"Wow I can't Believe our Whole team fits here!

Dear everyone,

Its blog time again!!

Man! So much to talk about! Okay so, last week was Supervisor visit, and this week we were back on retreat. Its been a crazy week, my Co team leader was out, so it was me and the rest of the time trying to do all the retreats. Everything went fine, but man we really missed him.

I guess I should start from the top. Supervisor visit was so much fun! It was very relaxing for me. I guess something you all should know is that I am one of 2 team leaders for the road team. We make all of the contact with the host homes and with the teachers at the schools, basically any decisions that need to be made about where we are going or what we are doing that is what Christophe and I handle. So when we went on supe visit, he and I were officially off duty. It was so nice just to sit and chill and enjoy the ride and not have to answer any questions.

But as far a Supe visit is concerned its really just a whole bunch of fun. We started off the week with a scavenger hunt which was a ton of fun. It was a photo scavenger hunt with a list of 28 ridiculous things that we had to accomplish and take pictures of. The one that was my favorite was title “wow I can’t believe our whole team fits here!”

…. all I’m going to say is it was a ton of fun. J If you look really closely you can see my head in the bottom front window of the phone booth. Yes, Ireland does still have phone booths. We had another one that was really fun, and it was “have everyone on  team make a funny face” – a small explanation we had a team member that wasn’t feeling well that day, and so we had to do most of the scavenger hunt with out her. (I don’t think we could have fit another person in that phone booth, anyway)  But anyways, we decided to wait to finish that one so that she could be in at least one of the pictures, but when we got to the house she was still asleep!

(picture)

Clearly that was not an obstacle.

The rest of that week was full of meetings and good times spent together. We got to carve pumpkins as a team and good times were had by all J

(picture)

But after the week off we were ready to hit the road again. We had 5 retreats this week. We had 2 all boys 3^rd years, one 5^th & 6^th year girls retreat, and then 2 4^th year (Transition Year) retreats on Thursday and Friday. The school system is very different here. Primary school is until the age of 11 then secondary school starts and is classified by “year”, so it would be “first year” or “5^th year”. 4^th year is also called transition year, and it is optional for all Irish kids. They kids here have to take a Leaving Certification Test in 6^th year (age 18), that if they pass it, it signifies the end of their secondary schooling and then they are free to apply to university. Its pretty different from the states, but once you understand it, everything is grand.

All of the retreats were really good, and very fruitful and spirit filled. It was a real blessing as it always is to get to spend time with the kids.

We have spent the majority of this week with a host family that graciously decided to host 7 out of 9 of us (because Christophe is gone right now). They are a beautiful family, and they treat all of us like we are their own children. It’s really been quite a humbling experience living at the mercy of other people, essentially.

This week during Hood time I had my first experience of Eddie Rockets, which apparently is a big thing in Canada and Ireland, and it might be in the United States, but I haven’t heard of it. Either way, they have delicious milkshakes and really nice chips. J

I have to go for now, but I have cool things to tell you! We visited Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock) but I will have to tell you about it next blog! 

WHAT A CLIFFHANGER!!! 

PTL! :) 

- Annie