6 Weeks Down, 35 to Go!

Well, I must first apologize for not posting anything after my Week 5 update. I don't have an excuse, I just got a little lazy. Don't fear, this post will be action-packed, and hopefully make up for my laziness earlier in the week.

First we'll talk about school. Monday I spent in Eduardo's class with the 4th graders. I don't remember any funny stories from that day, probably because I spent the whole time going over what the kids did during the weekend and reading Oxford Reading Tree books with the kids. They are these little books about some kids who have a magic key that takes them on adventures. Some of the kids read really well, others need lots of help. What I have noticed as a common problem is the pronunciation of past tense verbs, liked becomes like-ed, with a clear difference in syllables and not the smoothness we native English speakers have.

Tuesday was a much more challenging day. I was supposed to read one of the 3rd grade classes a story about feelings. As they finished a work sheet they were supposed to come sit on the floor and listen. This turned into chaos. Four of the boys were pushing, shoving and climbing all over each other, a few of the girls were just chatting in the back and few of them were listening. A few times I closed the book and told then that it was time to listen and if they weren't ready to listen they could go back to their desks. This worked for all of 3 pages, when I would repeat the whole speech. When I was close to finishing the book things had gone too far, so I closed it and told them I would wait for the group to be quiet. In a few minutes I knew that wasn't going to happen. While we were waiting one of the nicest, most quiet and generally good kids in the class, Miguel, asked if he could go back to his seat. Like me, he had had enough of their shenanigans. After Miguel left, I got up and gave the book back the Elena. I told her they weren't ready to listen and she made them sit in their desks and practice being quiet for the last 10 minutes of class.

On Wednesday I learned that one of my favorites, Alejandro, had learned and English phrase, "one moment, please" and he likes to use it every chance he gets. Like when I ask him to sit down his response is "one moment, please" or if i tell him it is time to work on the excercises he says "one moment, please." While cute, this new phrase is really quite annoying. It annoys me because the one phrase he uses in English is one to blow me off. I can't fault the kid for using English, but I do have to tell him, "No, now,"

While "one moment, please" is annoying it wasn't near as shocking as what Victor said to me this week. Victor is very low functioning in English. Every time I come over to help him with the exercises he looks at me and says "No entiendo ninguna palabra" ("I don't understand a single word" in Spanish). On this particular day I was walking around the class, because some of the bad kids in the back need a teacher presence in order to behave, when I passed by Victor's desk he was trying to shout a question to Elena. Very simply I told him to be quiet and listen, to which he retorted "No. Be quiet, you!" What I think he was going for was "No, you be quiet" which sounds much nicer than what he actually said. Shocking, right? The one time the kid says anything in English he is basically telling me to shut up. What the hell?

On Thursday Eimear, Anna and I put on a Halloween production of Hansel and Gretel. (I think one of the teachers took pictures, if so I will try to get them emailed to me and posted...) We were told about the play last week, but then also assigned several other tasks to complete so the play kept getting pushed back. Finally, on Wednesday we made a script and assigned characters, I was Hansel. Thursday morning we arrived an hour before our first group and made a little set. We painted windows and a door on to some butcher paper and taped them to the walls on a miniature stage. We practiced once and were trying for a second run through when the first group came in. We put on our production and it lasted less than 10 minutes. The kids heckled us yelling "Muy corto! Muy corto!" meaning "very short" in Spanish. After this epic failure we tried to improvise ways to drag our little play out. We ended up with a solid 10 minutes or play but still felt it was lacking.

When we went to have coffee/brunch, we talked with Elena and she offered us her CD with Halloween songs on it. She suggested that we play the songs and have the kids dance and sing along. So for the second and third shows we played the CD and had the kids sing along first. This worked! Between the singing/dancing and our play it was the 20 minutes we had promised Eduardo. Elena is really a wonderful teacher, she dressed up as a witch for Halloween because she was using the holiday as an excuse for them to practice order of doing things. They made a potion in class with directions using words like first, next, then and finally. She also had a skeleton costume for when the kids sang the skeleton song that went over the parts of the body. I think she is just great.

Yesterday was actually the end of week 6, but I never got around to posting. The weather the last couple of days has been kind of a bummer. It reminds me of Oregon in February. Rainy, cold, cloudy and just gray all the time. Booooo! I spent most of yesterday hanging out in my bed since I think the weather has given me a head cold. Damn wet weather, I thought I left that in Oregon!!!

I also went to see an English speaking doctor about getting more insulin. Before I left the insurance company wouldn't cover a 3 month vacation supply because we were changing companies in one month. When I had asked around the internet groups people said that their parents had just shipped medicines to them without any problem. When Mom went to ship my November supplies UPS, FedEx and the US Mail all told her they couldn't ship the package without an official letter from the Ministry of Health. Thus began me quest for Spanish insulin. A quest that was successful! Luckily in the past few decades insulins have globalized, so just the same way you can buy a Venti white chocolate mocha late at Starbucks in both DC and Madrid, you can also buy U-100 Humalog and Lantus insulins in the States and in Europe (Europe used to do U-40 formulas of other brands... but that is a tangent no one wants to read).

I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend holds. I think it all depends on how long this cold decides to settle in my sinuses. Hopefully I can rest today and do something this evening!