Homeschooling is not easy especially when you do not know what you are doing. I reluctantly agreed to this, and wanted to do it without much effort on my part. I left Maya to structure her time and complete lessons on her own, asking me for help if needed. She was dutifully attending to a lesson a week, and I believed she was on track, until I checked on her progress today and learned that she needs far more guidance than I imagined, and that I will have to play a much larger role than I expected.
She was feeling abandoned and neglected by my lack of participation, but instead of appreciating my efforts today, resorted wailing and carrying on. It was not a happy scene, and I realized that my day was going to be a disaster, and it was. Eric was little help, giving rather useless advice and telling me what I was doing wrong. It took most of the day to get her back on track. By then, she was apologizing for her behaviour and we sorted out how best to manage her lessons. It all ended well, but the process of getting to a better place was rather awful. I feel that I now know what I must do, and can adjust, as can Maya. Whew.
Maya had another two days off this week, and on Friday is a country wide celebration of race and diversity, so there are only two school day this week. We decided too leave for Mindo after Maya's ballet class, to look at birds, and perhaps see the 'cock of the rock', a very colourful and rare bird. i once saw it with the Johns Hopkins Ecuador course, but was only one of two participants who had a short glimpse far off in the forest. We will try to see it again tomorrow with the same guide we had last time, an eccentric character named Angel Paz. He is somewhat of a 'bird whisperer' and has a special relationship with a group of antipittas, who are rare and timid and difficult to see most of the time. He will meet us at 5 in the morning, so we are all under our mosquito nets at 'Casa de Cecilia' in Mindo. We left later than planned (of course) and took too long to get out of Quito, but made good time once on the road to Mindo, a town with character to spare in the cloud forest some 500 metres lower than Quito. It is known for its bird viewing, which we will explore in the morning. What fun!
She was feeling abandoned and neglected by my lack of participation, but instead of appreciating my efforts today, resorted wailing and carrying on. It was not a happy scene, and I realized that my day was going to be a disaster, and it was. Eric was little help, giving rather useless advice and telling me what I was doing wrong. It took most of the day to get her back on track. By then, she was apologizing for her behaviour and we sorted out how best to manage her lessons. It all ended well, but the process of getting to a better place was rather awful. I feel that I now know what I must do, and can adjust, as can Maya. Whew.
Maya had another two days off this week, and on Friday is a country wide celebration of race and diversity, so there are only two school day this week. We decided too leave for Mindo after Maya's ballet class, to look at birds, and perhaps see the 'cock of the rock', a very colourful and rare bird. i once saw it with the Johns Hopkins Ecuador course, but was only one of two participants who had a short glimpse far off in the forest. We will try to see it again tomorrow with the same guide we had last time, an eccentric character named Angel Paz. He is somewhat of a 'bird whisperer' and has a special relationship with a group of antipittas, who are rare and timid and difficult to see most of the time. He will meet us at 5 in the morning, so we are all under our mosquito nets at 'Casa de Cecilia' in Mindo. We left later than planned (of course) and took too long to get out of Quito, but made good time once on the road to Mindo, a town with character to spare in the cloud forest some 500 metres lower than Quito. It is known for its bird viewing, which we will explore in the morning. What fun!
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