertainment for the locals. The school was finally unlocked and our 3 participants arrived, Peter, Angela and Stefano, all around the age of 11. We watched Vicki (their instructor) give her 90 minute lesson and I couldn't help but smile the entire way through. I felt so much joy watching those kids find their English words and phrases. As soon as they knew they'd gotten an answer right, their entire face lit up and I could feel the energy radiating from their new found confidence. It was exactly what I needed to see and I was put completely at ease. At some point this month I'll have the opportunity to teach these 3! After watching the lesson we drove back to Corinth and finished out the day in sessions with Cat (our second instructor who is from London.) Our day ended at 8:00 pm and we made the drive back to the house in Vrahati.

Today was my second day of class. Surprisingly I've been completely enthralled with each of our sessions! The days are 12 hours in length, but seem to finish much quicker than that. We leave the house each morning at 8:45 am and don't return until 8:30 pm. Currently it's 1:35 am on Wednesday morning and I'm still very awake. I think there must be something in the air. I'm running on drastically less sleep than I'm accustomed to, I have more energy than I've ever had, and all of a sudden I'm a morning person! I keep hoping this doesn't wear off.

The past couple mornings I've gone for a run down the oceanside street in Vrahati and I've seen so much of the village that way. Today I stopped in a bakery and bought freshly baked bread and bagels for breakfast. The woman behind the counter spoke only Greek so she hollered to the man just outside for help. He came in to translate and helped me find exactly what I wanted.

Tomorrow I have my first English lesson with a 10 year old student. I'll be observed by one of my instructors and 3 of my classmates. It'll be nice to get the first round jitters out of the way! It seems very soon to be instructing an actual student but I really do feel as if they've done an excellent job preparing me over the last two days. I only hope she isn't horribly shy, that makes things 10 times harder. Wish me luck!

I miss you all!