But that's what I did to the blog. You can now leave comments without having to be a registered user.
Bon apetit.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Viernes
I can’t figure out if Friday was a good day or a bad one. I got up early to prepare for my Espunpuja class. I cut about 400 little wires for practice, ate breakfast, and studied some verbs while I waited on Hilda. I also checked my email, and noticed Lupe STILL hadn’t emailed me back from last weekend when I told her what the remainder of the stuff we needed to order was. Not only that, I hadn’t gotten any shipping confirmations from the websites she should have been ordering from. So I shot her one more email asking if she’d done it, and that I’d call her when I got back from Espunpuja. Don Gonzalo was late coming to drive us out, we should have left around 8, wasn’t there by 8:30, and then Claudia ran out saying I had a phone call from Lupe. So Lupe forgot to buy my materials. And then we spent the next hour between the phone and the computer, trying to figure out what went where. For a second I thought we could get wholesale from this one website, and we signed up for it, and then realized they didn’t offer sterling silver, so we had to change plans again. I need earring wire, and I’m pretty sure Firemountaingems.com is doing their best to screw us over when we buy it. It costs $1.00 per pair! I need 100 pairs! They only offer them in packages of 5 and 500, so either I buy 20 packages of 5 (which is ridiculous and overpriced because it’s small) or 400 extra wires for twice as much money as I’m able to spend. The other ridiculous part is that Lupe is leaving on Wednesday, so we had to rush ship everything.
So after that we were something like an hour or an hour and a half late to Espunpuja. Hilda was supposed to have a cooking class at the same time as my class, but there didn’t end up being enough time for her to bother starting, so it was just me for a while.
I’m not sure if I will ever figure out how to deal with this place. I told Hilda I was buying 3 more sets of tools, so she told the women I could have 8 people in my class. Which is really not possible. It’s possible in other places or with my other groups, but not this one. First of all, our work space is on a porch with a table that’s against the wall. Half is covered in dried corn, and all of it is covered in that orange-brown dust that permeated my life one year ago. There aren’t any chairs, so we stand at the table, which is too low to be useful, and I basically have to sit on it to be able to see everyone. The next problem I have there is that the women are incredibly stubborn. There’s maybe one, Yolanda, that I made a dent with. They don’t wait for me to tell them exactly how to do something, they look at it and just do it-which is somewhat admirable, but the problem after that is that it’s wrong. It doesn’t look good. I went one by one to each girl, all the while the other ones are literally hitting me and shoving what they’ve already done in my face. I get them to do one perfect one with me, and I have to move on to the next. And then the next time that last girl shoves 5 beads in my face, they all look exactly like they did before. I’m fairly positive some don’t speak Spanish, only Mam. Plus I was dealing with one screaming baby in Cantel that made my life so hard, here almost every single woman has a child on their back at every point in time. And if she’s too big to fit on the woman’s back, she’s glued to the leg of her mother, poking at the tools. Don’t get me wrong; I completely understand that I am entering their lives in Espunpuja. I am trying to help them without changing the things that are normal and right and good for them. They’re mothers, they have babies, and a child is not something you can just throw out to a daycare here, nor do I think it would be a good idea even if one existed! Obviously I am just not very good with kids. It’s a trait I already knew I possessed. I like to treat them like they’re adults, or basically ignore them if they don’t take well to that. Luckily, Luie is smart enough to have won my respect, but I haven’t met many as cool as Luie. Granted, the children here tend to be much more well behaved than the most polite child in Richmond, not to mention they’re probably the most beautiful group of human beings that ever existed, but I still have problems working around them in jewelry classes. It’s just not my comfort zone. I’m also worried about materials here. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but the women here like to keep what they’ve made. In no way do I think that they are even close to the level of stealing, but they do tend to keep. I noticed last week I left with less beads than I came with, by a little. This week I think the women were under the impression that the more examples they made, and the quicker they did it the better. So I look over and all 5 women have giant piles of incorrectly completed examples, and the pile of unused beads is down to 3. I stopped to help one girl for a while, look up, and all the women are gone, and all the beads are gone. I use these beads in every single class I have. They’re some cheap things Kim brought with her to use for practice, and every single day I sit at the table here and cut off the wires from the class before so we can reuse them for the next class. I have to have these beads! I ended up being able to retrieve them. They all had them in the pockets of their aprons, and surrendered them willingly. One woman had wrapped them up and knotted them in a bag. I don’t know. So when it gets to the time that they might maaaybe be ready for silver, I can’t stay in this location. I can’t bring back earrings to the U.S. that are covered in dust and kid snot and expect them to sell. It sucks but this is a business and it’s true. That’s number one. I also can’t allow the materials to be so carelessly handled. Even the scrap from the silver needs to be saved so we can recycle it. I also need to nip this idea in the bud that it’s ok to take home materials or keep anything you’ve made. I figured they understood this class is to make things to sell in the US for money, not to make things to keep. I don’t know where that idea came from or what to say to change it. And 8 people at one table are too many!
