My typical Monday ///
7:00am- My first alarm goes off. I reach over and hit snooze super quickly so that it doesn’t wake anyone else up. Then I fall back asleep
7:10am- My second alarm goes off. Now it’s really time to get up! I take out my earplugs, put them in their little baggy, and sit up into the sunshine that pours in on my bed.
7:13am- after a few minutes of sitting in bed, I grab my toiletries bag and stand up. I then open my drawer and pick out an outfit. Finally, I head down the hallway and into the bathroom to get ready.
7:15am- Usually I’m the first one in here. But sometimes, Anna Wilk is in there already. I go to the bathroom and change into my fresh clothes. Then, I turn on some music, brush my teeth, do my hair and some makeup… and we’re ready!
7:50am- I grab my water bottle and head downstairs for breakfast. There is usually worship music playing in the living room from Zach’s speaker. Everyone is quietly waiting for Fabi to tell us that breakfast is ready.
8:03ish- “Who wants to pray for breakfast”??
8:04am- The line for breakfast is wrapped around the living room. Our typical Monday breakfast consists of cereal, oatmeal, coffee, fruit, bread, and juice! We really get treated on Monday mornings!!
8:25am- Team Wildflowers is on dishes for Monday’s, so we all go into the kitchen and begin cleaning up. One soaper, one rinser, one dryer, one putter awayer, and two sweepers! We say goodbye to the other teams as they slowly make their way out of the house.
8:45am- dishes are done! We have 30min before we leave for ministry, so I like to do my quiet time now.
9:10am- We all head downstairs. Right outside the door, we grab our shoes from the shoe rack. Braeden grabs the chips for our snack, and we buzz the door to get out, saying bye to the dogs on the way. One of the dogs, Sunny, follows us to the bus stop every day.
9:12am- We start our walk to the bus station! We have to walk down the street to get out of the neighborhood gate. We say hello to the gatekeeper on the way. We yell for sunny to go back, but she stays following us.
9:15am- It’s time for the 1st big hill of the day. No body is talking because we are trying to save our breath. My calves start to hurt at the speed bump that marks the halfway point. I often find myself walking faster because I want it to be over.
9:20am- We reach the peak of the 1st big hill, and we now walk down the last section of the road. This road intersects with the main road where the bus terminal is at.
9:21am- It’s a game of cross roads as we all scramble across 8 lanes of busy traffic. Any yes, the dog is still with us. Then we wait for our bus to approach outside of the terminal.
9:25am- Here comes the bus! It’s crowded, it’s hot, and it barely even stops long enough to let us on. We leave Sunny at the bus stop, who knows where she goes after that. Arielle has the bus money- 25 cents for each person. We all climb on as the bus driver yells “Siga por favor siga siga”!! Which means “move back”. If we are lucky we can find a seat, but sometimes we have to stand the entire way.
9:40am- We hop off our first bus and again cross 8 lanes of traffic. We wait patiently on the sidewalk for our second bus to come by.
9:45am- Here comes our second bus, it’s way less crowded and always has seats for us. We hop on and try to stay put as the bus jerks around all of the corners and flys over speed bumps.
9:50am- yep. A really short- 5 minute bus ride! We hop off at our stop and start walking. We turn down the big hill that we will later be walking back up. We yell “poop!” every time we see dog poop on the ground.
9:56am- We arrive at Jesss, yes, three “S” in Jesss. This is the school that we teach at on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We walk up to the top floor and wait- because we don’t start until 10:30, but we still get there at 10:00 for some reason.
10:00am- This is the time that we are all on our phones, checking emails and social media as well as downloading Netflix shows.
10:30am- The bell rings and we go into our classrooms in pairs of two. The kids say “Hi teacher” as they walk in, and usually the real teacher will tell us what they are learning today. She will teach for the first half of class, and during the second half, we work with them. Usually we continue teaching what they are learning, helping them with their grammar. We also play games with them and sometimes go outside.
