Whats going on now?

I realized when Drew posted the video of us playing with our neighbors that some of you who are reading this may not know what we are doing while still here in the States. Its going to be hard to leave all that we have become involved in, even as we look to many new adventures in Bolivia.

Drew was working at a school literally 3 blocks from our apartment. He was the PE teacher there while the real teacher was on maternity leave. The school he worked at is an inner city school with a 50/50 percentage of blacks and hispanics. Drew ran an after school program in a nearby urban center (St. Andrews) with children from the same school.

I taught Spanish the country's top elementary magnet school (literally, its pretty crazy!). It was a wonderful first teaching experience, and I enjoyed the kids and the faculty there a lot. I also worked at the after school program with Drew as much as possible.

We moved into our neighborhood with the intention of continuing the relationships we have with many of the kids from the school and from St. Andrews. We have been warmly welcomed in and can't walk down the road without being invited to sit and visit for a while.

Now that it is the middle of summer, Drew and I have spent the past few weeks running a day camp for children from our neighborhood. We have tutoring some mornings, fieldtrips, some cultural activities, time in the community garden, and some attempts at baking lessons.

Drew has also been working on getting a few projects started for the community, a garden and a farmers market. Perhaps his favorite, however, has been his induction to a local soccer league.

I have also been working for the government with migrant education. This federal program is actually looking to help people who are here. Although, the one source of migrant work here in Chattanooga is a sore spot for many. It was raided 2 months ago, and many (over 100) undocumented immigrants were detained. Now, there are few who will admit that they work there for fear of being deported.

We have some Guatemalan neighbors, and in the family we have become particularly close to, the father was detained. He was a fortunate case in that he was one of 3 men who was allowed to go home because he has young children (as seen in the video on the previous post). However, he still has to wear a tracking device around his ankle, and has check in dates each month. The raid has been hard on the whole community, but it has been comforting to see the greater community of Chattanooga reach out and try to help as much as possible.

So, that is what we are up to these days. It keeps us busy, thats for sure!