Today is Mother's Day, so I'm in Beunos Aires to buy a cake for my host mom.
The school year is flying by; there's only one trimester left. It seems like just yesterday that I stood in front of those kids for the first time, wondering how in the world I would ever learn all their names. Now look at us.
My fifth graders surprised me yesterday with a Mother's Day gift. It was a candy-filled coffee mug that says something in Spanish about what a wonderful mom I am. They even all signed a card. I can't wait to drink out of that mug years from now and think back on the little monsters. I wonder if they'll ever really speak English.
The biggest mistake I've made in the classroom this year is letting the kids speak Spanish to each other. It's just that when I first started, Spanish was nothing more than background noise to me. I hardly even noticed it. But now I see that the classroom would be much more affective, not to mention quieter, if the kids could only speak English. When they do speak English, I let them speak it as much as they want, which is starting to drive me crazy. "Teacher, what time is it?" Over and over and over.
My host family's car is still in the shop. Apparently it's going to cost $1,600 to fix it. Its absence has been nice, though, because my host dad hung a hammock in the empty carport. Now there are two hammocks outside in the shade, which is nice. Two is always better than one.
One of the friends with whom I went to the beach last weekend called the other day to say she is deathly ill with a specific food poisoning that comes from eating bad fish. The only fish she'd eaten was a fish burrito she and I shared at the beach. She called because her doctor asked her to warn me that I would surely be sick, too, but I haven't had so much as a stomachache. I guess the water in Potrero Grande is finally working to my advantage.
My house, for some reason, is now the place people come to pay their water bills. The other day I was sitting in the pulperia window when a guy came up to pay his bill. My host mom told him, "OK, but you're going to have to wait. I'm drinking coffee right now."
As she walked back to the kitchen, I, being the gringa that am, braced myself for the man's reaction. I assumed he'd puff his cheeks and roll his eyes and say something about not having all the time in the world to sit around waiting for people to drink their coffee. But instead, he just nodded his head, turned around and leaned easily against the counter. "Alright, no problem."
Can you even imagine?
And here are a few pictures I took this week. Check out Marcela´s wrist. Ouch! I couldn’t really understand her Spanish when she explained what happened, but I did catch vidrio, which means glass. Also, my second-graders are learning food vocabulary. This is Brayan with his name in Arkansas rice.
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