11:50am- The students now have an hour break, so my team sits in the classroom and eats our snack. The snack is usually some sort of chips. We pass it around until it’s gone. We also sometimes do team time during this break or play cards.
12:50pm- Our second class is starting. We go back to our classrooms and repeat the same thing from the first class. Usually the lesson is different because the students are on a different level.
2:10pm- Class ends and my team says bye to the students. We all meet up and go downstairs for lunch. JESSS has a snack bar type thing where they also make us a really yummy lunch everyday. It’s usually some sort of chicken and rice. We sit down at a table and wait for our American friend who is a teacher at the school. We all talk and laugh over our lunch break.
2:45pm- We wrap up the conversation and start to head home. We have a pretty short day at this school. We say bye to the lunch ladies and bye to the receptionist.
2:50pm- We walk up the second big hill of the day. The same one that we walked down earlier. Again, we don’t talk because we are all breathing so heavy.
2:57pm- We reach the top of the hill and began to walk down another hill. It’s at the bottom of this hill that our bus is waiting. It’s the end of the bus route so they are all empty when we finally reach them.
3:05pm- Now there are usually 3 buses lined up. They are all going the same route, but they are waiting for people to get on. We walk up to the first one, the driver says go the the next bus. So we walk to the second bus, and the driver points to the 3rd bus. So we walk to the 3rd bus, and the driver says to go back to the first bus. Yep. Every single day. So we finally go back to the first bus and get on. We usually have to wait a minute before it leaves.
3:10pm- The bus finally leaves. It goes slower than the one on the way to ministry because the way back is more uphill. We are always so impressed by the way it makes those narrow turns without hitting anything.
3:17pm- We get off of the bus, cross the street, and wait for our second bus to pick us up.
3:20pm- We hop on the second bus, it’s crowded just like in the morning. And ride it all the way to the terminal.
3:35pm- We arrive at our final stop, get off, and start walking back home. We walk up a smaller hill, the same one we walked down in the morning. But this hill is better because by the time you get out of breath, it’s over.
3:37pm- Next we walk past the shops, we say hello to Mariano at the empanada shop- sometimes we even stop to get one. Then we walk down that first big hill. We arrive at the gate, say hello to the gatekeeper, and walk those final steps to the house.
3:45pm- HOME!! We kick the door open, even though we are supposed to ring the bell and wait to be buzzed in. We say hello to the dogs, yes sunny made it back. We kick off our shoes at the shoe rack and walk inside. We run upstairs to go into our room. Instant boredom strikes.
3:55pm- Time for an afternoon snack. I pretty much make popcorn everyday. I get out the pot and the kernels and the oil.
4:10pm- I go upstairs with my bowl of popcorn, after washing the dishes of course. I lay in bed and watch Netflix for an hour or so.
5-6pm: Now is the time where all the teams are usually home from ministry. There’s usually people playing volley ball outside, people working out, and people hanging out in the living room. I usually go back and forth from room to room talking to different people.
6:30pm- Dinner! Sometimes it’s earlier, sometimes it’s later. We all gather in the living room.
6:32pm- “Who wants to pray for dinner”?
6:33pm- the dinner line is just as long as the breakfast line. We all go through and grab a plate. We cram into the dining room and talk while we eat. Usually people are saying “Who wants my meat”? “Who wants my juice”?
6:50pm- I put my dishes in the kitchen for the assigned team to wash. Then I hang out in the living room or do team time if my team has not done it already.
8:00pm- I go into the kitchen because for some reason, there’s always people cooking and eating still. A lot of my free time as you can see is filled with talking and hanging out with my community. There’s silly conversations happening and constant laughter.
9-11pm: Somewhere between these times, I decide to go to bed. I go upstairs to an already dark room. I struggle to walk to my bed because it’s so dark. I change into my jammie’s and do my nightly routine. I put in my earplugs, pile up the blankets, and go to bed!
