Intensive Spanish

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It is quite astonishing how incredibly tiring learning a language is. Just as our early days in Sabana Grande were extremely testing as our brains were thrown into a desperate and incessant neurological search for something to associate this new language with so it could be stored for future application. Four hours of Spanish classes every morning for two weeks gave our minds an Olympic workout of epic proportions. CENAC Spanish School in Esteli was the site of this mental bombardment. At the outset we did wonder how much Esteli’s finest Spanish maestros (sorry, that’s a lie as we just picked the cheapest school with some good reviews) could wedge between our ears in two weeks and we were not to be disappointed. One-on-one classes just don’t give you anywhere to hide. Plus if you did quietly crawl under the desk the chances are that you would be tracked down pretty pronto. Consequently, this is no normal school where there’s always some spotty faced swot with their paw in the air who can relieve you of the embarrassment of your ignorance. It’s just you and the potential to feign a nasty coughing fit at the appropriate moment. Oh and one other thing, the teachers barely speak a word of English so you can’t bottle it and resort to your mother tongue.

All that said we had some cracking teachers. Well apart from the one we were forced to sack. But in the cut and thrust world of Esteli’s Spanish School scene you have to be cruel to be kind. As well as being dragged kicking and screaming though the subjunctive-conditional-pluperfect-future-imperative (ok so that doesn’t really exist) we had some fascinating conversations. From the ins and outs of the worlds current financial meltdown to why the pavements in Nicaragua are so damned awful. It’s fair to say we didn’t do a whole lot in Esteli apart from study as with the classes and brutal homework schedule it didn’t leave us much free time.

Rome was not built in a day but after Spanish classes in school / university, night school in London, three months in Spain, three months in Nicaragua and two weeks of intensive classes we’re getting there with this language .. poco a poco.

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