Must try harder...

I didn´t blog yesterday. It was all a bit depressing.

I did my first day at school. I had, until Sunday night (thanks to a power cut that prevented me from accessing my emails till about 9.30pm), no idea of my timetable, the ages of the kids I was teaching, nor what they had been taught previously or what levels they were at.

Flo had kindly lent me a few of the books she had used when she was 9 or 10. Honestly, the language and grammar in there would flummox most 16 year olds in England, never mind Argentina. I had to take into account that she´d been to a private school and was very well educated by Argentinian (or any) standards. She´s also frighteningly intelligent, and as she´s doing her degree in Psychology, I frequently see her with her head in a book by Jung or Freud.

I looked at my email. My kids, by contrast, had learnt numbers, weather, days of the week, etc.

A month ago.

The last time they´d had any tuition in English at all.

I´d have to start from scratch.
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Next day, I went in, really quite unprepared for what hit me.

Veronica drove me to the school for the first day and introduced me to the teachers, none of whom spoke any English. Iwas introduced to ´Susan´ who I was told (in Spanish) would sit in my class and help me, keep an eye on the kids and the class, 5a (9-10 year olds).

Turns out, Susan was as good as useless, using the time to do some marking, and ignored me, head down, ´busy´ when I approached her for some help (when the class was running riot, and I had no idea how to say ´Sit down and be quiet´). She might as well have been wearing a Walkman (retro reference I know, but you haven´t seen her hair...).

Hard though, as only one or two of the kids had paper to write on, a couple had mini blackboards which allowed them to write about 6 words (and then have to rub them out to fit more on) and the rest, unable to take anything down, or in, were at best reduced to watching me, or at worst, got bored and started running around the class, play fighting and asking to go to ´los banos´ (about 7 of them needed a wee, apparently, and I hadn´t sufficient Spanish or experience to know they were, quite literally, taking the piss, as Catherine told me later that evening).

I ended the class a nervous wreck and dreading the older kids of 6a. In the interim break, I managed to make myself understood to the deputy head, Fabiana, a smiley, friendly earth-mother of a woman, that ´la classe ´cinco ah´ ese un poco ´waaaaaah!!!´´whilst waving my hands madly. Thankfully she understood.

She then gave 6a a pep talk (in Spanish, natch), which basically told them I´d come a long way and they were to be polite, well-mannered, listen to me, not be naughty - or else I´d go back home. It seemed to work, and with renewed confidence, I started to find my mojo.

The class ended without too much disaster (and only one legitimate ´banos´visit for a girl, who had to take some medication) but I still left an emotional and nervous wreck.

I thought of friends and rellies of mine who are teachers and wondered how they do it. I am used to meetings with people who are interested in what I have to say (or at least fake it) and certainly don´t start throwing stuff at each other when their concentration wanes. Can you imagine that in a pitch?!?!

C and Catherine returned later from their stint in ´Él Refugio´, shell-shocked. They´d had an even worse day. The first thing C had to do that day was clean up a pile of human excrement on the floor, which a child had left in the night.

The ´refuge´ (a misnomer, if ever there was one) has about 30 kids, and the building has one bathroom, which is filthy and frequently overflowing (and why the kids ´go´ anywhere else). They have no toys, most sleep in the same room as they eat, and others sleep in the hallway. There are 2 kids with learning difficulties who are left to cause havoc. They punch and hit out in their frustration (they are 6 and 4 and can´t talk, C says they are feral), and the other kids do the same back, bully, gang up and jump on them. Meanwhile, the refuge ´workers´ sit and watch TV. They are on minimum wage and basically don´t give a damn. C said it was like a living hell. He looked tired and close to tears.

Suddenly my day didn´t seem so bad.

We spent the afternoon scouring the shops for provisions for the kids on both projects - which I am thankfully able to do without worry, thanks to the money my friends and family generously raised before the trip. Basic toys, crayons, paper and cleaning up stuff, antiseptic and baby wipes, etc for the refuge, exercise books, chalk and stationery for my kids. (I already have 150 pens thanks to the lovely lady at Barclays who gave them to my dad for my project - who says banks are all money-grabbing w*nkers, eh?!)

