Language school.

Today Finished my first week of language school. Nearly 5 days of nothing but spanish 24/7. I thought/did learn a lot of spanish in my first week. They taught me a lot of the little grammatical things that I never knew from only learning from talking and listening for 6 months.

I have two sessions of class a day. All instruction is given in spanish and normally we finish each session with about 30 min of practicing what i just learned. For the most part in a slow thought intesnive spanish I could carry a 30 min convo without to much trouble almost understanding all of it. Then today I went to work in a carpentry shop with some friends of the family i am staying with. After speaking spanish for four days with people who spoke a clear perfect spanish I was ready to speak in the workshop like a nicaraguan.

When I met the owner of the shop and he asked me the first question I thought it was whats your name but i wasn't dead sure. I spent the whole day struggling through understanding their spanish. Imagine this. It is best described like trying to understand another language in a loud workshop with dusk masks speaking the dirtiest "southern" spanish you can find. Needless to say it was a challenge...

Besides this things are going well....

language school...

Monday I started language school where I am talking and practicing spanish 100% of the day. I have a 1-on-1 teacher 5 hours a day and live with a family that only speaks spanish. I have learned a lot of spanish only practicing in Nicaragua but shcool is very helpful. I am learning that even though I know some things about some of the most complicated verbs in spanish, I still fail to know very simple things like if problems takes on a feminine or masculine pronoun...

Time will tell but I will be continuing to study in school for the next two weeks...

Out of date.

The last two weeks have been really eventful. I was going to language school for a few weeks when I got called up to the other orphanage to reinforce the roof before they could get solar panels installed. Me, Chris and two of the workers went up there for this past week to do the work before the solar panels got there.

I will be going to language school Monday for two weeks where I will be living with a family and fully immersed speaking only spanish all the time. I am excited to see where this will take me over the next little bit of time and and am considering extending that time depending on how much progress I make.

I have been spending more and more time with the 11 teenage boys lately. I have been trying to teach them different skills that they can use in the real world. Currently I am trying to teach them English. Here in Nicaragua if you speak english you have an almost automatic decent paying job working as a translator. I am currently looking for good ESL (english second language) teaching material. If anyone knows of some material that is very helpful please tell me about it.

Lastly something that has been a long time coming is Michael got his hearing aids this past saturday. It was really cool to get to see him to be able to fully hear for the first time in his 7 year life. I am uploading this video of him repeating the words that i say to him. Thank you so much if you gave me some money to help towards this cause.

For some reason I can't load a video now but will bring it soon.

Sweet update on Michael

I went to the doctor today to find out more information about Micheal's situation. We have an appointment Saturday when Julio has the day off to go and get Micheal fitted for his hearing aid. After this process, she said that the hearing aids should be ready Monday. I had no clue that the process was that close to fullfillment but He should be hearing as soon as Monday.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

KB