The Rhythm

(Ch)

So, we've been here for about two weeks now (actually, exactly two weeks as of 10:30 AM this morning) and things are starting to settle into a routine. Previously, everything was a little sporadic - meeting up with people, registering students for ESL, etc...

Anyway, so here is a basic idea of what we'll be doing while we're over here.

First is teaching ESL. Like I mentioned before, we teach on Monday and Wednesday from 5:00 PM till 9:00 PM. We prepare our lessons from the curriculum that the center uses.

In the same vein, we meet up with students individually to practice English and just have conversations with them. This is student driven - they initiate meeting up with us. Since we're relatively free during the week, it's not too hard to find a time. Already we have both scheduled to meet up with some students on our classes.

We will also be running a coffee shop on Friday, with the similar goal of helping students practice their English in conversations. Basically this is a time when the students of the school can interact with teachers (and other English speakers) in an informal, public setting. We'll use conversation as well as games (such as Catch Phrase and Taboo Junior) to help the students practice.

Other than that we meet up with Matt (our friend), who teaches us about Arab culture, politics, and religion on Monday mornings. We meet with Gene to talk about various things and do some training on Thursday mornings. Saturday and Wednesday mornings we spend an hour with an Arabic tutor who is helping learn some basics of the language while we're here.

We also attend service here at the church on Saturdays (there is a young adult service), and occasionally other times. We recently went to a baptismal service which was eerily similar to SCAC's (down to singing "Happy Day" after each time!).

The rest of what we do is fairly random. For instance, the last few days we've been helping the church community center here with their computer lab (one machine had about 3165 viruses, Trojans, worms, etc...). And hopefully we'll be able to volunteer and help out more here.

So that's an idea of what we do.

As a personal update, my class on Monday went better I think. I'm making an effort to memorize people's names, and even took pictures of every person to help me remember (as Kim suggested!). Although it's still difficult for me to slow down and watch my words, I'm working on it.

Thanks for all your support and prayers!