Another week flew by! This was my last few days in Venezuela before returning to Chicago for Christmas. While school had been cancelled for this week, we still had plenty to do. On Monday, we had some work time and meetings. Then, we had our staff Christmas party, where we ate Venezuelan Christmas food and ended our Secret Santa. Venezuelan Christmas food is full of meat! Every dish that we had included some sort of meat, which surprised me since meat is expensive and hard to find sometimes. Below is a picture of my plate. It was good, but don't ask me to name everything.
On Tuesday, the teachers attended an all day workshop about fire safety in Spanish. Thankfully, someone sat next to me to translate, but nothing was really new except the Spanish vocabulary. The best part was that we had to practice with a fire extinguisher!
On Tuesday afternoon, I invited my class over to bake Christmas cookies since we weren't going to have our original Christmas party. We had a lot of fun. Many of them hadn't baked cookies before, but they did a great job following the recipe, especially since we just finished our measurement unit. We baked, played, ate, and just enjoyed each other's company. It was a great way for us to have some fun time as a class.
Now, I'm safely back in the Chicago area. I left my house yesterday (Thursday) at 3:30 am and arrived in Chicago at 4:00 pm. My layover was in Miami, and customs was surprisingly very fast. Now they have an automated line for U.S. citizens. I just had to scan my passport, answer some questions on the computer, and let it take my picture. Then, it printed a receipt, which someone looked at and stamped.
Today has been a busy and adventurous day. After making a few stops, I took the train downtown to the Venezuelan consulate in Chicago, which was surprisingly close to the Lyric Opera House, to drop off my visa application and passport. The man I talked with sounded like everything looked good. My passport and visa should hopefully be ready close to January 1, which is good because I'm suppose to leave on January 3. Please be praying that my visa would continue going smoothly and that my passport will be ready by January 2.
Finally, while I'm in the Chicago area, I would love to meet with people and share more about my time in Caracas. If you would like to talk with me, let me know, and I will find time. Also, if you are interesting in donating things for me or my classroom, please let me know. I have a list of items towards the bottom of this page. Money to pay for a second bag of luggage would also be a blessing.
Praises and Prayer Requests
-My visa application is submitted!
-Pray that my visa application would go through quickly and smoothly.
-I got to see most of my class before Christmas!
-I returned to Chicago safely and without problems!
-Pray that my students would have a good break.
-Pray for continued support, encouragement, and gifts.
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