The anatomy of a Skype conference
08 March 2013 | Colimilla/Barra De Navidad
Gabriellas G-Pa
The purpose of this blog is not to solicit applause/praise, but to inform everyone what it takes to put on one of these things, then maybe when I cry or tell you I'm going over the deep end because nothing is working out, you will have a little insight. First I have to contact the Maestra here in Colimilla and ask permission to have a video conference on a certain day.....then I email Gabriella's teacher in Rancho Cordova and see if she is OK with a certain day and time...2 hours difference in time zones. Gabriellas teacher then informs me that the day is OK, but not the time. So she gives me the times that are OK with her and then I go up to the school and ask Maestra Lupecito if that is OK. Now, prior to this timing I was planning on just baking brownies for the kids here. Now that the time has been changed to a half hour before there normal lunch here, I now feel obligated to feed them lunch. I had already told 2 little girls about the brownies and told them not to tell the other kids. Needless to say, the next day day when I told them no brownies just lunch...all the other kids knew about the brownies. So, to save money, I decided to make good Costco tuna sandwiches out of the stock of tuna I had onboard. And also peanut butter/jelly with the Skippy super chunk I had onboard. So now I had to take the chicken bus over to Melaque and buy five loaves of good Orowheat bread, 5 bags of potato chips, some more fresa jam, and some spicy mayo. The day before I baked three batches of brownies and packaged them in sandwich bags. The the morning of the session I made 18 peanut butter/jelly sandwiches and 16 tuna sandwiches, and put them in a big plastic container. Then I gathered my big TV (for better veiwing) laptop, cables, plates and cups, and then my neighbor Joe and motored over to Mary's restaurant to set up everything...oh yeh, I had to get permission from Mary to use her restaurant for the occassion. After getting everything set up and it was 10 minutes before start time, there was no Yoana and no school kids. Yoana was to pick up the prepaid milk from the tienda, so I sent Joe to another tienda close by to buy more milk. I then went up the hill to the school and yelled up to the Mestra, and she came out to the yard and signalled that she is on her way. I run back to the resaurant and tell Mrs. Calderon that it will start a few minutes late. Everybody finally shows up and it starts....Yoana shows up with milk and a couple of her friends to help Joe to set the food up on plates and pour the milk. After the session, the kids sit down to eat and it all goes smooth from then on. There were a set of twins who turned seven that day, so I gave them 2 brownies with a candle seven in the middle and the kids sang their traditional birthday greeting. Then I went over to get the rest of the brownies to hand out to the kids. Needless to say...the kids were quite happy and gave us all a big thank you. I related the story of frazzled nerves to Enriique...Yoanas dad, and his reply was 'This Is Mexico'.