Week 4: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
Sunday
Nothing much happened today.
Monday
I had a bit of an embarrassment at school this morning. The schedule that Gaston gave me has me free during my third period on Mondays, so when I finished my second class, I went to sit on a bench and doodle in my notebook (this is what I usually do in my free time, regardless of where I am). About twenty minutes later, the sixth grade homeroom teacher came looking for me - it turns out this period is not free and I'm supposed to be teaching his class at this time. Thanks a lot, schedule-makers.
This week I'm putting a new teaching plan into effect. Leaving grammar aside for now (but addressing it as it comes up), I'm concentrating on vocab words, and making drawings on the board to go with each word (giving in to the students' requests for "un dibujo!"). I've started this week with words for people: person vs. people, man, woman, boy, girl, and baby, plus child vs. adult for the older students. With each word, I draw a stick figure - generic ones for person/people and child/adult, and ones with clear gender differences for the rest (I'm quite proud of the "baby" stick figure I came up with).
So far, this strategy's worked like a charm. The students all pay attention, and barely act up at all. When I taught the second grade, even my nemeses JP and B were hard at work copying the pictures and words (JP actually has very good penmanship for his age). I can't draw pictures for all the words I hope to teach, but I can for most of them, and at least I know the students enjoy it.
When classes were done and I returned home, I called Marianne to let her know about the package that was coming. Since she told me last week she'd be going to Quito for a few weeks, I knew we needed a plan, since mail goes to her post office box in Manta and only she's authorized to pick it up. Fortunately, she had such a plan underway when I went to meet her in Lopez. We made a photocopy of my passport (I really hate my passport photo - it was taken when I was almost 40 pounds heavier, and it barely looks like me anymore), which she'll give to the Manta post office, and she'll type up an authorization letter that I can show them along with the original passport. When the package arrives, they'll let her know, she'll call me, and all will be well.
Marianne also showed me the restaurant her host mother owns, where she'll be leaving the letter, and introduced me to said host mother. I also met Marianne's boyfriend, a genial enough guy, who'll be going with her to Quito. Marianne said they're eloping - I have no idea if she's joking or not.
Tuesday
My stick-figures-with-people-words continue to be a hit. For the kids who can't write yet, I just practice saying the words with them, bringing them up to the board one by one to repeat the words with me. I don't know if this will really teach anything, but there isn't much else I can do - frankly, I think it's a mistake to have an entire class period teaching a second language to kids who barely know their first language.
Since the older classes go faster than the younger ones, I've gotten up to words for the family (mother, father, brother, sister, etc.) in one of them. With this, I tried to assign my first homework: writing how many people were in your family, and the English words for them ("my mother", "my father", "my brother", etc.).
The key word in this is tried. The students didn't understand the assignment as I first explained it, so I tried explaining it again, and I wrote the words for my own family as an example: "There are 4 people in my family: me, my mother, my father, my brother Alexander". This only made things worse; half the students copied down exactly what I'd written and thought they were done, no matter how many times I explained that this was my family, an example, and I wanted them to write about their families, not to mention repeating that they were supposed to write this at home, not in class.
I can't believe how many of them failed to get the concept. I explained the assignment clearly, multiple times, and gave details on what they were supposed to write for each person in their family. I said that the example I'd written was my family, and I even showed photos of my mom, dad, and brother - why the hell would they think I wanted them to write homework about my family, especially when I said I wanted a list of your family? Well, when I have class with them again, I'll see what they've written and correct it.
Wednesday
Things were pretty uneventful at school today. The real excitement came in the afternoon, when I had my first experience teaching adults.
I'd been told that part of my job here might be tutoring the adult who work in the tourist industry, and a few people in town have asked about lessons. Well, things finally got organized this week - I'll be teaching at the Salango community center from 3 to 5 on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and anyone who wants to learn can show up.
The community center is just behind the bus stop. It's a big, one-story cinderblock building, painted sky blue, backed by a grove of trees. Off to the side is a garden surrounded by a chainlink fence, with lots of flowers and several fruit trees. Inside, the building is all one big, airy room, with the front desk at one end and a dry erase board at the other. When I stand by the board, the smell of flowers comes through the window, and I can see hummingbirds and butterflies in the garden - it's wonderful.
Since the people in this class were learning English specifically to work with tourists, my plan was to start with basic differences between English and Spanish (special letter sounds, how to conjugate verbs, etc.), and then let them direct the lessons and teach what they asked me to. Aside from the fact that nobody showed up until 3:30 (like I've said, it's not unheard of in Ecuador for everybody to be ridiculously late), class went pretty well. I felt much more at ease than I did with the kids, since I was the same age or younger than these people, and there was much informal chatter to be had. While going over numbers, I told about learning Spanish ones from American Sesame Street as a kid. On the subject of Silent E, I said something along the lines of "It's evil", and remarked on other pecularities of English with variations on "It's like this. I don't know why, but it is."
