Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Spot the Differences... and the Similarities

Student with mate (mar-tay) during ten minute break. They carry thermoses and top up their mate container with hot water.

















This student could not believe that I wanted a photo of a water container so I took another photo with him beside the water container and that seemed to make more sense to him. I took the photo because there are taps for both hot and cold water. Why hot water? To fill up the thermoses for mate, of course.














The doors of both schools I go to are very narrow (angosto) although, this one can open up all three parts, of course. However, when I am wearing my back pack, I find that I am wider (ancho) than the doorway. It is an interesting manoeuvre to fit through the door without taking off my backpack. It is best approached sideways with a sucked in tummy.




Man on motorbike overtaking my taxi on my way home to lunch. I wish I had my camera ready when I saw, yesteray, a man steering a motorbike with his right hand, and with his left hand, he was holding a the handle bar of a riderless pushbike which was rolling along beside him, parallel to his bike.

A fairly ubiquitas sign... see if you can work out what it is saying.









This is, of course, yours truly in one of the main shopping streets of Parana. There's no sign of anyone because everything has closed for the siesta.






This is one of the 11 English language beginners I took in a class for two hours last night. They were talking in English and Spanish to my students in New Zealand. ¡The miracle of Skype!






Spot the graffiti. There does not appear to be ´tagging´ as such, but there are lots of slogans, most of which I do not understand.

I am possibly doing something wrong, but it is extremely difficult to line up photos and text on a blog. I will need to get help from my ICT experts in my class (*waves to Huia 1 - Great to see you on Skype*) who seem to know everything that I need to know but can´t do.

I have just unleashed upon my host family and one adult-learners class.... Vegemite (apologies to all those Marmite afficionados- it was as case of what was available at the time). In limited Spanish, I explained that the sensation/impact they were having was as near an equivalent to most NZers´reaction to their first try of mate. Gotta love the truly intercultural experience... ¨I´ll show you mine if you show me yours.... ¨

Tomorrow night (Wednesday time here) I am going to Iguazu Falls.... near the former-home-for-a-month-in-2007 of Viv, my trail-blazing amiga who has been here and done that. I am hoping to meet up with her AFS host, Monica, but access to internet and communication could be random. It may be a case of ¨so near yet so far¨ if we don´t manage a rendezvous. I am waiting to hear back from her before I go. Similarly, I may not be able to get near a computer to report in with updates of my exploits.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

´Allo,´Allo ....or Mangling the Language





























Photos of the Rio Parana at sunset.
There are times when I feel a real affinity with the policeman from ‘Allo, ‘Allo who mangled the French language (translated into mangled English) to the point where comprehension was only marginally possible, but provided entertainment because the audience understood the words when used both in and out of context. Everyone is most polite and helpful when I make a mistake although I could cope with people falling about laughing – as long as I understood what I had done wrong. * Be careful what you ask for…I was trying to explain “Chick Flicks” to Mirta and she thought I was talking about pornography. Clarification was muy rapido!

Similarly, there are times when I feel so much like Manuel from Fawlty Towers: “Hello, My name is Kay.” “I am from New Zealand.” “I am learning Castellano.” “I am improving.” “I am learning a lot.”

I am using an English/South American phrase book and a dictionary for frequent reference. I also keep a note book for spontaneous notes and another book in a more orderly fashion for new words and phrases. However, there is no way I can work out how to say clearly and unambiguously, in Castellano, “Today, my mother’s husband, who is not my father, is having his second leg amputated for a second time.” I have edited it to: “A family member is very ill in hospital.” So, hopefully Mum can print off my blog to take to Clive to read in hospital. (All the best for a quick recovery, Clive.)

On Friday night I went out to dinner with Melisa – (my 24 year old ‘mother’). We didn’t leave to go out until about 10.45pm but that is starting to feel less unusual. We went to a new restaurant which was opening that night, the chef of which was the Chiefs rugby supporter I had spoken to at 2 separate family parties during the previous week. Exceso is on one corner of a busy intersection on a tree-lined road with tables inside and out and is wonderfully clean and fresh and new. It was great to be able to follow most of the menu (all that insistence on asking for food on the WPS Kawau camps, plus the Spanish cafes we did has paid off, Viv). I am wondering if the black napkins in the bread basket were a salute to the All Blacks? The colours of the furniture, fittings and accessories were black and red so it could be a bit of a Counties (or Canterbury) tribute too. The place was very busy and we started off with a wooden platter of nibbly bits and peanuts. My meal was superb. I had “lomo” done in strips with a light mustard and cream coating. Lomo is beef – although I don’t know if it has any other particular features. It came with the most divine papas fritas (fries) which were mustard-kissed and you could just tell they were cooked in a new clean kitchen. Melisa had a Caesar salad which she said was great also. There was a basket of sliced fresh bread too. I have not seen or used butter (or margarine) since I have been in Argentina, although it does exist. I would have loved a glass of wine but, apparently, it doesn’t usually get sold by the glass so I went without and chose a lemon and lime soda water. We didn’t order dessert but got given a little gift of wrapped cake and a fridge magnet when we paid the bill. (On my reckoning about $25 NZ, which is great value.) The cake is best described as a something similar to a small hot cross bun with less cinnamon and more fruit, a bit like putting Christmas cake fruit mix in a bread dough. I was told that it is called pan dulce (sweet bread) which is a special Christmas food here.

