School is Dismissed

School Alert- All students may be excused from the Watkinson School (Oaxaca Branch) if your parents have come to take you home due to the earthquake during last block classes.

Seriously. we are all fine and experienced the earthquake while teaching our last class of the day in the elementary school in Ocotlan.  Suddenly the ´'fire alarm' went off and the floor started shaking.  Calmly the Mexican teacher and the students stood up and exited the classroom to the main courtyard.  We followed...the basketball posts and light posts were swaying, and we all felt like we had legs made of jello.  But as suddenly as the quake started, it stopped.  Before you knew it, parents swarmed the courtyard to check on their children.  One of the sons in our homestay came by to check on us...we were in a mix of shock and excitment (me, naturally!!!).

After about 20 minutes, classes resumed...although we had about 50% attendance after some children left with the parents, our 4th graders jumped right into a lesson filled with 'how are you?', numbers and colors.

The rest of the day was just as amazing, but less shocking...Lunch at Frida's (a resturant in the local mercado where the owner dresses up as Frida Kahlo), nieves (Oaxacan ice cream) in the mercado and then a master class with Efraim and Sylvia Fuentes (a master alebrijes carver and his wife, the painter).

We are currently enjoying the internet at our homestay families' house before dinner!

We are all safe, happy, not sick and wishing this trip with all it has brought never comes to an end.

Oaxaca, me encanta....you enchant me (especially the earthquakes!!!)