My turn to panic

I´m having a major crisis of confidence today.

We had a yummy but hugely fattening lunch of fried mandioca (a local vegetable, tastes like potato, but a rougher, looser texture so absorbs a *tonne* of oil), stuffed cheesey pasta and a tomato sauce (poor Flo, I think she´s missing her meat, and Aida is concerned, I think, with how they will feed us for two months...they talk about meat in every meal already). I am going to end up the size of a house at this rate. Everything veggie here is cheesey and fried. The pizza I had to have last night in a bar was fat and doughy (more Pizza Hut than Domino´s thin crust!). I miss my normal steamed veg and fish diet. Also with having our food provided at the homestay, and not wanting to seem ungrateful at the huge effort they are going to for little ol´ veggie me, I feel powerless to offer to cook, and loathe to make my dietary requirements even more specific.

I´m going for a run later today, when the sun´s not so strong.

My crisis has been quietly sneaking up all week, and Aida and Flo verbalising it brought it glaringly out into the open, namely: if I can´t understand much Spanish, how am I going to communicate with the kids?

The i-to-i handbook says it´s OK to only speak English, as that is how kids will learn fastest, but Flo mentioned a teacher who adopted this policy, and everyone thought she was a bitch for not bothering to try and explain concepts in ways the students would understand (i.e their own language).

I realised I can´t ask the kids to turn to a page in a book, or even to sit down and be quiet in their own language (although I can order a round of drinks, no problem!), and sat glumly in the garden, looking through my 80 page i-to-i document - a fat help in the real world.

C´s well-meant but incessant words of encouragement only served to irritate me, so I asked him to leave me to mope alone please.

I know I´m blogging as displacement. I should really get back to work. :(