The one beautiful and amazing thing that came out of my time there today though is that Hilda set up weaving classes for me! The women in Espunpuja are going to teach me how to weave with a backstrap loom after I’m done with school and have more time! Next week, I’m bringing money so they can buy me what I need for equipment, and later Hilda will take me to San Juan to pick out thread colors that I like. That is something that I’m just so excited about I can’t handle it. I can’t wait until I’m done with Rosario anyway, now I’m squirming! I think it might help to have a teacher-student, student-teacher relationship with them, too. They tend to not pay attention to me ever. Maybe it will help to have more time with them doing things they already know how to do.
After that I had a shower and a grilled cheese sandwich and it was already time to go to school. I dream about skipping class now. It feels so good in my mind to just not have to talk to Rosario for one afternoon.. How did this happen? I went from Spanish class being the highlight of my day, to something that I dread and have bad dreams about. I wake up early every morning, putting together phrases in Spanish to describe to Olga, or Carlos, or someone as to why Rosario is a terrible teacher and I want to change, and I know I’ll never get the chance to say it. It’s just too mean. She’s a kind person, but she’s a hampster. She likes shiny things and has no depth of character or cleverness. She’s always making jokes at my expense in front of others. She knows I can’t understand much Spanish, and then she comes at me with this fast phrase that I can’t put together, and everyone else laughs and I stand there and am like “what? Can someone please explain why everyone is laughing?” “It’s a joke, Caitie, a joke!” “I get that because everyone is laughing, but what did you say?” “Oh, it was just a little joke!”
So class, and we had one of those school dinners where everyone makes a dish with their teacher. Carlos doesn’t have a student this week, he’s busy with his volunteer organization, so he wasn’t there. We left halfway through class to go to the market to buy vegetables, and on the way stopped at Parque Central where there was some sort of massive celebration going on. In the road was a big open air stage, more or less. There were two platforms on either side of something like a 30 yard wide space. And in the space was a temporary “rug” made out of colored sawdust. There were 20 or so actors, who danced and spoke and wore amazing costumes. One platform on one side was decorated in Purple feathers, and had this guy dressed up as some sort of demon, which I took to be Xibalba-the Maya’s version of hell, and on the other side, the platform was all orange and yellow, and had a old man dressed in white and blindfolded, which I took to be heaven. In between on the rug the actors seemed to depict life and death, battles between hell and heaven, battles between these amazing demons on stilts, all kinds of actions and narrations that I couldn’t understand. We couldn’t watch the whole thing, I think it was something like 2 hours long and we only got maybe 20 minutes. Dinner was good. We made a salad that was really tasty that I’m sure I’ll make again, and there are a lot of students at the school right now so there were a lot of people to talk to. There was a French couple there for only one week that’s 2 months through a 7 month long trip through central and south America. We talked to them for a while, and tried to find a coffee shop or bar to sit and talk in, but we don’t know anywhere since we’re lame homebodies, and the places they knew of were too packed to get in. We ended up going to La Rumba, the club Carlos likes to dance at. I would have been a lot happier if I’d been able to go home between dinner and the club, because I had a bookbag and flip flops, and therefore could definitely not dance. Also, it’s a salsa joint, and it was packed with the most amazing dancers I’ve ever seen. Turning and flipping and steps that I couldn’t work out ever. It was really loud and kind of awkward with two people you don’t really know, would like to know, but can’t hear, so we left, and right as we left Carlos was coming in. He convinced us to stay for a bit longer, but he walked straight through the door and onto the dance floor, no in between. It’s true. He is an impressive dancer and clearly has a lot of fun. He apparently doesn’t take breaks, and though he kept gesturing at us to join him, not only are we not dressed appropriately for salsa dancing, but we are also terrible, so we left.
And then I went to sleep.
