Last Saturday, Fran (upon my advice) decided to quit her job at the grocery store. She was working long hours and getting paid so little it really wasn't worth the stress and the lost time for study. Literally, some months she made less than $40. That was a big turning point! Now she can focus on getting through the first year.
She only had one more piece of paper to turn into the school before the start of classes, and for that she had to (and wanted to) to to her village for a medical checkup and to visit her family for the last time until Navidad. So she left Saturday night and returned Wednesday afternoon -- yesterday.
PANIC!
When she checked the school's website, she discovered that her first class had already started on Monday!!!! We don't know how she overlooked that, but it happened. Websites here are not easy to navigate, and Fran just didn't click herself to the right place to find the announcement of the early start. We all do things like this occasionally, at least I do!
Needless to say, neither of us slept last night.
MIRACLE!
I woke up at 6:30 this morning!
A NEW LIFE BEGINS!
With our hearts and stomachs in our throats, Fran and I took a collectivo to her school to try and straighten things out. We got there an hour before class began and started walking around, asking questions, waiting -- and then repeated this regime several times until class began. We could not find the director of the program, so decided to take our chances with the teachers...one of whom frowned and shook his head, but let her in. I sat outside her classroom for 4 hours, and then we both went to find the director of the program to make sure she could still continue attending. You can probably tell that it turned out well. I think my presence helped.
And so, Fran's new life began with a BANG, about 10 days earlier than we had anticipated.
Her new regime starts very early tomorrow morning, and it involves a long commute, but the beauty and peace at her school are well worth the wait. There was a hand-painted sign in the grass, under 2 lovely shade trees in front of her classroom that said (in Spanish of course) -- "A school without green would be like a river without water."
Thank you so much for helping to make this happen.
More next week!
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