The teaching begins

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Hi everybody

Everytime I do this, I have a hard time thinking of where to begin. I had my first class this morning and I thought it went really well. My Spanish tutor is in the class, and she kept cringing everytime I mangled a word in Spanish, which was often!! We had a good time, and by the end of the class I had 16 adults singing the ABC song!

There are so many things to write about. Today´s adventure was trying to buy some real coffee. No Wegman´s, that´s for sure-took me 3 hrs. First walk 1/2 hr to the market. Second find the shop, named ¨New York Cafe¨. Then, listen while the proprietor lectures you (in Spanish, I´m only picking up about every 3rd word, but nodding and smiling) about the 3 kinds he has, smell them all, and decide how finely it should be ground. Listen to a lecture about how I should buy my own grinder because it´s really the only way to get it fresh, wait while he grinds a pound by hand, listen to another lecture about how I should buy an airtight jar to keep it in, and FINALLY pay for it. So that´s nearly an hour in the shop. On the way home I was hoping to get some bread for breakfast tomorrow, but the shop was closed. The hours of business are a total mystery to me. When they feel like it, seems to be the rule. I kind of looked halfheartedly for a jar for my coffee, but no luck. Saw 2 women urinate on the sidewalk, yccchhh. Walked straight uphill to the school, up 3 flights of stairs, and phew, I made it. 3 hrs for a pound of coffee and nothing to eat for breakfast. I´ll have to go back out to find some bread or go hungry in the morning.

Yesterday, one of my students and his girlfriend took me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, called a chiffa (pronounced shee-fa) It was a good lunch, but the conversation was a bit (a lot) limited!

A couple of days ago, I walked in the apartment and one of the girls that is now a student, handed me a plate of papas relleno, a potato dough rolled around a ground beef mixture with sweet peppers and olives, then fried. It was really good. When I was done, she took my plate and washed it for me. The students pretty much have the run of the place except the 2 bedrooms.

This is a little short, and mostly about food!! I did do laundry on the roof this am and sat up there w a book for a while. The weather is funny, quite cool one minute, and T shirt weather the next. It makes climbing the hill back to school a little sweaty sometimes. Gotta run and get my bread (and if I´m very lucky some milk) before tonights class.

Love to all, Kathy

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