So after that we were something like an hour or an hour and a half late to Espunpuja. Hilda was supposed to have a cooking class at the same time as my class, but there didn’t end up being enough time for her to bother starting, so it was just me for a while.
I’m not sure if I will ever figure out how to deal with this place. I told Hilda I was buying 3 more sets of tools, so she told the women I could have 8 people in my class. Which is really not possible. It’s possible in other places or with my other groups, but not this one. First of all, our work space is on a porch with a table that’s against the wall. Half is covered in dried corn, and all of it is covered in that orange-brown dust that permeated my life one year ago. There aren’t any chairs, so we stand at the table, which is too low to be useful, and I basically have to sit on it to be able to see everyone. The next problem I have there is that the women are incredibly stubborn. There’s maybe one, Yolanda, that I made a dent with. They don’t wait for me to tell them exactly how to do something, they look at it and just do it-which is somewhat admirable, but the problem after that is that it’s wrong. It doesn’t look good. I went one by one to each girl, all the while the other ones are literally hitting me and shoving what they’ve already done in my face. I get them to do one perfect one with me, and I have to move on to the next. And then the next time that last girl shoves 5 beads in my face, they all look exactly like they did before. I’m fairly positive some don’t speak Spanish, only Mam. Plus I was dealing with one screaming baby in Cantel that made my life so hard, here almost every single woman has a child on their back at every point in time. And if she’s too big to fit on the woman’s back, she’s glued to the leg of her mother, poking at the tools. Don’t get me wrong; I completely understand that I am entering their lives in Espunpuja. I am trying to help them without changing the things that are normal and right and good for them. They’re mothers, they have babies, and a child is not something you can just throw out to a daycare here, nor do I think it would be a good idea even if one existed! Obviously I am just not very good with kids. It’s a trait I already knew I possessed. I like to treat them like they’re adults, or basically ignore them if they don’t take well to that. Luckily, Luie is smart enough to have won my respect, but I haven’t met many as cool as Luie. Granted, the children here tend to be much more well behaved than the most polite child in Richmond, not to mention they’re probably the most beautiful group of human beings that ever existed, but I still have problems working around them in jewelry classes. It’s just not my comfort zone. I’m also worried about materials here. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but the women here like to keep what they’ve made. In no way do I think that they are even close to the level of stealing, but they do tend to keep. I noticed last week I left with less beads than I came with, by a little. This week I think the women were under the impression that the more examples they made, and the quicker they did it the better. So I look over and all 5 women have giant piles of incorrectly completed examples, and the pile of unused beads is down to 3. I stopped to help one girl for a while, look up, and all the women are gone, and all the beads are gone. I use these beads in every single class I have. They’re some cheap things Kim brought with her to use for practice, and every single day I sit at the table here and cut off the wires from the class before so we can reuse them for the next class. I have to have these beads! I ended up being able to retrieve them. They all had them in the pockets of their aprons, and surrendered them willingly. One woman had wrapped them up and knotted them in a bag. I don’t know. So when it gets to the time that they might maaaybe be ready for silver, I can’t stay in this location. I can’t bring back earrings to the U.S. that are covered in dust and kid snot and expect them to sell. It sucks but this is a business and it’s true. That’s number one. I also can’t allow the materials to be so carelessly handled. Even the scrap from the silver needs to be saved so we can recycle it. I also need to nip this idea in the bud that it’s ok to take home materials or keep anything you’ve made. I figured they understood this class is to make things to sell in the US for money, not to make things to keep. I don’t know where that idea came from or what to say to change it. And 8 people at one table are too many!
The one beautiful and amazing thing that came out of my time there today though is that Hilda set up weaving classes for me! The women in Espunpuja are going to teach me how to weave with a backstrap loom after I’m done with school and have more time! Next week, I’m bringing money so they can buy me what I need for equipment, and later Hilda will take me to San Juan to pick out thread colors that I like. That is something that I’m just so excited about I can’t handle it. I can’t wait until I’m done with Rosario anyway, now I’m squirming! I think it might help to have a teacher-student, student-teacher relationship with them, too. They tend to not pay attention to me ever. Maybe it will help to have more time with them doing things they already know how to do.
