Two weeks ago grades K through 8 of a private school on St. Simon’s Island held its annual Christmas program in the gym. A featured event was the Giving Tree ceremony during which each grade went on stage carrying in shopping bags gifts each student had bought for someone less fortunate. The dozens and dozens of bags were deposited under and around a large tree until the stage was overflowing. After the program I and an associate from my parent organization loaded about half the presents (we shared the gifts with Amity House, a non-profit that helps battered women and their children) into the suburban and drove them to the parent org’s headquarters for sorting and wrapping. This work took several of us a good part of two days. On the third day I transported about 60 gifts down to LARC. I maintain a data bank on all LARC’S English students and their families so was able to create a spreadsheet displaying all active students and the age and sex of their children. Then I organized the gifts by gender and age and attempted to match them to the children on the spreadsheet. At my evening classes the next week, and during the day, I gave appropriate gifts to the parents, using their descriptions of their children’s preferences as a guide. It was quite a project and my great fear was some child might not receive a gift. However, I ended with a few gifts left over and will easily get them placed.
In addition to the gifts, I distributed 30 boxes of food to needy families. The food courtesy of the Second Harvest program of the federal government.
On the 23rd I had an evening class and toward its conclusion a Honduran tutorial student of mine came into the classroom and quietly asked me if I had eaten. He added he and his wife would like to take me to a buffet for dinner (buffets are big in the South). So after class I climbed in their car and off we went uptown. Their 18 month old boy was a delight and the wait staff at the restaurant greeted him warmly, making it clear this was the family’s favorite spot to dine out. I manfully concealed the fact I had eaten before class and managed to put away a couple of plates of good food and deserts (of course).
That Saturday I attended a large Xmas bash at the family compound of Georgia natives, adjacent to one of the wonderful marshes. I was invited as a friend of a family member. There were oysters roasted over open fire and the popular “low country boil” of shrimp, potatoes, corn and sausage. I find this typical fare quite bland (and not particularly healthy). After a couple of hours, I was happy to leave for there was too much booze flowing and too many cigarettes!
I spent Christmas eve with a delightful family from Uruguay, participating in the gift exchange after a wonderful Christmas dinner featuring a tasty turkey prepared unlike any I had ever seen. Last night I dined at the home of a social studies teacher and New Year’s eve I am invited to a barbeque at a student’s house.
And of course there was doubles tennis Saturday mornings and then Sunday mornings I hit with Mexican and Costa Rican students, using the ball machine I brought down from Maine. The machine, as big as a shopping cart, lives in the back of the suburban when it isn’t shooting balls at us on the court.
While I have been using the internet as a source of instruction materials for the past few months, using my digital projector and movie screen from the boat, I recently came across a new ESL website created by the US Dept of Education. It builds upon elements created over the past few years in California (for Mexicans) and Minnesota (for Humongs from Vietnam & Laos). The website is USALearns.org and is the best thing I have come across so far. I now have a dozen daytime students using it interactively with computers donated by the huge Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, located in Brunswick. I also use the program as my main instructional tool for my nighttime classes. My students love it as they know they are truly learning. Perhaps as a result, I was the recipient of a number of Xmas gifts from them. Makes me want to ball (and now I am as I write this!) because they are so poor and struggling so hard to survive in this lousy economic and politically hostile climate.
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