Greetings citizens.

As it turns out, I am a king. This is according to several highly intellectual little girls. It all started on Saturday when my host fam invited an undefined number of people to the house for a birthday partay of a fellow Blue Mountainite (this whole area Meaford, Thornburry and surrounding highlands is called the Blue Mountains). I had meet these girls at a previous giving thanks convention with Turkey and Cranberries and they hit me off my feet famously. This was a more mellow function seeing as the outdoor play time was non-existent. Instead, they started to pummel me in the basement (for some reason little people take great enjoyment from hindering my ability to move). Because screaming (their screams not mine–I was terrifying!) travels well from floor to floor it was not long until the adults came down and told the youngins to simmer down. This is when my royal treatment started. They decided that I should be the Sheikh Mohammed living in the UAE, receiving the finest from peeled grapes to magic carpet rides. Or in their words, king surrounded by sand. I have never been one to let terminology phase me. I was not about to stop my faithful servants from fanning me with napkins, giving me shoulder and foot massages, and supplying me with ample gold (board game pieces). The partay ended un-spectacularly, I was draped with hugs and my servants departed. All in all, it had been a decent night.

Today is Monday, and on any given Monday (from now until mid-November) I am at the school. Today was unique because because my host mother who supply teaches taught in the class that I help out in. I usually help one kid named Zach (for reals!) for the whole day, but today my duties had expanded to encompass the entire classroom. I can say right now that I am enthralled my writing skills have improved since then (Grade 1 & 2). In those days it would take me a decade to write this much… Anyways, kids at that age are an interesting bunch. This class had a range from the adorable six year old to the “look at me, Im standing up in the circle”, to the kid who would turn him self on and off repeatedly with his remote controller (actually, it is only a pencil) and then run around the classroom to the elastic band jar to recharge his remote controller. Interestingly, he was my responsibility. I tried my best to get him to write the sentence (of his own creation) “goblins have green butts” but all he wrote was a G an A and a B. After we got that out of the way, he constructively used the time to educate me on all the functions of his pencil, I mean remote control. At recess (don’t you dare tell me that its called Nutrition Break) I meandered through the playground looking for an “in” to use the monkey bars. It was swarming with little people and I felt that I would be to imposing if I pushed some of them out of the way and took a swing (literally). Luckily, a little girl who I know from my second job at the library (I need to make my $15 a week somehow) ran up to me. She wanted to walk with me and hold my hand. I suggested we play monkey bars. Thankfully, she was all for it. The monkey bars at this school are awesome. They make a giant “S” shape, and yes I can draw a picture of them on a napkin for Isaac… Now that I had my “in”, it was my turn to show the little people how swinging is really done. I flew through the air from one bar to the next, astounding the little people. I was obviously modest and joyfull. A short while later when I was still at the monkey bars helping the girl swing, a girl around 8 years old came up to me and frankly said “I bet you don’t see the point of this.” I frankly replied “this is the best thing since unicycling.” She walked away. I had successfully completed another great day at the playground.

Now, I will give the general rundown of other activities I participated in this week. I went for an awesome hike yesterday with two other Canadian participants and my host family. Asking most Cubans to go for a hike is like asking the Marlboro Man to be an astronaut on the upcoming Space Mission to Mars. 3 other participants and I had our community activity day on Tuesday. It was largely unsuccessful as it was cold and pouring. We were going to rake leaves. However, it was not entirely bad as half the group ended up at my house to watch triple X. There was also another CAD on Thursday. It ran roughly the same course. More movies!

That was a brief summation of my week. For more, visit your imagination.

Peace

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