After that I had a shower and a grilled cheese sandwich and it was already time to go to school. I dream about skipping class now. It feels so good in my mind to just not have to talk to Rosario for one afternoon.. How did this happen? I went from Spanish class being the highlight of my day, to something that I dread and have bad dreams about. I wake up early every morning, putting together phrases in Spanish to describe to Olga, or Carlos, or someone as to why Rosario is a terrible teacher and I want to change, and I know I’ll never get the chance to say it. It’s just too mean. She’s a kind person, but she’s a hampster. She likes shiny things and has no depth of character or cleverness. She’s always making jokes at my expense in front of others. She knows I can’t understand much Spanish, and then she comes at me with this fast phrase that I can’t put together, and everyone else laughs and I stand there and am like “what? Can someone please explain why everyone is laughing?” “It’s a joke, Caitie, a joke!” “I get that because everyone is laughing, but what did you say?” “Oh, it was just a little joke!”
So class, and we had one of those school dinners where everyone makes a dish with their teacher. Carlos doesn’t have a student this week, he’s busy with his volunteer organization, so he wasn’t there. We left halfway through class to go to the market to buy vegetables, and on the way stopped at Parque Central where there was some sort of massive celebration going on. In the road was a big open air stage, more or less. There were two platforms on either side of something like a 30 yard wide space. And in the space was a temporary “rug” made out of colored sawdust. There were 20 or so actors, who danced and spoke and wore amazing costumes. One platform on one side was decorated in Purple feathers, and had this guy dressed up as some sort of demon, which I took to be Xibalba-the Maya’s version of hell, and on the other side, the platform was all orange and yellow, and had a old man dressed in white and blindfolded, which I took to be heaven. In between on the rug the actors seemed to depict life and death, battles between hell and heaven, battles between these amazing demons on stilts, all kinds of actions and narrations that I couldn’t understand. We couldn’t watch the whole thing, I think it was something like 2 hours long and we only got maybe 20 minutes. Dinner was good. We made a salad that was really tasty that I’m sure I’ll make again, and there are a lot of students at the school right now so there were a lot of people to talk to. There was a French couple there for only one week that’s 2 months through a 7 month long trip through central and south America. We talked to them for a while, and tried to find a coffee shop or bar to sit and talk in, but we don’t know anywhere since we’re lame homebodies, and the places they knew of were too packed to get in. We ended up going to La Rumba, the club Carlos likes to dance at. I would have been a lot happier if I’d been able to go home between dinner and the club, because I had a bookbag and flip flops, and therefore could definitely not dance. Also, it’s a salsa joint, and it was packed with the most amazing dancers I’ve ever seen. Turning and flipping and steps that I couldn’t work out ever. It was really loud and kind of awkward with two people you don’t really know, would like to know, but can’t hear, so we left, and right as we left Carlos was coming in. He convinced us to stay for a bit longer, but he walked straight through the door and onto the dance floor, no in between. It’s true. He is an impressive dancer and clearly has a lot of fun. He apparently doesn’t take breaks, and though he kept gesturing at us to join him, not only are we not dressed appropriately for salsa dancing, but we are also terrible, so we left.
And then I went to sleep.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Yo Tengo Una Maestra Nueva
It's been a sad few days for me.
The way our Spanish school works is that every two weeks the teachers change. I guess this is so we get more experience with other perspectives, accents, styles etc. So I've lost my good friend Carlos, and he has been replaced with Rosario.
Rosario is something like 4'10", 45 or so years old, and her favorite word is "Linda! Muy muy liiiiiiiiindaa!" which is "Pretty! so so cuuuuuute!" She only wants to talk about pretty things. and sometimes food. and not much else. She doesn't know english, and I've forgotten my dictionary the last two days. So when she gives me a word I don't know, she just kind of stares at me blankly. Not good with examples, apparently. With Carlos, I left every day with pages full of drawings, and sometimes, he'd bounce down the hallway to give me the word for "jump." Usually, though, if she gives me a word she thinks is obvious, or something she mentioned the day before that I don't remember, she'll laugh at me. Chuckle and kind of shrug her shoulders and make me feel stupid or hopeless. At one point she actually asked me "why aren't you laughing?" I told her because I was tired, but I really should have said because it's not funny. I've struggled through the last three days. 5 hours of talking to this lady about how pretty the color of her blouse is is getting to be too much. I tell her I'm quiet because i'm tired, but really I'm just kind of depressed. I miss Carlos. I haven't learned anything in 3 days. I read a lot of stupid stories out of a spanish practice book, and answer some obvious questions: "and then what did she say?" and usually she doesn't even have enough for me to do to make it till the end of the day. I drink like 4 cups of coffee just to have the energy to respond to her. Yesterday I repaired a pair of earrings for her. today she brought a necklace for me to fix. I know the word for fake silver and her favorite shell for necklaces. Why? Augh. It's so sad.