So, if you are ever in Parana – check out Exceso Resto, almuezos y cenas (lunches and dinners plus they deliver) Ph 03434840904. Santa fe 607, Esquina Malvinas (That last lot is the address – there doesn’t seem to be the word Road, Avenue, Street etc used in addresses or road signs. It is on the corner of Malvinas and Santa Fe) I’m sure we will end up going there again so I will take my camera next time.

Last night Mirta (Melisa’s mother) Blanca (Mirta’s mother and the bis-abuela or great grandmother of the family) two of the great grandchildren (aged 2 and 4) and I went for a drive around the waterfront (river) of Parana just on sunset. We passed through a range of suburbs from those with pretty house-fronts to ‘schmutz’ a word from my host family which is not Castellano language but perfectly described the paces where you would not want to stop. Not all culture in Argentina is Argentinian. The Rio Parana is wide (ancho) and long (largo). In the distance is the skyline of Parana or Santa Fe – to be confirmed. Fresh fish are caught in the river and sold in pescaderias a few metres from the river’s edge. There were people kayaking on the river and a few small launches pottering about. I do believe there are tourist trips you can take on launches.

After that we went to another game of basketball to watch host-family-member Martin play. He used to be a professional player in the A league a few years ago, but is now “retired” and plays at club level while working full time. His team were winning for most of the game, were then over taken, got up to neck and neck points for the final quarter and were then beaten in the final few 2 minutes, which (as no surprise to people who know basketball) took about 6 minutes. It was all very exciting and the fact that I had no idea of the rules was no hindrance apart from not understanding how come sometimes one goal was worth more than one point.

Observations:
- You are not allowed to smoke in restaurants in Argentina.

- Many (if not most) people do not wear safety belts or use child restraints in cars

- Sometimes it is impossible to find the safety belt in the back seat of a taxi

- Lots of people use motorbikes and I have seen a few (or one a few times) small 4 wheel farmbike-esque sort of motorbikes. No one seems to wear a helmet or protective clothing or protective footwear. I have seen a couple carry a dog on a motorbike and I wish I had had my camera then.

- People in Argentina, or Parana anyway, wear jandals

- Chocolate and a bottle of wine can be an international language amongst a group of women gathered around a table.

- When women are discussing a man with a cold there is an understanding that crosses all cultures and language barriers

- Hokey pokey (in chocolates bought from Waiuku New World on special) goes down very well in Argentina.

- There is obviously a generic format for the tv news world wide.

- Knowing the word for ‘toilet’ or ‘bathroom’ in a non-English speaking country is vital. Knowing the word for ‘toilet paper’ has a pretty high rating also.

-It’s amazing how much fingernails can harden when they are not in dishwater or involved in food preparation for a few weeks.

- After being immersed in another language for a while you can start to make errors in your first language and end up wondering just what is the correct word for a road where the cars travel in both directions.

- Sweet potato in Argentina is as close to kumara as you can get before it becomes kumara. Definitely recognisable.

- There is no word for golden syrup and glucose is the nearest that anyone can think of as a substitute….. I just don’t think it will make hokey pokey.

- http://geonet.org.nz/ is a great site to show people how many earthquakes there are in NZ. Go to ¨Earthquakes¨, “Quake Drums” then Latest Quake or Recent Quakes then click on the shaky map of NZ. Play around on the site. It’s great fun.

-Watching “The Changeling” with Angelina Joli in English with Spanish subtitles nicely fills in a Sunday afternoon and improves language acquisition.

This Wednesday night I am off to Iguazu on a four day bus trip. Melisa has booked it for me and I know very little about it at the moment but I am looking forward to being a tourist for a few days. If I am the only English speaker on the bus, or no one wants to practise their English on me – it will surely be evidence of my progress in Castellano since arriving.

I am surrounded, immersed and saturated in Spanish (Castellano) and have improved significantly in my ability to understand and speak the language at a basic level. I can also identify far more words and even if I can’t comprehend them at the speed they are being spoken, I can get my ear around them.

