Secondly, I´m slowly (due to the connection) adding pics to previous blogs over this week, so do scroll back through the posts, and thirdly, to answer a question, I´m blogging 2-3 times a week, so keep checking for updates!
Thursday 22 May; today, my two naughtiest classes, 5B and 6B. We revised telling the time in 5B. Again, I´m not sure they can tell the time in Spanish, but we try. (Sigh!). I also noticed, after a chat with C last night, that at 1 hour 20 mins, the reason my kids go a bit mentalist is because the lessons are too long. I can keep their attention for the first 45 mins (as C reminded me, our own lessons were only about that long: a double period was 90 mins), up to an hour they started to get twitchy. You can forget teaching them anything in the last 20 mins, when the naughtiest will start tearing it up good and proper. Imagine trying to keep the tykes interested in a language that´s not your own, whilst trying to teach them a language that´s not theirs, and then a concept they don´t get in their own language?!?! I´m amazed I kept them interested for as long as I did. I mentioned my thoughts to Graciela in the break, she said she´d look at changing the classes. BTW, if you think my Spanish is coming on leaps and bounds...sorta, but there´s a lot to be said for using your hands and facial expressions too!
We had that old favourite...´Los animales´ for 6B. They weren´t nearly as impressed with my drawings as the other class : ( , although my animal impressions went down well and the boys at the front took great pleasure in trying to guess the animal *beneath* the current one through the cheap, thin paper of the pad I´d drawn them on. The blackboard, to my eternal relief, worked *OK* with a damp rag. It´s still more legible than it was before, which is the main thing: I noticed far fewer spelling errors in their work this time.
Back home; C *still* not well and getting *worse*. This, I felt, after days of teasing from Aida and Flor, really did necessitate a visit to ´el medico´. Besides, me spending so much time with him, and not getting this ´cold´ didn´t seem right...
I, (like you, John), am still perplexed as to ´the mystery of the missing bra´, and fear it will never be solved (C reckons there may be a black (bra) market in underwear with proper cup sizes) but mummy dearest has done her stuff on figleaves.com so we have reinforcements (quite literally!) on their way.
V came round tonight and between us 4 women, managed to nag C into going to the docs with V, whilst Flor & I settled down to watch ´Memoirs of a Geisha´ (with Spanish subtitles). I last saw the film with my mum on a girlie (and as it turned out, Oriental-themed) day in London. I then took her for a potter through Chinatown and through a seedier bit of Soho (much to her amusement) before a final stop for tea and lovely little rainbow-coloured cakes at Yauatcha (go! And the dim sum downstairs are FAB too).
Anyway, I digress.
C´s only gone and got himself PNEUMONIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I´m not sure how you catch it, but I appear, for now at least, to be in rude health. As I joked to Aida and Flor later that evening, ´Las mujers estan *mas* fuertes!´
But I do feel a little bit guilty now for thinking it was only man flu ...
Still he´s on the pills, feeling better for finally knowing what´s wrong with him, and should be back at work on Monday (I thought it was life threatening?! The wonders of modern medicine, eh?!) so worry ye not.
PS Mum/Dad, if you´re reading this, please don´t tell C´s mum as she´ll only worry and get on a plane out here. He´ll tell her when it´s over. I had to mention it here though to apologise about thinking he was exaggerating in my last post!
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23 May...Friday; my cutest classes 4A & 4B. I got to school and realised the whole school were all dressed up in their finest; one of my boys, Lucas, in an obviously hand-me-down suit jacket a few sizes too big, a lot in fancy dress, and the poorer kids - the majority - in their white ´lab coats´ which act like a cheap uniform, covering - and keeping clean - whatever they are wearing underneath. It was big celebrations for Revolution Day in Argentina (actually on 25 May, Sunday). At 9am, the kids were gathered in the playground, and each form did a little dance/song to celebrate. Little Macarena looked adorable in the dress her mum Fabiana said it took her 10 nights to run up (blurry pic, but you get the gist!)
Lucas and his crew...
The ceremonial opening
´Yaaaaay, Macarena!´A shorter lesson due to the celebrations, so as I only have 4a once a week, I figured, revise numbers. I´m getting good at games which require audience participation, but noticed the bright kids *always* come up to write the answers on the board. So I concocted a game where each child gets a number (1-25) and I write sums on the board. Anyone can guess the answer, but only the kid with the right number gets to come up and write it, as a word, (´Si, en Inglés!´) on the board. It kept *all* the kids involved as their number could come up at any time.