Otherwise, my jewelry classes are going really really excitingly well. Mis estudiantes are really starting to develop a memory with their hands. My Xela class is totally ready for silver. If only I had it. I will write about all my classes in another post. Yanessi wants the internet I think.
The way our Spanish school works is that every two weeks the teachers change. I guess this is so we get more experience with other perspectives, accents, styles etc. So I've lost my good friend Carlos, and he has been replaced with Rosario.
Rosario is something like 4'10", 45 or so years old, and her favorite word is "Linda! Muy muy liiiiiiiiindaa!" which is "Pretty! so so cuuuuuute!" She only wants to talk about pretty things. and sometimes food. and not much else. She doesn't know english, and I've forgotten my dictionary the last two days. So when she gives me a word I don't know, she just kind of stares at me blankly. Not good with examples, apparently. With Carlos, I left every day with pages full of drawings, and sometimes, he'd bounce down the hallway to give me the word for "jump." Usually, though, if she gives me a word she thinks is obvious, or something she mentioned the day before that I don't remember, she'll laugh at me. Chuckle and kind of shrug her shoulders and make me feel stupid or hopeless. At one point she actually asked me "why aren't you laughing?" I told her because I was tired, but I really should have said because it's not funny. I've struggled through the last three days. 5 hours of talking to this lady about how pretty the color of her blouse is is getting to be too much. I tell her I'm quiet because i'm tired, but really I'm just kind of depressed. I miss Carlos. I haven't learned anything in 3 days. I read a lot of stupid stories out of a spanish practice book, and answer some obvious questions: "and then what did she say?" and usually she doesn't even have enough for me to do to make it till the end of the day. I drink like 4 cups of coffee just to have the energy to respond to her. Yesterday I repaired a pair of earrings for her. today she brought a necklace for me to fix. I know the word for fake silver and her favorite shell for necklaces. Why? Augh. It's so sad.
Otherwise, my jewelry classes are going really really excitingly well. Mis estudiantes are really starting to develop a memory with their hands. My Xela class is totally ready for silver. If only I had it. I will write about all my classes in another post. Yanessi wants the internet I think.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Yo deseo saber mas espanol
I have a hard time making myself sit with a notebook and memorize spanish words. Studying was never my strong suit.
Anyway, today is Sunday, and though many businesses aren't open, the parque is usually rolling with the influx of people from all over town together to worship at the big catholic church. We've gotten into the habit now of walking up a side street from the house to the park, which is quiet and still. We can walk on the road so that we don't have to stare at the back of the other one's head, and there's no exhaust or honking.
The car honking situation here is another befuddling thing to me. There is a specific language invented around the car horn that I've had to learn recently along with Spanish. First of all, there's the idea of the "friendly honk." I've heard of the existence of such a think in places like NYC, but in Richmond, if you hear a car horn it means one thing and one thing only, and for the sake of my extended family who possibly read this I will abstain from using that kind of vocabulary. So here, there is the "hey, I know you!" honk, the "you drive a car just like me!" honk, the "i'm here, are you ready?" honk, the "I'm turning left now" honk, "I want that parking place", "do you need a cab?", "thanks for letting me merge", "thanks for getting out of my way," "I'm passing you", "I want to turn right, but there's possibly a pedestrian crossing, please have caution." "you're foreign", "you're a cute girl", "you're wearing a red shirt". There's also, still, the angry honk. Generally it's longer in duration and accompanied by some unintelligable Spanish, or in the case of Gonzalo, Quiche. Angry honks mean a range of things as well, such as "you cut me off!", "you didn't let me cut you off!", "why are you stopping?!", "why are you stopping at this stop sign!?", "This road construction makes me angry!" Then there is the mass transit system, which has a full language of it's own. The chicken buses, which are pimped out, blinged out, decal laden recycled school buses, honk more than any other vehicle on the planet. In fact, their horn, which is one of those pull chord deals like a tractor trailer, is usually decorated with streamers or beaded or woven out of colorful plastic lanyard material.