I have my first mosquito bite – on my thumb. Apparently, it is not a malaria mosquito and I will be fine. The mosquitoes of Parana are reasonably benign, however I have my heavy-duty malaria medication ready for Iguazu.

It is currently 7.20pm Sunday night in Argentina and 11.20 Monday morning in NZ. My class will be off to PE soon. [See, I do think about you all a lot..and I still have to prepare for classes for tomorrow.] I start with an advanced English group of computer software engineers at 7.30a.m. I think I´ll get them involved in an authentic English experience by asking them if they can make sure my computer is virus free in Argentina... then I plan to show them my photos of a collection of Anzac Day assemblies and parades because Thursday is the remembrance day for the Malvinas war.

And to finish with:

A language-learning experiencefrom Anne (exchange student to Waiuku College a few years ago)... who is following my blog from New York State . *Waves to Anne*

So many of your comments took me back to my semester in Mexico in 1976. I used to go home with headaches from trying so hard to get meaning from facial expressions/eyes/hand gestures when I couldn't understand the words. And then there's the Spanish-of-the-textbook vs the real words you need for life - I can remember coming off the subway (metro) in Mexico City with another American student who exclaimed, "Forget about ESPANOL A LO VIVO [the name of our Spanish textbook], how do you say 'Get your hand off my thigh' in Spanish??!!"

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Almost Home Alone

It is Saturday morning and I have had the most delicious sleep in. Everyone else has gone to work or other commitments and there is just Graciela (the house-keeper-with-not-a-word-of-English) and me. I got to bed at about 1.30 a.m.and slept ´til 10 a.m. What a joy it is not to have to get up to let scratching-at-the-door cats in or out. Few, if any people in Parana seem to have cats and I wonder if it could be related to the number of free-range dogs wandering about?

Note to Rupert-cat and Roger -cat ... you are not as cute and appealing as you think you are.

I have been able to use the internet to check out and research things that I had not quite ¨got my head around¨ previously. [For the English as a Second Language readers of my blog - that was a very long way of saying ¨understood¨.]

Here are some links to various internet sites you may like to check out to find out more about where I am, what I am doing and some of the things I mention.

http://www.lodgemotel.com.au/ The Lodge Outback Motel is in Broken Hill, NSW, Australia (the middle of nowhere but nothing like ¨Far Far Way¨in Shrek II. ) It is run by my dear friend Christine (also Julian´s godmother), her brother-in-Sydney, her daughter and son-in-law. It is to this out-post that we have just sent our 18 year old son Julian to help out and to have his small OE [overseas experience]. I am hoping that he has arrived there safely by now as it is his first solo venture. (Those of you who know Celia Lashlie´s book... I am off the bridge!) They are doing a wonderful job renovating the motel and have won several awards recently. If you are travelling through the middle of nowhere, call in and check out how they are going for me - and stay there for a while. Read their on-line guest book and those of you who know Christine will recognise that she is still the same!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage) This is the Wikipedia link to mate (mar-tay). Try checking out Google images for lots more images - but here´s my own contribution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paran%C3%A1,_Entre_R%C3%ADos This is a link to Wikipedia to find out the area where I am living. For more pictures, check out Google images, Parana, Entre Rios as there is another Parana in Brazil. Parana at street level and close up looks a bit more tired and in need of maintenance but there are defintely signs of a former elegance and grandeur (like so many of us...).




http://www.stepelc.com.ar/english/contact.htm This is the site for the STEP English School where I work most mornings and evenings. It is full of dedicated and delightful teachers and all ages of students from children to adults, who are soooo keen to learn English. In fact, if you think you want to improve your own grasp of English-as-your-first-language grammar you should come here too. I am on my best grammatical behaviour when I am at STEP. The teachers are encouraging, supportive and always positive - and someone usually brings me a cup of coffee. How cool is that!

¿Where in the world is Otaua? and why is the map of NZ anatomically incorrect? A photo of one group of students at STEP.


http://www.cervantessaavedra.com.ar/index.htm Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
This is the school that I have gone to from 10.30 - 1.00 pm every morning. It is about three blocks and around the corner from STEP but I (foolishly) feel like Christopher Columbus setting out into the unknown every time I negotiate this voyage by myself. The students are lively and confident and seem to enjoy the distraction of something different in the classroom (a Universal Truth).Many of the students speak English well and most of them speak English better than I speak Spanish. One group of girls took charge of me and I joined their group for a geography task one day and a technology task the next day. The lesson was about the speed of technological advancement over the past century. I was able to tell them that my grandmother, as child, could not believe her grandmother who told her that one day she would see a carriage move without a horse - and my grandmother lived to see, on television, man land on the moon. The teachers are hardworking and kind and generously allow me to sit in on their classes. They have far far fewer resources at hand than we have in New Zealand and yet the students learn, and if their ability to speak English is an indication of the standard of teaching, they are very well taught. (Note to Susannah... That doesn´t mean I don´t need that list of resources I asked for....)

