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Published: April 28th 2009
I'm back. Typing furiously in an Internet cafe. Here goes.
Last week, I had 4 hours of Spanish classes a day, and for the most part I feel as if my Spanish hasn’t improved too dramatically. An unbiased observer might argue otherwise, but here, in the thick of the San Pedro scene, I feel a bit stuck, language-wise. I can read and write Spanish pretty well, but I have some sort of psychological mind block against speaking Spanish and following what other people say.
For example, I just learned the past tense of Spanish verbs, and now I'm speaking exclusively in the past tense. Not on purpose, mind you. Anyhow, it makes for fascinating conversation. At least that's what I'm telling the people I'm talking to. I'm telling them using the past tense, of course.
Now, my problematic Spanish is by no means the fault of my instructor, Flory, who’s fabulous. She’s wiser than most people twice her age, and she likes to speak seriously and at length--her tone hushed, somber--about topics local and national, cultural and political. It’s a shocking and distressful thing, she tells me, that the country’s president, Álvaro Colom, is of Latino rather than
Cabana at la Cooperativa
Really gorgeous place to study Spanish. $150/week US gets you 4 hours a day of classes, 3 meals a day, lodging, and activities (salsa dancing, movies, lectures, etc.).Mayan descent. She also shared with me many stories about Guatemalan families who lost all of their money due to the global economic crisis. These days, Guatemalans are afraid to put their money in local banks (where it seems to constantly disappear) or to stash their money somewhere in their homes (where banditos always seem to find it).
One day last week, Flory and I delivered food to a poor family, one of many families that la Cooperativa School helps to support. The family’s widowed father was blinded in an accident three years ago; as a result, three of his five children, all of whom are under the age of 15, work to bring money into the home. Two of his five kids still go to school, though school is a luxury for many, at least here in San Pedro.
I could go on at length, but I'll save that discussion for another time.
Back to my week ... In addition to taking four hours a day of Spanish classes, I was super busy last week. Pretty much every waking hour. Sara (my housemate) and I watched a couple of movies in bars (several bars by the
Flowers!
Gorgeous flowers throughout the town. This photo is from la Cooperativa. Lago Atitlan docks show movies on big screens in the evenings). We also watched a documentary at la Cooperativa about a Guatemalan woman whose parents were massacred in front of her during the 1982 US-funded overthrow of the Guatemalan government, which resulted in the violent deaths of some 200,000 men, women, and children, most of them unarmed). For some reason I still can’t fathom, I also attended a class on the Mayan binary numbering system, which seems to have something to do with burying peach pits in the ground. “Es fácil,” the professor repeated approximately every 2.4 seconds. Yeah, super easy. Apparently he has never met an English major before.
Sara and I also went to church with Alejandra, la madre de la casa. The Thursday-night Episcopal Evangelical service lasted two hours, and the pastor spoke half in Spanish, half in Tz’utujil (the local language). He introduced Sara and me in the middle of the service, and we received a standing ovation from the parish. The pastor then paused so the members of the parish could line up to shake our hands. I’m quite certain we weren’t even remotely deserving of such attention. Nonetheless, it was quite an incredible
San Pedro Dog
San Pedro has a million dogs. Seriously. I counted. experience.
During the lengthy Tz’utujil portions of the service, I took note of the dramatic differences in the women’s clothing. Until that evening, I’d assumed that the traditional Mayan clothes were all the same for the most part--short-sleeved huipiles (colorful blouses) and cortes (handwoven wrap skirts or dresses in vertical checked patterns). But no. Every huipile, every cortes was different, some decorated with gold silk, white lace, black trim, colored flowers, ... Interestingly, I have yet to see even so much as one local woman dressed in anything but a huipile and a corte. Most girls wear traditional clothes as well.
Really, though, my big story of the week is the story of Maestra Carolina. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I’m now in charge of the English lessons for grades 3-6. I have eight classes in total, and I teach three classes a day. It would be the understatement of the year to say I’m overwhelmed and a bit stressed. Which is another way of saying that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing most the time. The saving grace is that the kids don’t seem to mind. They’re really quite generous and kind
Third Graders
One of my two third-grade classes. Aren't they cute? and don’t seem to expect me to know much Spanish at all. Which has come in quite handy on about 842 occasions. My days go something like this. A kid asks a question, and I respond, “No comprendo.” Another kid asks a question, and I repeat, “No comprendo.” Question, no comprendo, question, no comprendo, question, wait a minute, comprendo! No, just kidding, no comprendo. Infinite is the best word I can find to describe the patience of these kids.
So, as I mentioned in my last blog entry, whenever I enter any classroom, the full-time teacher bolts from the room, leaving me with 20-25 extremely energetic children, the younger of whom want me to hold their hands, sing songs with them, and play games. Now, I happen to know only 1.5 children’s songs (the alphabet and 1/2 of that song about the farmer who has a wife, a kid, a nurse, and a bunch of pets). Sounds limiting, right? Lucky for me, the kids are happy to sing these 1.5 songs ten, fifteen, twenty times in a row. “Otra vez,” they scream when we finish. “Realmente?” I ask them. ¡Sí, sí! they scream. They know the abecedario in English by heart, and they think it’s the greatest song ever.