My favorite part was explaining the days of the week. For those who don't know, the original Roman names for the seven days of the week came from the seven objects telescope-less people can see in the sky: the Sun, the Moon, and the planets Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The Spanish words for weekdays still reflect this: Lunes, Martes, Miercoles, Jueves, and Viernes (I'm guessing that Sabado and Domingo come from Christian influence). When the Roman names came to Britain and that general area, people changed the god-based planet names to the names of equivalent Norse/Anglo-Saxon gods:
Mars = Tew, the god of war = Tuesday
Mercury = Woden, the god of wisdom = Wednesday
Jupiter = Thor, the god of thunder = Thursday
Venus = Freya, the goddess of beauty = Friday
No, I didn't go into all of this with the class. I just said that the days get their names from planets, and that in ancient Britain they changed them to what the planets were called there, and that I liked the Spanish words better because A) They made more sense, and B) They actually sounded like how they were spelled. I also told the English-language joke about how "I won't do this-or-that on a day that ends in Y", to great merriment.
Flor is also attending these classes, which makes me both uneasy and more at ease - uneasy because it's awkward to teach someone more mature than me, especially someone I live with, and more at ease because she helps explain things and keep the people my age in check. When class was over, she had nothing to say either way, so I don't know how I did. We shall have to see how it goes.
Thursday & Friday
Thursday was pretty much a repeat of Wednesday - classes with the kids in the morning, and classes with the adults in the afternoon, the only real difference being the material. Having covered the basics of English yesterday, today I let the adult students direct the lesson, and they chose greetings and basic phrases.
There are some interesting differences between English and Spanish in this field. For example, the word 'mañana' means both 'morning' and 'tomorrow', depending on context, and the word 'tarde' means both 'afternoon' and 'evening', which are different concepts in English (I said that afternoon is when the sun is still in the sky, and evening is after sunset). I also said that the literal meaning of 'buenas noches', 'good night', is mostly used as a form of goodbye, and for a greeting it's more common to use 'good evening'. Ah, the intricasies of linguistics.
For next week, I asked the folks to bring in a list of words and phrases that they wanted to learn in English. Considering I don't know the English words for a lot of the flora and fauna around here, that ought to be fun.
I did get a bit of a booster in that field, though, when I helped Denise with her homework one night. The assignment was to cut out pictures of animals, group them by mammal, bird, reptile, etc., and write their English names. I had an interesting time trying to explain the traits of the different groups - Denise didn't believe that penguins are birds, since they don't fly (Me: "Well, neither do ostritches."), and didn't know that animals other than cows etc. produce milk. When I was growing up, I was crazy about animals and knew all sorts of obscure facts, so it's easy to forget that I'm the exception rather than the rule. We got some of the pictures from a set on Galapagos fauna, so I got to learn the Spanish words for some of the creatures (though I question a few - this is the only time I've seen sea lions listed as "lobo marino"), and I won laughs explaining why the word 'booby' is funny to English-speakers.
Speaking of homework, I was accosted on Thursday morning by the mother of one of the students I assigned the "list your family" homework to, and got a reminder that it's not rare for mothers here to do their childrens' homework for them. Heh.
I met with that class again on Friday, and was pleased to find that almost two thirds had at least understood the concept of the assignment, even if they hadn't done it correctly. I spent the lesson going over the homework and having those who needed to redo it, with my help. I get the impression that kids here really aren't encouraged to think for themselves.
Saturday
There was a ceremony at the school this morning for the recent alumni class, which all the teachers were required to attend. Since Denise is one of said class, we went together.
I'm not entirely sure what the ceremony was about, but it involved three alumni (Denise one of them) carrying flags, flanked by two others holding the trailing ribbons, and passing them on to three students in the highest primary class, with much pomp and circumstance. Gaston and some of the teachers gave speeches, we sang the national anthem (everyone else did, anyway) and some other songs, there was much rejoicing, etc.
Flor had asked me to take photos of the event, but since I was sitting up on the stage with the teachers, in view of everbody and at a bad angle, there wasn't a chance. I'd hoped to get some of Denise in her sash and flag-holster (it looks like a cross between a horse's bridle and an Old West gunbelt), but she left soon after the ceremony to hang out with her friends. Everyone else milled around for a while, drinking Kool-Aid and eating little crackers and chatting, and eventually I left too.
I had planned to go to Lopez after lunch, but something else happened.
While looking out my bedroom window as I was changing into play clothes, I noticed a cat in the back yard. There are several cats that occassional hang out there, but they usually lie under a bush or on the big concrete shelf by the shed - this one was lying in the wet sand by the faucet, huddled in and looking sick. I went out to investigate.
I know that rabies is a problem around here, since the dogs and cats are half-wild, but the cat didn't have the rabies symptoms I know of. I poked a bowl of water toward it with a stick, and it drank eagerly. Flor and Denise also investigated - I learned that the cat had eaten poison, and they'd found a dead one not long ago.
That didn't sound hopeful, but I wrapped the cat in my towel and made it a bed under my window. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching over it, refilling its water bowl (drinking water can help dilute poison) and bringing it back to the bed when it crawled or fell into an uncomfortable place. I considered bringing it into my room secretly for the night, but it seemed to prefer the spot under the window, so I just went out to pet it and get it comfortable for the night. I honestly don't know if it will get better - it hasn't improved since I found it, but it hasn't gotten worse either, and it's lasted for almost twelve hours, drinking lots of water and occasionally moving around. As I said to Flor, "I've done what I can, it's in God's hands now."