I am also grateful to Melanie (family connection at the school) who was able to interpret for me and explain to the teachers why I was in their room. She also organised a taxi for me to return home and confirm with Melisa that I was on my way home. All these things I could have eventually done by myself with much effort and gesticulation ... but the show must go on and I tend to slow things down a bit.

I gave my camera to a group of students and said,¨Take photos of what is important to you in your school.¨ Here´s a sample of what they came up with...
One of the classrooms I was in . Much smaller than in NZ but lively and vibrant none-the-less.

Another classroom. The windows open up onto the footpath and the road. The school was once a large home and there is very little on the outside to indicate that a school is within. Notice the hot water thermos for mate. There is a water cooler for drinks but includes hot water for mate as well.

Some of the teacahers. Find the thermos, the mate cup (must find the right name for it) and the packe of yerba to make mate.


The school symbol.


Looking into the school classroom in the first photo above from the courtyard.
Check out the chalkboard to see what subject is being taught her. (Click on the photo and it should enlarge.)
The flag of Argentina. Light blue and white will forever remind me of Argentina.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9IY1ht92I ¨La Posta¨You tube link
(Led Zepplin alert) The first thing learners of English learn is personal information and how to ask questions about it. Consequently, most people at STEP know more about my family and me than people I know well in NZ. I was talking about son Julian, and describing how his reason-for-living was to compose and play music all day and that he considered this to be his ¨work¨. The teacher afterwards told me that her son was similar so we did what mothers do in any language... compared notes and boasted about the wonderful qualities of our respective sons. I got to meet the Argentinian son ,Juan, and was immediately impressed because he was wearing a John Lennon t shirt. I showed him Mark and Julian´s Youtube video (see below) and he showed me his band performing live last year. Check it out and add a comment if you can. The band, La Posta, are just about to release a CD. I think I was able to impress Juan by saying that I had seen Led Zepplin perform live a long time ago. I have found that that piece of information frequently gets me more respect from a certain demographic than any of my teaching strategies.

http://www.latinbasket.com/team.asp?Cntry=ARG&Team=4805 Link to Sionista basketball team.

Last Sunday night we went to a basket ball game supporting the Sionista team. The host family´s son, Martin, used to play in this team and, in his absence, I have his room. I have learned much about basket from reading the posters and framed pages from newspapers with him in them. He still plays but not at the top level any more. I believe we are going to watch him play a game tonight but he may only be on for a short time as he is recovering from injury. It was the first game of basketball I had seen live, anywhere, and it was truly an amazing experience.

The noise from supporters was deafening and made rugby and cricket supporters seem positively restrained. I was concerned that various parts of the tiered seating or, indeed, the entire building, could stand the earthquake-like impact of the stamping and thumping that is required to either support your team or indicate to the referee that he has made a mistake. There was a sort of band comprised of drums and a horn section that played the team song at appropriate times. It was pretty much the stereotypical South American sporting event. I couldn´t believe it actually existed.

Lowlight of the evening, which momentarily stopped the game for a few minutes, was when we looked across the court to see a man´s legs and torso dangling and kicking from underneath the top tier of seating. People were rushing to support him from underneath and it was not clear for a while what was happening. It seems he had fallen through the floor boards somehow and was caught in a potentially very dangerous situation. As soon as he was rescued the game continued. I don´t think there is an OSH equivalent in Argentina... I watched where I stepped very carefully and took that as a salutary lesson.

Action shot. Plan B is to become a sports photographer. (Ha ha ... There is no ´I´ in sport)
My only previous encounter with basketball was a particularly brutal five minutes on the court with Susannah and Bobby against the WPS Year 8 students. Susannah won! And to think it was a fellow kinsman (on the Naysmith side of the family) who invented the game of basketball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D5fhUetf5s Otaua, world-famous in Parana. When people ask me about where I live and what we do, inevitably, I end up using this Youtube video as an explanation. It just happens to be by husband, Mark, and son Julian. So, for what it is worth, Otaua, you have the support of a small group of people from Parana. It´s a good way of me feeling as though I am still involved in our wee community´s big struggle which is now heading towards the Environment Court in NZ. Many people have told me there is a similar struggle to prevent pollution of the local river by Paraguay, except that is going to the International Court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim and finally, on my first night here .... I went to the local Jewish community´s Purim commemoration. My family explained it to me and I hope I understood it correctly. It is the local Jewish communituy´s way of keeping the history and traditions alive and is very much child-oriented occasion commemorataing a significant event in the past. Children and adults wore fancy dress and there were activities, stories and a dance with karaoke at the end. There was a slide show of the children´s activities throughout the year and at the end, a Queen was selected from amongst the girls. Some of the people I met on my first night I have met many times since and am now starting to remember names and connections.

