English Class

Yesterday we had English classes here in the apartment. The Archer's now have three different classes and they all happen on Tuesday, so it's a full day. Monday we spent the day preparing for the classes. We made work sheets up (yours truly typed them) and Mr Archer worked on the order of what would be done and when. The Romanians have more holidays on their calendar then what I would care to count, (they have some where around eighty) and this last weekend had three days that were considered a holiday for one reason or another, we don't even know what was being celebrated as some of them were just village holidays. And in Romania if there is a holiday there is no work so because of that and the heat English classes were very poorly attended. The three classes are divided by grade and age so that the first group that came at one were six, seven, eight or nine year olds and with them who can barely read Romanian let alone English we spent most of the time just having them repeat after us simple English greetings.
For example Mr Archer had me walk up to each of them and shake their hand while saying "Hello my name is Joanna. What is yours?" and then they were to respond with
"My name is ____." and fill in the blank. Considering the fact that they are very shy around strangers (they wouldn't even look at let alone talk to the Archers for the first month they were here) they did very well and answered me. The second group are about 10-13 year olds and they understand more English so Dad and I were able to understand most of what was going on.
This time Mr Archer had them come up to Dad and I and tell us their names and ask for ours. He asked one of the boys to do it first and he said "no, ladies first" which we all thought was very funny. Some times that slogan does work in the guys favor, but some how I don't think he would've said that if we had asked him to take the first piece of cake;)
but they all did introduce themselves eventually and a couple of them even looked at us while they were doing it.
The last group which is made up of the highschoolers had the poorest turn out, there were only two girls there, was the most enjoyable. They came because they wanted to learn and they speak excellent English so the whole class was understandable. Both girls want to practice their English so I will probably be spending some time with them and we will all learn from each other as they are willing to help me with Romanian.
Let me tell you a little bit about them, Rahela (Rachel in English) as the eldest of seven children, is the second mother to her siblings. Lorena the other girl is almost 16 (we share a birthday) and is one of the easiest people to talk to that I have met over here as she isn't shy and will ask questions and answer them when they are asked of her. So I am really looking forward to getting to know both of the girls better as they are both very sweet and they are the only ones that I have met that are even interested in spending time with me. I would really ask for your prayers as I interact with both these girls and any one else that I meet while I am here that I can be a friend and an example to them.
I hope that this is understandable as I don't feel like rereading it to make sure that I wrote with correct english when I was writing about english class:) Elise feel free to edit if you need to;)