Come Fly With Me

“Come fly with me, we’ll float down to Peru. In llama-land there’s a one-man band and he’ll toot his flute for you. Come on fly with me, we’ll float down in the blue.”

• ·         “Well, Bolivia is close enough,” I thought as I listened to my vocal coach, Frank Sinatra, sing these words over my kids as they worked on an art project today. It was fun to play some of my music for them, now that we have a speaker in the classroom for when we practice the group dance that I have been teaching them since Wednesday.

   July 23

  Go hard or go home. That’s what I’m telling myself as I look at the stains on my sweater after an hour of rolling around and getting pummeled by young’uns. It’s so much fun getting to be a complete goofball around them. I think one of my roles in life is to show kids that growing up doesn’t mean you have to lose your inner kid. I wish it was this easy to make friends with other 19 year-olds. I even got to hold and play with a baby the other day. So cute. It’s also nice to let my affectionate side out. Haha I’ve given so many pecks on the cheek to the little ones. Vanesa kissed me back after I kissed her! It was such a precious moment.

  So today I got spat on again, this time by my namesake, Jonathan (pronounced Joe-nah-tahn in Spanish), although this time it was slightly my fault. But yesterday I was rocketship blasting a tiny one named Daniela and she just spat on me point blank, out of nowhere. It reminded me of earlier this summer when the youngest daughter of my campus pastor and I were staring each other down from inches apart, and she decided that my face would be a good place to land a sneeze. Long showers are coming.

  In the morning the kids made cards for El Día de la Amistad, the Bolivian version of Valentines’ day (which I like much better, since it hasn’t been distorted like ours has to connote only romantic relationships). In the afternoon the kids worked on homework, then played concentration (making pairs between the names of fruits in Spanish and those names in English!) and bingo. The older kids had a celebration for the holiday, with a dance party and everything.

  I found out today that I get to choreograph a dance for the kids that they’ll perform next week! I think I’m going to use “La Calle” by Juan Luis Guerra. I also get to teach an English class next Thursday! I’m so excited.

  
  

  July 24

   I woke up at 7:20 in order to get a headstart on the day. Figured I’d fry me up an egg and eat as I got ready. Now, this summer at CEJUPA is my first time using a manual gas stove, but over the past few weeks I’ve gotten the hang of it pretty well. But today my suburban upbringing let me down. Turned the nozzle to open up the gas like we always do, then I struck a match and held it close to the burner, at which point it usually catches and voila. But the first match didn’t catch. Neither did the second. So I figured, maybe I need to open the gas a little bit more and turn up the nozzles on the burners a bit more. Apparently that is a no-no, because upon striking the third match (I wasn’t even holding it anywhere near the burners) a whoosh of flame erupted from the match and the burners. The front layer of my hair was singed. Burnt hair is absolutely the worst smell in the world. Thank God there wasn’t any severe pain or damage, though.

  Our shower broke last week, so today Oscar and I heated up a pot of water and used it to shower. We’ve earned so many man points here.

  So today we began learning the dance. It wasn’t too bad! The kids’ attention span was short, as to be expected, but when it was there, they did pretty well. ‘m including the cabbage patch, the shopping cart, the basic salsa step, the stir-the-stew, and a soul train line. I ended up using a song by what was my favorite band for many years, Salvador, as it lends itself to both latin dancing and hip-hop dancing.

   July 25

  We got through the soul train today with the morning group, and past the soul train all the way to the box step with the afternoon group! It’s crazy how much better behaved the afternoon group is than the morning group. Granted, the morning group is larger, and today they were riled up due to playing for a good 20 min before Meri was able to get to class and give them something to do. But still. If there’s one thing I’m learning here, it’s patience, with both groups of kids.

  I started studying 2 Corinthians today, and I hope the end of the first chapter (verses 19-22, Holman Christian Standard) encourages you and amazes you as it did me:

  "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us… did not become "Yes and no"; on the contrary, a final "Yes" has come in Him. For every one of God’s promises is "Yes" in Him. Therefore, the "Amen" is spoken through Him by us for God’s glory… He has also sealed us and given us the Spirit as a down payment in our hearts."

  - TJ Stokes