This might actually be a good opportunity to describe the chicken bus experience in general. These guys love their job. There's the one guy who drives, and then he's got his buddy up at the front with him that operates the door, collects the money, shouts destinations, throws large loads onto the luggage cage on top, or otherwise changes the CD or grabs a bag of mango for the driver from a vender. The driver, while he's shifting gears and eating slices of mango out of a plastic bag, somehow manages to steer at the same time. Every bus has a woman's name, either Marie, or Guadalupe, or whatever, and often has something about God watching over it painted across the windshield. On the inside i've seen posters and decals of the Simpsons to Che Guavara. My first experience on the chicken buy to Cantel was a little harrowing. These guys fly... I don't know how you get a school bus to go this fast, I guess they pimp out the engines too, but we're barreling UP a mountain, and in the distance we can see a full dumptruck probably full of gravel or bricks or something else ridiculously heavy. It's creeping through this narrow pass, our bus honking at it the entire time from a good distance behind. It disappears around a blind pin turn right as we are starting to catch up to it, and the driver is NOT slowing down. As we come to the turn the buddy is just hanging on the horn, and we're barreling through, and I'm in complete shock as to how this could possibly not end in my bus and that truck becoming one united vehicle. And we make it to the other side of the blind turn right at the moment when physics and instinct tell me we should be directly on top of that dump truck, and low and behold, it's just taken it's own initiative to move itself out of the way. Granted, out of the way means it was in the lane of oncoming traffic, so that we passed it on it's right, which is something else completely brain melting for someone who holds a virginia driver's license. None the less.. out of the way. The one guy communicated with the horn that he was coming and to get the hell out of the way, and the other guy obeyed. Sorry mom and dad, that story might be more than you can handle. All that fun for only 3 Quetzales.
So anyway, now that i've got that out of the way, we walked through central Xela some more, came back for that siesta, cleaned the house a bit before the family returned, and headed out again in search of lunch and something to fill up the afternoon. Lunch landed on this touristy mediterranean place that was really delicious and really comfortable. Maybe I don't want to eat tacos for the rest of my life here. After that, we headed out to find the cemetery. It was a pretty easy walk through the east part of Xela. We passed I think 3 Xelapan bakeries before we got there, so I'd say it was about a mile or so. The cemetery is attached to a gorgeous yellow church, and there were a lot of people milling around, so we tried to find the street entrance. The wall of the cemetery has a couple murals on it from what looks like elementary school students, addressed to the police. They were really bizarre and I wiish I had a better command of Spanish so I could interpret them. One was an armed police man escorting an old man holding possibly a kitten. I couldn't tell if he was helping the other across the street, or taking him into custody. Then, my favorite, a man in what looks like a hazmat suit, gas mask and all, spraying something onto vegetation. No idea. The street entrance was locked, so we went back to the church, where a procession was forming, and down the street, a large crowd of people and a coffin rounded the corner on it's way into the cemetery. What was interesting to me was that the colors of mourning for traditionally dressed women are purples. The modern dressers were in black, and the old maya women were in purple. We watched that for a bit and then headed home.
Here's another weird thing. There's a public bathroom attached to Parque Central, but you have to pay 1Q to use it. Literally, a guy with a cash box sits inside the doorway. I can't figure out what the money goes to.. they don't even provide toilet paper! (rest assured, I never leave home without it.)
Well I'm really tired, and I have nothing else to report, besides the fact that I made the most delicious and satisfying cup of hot chocolate I have ever encountered. And I have swallowed a lot of hot chocolate in my life.
Buenos noches!
Anyway, today is Sunday, and though many businesses aren't open, the parque is usually rolling with the influx of people from all over town together to worship at the big catholic church. We've gotten into the habit now of walking up a side street from the house to the park, which is quiet and still. We can walk on the road so that we don't have to stare at the back of the other one's head, and there's no exhaust or honking.