Friday, March 27, 2009

From the Beginning

I feel as if I have been here for twice as long as I actually have because since I have arrived, (my first day was about 36 hours long for me) I have had a siesta every day which breaks the day into two very separate halves. Also, my room has shutters which I don’t open because of the heat – so, in the dark, it feels like morning after waking up from a siesta. I have a window in my room but it is alarmed at night or when there is no one at home. I don’t tend to use the window because I have (thank you, Lord) an option of a ceiling fan and a heat pump with a mega-cool option. I am indeed becoming acclimatised.
The fan, necessarily on warp 10, tends to have a hurricane-like impact on anything in the room unsecured, and a framed picture belonging to the original inhabitant has just fallen off the wall after I turned the fan on. Oops.

Going back and filling in the gaps briefly….Auckland on Friday, I met up with Paul-from-Hukanui and Veronica-from-Wellington and Olivia-the-exchange-student-from-Christchurch so we were a small party until we all went our separate South American ways by midnight Argentina time about 30 hours later.

The flight was long but not interminable – probably because it was an incredibly smooth trip – not an iota of turbulence – and I have a “Princess and the Pea” sensitivity to any aircraft in-flight twitches and wriggles. Veronica and I immediately found common ground and chatted together until the meal, then the long enforced sleep for which we had to have all the blinds drawn as it was daylight throughout. We would not have noticed this except that one of the blinds was broken and the sun shone brazenly through the magazine page taped over the window. The plane and all the services and accessories felt old and dodgy. The meal was bland and the coffee and tea indescribably bad, and at room temperature. One of the toilets was taped shut and one of the tvs (the drop down kind) flickered in its death throes for a while before stopping completely. I couldn’t find a tv channel in the in-flight entertainment section of the magazine, but then I couldn’t find a magazine either and used Veronica’s. In the end I dozed pretty much awake with my eyes closed, for most of the “night” part of the flight. The near-by toilet flush sounded like an explosive sneeze and was disturbingly audible, waking me with a start every time I dozed off. We landed in the afternoon after a breakfast meal, so from the start it was a pretty disorienting arrival.

We went straight through customs and were met by an AFS volunteer, a young man who organised two taxis for us, both of which gave a “Welcome-to-Argentina-get-used-to-the-traffic” demonstration between the airport and the AFS office. Olivia’s and my ride was gaspingly rapid with unpredictable ducks and dives around other drivers. We left first but somehow the second taxi beat us to the office – in spite of a near death experience with a truck along the way.

The AFS people were wonderfully friendly and helpful. We were able to have a drink, a snack and a shower which was glorious and so strong it just about pinned me to the floor. There were volunteers and paid helpers but all were generous and couldn’t do enough to ensure we had a good start to Argentina. Olivia went with an AFS person and the rest of us caught taxis to the bus stop. Paul was the first to go at 9pm. Veronica, Mariana (from Patagonia – how cool is that!) and I had a snack at a new part of the bus station. There is kind of a departure lounge like at the airport so that travellers can be safer before they catch their bus. (You would have certainly noticed the difference, Viv. I think this is all new since your experience. ) At about 10.45pm we went to the bus forecourt which went on forever. There were numbered bays for over 80 buses and there were people everywhere. Buses came and went and the smell of diesel fumes and cigarette smoke was overwhelming. It was hot and dirty and there were several dogs wandering with a purpose and barking as if they owned the place. They were not confrontational but just staunch and going about their business with confidence.

Such juxtaposition! The buses were something again. Huge new-looking double-decker buses, the kind that look as if they have short droopy antennae, all painted with their company names and in absolutely top condition. There is an absolute contrast between these and everything else in Argentina that I have seen so far. I am not sure why the bus companies are so modern and sleek when much else appears tired and under-maintained. Once on the bus at midnight, I was alone for the first time in Argentina. (Refer to earlier post for my ¨hungry and frozen*¨ experience on the bus. * Title of daughter Laura´s cooking blog for those who don´t get the in-joke. http://hungryandfrozen.blogspot.com/ )

As the bus started moving, an in-flight safety and services-available message came across the speakers – in Spanish only and I couldn’t understand a word. There was a ‘flight attendant” on board but she just wandered past making sure we were all in our seats and then rattled off a list of drinks available – the only one of which I understood was the first, “agua –water” so that’s what I had!.

