in EL PASO, Texas
visiting John Canu and the 20 Curious Kids
in his bilingual 3rd grade at San Elizario Elementary School
Monday, March 9,1998
(Note: I, Manuel Marquez, wrote this on paper for Oscar. It took Mr. Canu a long time to put it into the computer)
Dear mom,

Today was my first day with Mr. Canu's class. Everybody wanted to be my secretary but it was Manuel who got the job today. In the morning I did a family of number sentences and the problem of the day. I gave a good example of paying attention to the teacher. I did some problems and I learned all the problems.

At 8:30 most of the children went to Mrs. Lorenzen's class for reading enrichment and some students from Mrs. Lorenzen's class and some students of our class stayed with Mr. Canu for math tutoring and they learned how to measure with inches and half inches.

I met other visitors to Mr. Canu's class. There was Rosie, a bear from New York state, Winnie the Pooh and Rocky the Dinosaur which belong to two of the children, and Usagui (it means rabbit in Japanese) the Rabbit who is the mascot of the class. They asked about me and I told them I am an otter and I showed them in the encyclopedia the article on sea otters.

I saw 10 clocks in the classroom and they show the time in Honolulu, Anchorage, Denver, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Mumbai, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney (which brought back memories of my visit in Australia, where my friends must have been sleeping according to that clock), and Auckland. I hope that some day I can go to all those other places, but maybe not this year, because I have been so long away from home and I want to be soon again with the children in our class. They must be bigger now then when I left! And they must have learned a lot!

I intend to write again tomorrow. I hope I'll have a good secretary like today.
Until then, I remain
                                 your devoted
                                                           Oscar


Saturday, March 7,1998

Querida mamá,

I'm already learning a few words of Spanish. What a day it was yesterday! After leaving the English Landing School in Kansas City, MO, where I had such a wonderful time with Kathy Vardeman and her class, at last I arrived in El Paso, right on schedule. So please remove from my itinerary that notice about me being one week behind schedule.

It was too late in the day for me to meet the kids in Mr. Canu's class. They go home at 3 pm. But Mr. Canu showed me around and he took me to the class computer. Speak of a cyberaddict! We stayed at the school until 8:30 pm (in the Mountain Time Zone yet!). I was so excited I did not notice until we left how tired I was from the trip. Mr. Canu took me to his home and I slept like a log until he woke me up at what he calls the “late” hour of 5:30 am.

Now we are at his home computer. Can you imagine that he had not yet seen my diary from home in Livermore, to Australia's summer in Middle Swan (I love that name), Whyalla Norrie, Victoria, Bundamba, Mudgeeraba, flying past home back to the pleasant Florida winter and Christmas preparations in Ocala and then Boca Ratón, then with the new year on to cool South Carolina in Camden, and snowy Old Fort in Tennessee? I had to show him. Then he guided me through his class's really cool web site and now we are making this my very own page there: http://www.freeyellow.com/members4/jfc/oscar.html

There so much more already that I have to tell you, but I'll get back to you later. It is now 10:30 am and I'm starving. I'm going to have to make some hints to Mr. Canu who doesn't look like he ever remembers about meals when he is at the computer. I'm not sure he knows what we otters like to eat. He does not even seem to realize that otters EAT!

¡ Hasta la vista!  —  Your ever loving   — Oscar.

In less than two months, I'll be home at Mrs. Burn's First grade, and can share so much that I have learned in my travels and that cannot easily be put into writing.