Rain Day!

Today was the first day of school at St. Mary’s Preschool in Guaymas. However, it rained heavily last night…in fact, there was so much rain that I decided not to walk Sitka on the malecon and I slept an extra hour instead. But Mike got up, I had coffee and I excitedly got ready for work. It is just a 5-10 minute drive to the school and I was there right at 7:00am.

Some of the children began to arrive and I went to the Preprimary (age 5) classroom which is where my first English class of the day is held. I already knew Maria Paula (her mom is the Preschool Principal, Elsa, and her dad is the Colegio Navarrete Principal, Gerardo) and I remember some of the other children from the Open House last week. Class doesn’t start until 8:00 so we used this time to introduce each other and practice saying our names. Many of the children went to St. Mary’s last year so they are familiar with the classrooms and where to hang up their backpacks.

The rain kept falling and right before 8:00 Elsa came to say that school had been suspended for the day due to the rain. Due to the rain?! HA As a native Seattleite (where it rains a lot), all I could do was laugh. But in Guaymas we see flooding and large pools of water because there are no drains in the streets and the ground is not able to soak up the water.

The parents came back to pick up the children they had just dropped off and the other parents were notified that school was suspended. The few children that stayed included Elsa’s three children, one of the Spanish teacher’s daughter, and two sisters that were going to stay for the day. As it happens, they had all gathered in the Preprimary classroom and we spent time drawing, practicing handwriting and looking at pictures of snow and Sitka on my laptop. Then we had our little lunch snacks. Next they all gathered umbrellas and went outside to run around in the rain. The wind picked up and so did their energy! I let them blow off their steam and then we came back inside.

They got out building blocks and entertained themselves while I began working on next week’s Lesson Plans. I was a little disappointed, but I know I’ll have plenty of teaching opportunity in the upcoming months.

Meanwhile, Elsa’s phone was ringing off the hook about how the storm has just begun and at around 1:00 we vacated the Preschool – except Elsa stayed for a book delivery. Hopefully, we'll be back tomorrow and have a genuine First Day of School!