Pronunciation lesson. In Argentina, agua – water, is pronounced as if you were going to say “arg” as in the beginning of ‘argument’ but just has you had started to form the letter ‘g’ you changed your mind and went to the ‘wuh’ part of the word, and the end of the word fades away as if you weren’t quite sure how to pronounce it.


The trip was, again, incredibly smooth and I was able to doze somewhat fitfully, mindful of the large sleeping mass in close proximity. The curtains were Velcro-closed and I did peep out occasionally but we seemed to be travelling for 6 ½ hours on pretty smart toll motorways. We came via Santa Fe and through the tunnel under the river to Paraná. It seems to be an amazingly well-designed and built structure, and another part of the juxtaposition of incredibly modern and tired and run down. (Today, some computer engineering students told me that its life expectancy was 30 years. “How old is it?” I asked…. “Thirty years,” the reply. )

I finally arrived at Paraná at 6.30 and was met by AFS volunteer Mariela and host family member Melisa who took me straight to Melisa’s home.

Language-learning Observations and Intercultural Discoveries:

- It is indeed true that speaking louder does not help comprehension.

- Being able to use a mixture of Spanish and English by all parties involved, increases the level of possible communication and leaves everybody feeling they have contributed to helping the other person’s understanding and language acquisition.

- Taking a risk to try and assemble a set of sounds to communicate a message to someone who fully understands that set of sounds… is like playing one of those fruit machines when you release the lever, hoping that all the sounds /fruit line up the way you wanted… and then hearing/seeing the “Ka-ching” when the message is understood.

- When you ask “What is this?” as you pick the morsel up and hold it closer to your mouth than you eye…. you KNOW it’s too late, and too rude to put it down when you find that it’s a thin slice of cow’s tongue on a toothpick. (In actual fact it wasn’t tooooo bad as I am used to the taste of ox tongue.) There was an also interesting texture to a piece of the asado which I later discovered was a gland… and did not pursue information on the original location of the gland. Again, it was OK , and very nice on the first taste… but pondering its origin does tend to slow down the chewing.

- Once you have invited one Argentinian All Black fan to sleep on your couch for the 2011 World Rugby Cup, you end up inviting them all.

- At a 2 year old´s birthday party you should not be surprised to find not only one person proudly wearing a Canterbury logo on a shirt but another person who can (unassisted) name at least 3 of the Counties rugby clubs and more Chiefs players than most NZers could, and another who has been to NZ for the first World Rugby Cup, and another person who has had dinner with Tane Randell when playing professional rugby in England. There is more chance of me running into such passionate Rugby enthusiasts in Paraná than Waiuku, it would seem.

- Just because I am in Argentina, it does not mean that all all cultural experiences are Argentinian culture.

- It is, in point of fact, Castillian (Carss -ti - zharn) rather than Spanish which is spoken here. The word ¨Spanish¨is acceptable but I understand that ¨Castillian¨ is more correct. (Later correction - this should read Castellano... pronounced car -st- jha no according to my hearing.)

-Goofy sounds the same in Spanish as he does in English

- It is possible to survive for a week without a cup of tea.

- While everyone from NZ to Paraná via Buenos Aires is telling me to be careful about personal safety, and security at home .. it is my mother´s home in Waiuku where an attempted burglary is made.

- My family is now geographically spread further apart than we ever have before. I´m in Argentina, Laura is in Wellington, Mark is keeping the home fires burning in Waiuku, and 18 year -old son Julian is (hopefully) on a plane to Australia to stay with his madrina* (godmother) in Broken Hill Australia, (* Learned that word when I was watching Shrek II with Spanish subtitles and soundtrack - a recommended approach to language learning).

-(Cue Fred Dagg music) We don´t know how lucky we are.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

One Small Step for Mankind;One Huge Step for Me

Today was the first day I had to find my way around by myself. It wouldn´t be so bad in an unknown English-speaking location, but combined with fears of personal safety, a congenital inability to distinguish between left and right when under pressure and the knowledge that if I got lost I was unlikely to have the language to anything more than make matters more confusing...I set off with Melisa´s hand-drawn map and instructions repeated many times with far more tolerance than I deserved.

We joke that in NZ, Melisa is young enough to be my daughter and I would be checking she was OK - but here, she is like my mother. She speaks English well and we speak a mixture of Spanish and English between us. She is by far the more capable and is my life-line. She has a cell phone for me to use and set it all up with her number and my AFS contact number. The first thing I had to do was learn all the instructions - in Spanish. I was tempted to cheat and change them into English ( for the sake of emergencies of course...) but, I don´t want to muck around with the settings in case I can´t find my way back. When I missed a call from Melisa today because I was in a class - I just gave the phone to a teenager who sorted it all out and rang her back for me.

