This week, I had a few positive teaching moments and a lot
of positive Spanish language moments. I asked my 3rd grade students
a critical thinking questions while we studied the numbers from 11 to 20 and at
least one person in each class got it, so hallelujah for that! The question
was, “Why are jóvenes called ‘teens’
in English?” The answer is because many of the numbers 11 to 20 end in “teen.” Critical
thinking questions don’t seem particularly common in schooling here, so
encouraging students to think for themselves is challenging and extremely
important. Later in the week, I taught a 1st grade class their
English lesson by myself, which was definitely a test of my classroom
management skills and I’m finding that I’m getting slowly better at managing a
room of 35-ish primary students.
On Wednesday, my host sister’s fiancé came to stay at our
house. He got bit by a caiman while swimming in a river near his hostel and
came into town for surgery. He will recover at our house and his brother and
dad came to stay with him, as will. I let them all know that I’m “a la orden” if they need anything and I
translated several times between his dad and my host mom. That part was
actually quite fun because, although he speaks little Spanish and she speaks
little English, they seemed to be getting along just fine without me because
they were both trying so hard with the few words they knew and lots of facial
expressions and gestures. I definitely wish all the language learners I worked
with were like them – unafraid to take risks, be wrong, look silly, and do
whatever it takes to get a message across. I sat down with them a few times to
interpret and there were still lots of gestures and facial expressions and that
really brightened my week. That said, as much fun as I’m having interpreting, I
hope my soon-to-be host brother recovers quickly and feels better soon.
Saturday, I went with the same volunteer to lunch at the
same vegetarian restaurant that we went to last week. He had just finished
working at his school’s granja for
the morning and told me about a running joke among his students. He was always
telling them, “¡Cuidado!”, “Be
careful!”, and they were yelling it after him on his way out of the school.
Apparently, the students like to climb trees with axes to gather mangos and
light brush-burning fires next to the school library. I just laughed – it
sounds like he has a Boy Scout troop working at the granja!
- The soda, H2Oh!, came out while we were in
training and, though I was hesitant to try any soda that seemed to pass in the
Colombian market as “flavored water” (it’s definitely a diet soda, but diet
sodas aren’t very common here, so I guess that’s why it went better as “flavored
water”), I now have recipes (mostly for smoothies) that go with every flavor.
You can mix the limón one with just
about any fruit, though with watermelon is particularly good. Maracuyá goes well with, well, maracuyá. And frutas tropicales can be mixed with a peach, a sugar mango, and a
slice of pineapple and frozen to make a really good no-sugar-added sorbet.
- “A la orden”, is
a phrase that means something like, “happy to help,” though in some situations,
it can also mean, “thank you,” or, “you’re welcome.” You’ll hear it a lot in
stores from attendants and cashiers and sometimes when you give someone a
compliment about something they’re wearing, they’ll say, “a la orden”, instead of “gracias”.
The idea with the latter is that you’re welcome to borrow it if you’d like to,
but that’s not a particularly serious offer and it’s really more like saying,
“thank you.”
- There are lots of good ice cream places and chains along
the Coast. One chain in Santa Marta that’s good is Yogenfrüz – there’s one in
the Centro and one will open in Buena Vista soon. You tell them what size
container you want and whether you want vanilla or chocolate. Then, you pick a
fruit and they blend it into your frozen yogurt. It’s really quite good and
I’ve been there a few times now (and will likely go more when they open in
Buena Vista).
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