So here's what Friday looked like. That day, one teacher left me alone with his third graders for two solid hours. Try entertaining 20 third graders for 2 hours without a lesson plan (I wasn’t scheduled to return to this particular class until this week--I have different lesson plans for every one of my eight classes, which is exactly as muddled and complicated as it sounds.) When in doubt, I write random English words on the board and tell the students to “Copian las palabras.” “¿Todas las palabras?” they ask. “Si, todas,” I tell them, thereby prompting them to moan and sink so deep into their chairs that their chins hit their desks. Eventually they start copying the words, which is my cue to collapse into a heap of my own for roughly 10 minutes, after which time I find exactly .34 ounces of energy (formerly tucked away under a lung or a clavicle or someplace for just these very occasions), then scrape together a makeshift lesson plan. Let’s just say I’m not going to win teacher of the year anytime soon.
All right, so let's recap. The kids are copying their new vocabulary words. Copy, copy, copy. And after the kids finish, I check their notebooks one by one. No big surprise that some students copy their lessons perfectly, and others are less attentive. A few days ago, I made the mistake of writing “muy bien” on the perfect or near-perfect papers, and the sloppy copiers got upset and begged me to write “muy bien” on their papers as well. “You have to work harder,” I told them (in the past tense, of course). “Escribe ‘muy bien,’ escribe ‘muy bien,’” they plead. The kids are also all a bit obsessed with having tick marks beside every word in their notebooks. I’ve had kids hunt me down in the schoolyard if they’re missing so much as one tick mark.
A few thoughts on teaching English. Many kids in Guatemala learn English as their third, not their second, language. The vast majority of kids in San Pedro (and in many areas throughout Guatemala) learn Tz’utujil first and only then learn Spanish, sometimes for the first time in school. In fact, many classes are taught in Tz’utujil. And here I am throwing a third language into the mix. Thing is, English is pretty important to know, and the kids are already familiar with some words from watching TV and movies. (“How are you?” they like to ask each other. “I am fine,” others say in response. They rarely, however, understand the meaning of the words they say.)
Another factor--many kids lack sufficient school supplies. Some kids in my class write with thick colored markers of all things; others write with colored pencils. I gave my green ink pen to one kid because I couldn’t read what she’d written in her yellow colored pencil. Her entire notebook from the beginning of the year was written in yellow.
When I came to San Pedro, I brought some basic school supplies with me from the US and gave them to the school’s directora. A brusque, no-nonsense type of lady, she pushed aside what I’d brought and made out a wish list for the school that includes, among other things, 325 pencils, 325 pens, and 325 boxes of crayons (there are 325 kids in the school), as well as such things as whiteboard markers for the teachers. I can attest to the need for better markers, as most classes have only one, and that pen barely functions. Seriously, how am I supposed to get my 10-minute “word-copying” reprieve if I can’t even write the words on the board?
A few thoughts on my kids. The younger kids are unruly, hyperactive, largely inattentive, and oftentimes very silly. They’re kids after all. The older kids are unruly and sometimes rude. In one class, a few boys seem to verbally and physically intimate their maestra, a tiny woman, quite timid and meek. It was hard for me to watch. Keep in mind that the kids are placed in the grade level that best fits their education--they’re not grouped by age. In other words, the sixth-level classes can include kids from ages, say, 9 to 14. Quite an age range. Add to that the fact that many (most?) kids in Guatemala don’t progress past the sixth or eighth grade.
And a few thoughts on my teaching experiences to date. I’m 99%!c(MISSING)onvinced that my presence at this school is no more than a diversion. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t taught anyone anything of any merit, and I don’t think anything I’ve taught will stick with the kids for any length of time. Nonetheless, I’m hoping that the kids benefit in some unexpected way from their English lessons. And, really, the kids are thrilled to have someone pay attention to them, and the younger ones in particular scream my name when I come into class, run to the door to wave when I leave, and hug me constantly while I’m there. The third graders write me little notes telling me “te quiero,” and they like to write my name on the whiteboard and draw hearts and flowers beside it. Some kids try to give me money (quetzales) as gifts. And, no, I'm not kidding.
At present, I’ve given English names to the students in four of my classes, as they begged me to do. Some names have a straightforward translation, whereas others don’t. Regardless, the students think their English names are the funniest things they’ve ever heard. Rafe, for example, literally falls out of his chair every time I call him Ralph. “En tu silla,” I’m constantly telling him. Frank, John, Joe, Dan, Susan, Emma, Mary, and the others all get a kick of their names as well.
I have so many students--around 150, I think--that I can’t keep track of them all. When I enter and leave the schoolyard each day, random children call out my name or hug me. When I walk down the street in the middle of the day, kids call out my name (¡Maestra Carolina, Maestra Carolina!).
I sometimes feel like this teaching thing is getting the best of me, and so sometime last week I vowed to take charge--to get the best of it. But not now, not anymore. I’m just going along for the ride. When kids talk over each other, I hone in on the lesson. When kids scream, run, and jump while I’m reviewing papers, I focus in on the individual student and the paper in question. It’s a salvational thing, really, this ability to tune in and out when necessary. In short, I’m doing the best that I can. And it’s going to have to be good enough. For them and for me.
Coming Up. I hike up Volcan San Pedro with two lovely Brits, one fabulous Kiwi, and an über-patient guide, Antonio. I also hit the markets on Sunday in Chichicastenengo with my housemate, Sara. And I have the distinct fortune of being the only gringa (or gringo) present during the school's week-long fiestas (the students chose a queen and crowned her, then we marched through the streets, crowded (all 200 of us) into a tiny home to eat a meal served by the queen's parents, listened to bands play in the schoolyard, and watched dramatic performances, etc.). Oh, and the volcano ate my camera. Which is why I have so few photos attached ... Stay tuned.
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Dennis
non-member comment
great blog
I just wanted to say what a great blog. My wife and I will be there in 3 weeks and volunteering at the school was on our "list of things to do". Keep up the good work. If your still there around the end of May we''ll see you then.