Tuesday, June 20, 2006
First day with the chicas
first of all, last night i went to a lecture here at ica about the war in guatemala that happened in the 70's, as far as i can tell. the man who was speaking joined the guerrilla army when he was 13, and was in it until the peace accords were signed, some years later. i didn't realize that this kind of thing was going on in guatemala, and he had a lot of really horrible, and a few nice, experiences to share. he spoke exclusively in spanish, and i was pleased that i understood the vast majority of what was being said - it appears that my spanish is coming back to me.so, today was my first day at the manuel ortega girl's school, and when the website said that walking into the school was like walking into chaos, they weren't kidding. i went with 5 other volunteers, and the four of us who hadn't been there before were assigned to classrooms. myself and another woman, whose name is... well, i can't exactly remember, but it was along the lines of yorfa (she's dutch) were assigned to one of the first grade classrooms, and told to teach english for 45 minutes. i've never taught anyone english in my life, and the other woman didn't know english or spanish that well, and the kids didn't have any experience with english, so it was a whole lot of, uh, what should we do? (i can't find the quotation marks, argh!) we started with good day (buenos dias), then very good (muy bien), and then we moved on to my name is (me llamo). after that one girl asked us how to say cat in english, and from there we decided to do animals. we covered cat, dog, horse, rabbit, elephant, lion, frog, chicken, chick, hen, caterpillar, monkey, sheep, and donkey (at least as far as i can remember). we had the girls draw pictures of all the animals and then write the name in english.
it's been quite awhile since i've been in a first grade classroom, but this class was nothing like anything i've experienced in the u.s. first of all, the girls were all different sizes, from a couple of six year olds all the way up to one girl who looked to be 10 or 11. also, those children did not understand the concept of staying in their seats while the teacher is talking. they were constantly milling about the room, talking to each other and asking me and the other woman questions. finally, the chaotic 45 minutes of english was over (i don't think any of the girls retained any of it) and it was time for recess. at this point, the rest of the volunteers left, because they had to get back for language classes. hey, someone just showed me how to change the keyboard so that it speaks english, and now my beloved " are back! hurray!
anyhow, i told the teacher, the kids called her seña yoli, that i didn't have any other obligations and could stay and help out after recess if she wanted me to, and that was fine with her. then a couple of the younger girls wanted me to go play outside with them, so i gave that a go. let me just say, if you don't know spanish fluently, a playground is not the best place to learn it. the girls were trying to explain some game to me that looked to be a variation of duck duck goose, but they were speaking so fast and it was so loud outside that i didn't catch most of it. they were trying hard to explain things to me, but they weren't terribly adept at substituting words i didn't know for ones i did, so we spent several frustrating minutes trying to find a game that i could understand. after attempting duck duck goose, we moved on to something that seemed to be a hybrid of ring around the rosy (without the falling down) and blob tag. we made a big circle around one girl, and then went around in a circle singing something, and then everyone unexpectedly ran away. the girl who had been in the middle grabbed me, and said that we were the lobos (wolves) and had to eat everyone else. that wasn't terribly, successful, so next we moved on to london bridge is falling down, which i understood, more or less. the tune of the song was different and it involved something about "here come all my children, and this one is the worst" at which point the girls with their arms forming the "bridge" would lower them around whoever happend to be between them. after that, the trapped girl was asked, "do you eat watermelon or oranges?" and then she would go stand behind one of the girls forming the "bridge" - one girl was watermelon, and the other one, oranges, apparently. then we'd begin again. after everyone had be captured and chosen a side (i went with watermelon), everyone started to push each other, like a reverse tug-of-war. i did not participate in that part, and had to give hugs and sympathethic looks to several girls who got their feet stepped on or scraped their knees or fingers. the girls spent the remainder of the break pulling each other's skirts up, something which was enjoyed by all (i'm wearing jeans, so i didn't have to deal with my skirt being pulled up).
after the break, we went back into the classroom, and the girls all started drinking atol, which is the color of coffee with cream, and apparently consists of four different cereal crops, corn, wheat, and two others i didn't recognize. it was warm and very sweet, and reminded me of pureed oatmeal. some of the girls also had large sheets (probably about 6 inches square) of something fried (they looked like giant tortilla chips, but thicker) smeared with ketchup, i think. several of them were also eating something pink and slushy looking out of ziploc baggies, like a slurpee sort of. the teacher didn't come back for quite awhile, twenty minutes maybe, so i broke out my camera to entertain them. the oldest girl, anna, wanted to take pictures of everybody, so i'm going to try to post those for you. yesterday the internet connection at the place with usb ports was down, but i'm going to go back there soon and try to put up photos.
when the teacher finally came back, she taught the girls about the "c" sound, and they spent the remainder of the afternoon practicing that and writing it in their notebooks. the teacher and the girls write exclusively in cursive, which i think is interesting. they also sang some songs, and were all very happy when i promised to come back tomorrow. the girls wanted kisses on their way out, and after i figured out what they were asking for, i obliged (most of them kissed me when i first came in).
that's all for now, and hopefully i'll get some picture up!
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Hey I'm glad that the first day went well and I hope that it will continue to go well. I'm glad that las chica seem to like you, that was going to be a 50-50. Anyway I will try to continue leaving comments so you don't forget me ;). Talk to later y buena suerte con todo su viaje y manana, i know there is supposed to be a thing over the "n", but deal with it.
Alex