Ejercicio

I got to teach my first group activity with kids yesterday.  Apparently everyone knew before I arrived that I fancy exercising quite a bit!  One of the students asked a local volunteer if they knew me (and they didn´t) she replied, "Shannon loves exercise!"  I was laughing because she didn´t know me, but alas my reputation preceded me here to South America.  Needless to say I have to keep up with mucho ejercicio classes otherwise I would not be living up to my reputation here.  Yesterday´s exericise class constisted of an obstacle course for the children and if one every wants to laugh incredibly hard then set up a similar situation and watch the children fumble around.  The first obstacle had jump ropes, second bouncy ball, third tunnel, and last running around an obstacle five times.  I designed this to be coordination central.  Watching the children whip themselves with the jump ropes or struggle to bounce the ball and jump over the tunnel in complete madness was definitely how I wanted to spend my Friday afternoon.  I had a volunteers watching 3 sections to ensure minimal cheating.  At first they all stumble then quickly resort to cheating.  Kal and I were in synce and made it more difficult if they cheated and they had to start the obstacle course all over again.  This proved noteworthy because after they did that one time we no longer had issues with cheating any more.  I was really impressed at how well behaved they were in this competition.  I followed that with some running obstacles and after it was all said and done they were worn out and happy.  I think everyone got something fun and engaging yesterday.  I am going to teach an exercise class for the volunteers at Arte del Mundo this upcoming Thursday evening.  I also start teaching beginners level English on Monday and that should be a great learning opportunity for both my students and myself.  I am slowly continuing to study my Spanish although right now I am a bit discouraged.  I am still pushing myself to study even though I am apprehensive about practicing it in public.  I am looking forward to this upcoming week because it will give me the opportunity to contribute more to the local community and staff.  We will hope that the staff won´t have too much difficulty walking on Friday after they take my class Thursday night.  If I do my job well then they´ll be gimping around in no time flat!!