Then a bottle of fizzy plonk (2 quid!) for Catherine and me and 3 beers for C, which we sat and drank like down-and-outs, on a bench (...it´s not our house, so we can´t really bring mates back to have a few drinks and chain-smoke the stress away, and we´re on a budget, ok?!), and just exorcised our first-day demons.

Then C and I sat up till midnight sorting out my textbooks (turns out I´d actually bought loose leaf, not books, thanks to my baby-Spanish, so we had to individually tie each pack of paper sheets together through the holes with bits of string...80 in all) and I drew to the point of exhaustion - more than 20 animals for the following day´s lesson.
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Tuesday. Woke feeling sick with nerves and exhausted. Forced breakfast down. Walked 40 mins to school with 80 bloody makeshift exercise books in my bag (bloody heavy, if you wondered).

In the staffroom, as I rubbed my aching shoulders, Fabiela made me a cup of ´maté´ (Argentinian tea, they´re all at it) with milk and too much sugar, and I politely sipped it whilst I did more prep. I felt the maté start to rise as 9 oclock drew near. As Fabiana took me back to 5a, I nearly threw up with nerves.

I took a deep breath and entered with a smile on my face, and after F´s pep talk and my preparation, the lessons this time seemed to flow.

Bringing the kids books and pens worked a treat, and when they did good work, I gave them a shiny sticker (thanks mum!).

A few of them even gave me hugs and kisses, one girl shyly said ´Thank you for the pen´ as she left, and there were a group of boys (and one girl) clamouring to help me carry my books, bags and other stuff to my next class. Think I´m getting somewhere and the feeling is amazing.

6a were even better. They are a bit more advanced, so we quickly revised yesterdays numbers, dates, months, days and moved onto ´animals´. My drawings impressed some of the cool kids, and with the impressions (´Woof!´, ´Oo! Oo!´ etc - that was a monkey btw), we seemed to be finally having FUN.

I spent the next 2.5 hours marking the work in the staffroom and giving out stickers to top mark pupils. Met Graciela, the Headmistress and she was very interested in what I was doing - and kept telling me (again in Spanish, don´t ever think these conversations are easy!!!) I was doing really well, I seemed really very well prepared (quelle surprise, eh?!), she was very pleased with my work and to keep it up.

I allowed myself a little inner glow of pride as I realised I hadn´t been feeling nauseous since 9.10.
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Back at the ranch and our daily 2.30 language lessons with Norma are turning into somewhat of a therapy session for C and Catherine. All they can talk about is how awful their day has been, and whilst I´m there to learn Spanish and do occasionally have to reel them in a bit, I can´t begrudge them having to get it off their chest. Norma is easier to talk to about it than most, with her fluent English, wisdom and years of experience. Our lessons today and yesterday pretty much consisted of learning the phrases for ´Sit down and listen´ (for all of us), and sadly, ´don´t kick/fight/spit at/punch me´ for them.

I´ve not yet used my cocktail ordering skills.

Afternoon spent buying paint/brushes, paper, and more toys for the refuge and 80 more books for my new classes, then back to do more lesson plans.

Dinner with Flo and her eldest sister Mariana (a stunning Penelope Cruz lookalike) turned out to be a 3 hour therapy session for C. He really wanted to walk out this morning, and is struggling with that. He´s not a quitter, but he came out because he wanted to make a difference, and because conditions are so desperate, nothing he feels he does will make much difference. Not now, and certainly not in the long-term. The toys they brought yesterday have already been trashed, shredded or stolen, hidden away - today he didn´t see any of them.

He is caught between moving to a project where he gets a sense of achievement, and abandoning those who need him most. I could only support him by saying if he didn´t want to go there, then I wouldn´t do the refuge project either (he said he really wouldn´t want me in there anyway and to be honest, I´m starting to have the fear already, and I´m already making progress at the school...) BUT if he chose to stick it out, then I would do it too. Solidarnosc and all that.

Flo and Mariana said apparently this is normal and most volunteers end up in tears by now. But upshot is, he´s going to do this week and see how he feels.

It´s gone midnight here and I have two new classes tomorrow, kinda back to square one.

Wish me luck - and C more...