Day 2 - I owe my life to google translate.

Today I met with Sister Juve in the beginning. Here we went over my schedule and she helped me prepare to meet a new class of children. The area that she manages is the Primavera level, which is upstairs. While here I met a couple children who stay at Coop Sociale permanently. 

After, Sr Juve and I went down to the learning center. This is run by Federica, an educator of the children with special needs and intellectual disabilities. She and I could mostly communicate with google translate. She informed me that this sector of kids are here in order to keep them in their home and keep them from ending up in the foster care home. Federica provides educational support for them to keep them in school. 

While here, I met Franscico and his sister, Aleccio, and Lucia. Francesco and I played about three games of chess while the others were making art for Giorgia- for her birthday. After this, I helped Federica clean up and then we “spoke” - via google translate about how I could help her over the summer. She seemed to be relieved after we had talked and I apologized for not speaking italian. As well as this, I played uno with Aleccio and Francensco’s sister and they taught me some words in italian. 

Throughout today I have been learning words from the kids. They are great teachers. Especially while playing chess, I was teaching them how to play, and they would tell me the words for the players like king and queen and I would explain to them what the players did and only used google translate a couple times when my word was not getting across. Francesco got really competitive and it seemed like I gained a level of respect when I beat him in a game of chess. ‘

Today was wonderful and I can’t wait for the rest of the summer. I am so grateful for the help that Sister Juve offers and all the italian/english she speaks. These kids are “intelligento” and I can’t wait to continue working with them and get to know them better.