The car honking situation here is another befuddling thing to me. There is a specific language invented around the car horn that I've had to learn recently along with Spanish. First of all, there's the idea of the "friendly honk." I've heard of the existence of such a think in places like NYC, but in Richmond, if you hear a car horn it means one thing and one thing only, and for the sake of my extended family who possibly read this I will abstain from using that kind of vocabulary. So here, there is the "hey, I know you!" honk, the "you drive a car just like me!" honk, the "i'm here, are you ready?" honk, the "I'm turning left now" honk, "I want that parking place", "do you need a cab?", "thanks for letting me merge", "thanks for getting out of my way," "I'm passing you", "I want to turn right, but there's possibly a pedestrian crossing, please have caution." "you're foreign", "you're a cute girl", "you're wearing a red shirt". There's also, still, the angry honk. Generally it's longer in duration and accompanied by some unintelligable Spanish, or in the case of Gonzalo, Quiche. Angry honks mean a range of things as well, such as "you cut me off!", "you didn't let me cut you off!", "why are you stopping?!", "why are you stopping at this stop sign!?", "This road construction makes me angry!" Then there is the mass transit system, which has a full language of it's own. The chicken buses, which are pimped out, blinged out, decal laden recycled school buses, honk more than any other vehicle on the planet. In fact, their horn, which is one of those pull chord deals like a tractor trailer, is usually decorated with streamers or beaded or woven out of colorful plastic lanyard material.
This might actually be a good opportunity to describe the chicken bus experience in general. These guys love their job. There's the one guy who drives, and then he's got his buddy up at the front with him that operates the door, collects the money, shouts destinations, throws large loads onto the luggage cage on top, or otherwise changes the CD or grabs a bag of mango for the driver from a vender. The driver, while he's shifting gears and eating slices of mango out of a plastic bag, somehow manages to steer at the same time. Every bus has a woman's name, either Marie, or Guadalupe, or whatever, and often has something about God watching over it painted across the windshield. On the inside i've seen posters and decals of the Simpsons to Che Guavara. My first experience on the chicken buy to Cantel was a little harrowing. These guys fly... I don't know how you get a school bus to go this fast, I guess they pimp out the engines too, but we're barreling UP a mountain, and in the distance we can see a full dumptruck probably full of gravel or bricks or something else ridiculously heavy. It's creeping through this narrow pass, our bus honking at it the entire time from a good distance behind. It disappears around a blind pin turn right as we are starting to catch up to it, and the driver is NOT slowing down. As we come to the turn the buddy is just hanging on the horn, and we're barreling through, and I'm in complete shock as to how this could possibly not end in my bus and that truck becoming one united vehicle. And we make it to the other side of the blind turn right at the moment when physics and instinct tell me we should be directly on top of that dump truck, and low and behold, it's just taken it's own initiative to move itself out of the way. Granted, out of the way means it was in the lane of oncoming traffic, so that we passed it on it's right, which is something else completely brain melting for someone who holds a virginia driver's license. None the less.. out of the way. The one guy communicated with the horn that he was coming and to get the hell out of the way, and the other guy obeyed. Sorry mom and dad, that story might be more than you can handle. All that fun for only 3 Quetzales.
So anyway, now that i've got that out of the way, we walked through central Xela some more, came back for that siesta, cleaned the house a bit before the family returned, and headed out again in search of lunch and something to fill up the afternoon. Lunch landed on this touristy mediterranean place that was really delicious and really comfortable. Maybe I don't want to eat tacos for the rest of my life here. After that, we headed out to find the cemetery. It was a pretty easy walk through the east part of Xela. We passed I think 3 Xelapan bakeries before we got there, so I'd say it was about a mile or so. The cemetery is attached to a gorgeous yellow church, and there were a lot of people milling around, so we tried to find the street entrance. The wall of the cemetery has a couple murals on it from what looks like elementary school students, addressed to the police. They were really bizarre and I wiish I had a better command of Spanish so I could interpret them. One was an armed police man escorting an old man holding possibly a kitten. I couldn't tell if he was helping the other across the street, or taking him into custody. Then, my favorite, a man in what looks like a hazmat suit, gas mask and all, spraying something onto vegetation. No idea. The street entrance was locked, so we went back to the church, where a procession was forming, and down the street, a large crowd of people and a coffin rounded the corner on it's way into the cemetery. What was interesting to me was that the colors of mourning for traditionally dressed women are purples. The modern dressers were in black, and the old maya women were in purple. We watched that for a bit and then headed home.
Here's another weird thing. There's a public bathroom attached to Parque Central, but you have to pay 1Q to use it. Literally, a guy with a cash box sits inside the doorway. I can't figure out what the money goes to.. they don't even provide toilet paper! (rest assured, I never leave home without it.)
Well I'm really tired, and I have nothing else to report, besides the fact that I made the most delicious and satisfying cup of hot chocolate I have ever encountered. And I have swallowed a lot of hot chocolate in my life.
Buenos noches!
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