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.
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