Monday, December 14- Christmas Program

Well today was a long day to say the least. We left the house in a mototaxi at 6:30ish and were one of the first ones to arrive at the church, ready to begin the day. The morning was basically a run-through of the entire program with the actors from Teguz and our kids and their dances. It was a lot more organized because the director was there from Teguz to tell us where to sit, when to come on, how much time we had, etc. It was fun to see my kids in their normal everyday clothes instead of their uniforms; they looked so cute! Overall the morning went pretty smoothly. We broke for lunch around noon; I went to Guancascos to check my flight info and get lunch and the other girls went to other places. We got back to the church around 1 pm and began decorating. This was the most frustrating part of the day if you can believe it. In America, there is usually one person in charge, tasks are delegated to each person to work on, and then everyone works together to get a project done. Here there was not really one person in charge, everyone was working on the same thing or too many people were working on the same thing, and people were giving contradictory instructions. If we tried to tell somebody to do a task this way because it would be better, they often didn’t listen and just kept doing it their way; this would lead to having to do it over, wasting time. This was how things went for about 4 hours. Not only am I American, I am also a task-oriented, time-efficient person, so it was frustrating for me. Sometimes I just shut up and followed what they told me to do even if I knew it may not be the best way to do it. I would also try to help out wherever I could, but sometimes we just stood around with nothing to do because tasks weren’t really delegated.

Finally at 5ish, we were able to leave and get dinner; some of us went to get cheap baleadas and then rushed back to the church to get ready. The kids were supposed to come at 6pm, but some of them came earlier and here we are still getting ready because we teachers had to look nice as well. I just hate being rushed, hot and sweaty. My kids started arriving; the girls all looked so pretty with their makeup on and hair done and the boys all had their hair done. The girls outfits were blocked black and white satin 50s style dresses, while the boys had white pants and either a bright blue, green, yellow, or orange shirt. They all looked great! Finally the program started a little after 7 and my girls were one of the first acts to go on. I was very proud of them as I watched them dance without my help; I almost felt like a parent like ‘Yay they did well and looked well; all of our hard practice paid off!’ We sat down after that and continued watching the program, including the 5th grade boys, who rocked it on the stage as well. All the groups did really well and the actors from Teguz performed well. The little kids were adorable and all the parents immediately stood up and were scrambling to take pictures. We ended around 8:30pm and began the clearing out process.

Everyone was supposed to stay and clean up, but Mr. Lara and Mr. Calderon decided to let us go home at about 9pm and finish clean up tomorrow, which was great. The only downside was that we had to have a full day of class tomorrow; only K4, K5, and 1st grade got the day off. We still got to bed a little late like 10:45pm, but overall I survived the day with all craziness and frustrations. Thank you to all who prayed for me; I could definitely sense God with me the whole day!