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Saturday, October 09, 2010

Me, Myself and Marisa


It's hard to believe that I've actually been here for one whole week now. But in just this one week, so much has happened in every area of life in both my dealings with the church, my dealings with the school and the dealings in my own personal life. I've had many interesting days, some trying moments, while other days and moments are filled with joy and wonder. I wouldn't trade a single second of all that I have now for all the job security in the world.

But I would have to say that thursday goes down as being probably the most intense of all. It wasn't a bad day, don't get me wrong. It was an intense day. You see, I had been trying to make arrangments to meet with the school to hand over the books and none of the dates kept working out, until it was settled that Thursday would be best. Thursday is also the day where the cell groups meet and the church in Centro has their weekly service. So basically I would be doing everything all in one day. I had no problem with that, I just had to brace myself.

The day in the afternoon when I left the hostel to take the subway to the school. I arrived at the school shortly before 4pm and was graciously greeted by the staff with the typical warmth, and hospitality that the Argentine spirit is quickly becoming famous for. Soon the staff member I was supposed to meet arrived and we had our meeting where I handed over the books. She was highly impressed with the quality of the teaching material and it was a pleasure to know that I had made the right choice in my selection of the material that I chose to bring from Canada.

It was around 5pm when the meeting ended but that was not the end of things. The staff member whom I met with was scheduled to do a level 2 english class and she wanted me to come along to offer support. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get involved and observe what was going on and begin to take part in the life of the school. The class went from 5-7 and from observing and participating in what was going on, I got tremendous insight into the current state of the program and ways that we could improve. I have another meeting Sat at 2pm where I will be sharing my observations and suggestions. As well I have an opportunity to do some teaching early in the morning Sat 10am.

I will be blogging more about all that I've seen in the coming weeks but for now I'm going to skip ahead to after the 2hr class is finished and it was time for me to go to Centro to participate in the church service, the cell groups, and reconnect with old friends. So as soon as 7pm hit, I was out of there and on my way. One thing that I must say is that Buenos Aires has such a great subway system that I was able to get from one end of the city to the other in a reasonable spans of time. It was about 7:45 pm when I found myself staring up at the front foyer area of the shopping arcade where the church meets. The church meets below the shopping arcade. I felt my heart skip a beat. How would people react seeing me for the first time in more than 7 months? I took a deep breathe and went inside.

Now I want to explain to you the set up of the church so that you understand. There is a first set of stairs that you go down. When you reach the bottom of those stairs, you'll find yourself on a kind of a mezzanine floor. On that floor is a door that leads to a big grey room with a concrete floor. The walls are completely transparent. You know the way that when you go to a zoo the animals are behind glass? That is exactly what the first room looks like when you go down so when you can see all the people inside and they can see you. And someone did see me the moment I began my descent down those stairs, that someone was Marisa.

To be continued......


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