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Published: March 5th 2011
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I Wish I’d Listened To Everything My Latin Teacher Told Me
Monday 21st February
A good night’s sleep after my long journey and I have to be at school for 8:30.
The
”Casa Particular” I’m staying in is in the
Vedado area of
Havana about a half-hour’s walk from the city centre.
Vedado seems to have developed as residential area of the city in the 1920s. It is also the area where the university and a lot of the hospitals seem to be located. My accommodation is just across the road from the university – this proves useful as are many places nearby that cater for the students at lunchtimes as I gradually find my way around and away from the places that obviously just cater for the tourists.
When I arrive there are five of us staying in the
Casa Particular – myself, a Norwegian, a Canadian and two Dutch – all of whom are studying at the language school. There is a steady turnover of people staying and studying here and by the end of my second week I have been joined by people from Martinique, Italy and Austria. One evening there are four of us
at dinner speaking a mixture of five languages! – English, French, German, Italian and, of course, Spanish.
Our “Ama de Casa” who is looking after us is
Myira but there seems to be plenty of people coming and going all the time and I haven’t really worked out who they all are yet. On a couple of days I get back to the house to find the kitchen full of schoolkids doing their homework.
Caridad, who does most of the cooking is a real character! She also patiently corrects our Spanish, gets angry with us if she finds out we’ve been ripped off, and makes sure we all eat our vegetables – she’s our “Mum” really, particularly to some of the younger students.
My First Day At School
So it’s back to school with my new school bag, my new pencil case, my new gel pens and my new haircut. Fortunately there aren’t any strange rituals for new students but, in true Quarrydale style, the first thing the school does is give me a test and put me in the “special” class.
There are two of us in the class.
Iselin did some Spanish in
School
This is not posed! high school and is refreshing her Spanish on her way to a job in Uruguay. I have spent several winters in Spain and have so far mastered “Hola” and “La cuenta, por favour”! I think it’s going to be a steep learning curve! We’re lucky in that our teacher, Fernando, has a good knowledge of English and when we get really frustrated he will help us by explaining things in English. He also shatters one of my misconceptions about Cuba – he has rarely travelled abroad but he is very well informed about world affairs and politics and very widely read.
The plan is to spend 2 weeks on the basic course and after Iselin leaves I will have one-to-one lessons with Fernando – I have a feeling I might need to go through the same course again though!
As the lessons go on I think I am picking up some Spanish. I find it much easier to understand the Spanish as spoken slowly and carefully by the other language students than that spoken by the Cubans in Havana. In the evenings Caridad always listens to what I think must be the Cuban equivalent of “The Archers” on
the radio and I find that I can begin to pick out a few phrases.
And as we begin to use verbs in different tenses I’m suddenly reminded of the nightmare of having to learn Latin at school {
I went to a progressive school!}. There’s a lot of similarities between the Spanish and all the many different tenses of Latin that I never really understood. I thought I’d exorcised that demon when I burned my Latin books 40 years ago but suddenly it’s all coming back to haunt me again!
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Kam Britland
non-member comment
Back in school
Good to hear that you survived your first day back at school. You'll have to keep the Spanish up when you are back .....It is wet and freezing here perhaps reading your travel blog will bring us some sunshine......enjoy and look forward to reading more. K&P xx