Tercera Semana de Clases de Joyeria

So I think I’m done being sad about having a new Spanish teacher that I don’t like, and on to feeling annoyed and frustrated. I’ve had 4 days of lessons with her and I’m fairly positive I haven’t learned anything. She keeps pulling out things I’ve already done with Carlos, and when I tell her I’ve already learned this she’s like “Oh, ok, well then we’ll review it!” I can review on my own time, I only have one more week left with someone to instruct me. So nothing new. It’s so tedious! Talking to her is like having to talk to a customer with bad taste at Silvertime, the jewelry store I used to work at. Except I get paid for that there. She only wants to talk about how pretty stupid things are. Like I finally got a conversation started about Copavic, the cooperative glass production facility in Cantel that recycles all of it’s glass and is run by its employees, etc, etc… and the only thing she’d say is “I got these glasses and they’re so pretty! Very very preeeettyyyyy! (Liiiiiiiiiiiiindaaaaa!) They’re blue here and clear here and I don’t let my kids use them! They’re only for special occasions because they’re so preeeetty!” When I’m wrong with my grammar, she does one of two things, 100% of the time. If what I’ve done wrong is something obvious that I’ve just forgotten in the passion of actually spitting out a full sentence, which happens every 3 hours probably since it’s so hard for me being a beginner, she will spend a good 5 minutes explaining why the obvious thing I accidentally forgot is wrong. All the while I’m saying “Yes. I know. I know. I remember. I really do know that. I promise I know that. Please. It was an accident. I know.” And the other option is if I say something wrong because I honestly don’t know it, or I say something and ask if it’s right, or ask for clarification, or need help with an obvious word, she will 100% of the time either have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, or laugh at me. I once asked her why the word “Calle” was feminine, since it ended with a letter signifying it as masculine, and instead of saying “because it is an exception” she confused the hell out of me by telling me some story about how she told her student before me that the Spaniards are loco… What? So why is calle feminine?… blank stare…. Because the Spaniards are loco! It’s not my fault! I didn’t make up the language!…. so you’re saying it’s an exception… Yes! The Spaniards are loco!…. sigh….

Now on to mis estudiantes. I can only hope I am a slightly better teacher than Rosario. At least I don’t laugh at them when they’re wrong.

This seems to have been a breakthrough week for everyone involved (except me with my Spanish, of course.) Out of 3 classes, I don’t have a single student that is lagging behind (except one because she missed my class last week, but that’s excused.) I’m really happy with their progress, and I’m really excited about the idea that people’s hands really do have memories. The first class was awkward and rough. The second week frustrating. But the third week everyone’s like “oh here you go, teacher, an earring that totally looks better than the one you gave me as an example.” I’m so proud!

Ok. So Cantel first. Tuesday. The matron of the house that we meet at is named Juana. She’s the one with the giant screaming baby-whose name happens to be Linda. La-la-linda. (I so hate that word!) I am fairly positive that she has four other children all under the age of 10. The oldest boy apparently wants to learn English, so last week Juana asked me to teach him some words. I tried to get him to say “good morning” but all he heard and could repeat was something along the lines of “gred mierda.” I tried to coax G-O-O-D out of him, but after the 4 or 5 try, he looked like he was about to cry, so I gave up. This week Hugh was with me, and Juana asked him to write the words for numbers 1-10 down so he could try to read them. Hugh included pronunciations (one is best written for Spanish readers as wan, for example) and what a bright light that kid’s face took on when he finally figured out what the hell we were saying when we were chanting “wred! No, wred!” to his ears for something as simple as one. Dilma is always there, never misses a single class, and she brought her friend Olga, a new student apparently. Juana, though she has consistently turned out sub-par work, and been unfortunately awkward with her hands, is so damn determined I can’t help but admire her. And she’s witty. She thinks I don’t understand a word of Spanish. Since I usually read my instructions I guess she thinks I only know it phonetically. So sometimes I catch her saying something borderline disrespectful (joking, I can tell) but she doesn’t think I’ll catch it. Her sarcasm is sharp as a knife. I’m really amazed right now, though, because her work improved 100% between the last class and this. Just bam, here you go, I’m awesome. I told her after the 3rd perfect example she gave me “this is great! Thank you! You know this now!” and she said “si….. pan comida…” and Hugh laughed really hard. Apparently she said “right… piece of cake..” and another time I told her “this is good. Now more practice.” And she said under her breath but loud enough for Hilda to hear “Si senora!” Which is ridiculous since I’m half her age. Oh that Juana. The baby was also elsewhere this time, which was so much help it’s incredible. I got Juana’s full attention and I wasn’t competing voices with the cellphone ringer. Oh, and Olga is a manual genius. She looks like she’s about 17, is super timid (like a good maya girl usually is) but when I explained the technique to her she looked me straight in the eye while I was showing and talking, took a deep breath, and bam bam bam, 20 perfect examples in 10 minutes. First day, first try. Dilma is beautiful, too. I have a lot of respect for these women. Dilma is 20 and just graduated school to be a teacher. Right now she doesn’t have work though because apparently the application process is really difficult, and there aren’t any openings for new teachers. Hilda tells me these things, I haven’t been able to have really conversations yet. I can concentrate on Spanish or I can concentrate on teaching technique, but I can’t do both.