Anyway, I put my sunglasses on, head up and tried to walk with the same confidence as other people seemed to do... except the footpaths of Parana are very uneven, with loose paving stones and random bits of loosened rubble. Crossing the roads is pretty scary also. There are pedestrian crossing but I daren´t test them because no one else seems to use them. The road system is one way in most places so, although the traffic drives on the right side of the road, it takes a few looks either way to confirm which way it is coming. In the end, I tried to walk at a speed that meant I arrived at an intersection at the same time as another person and just followed them across the road.

There is a wonderful mixture of sounds, smells and sights. I keep hearing a clip clop of horse´s hooves early in the morning and today discovered that it, indeed, belonged to a horse and small cart, the purpose of which I´m still not sure. The smells are strongly traffic and cigarette smoke but also some food and every building tends to smell of quite pleasant room fresheners. I was walking past a building site (thought it was because there were men with tools outside) and thought to myself, they are hammering in a very rhythmic way.... but I have a suspicion it was a dance studio and I´m leaning heavily towards the ideas that it could be tap dancing.

Anyway, I got to my school by myself and was overwhelmingly pleased (and relieved) as I knocked on the door to be let in. All school doors appear to be locked... The school (called STEP) is a private English school and has the most friendliest of people, some of whom have never spoken to an English-as-a-first-language-speaker before. I feel a responsibility to get my grammar correct as I can guarantee that the learners of English as a 2nd language put more effort into correct grammar than we do. I help out in English classes for all stages, then at 10.30 a.m. I go to the next school, down the road and around the corner - which I bravely did all by myself. I passed a group of very noisy singers who I was told were public school teachers demonstrating. I was on my way to a private school.


I spent an hour with a Spanish class who were studying Don Quixote. The school is named after Cervantes and I was thinking of the irony that, of all the students in the class, and possibly the teacher, I was most likely the only one who had been to the Cervantes monument in Madrid. The teacher spoke with such beautifully clear enunciation that I was able to recognise just about every word and understand a few phrases here and there. It is a joy to listen to Spanish when there is nothing expected of me.

After that, I sat in on a Geography class. The teacher spoke no English but some of the students were excited to have me in the class, either because I am a distraction or they want to practise their English. I think the girls are interested in Julian (18 year-old son) because family is one of the standard personal information questions they learn to ask. I was whisked away by a group of girls and I worked on answering questions on their lesson topic of environmental pollution with them. I can now discuss acid rain in Mexico with confidence.

A student organised ringing a taxi for me and I was home for lunch by 1.30pm. After lunch, siesta! What a superb institution!

I have to go as it is 12.15 am and I start at STEP school at 7.30 am tomorrow morning.

...........

It was absolutely amazing to be talking to (my sister) Lynn in Australia on Skype, in one of the English classes this morning. Then, to be able to talk on Skype to my Gardens School students in New Zealand (Hello Huia 1) who have so little Spanish language to use at this stage of the year, but confidently and enthusiastically share it all with Spanish speakers half way across the world. And, how lovely to be able to see, via Skpe, and some of your homework projects you showed me.... And awesome to catch up with Viv-who-has-already-been-to-Argentina who understands what it is like to be immersed in Argentina.

Closing observations and discoveries:
- You will never pack the right clothes
- Children´s television is, indeed, educational
-30 students can not fit into a laptop computer screen at once, when talking on Skype.
- When I was an exchange student at age 18 (and only to Australia!) I noticed how many differences there were between people and places.... at a more respectable age, I notice how many similarities there are.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

G´Day Mate (Pronounced ´Mar-tay´¨)


You cannot possibly say you have been to Argentina, or that you know anything about Argentina, unless you have tried mate (mar-tay). With respect to lovely people I already know in Argentina who love mate.... for me, it is a singularly awful taste - similar to very strong bitter herbal tea...and grass clippings. Here is a photo of my first experience which I took somewhat tentatively, mindful of my trail-blazing amiga Viviennne´s description of it during her visit to Argentina. It is not really a drink as such because the vessel is filled with .... something like dried herbs (a word I can´t remember but will fill in the gap when I get it right.....later.... it's called yerba mate), and then bit by bit hot water is added to fill in the gaps. People carry around hot thermos flasks and their mate vessels (will research what they are called) and top it up as they need to. The ´straw´ is metal (called a bombilla) and gets offered to others to share if desired. There are courtesies and traditions and light-hearted superstitions involved and I have been told many but cannot be precise enough to write them here.

