My New Teachers

Today was such a great day. Since it was a Wednesday, I was able to sleep til 7 (!!!) and then have a yummy omelet breakfast with Christa. Class went well, I think (maybe you should ask my students though!) and then I had my first language lesson with my new teachers....

Touy, our language tutor, is getting married soon and her fiance is visiting this month so she isn't able to teach us. So I decided to ask a student to help me out this month and ended up asking two students from my year 3 class. I've had pictures of them up on my blog before, and maybe I'll take one during our language lesson tomorrow so you can see them again... But it was such a wonderful time! We had kaopat (fried rice) together for lunch and talked about the logistics of when we'll meet, etc. They refuse to let me pay them and seem really excited about helping me learn Lao. Sonexay said I'd be speaking Lao in a month! We'll see about that, but today was a good start.

It's a really good mix too, because Thipphachanh is the sweet, relaxed one who has slightly better English and is able to understand my questions and explain things. Sonexay is the strict one who makes me say the word over and over til I get the tone right or the right length of the vowel, etc. At what I thought was the end of our lesson today, Sonexay pulled out a piece of paper and said dictation, Teacher. She then proceeded to dictate the new vocabulary that I had learned that day and made me write out the correct spelling for each word (spelling in Lao is soooo hard!!!). 15 minutes and 15 words later, I was quite proud of my list of new words and my progress. I asked them about my homework saying I should write sentences to practice the new grammar point I'd learned. They assigned me 10 sentences (I usually only give them 5 in English class!) ... very strict, but after spending about an hour tonight writing those 10 sentences, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I think my motivation to learn Lao is at an all-time high. I'm such a relationally-motivated person so the fact that two of my students are willing to spend several hours a week with me teaching me their language is really motivating for me. And, I'm hoping it'll be a fun way to bond and have an excuse to hang out together.  Please be thinking about that and asking the Father to bless our friendship and just allow our schedules to not be too crazy because it's often easy to get off to a good start and then things fizzle out when life gets busy.

  Speaking of busy, December is slammed!! Wow, I'm tired just thinking about it! But, hopefully it will be a fun time of year and a strategic one as well, as we seek to share not only the cultural aspects of Christmas, but the true reason for the season!  We had a team meeting tonight and were trying to iron out the logistics and brain-storm ideas. Please be thinking of us during this time - that we would be wise and bold, and culturally sensitive and clear - a good mix of fun and deep.  I can't wait to bring my guitar to class and play some carols for my students!

This is random, but here's a pic of our team at dinner tonight. I made Fajitas with the stuff mom sent from home.... Everyone on the team was so thankful, mom!!! :) Not exactly like in the states, but delicious nonetheless!

Ok, off to bed now!