After Cantel Hilda took us to Bake Shop, which is a store in Democracia (very close to Xela) that is run by Mennonites. Mennonites! In Guatemala! It’s a strange sight. We got a big bag of mini cinnamon donuts and Hugh got a peach pie! This is a strange and beautiful place, I must say.

Wednesday, Xela. My advanced class is ready for silver. I’ve taught them all the techniques, they’ve practiced every possible combination of materials, they know how the pliers work, how their hands work, they’re done. I gave them all packets of the exact beads and wire they’d need to make a complete set of earring in the style we’ll be making for sale, replacing silver with base metal, and gave them the design to practice. I put everyone’s in a separate bag with their name on it so I can have something to show Lupe when she comes. “Look at how good my students are!” Once again, very proud. They’re so hilarious! We have what is exactly an office water cooler in the house (every household does) with agua pura for drinking. You wash your hands and clean and cook with the tap water, but it’s not potable. So last Wednesday the agua pura man came with a delivery, and I think he might be the only African-guatemalteco man in existence in the City of Xela. The girls were quite taken with him… To put it lightly. This week he came again, but apparently we didn’t need it, so he didn’t come past the door. The girls could hear the conversation and kept trying to get me to go out and tell them the house definitely needed more water, I know, I live here, so that he’d come through the workspace and they could drool a little. They like to play with me. One of the girls is young and pretty and used to work at the Spanish school I go to. She likes to correct my Spanish and tell me what I should work on. I told her I had Rosario now and her response was more or less “oh yeah. I remember her. She kind of sucks.” And I told her “me gusta Carlos” at which point the entire table erupted because that doesn’t just mean “I like Carlos”, it means “I like Carlos.” So she had to teach me the right wording, which is “ me agrada Carlos.” It’s a little tougher to remember, but I expect worth it in the end. I remember now Carlos teaching me that word as an equal to gusta, except that, for example, he uses it to describe liking his friends who are male.. because “it’s less gay.”

Thursday in Xeavaj. Last week this was my most frustating class, with Marta the Mighty dominating my attention and the world. She is still doing that, trust me, but at least she gets it now. Marta is an anomaly here. Most the women are incredibly, unendingly mild and peaceful. Don’t get me wrong, they’re hilarious, always laughing, and sometimes they burst into a crazy game of broom ball that stirs up so much dust they then actually have to use their brooms for their intended purposes. But they are very respectful when they do it. Hugh has made the apt observation that in Guatemala, people just don’t talk overtop of each other. And they don’t needlessly change the subject either. Everyone has respect for everyone else, everyone listens, laughs when it’s appropriate to laugh, and pays attention when they need to pay attention. Marta alone will kind of be like “hey! Over here! I’m different and special and you need to talk to me about it!” The others assert themselves very quietly. I introduced her to Hugh this morning as my novio, my boyfriend, and the first thing she said was “when are you getting married?” (not exactly the first time we’ve heard that here.) Once again, with a little bit of a push, and couple more nouns in my vocabulary, Marta all of the sudden mastered the art of wire working with no warning but much fanfare. If there are more focused and hard working people in the universe than the women of Xeavaj, I would be amazed. I give them a task, and man, they get that task DONE. And they don’t mind doing it over and over again. (This is how I can tell they’re weavers.) In fact, I have a hard time teaching them a new technique because once they start an example, they physically cannot stop until it’s finished and it’s perfect. They will do it again if they have to, and once they’re done they’ll do another one while they’re waiting for the woman beside them to finish.. So it takes a good 10 minutes of warning and reminding before I can catch them all at a stopping point. They mean business. And they don’t like to leave me out. They know I’m here to teach, but it seems like after they learn they want me to still feel like I’m teaching them or something. Pascuala, the girl to my right today, did everything perfect, quickly, and amazingly efficiently, but she made sure that she asked my permission before completing the same exact step every single time. I approved the location of the bend in her wire for all 30 of her examples, and I never once had to correct it. Marta was still making me “Mira!” every once in a while, but she was getting it, so despite her effort at humility, I could tell she was proud of herself. These women are clearly very smart. Mix that with a work effort on the side of obsessive and you can’t really go wrong. Next week I’m going to give them the same exercise as Xela to see how well they can make a replica of the real thing, and then they’re ready to go. Also, Don Gonzalo, my exact mental image of a cool old Guatemalan man, continued to churn out perfect pretty little earrings, and muse about how the red beads in the design looked like cherries. Hugh got some fantastic pictures of him today. He loves that truck, he washed it not once, but twice today. In Xela before we left, actually while we were all sitting in it waiting to go, he was coming at it with a sponge, and then once we got to Xeavaj. And then we drove down 10 miles of unpaved road and I expect he’ll try to wash it again tomorrow. So Hugh got a picture of Gonzalo being an hombre with his truck. I think he and Dad could putter pretty well together. Hilda told me he’s a retired teacher. I napped a tiny bit on the way back in the truck, between bumping my head on the window. I think the extra rest and the 3 cups of coffee made class slightly more tolerable.

Friday Espunpuja! But it's not happened yet.

Buenos noches