I decided to do ´the alphabet´ with 4b, as the English alphabet *sounds*, and is sightly different to the Spanish one (no ´ñ´ and no ´ll´...I had to explain to the kids as they shouted ´Falta! Falta!´ thinking I´d made a mistake in missing them out...). Flor had suggested I teach them this basic - I´d skipped it originally, thinking ´of course they´d know the alphabet in English by now´, but I was wrong. Note: these kids are 8-9, and have been learning English since they were 5. What *exactly* did anyone before me teach them?!?!? I used a similar tactic with alphabet picture cards, calling out words and the child with that word´s initial letter had to step up and write it on the board.
At lunch I went to the nearby cafe and got talking to the lady behind the counter. Somehow she started talking about her daughter, who it turns out is 15 and suffering from lung cancer. She showed me a picture on her phone, a pretty girl with a headscarf on, presumably covering the effects of chemo. Her mum´s eyes filled with tears when I asked if she was in hospital and she told me no, at home, because they couldn´t go to the hospital any more. Whether that was due to distance, cost, or the physical state of her daughter I wasn´t sure, and didn´t know how to ask, so I just said sadly, ´Lo siento´. I mentioned my oldest friend Lizzy who is battling cancer at the moment, I guess, to show I understood a little bit, but I thought about the difference in access to medical treatment in the UK. I felt a bit depressed about this poor lady´s situation, and how helpless she must feel, as I walked back to school.
Met Fabiana´s son, Lucas, 11 at lunch as I was marking. A bright kid with very good English, he goes to an English speaking private school (so she doesn´t send her kid here, I noted!) and we had a lovely little chat. He´s so much more advanced than the 11 year olds I teach. He showed me a perfectly-spelled essay he´d written on the history of Walt Disney. Mine can´t write a sentence about their own family yet!!!
Me marking (with my homemade exercise books, tied up with string...)More ´Revolutionary´ shenanigans after lunch, so I stayed to take pictures for Graciela and Cristina, who decided to make me unofficial photographer for the day.
´What *YOU* looking at?!´
Altogether now...´aaaaah!´
Dancing in the playground/assembly areaAll day, that is, except for the bit when G introduced me to the whole school (and their parents) and I had to step up and say a few words in Spanish to them all. CHRIST, I could have been warned!!! I managed to burble out something about being ´muy contento in la escuela´ and Cristina got some awful shots (all but one deleted now) of me looking nigh on pregnant. Note to self, ´that top + those combats = don´t do it´.
Everyone said the weight would start to drop off me out here, but Aida´s cooking, puddings and the ´dulce de leche´ (a sweet gooey caramel-ly spread for bread which they also use in yummy pastries) have put paid to that. I regretted the two slices of pizza I ate at lunch and am now on a no-puddings-no-dulce regime, I told Aida.
The new voluntarios have arrived in Posadas today and have their orientation tomorrow, so V said she´d call me to meet them. From next Monday I´m going to have two young whippersnappers (both 23) joining me in my class (I´m sticking to 27, then!). It´ll be nice to have some English-speaking company at school, and help in the classrooms, although I have relished being able to bond with the staff and kids alone, and my Spanish has improved for it too. An interesting new dynamic, anyway.
Got home, checked outfit again in mirror - why does it look alright now?!?! - and popped round to see Norma, our Spanish teacher and V´s mum, to apologise in person for our absence this week due to C´s illness (we agreed to resume classes on Monday), and also to see if she was OK. V told me last night, her mum had broken her arm in ´a stupid fall´ - aren´t they all? - last weekend. Poor love is in a cast past her elbow. It´s her right (writing) hand too!
Guess what...it was pizza for tea...!!!! But it was very tasty, Flor´s homemade.
I stopped at three slices and tried to pick the ones with least cheese on.
Ah well, ´el diet´ (I made that one up) begins tomorrow.
Oh no, we´re going out for dinner with Natalia and her bloke...Sunday then...?!
2 comments:
How sad, the lady in the cafe whose daughter has lung cancer at 15, that's just tragic :(
On a lighter note, loving the ongoing bra saga. I see you faced the shame of letting Mother Dearest know how much you spend on undergarments!
And yay, pictures!! Keep 'em coming! x
fab pics miss spana. sooo sorry to hear about C!! send him our love, hope he's fully revovered soon! P x
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