I am currently watching children´s tv and am delighted that I can understand much of it. It´s the Disney Channel dubbed I think.

I am trying to work out how send a link to this blog to everyone because I can´t seem to find it in a search and yet I see that mi hermana (sister) Lynn has found me from Australia. I will see what I can do but I am working on an Argentinian keyboard so I have to slow down or go back and correct heaps of mistakes... and all the instructions and labels on my host family´s computer are in Spanish, of course, which fits the immersion experience. However, I worry I will delete or change something by accident.

Back to Frond













The first thing I saw when I went into the family garage was a very close relation of the NZ fern. I have just realised what an "icon" of NZ the fern frond is. There is a palm tree behind it but to the left and right is the fern plant.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Lost for Words

¡Estoy aquí! I am here (I think)
¡Hola a todos! Hello everyone

Mindful that the purpose of my intrepid journey is to improve my ability to speak and understand Spanish in an authentic context, I was quite excited to experience my first opportunity in the Aerolineas Argentinas check-in queue at Auckland airport when I was able to understand “cinco”, “pero” and “por ejemplo” ("five", "but" and "for example") overheard in random conversations. Yes! I was fluent in three words. This was a promising sign.

My next authentic experience was a little unnerving because, once on the plane, the safety instructions were given first in Spanish and then in English in a strong Spanish accent which still left me uncertain of what to do when "in the unlikely event of an emergency" I was finally in the water. It is always unsettling to realise that, in-the-unlikely-event-of-an-emergency, the fluent listeners will have a head start on survival.

In the spirit of the “immersion’ part of my immersion award, I listened to an Argentinian comedy channel on the in-flight entertainment, the only non-music option. Disappointingly, and disturbingly, I could only pick up one word veinti cinco (twentyfive) which sent the audience into peals of laughter. I only realised the channel had repeated itself when I heard veinticinco followed by the same peal of laughter. The third time round, with extreme focus, I picked up Japonais and a few pero. My confidence was diminishing...



As early evidence of my intercultural awareness and language immersion experience, I have discovered that:

- Jonah Lomu and the All Blacks are, indeed, New Zealand’s greatest icons, possibly followed by pavlova.
- it can be just as difficult to understand a non-English speaker’s English as it is to understand their Spanish.
- it is nigh on impossible to find Spanish slogans written on any clothing – they are all in English.
- computer keyboards in Argentina have a key specifically for ¿ ¡ and ñ , which comes as a relief but should not have come as a surprise.
- sitting in the (NZ) driver’s seat of a car, without a steering wheel, travelling on the right hand side of the road in cross traffic which does not seem to have seen you…is a real test of faith and self control.
- AFS volunteers and workers in Argentina (and I’m sure everywhere else) must be the most good-hearted people in the world. Evidence? Mariana had about one hour’s sleep over 24 hours seeing several groups of incoming arrivals to their various destinations and departure points (I was the last one at 11.55pm).And, AFS contact and host Mariela and Melisa arrived at 6.30am to pick me up from the Parana bus stop.
- long distance buses are double-decker, have capacious comfortable seats which recline to almost bed-like, (called semi-cama meaning semi-bed) all look brand-new and have a creative and colourful range of company logos.
- if you have no Spanish words to express, "Excuse me you are sitting on my blanket and pillow,¨ to the large man sleeping in the reclining seat behind you, or, "Excuse me, but that snack pack you have just picked up has slipped off my lap and under the seat to you,¨ to the man in the seat in front, reclining so far back that he is almost on your lap... then there is a good chance you will be hungry and frozen (extremely efficient air-con) for six and a half hours of bus travel.
- siestas are wonderful way to spend a few quiet hours in an air-conditioned bedroom.
- siestas have a slight side effect, in that I am writing this at 2.26am Sunday morning (6.26pm Sunday night NZ time) reasonably wide awake - but so is the rest of the household, and some visitors have only recently arrived.
- and are now departing to go disco dancing.
- it is exhausting having to think before I speak...
- I thought 2 oclock in the morning was a really late night (written at 3.15am).
- I am staying with a lovely family who are being kind and helpful beyond measure.



Wednesday, March 18, 2009

¡Hasta la Vista, Baby!

I am almost within 24 hours of leaving NZ for Argentina and am having a crash course in setting up a blog with a lovely student from my class who has put my computer skills to shame. Sooo much to do, so little time left. Let's hope I can find my way back here again so that this is not the only entry on my adventure.

¡Hasta luego! ("See you later." That's Lesson number 1 for the non-Spanish speakers playing at home.)