Lessons and Life

I've officially taught an English lesson! Well, to be honest, more like a half lesson of English (the student was very talkative!). But I have been hired by 2 different schools and so more lessons are soon to follow.

My student, Eliana, is 32, and is warm, friendly, chatty and vivacious. She was a little late arriving to her apartment, which left me trying to explain to her neighbor in broken Spanish that I really was fine waiting, and that she really was coming. He continued to rattle things at me in fast paced Spanish, and I continued to smile and repeat myself and flutter the piece of paper with Eliana's name and address weakly in his face until Eliana herself appeared to save the day, thank him for looking after me, and let me into her house.

The lesson itself went smoothly. Eliana asked constant questions, and seemed to soak in every answer. She wrote down several things that I said, and demanded explanations of casual comments. We introduced ourselves, and I instantly liked her. She made faces at her mistakes with the tenses of English, and offered me Diet Coke several times throughout the lesson. I didn't need any--I had already had some water at a nearby cafe, as well as some pineapple rings with dulce de leche inside of them. So sweet! I asked Eliana if that was a normal dessert, and she laughed and said "No! That is just too much sweet!" I've got to agree. But I'm so in love with Dulce de Leche ice cream, I kind of want to put caramel on everything now.

I told Eliana that she could call me anytime with questions (she is my only student for the time being, after all), and also told her we should go out for drinks sometime. She was excited with this, and told me "YES! But... we aren't going to speak any English if we go out, because lots of the cute boys are lazy and don't want to put effort into speaking to you. We'll speak Spanish." I chuckled and replied "Well, then I won't be saying very much..."

My roommate, Muriel, admonished me and has told me that I need to work on my Spanish, or I will never improve. We spent a lunch going over necessary verbs, and also the words that indicate a question, the "who," "what," "when," "why," "how," etc. She yawned over her creamy pasta dish and said "You'd better go write this down, or else you won't remember any of it." I dashed off at the suggestion, and scribbled it all down in my newly purchased notebook.

Muriel has been really wonderful with me. She's shown me how to light the ancient monster we call her oven, and how to steam vegetables. She also took me by train to Microcentro, the downtown area of Buenos Aires, where we rode with our bicycles on the Critical Mass ride. I cycled around Buenos Aires with over 1,000 other bicyclists. We rode around the city, talked and laughed... some cyclists attached drums or speakers to their bikes, so there was singing and shouting along with the beat. The busy Buenos Aires auto traffic did not all approve of Critial Mass-- they honked angrily at being forced to stop, but the cyclists paid no heed, waved happily at the frowning drivers and pedaled on. Some cars didn't mind as much, though, and honked along in time with the chanting of the cyclists. It was a great feeling of community. I talked to a man who was so excited that I was a literature major that he gave me a tiny book that he'd written in Spanish. "For you," he told me as I awkwardly tried to hand it back to him without having to brake. "A present." We rode our separate ways when we reached the end point, the obelisk, but I've still got his book, and I mean to read it sometime soon... (I'll have to look up a lot of the words). Muriel and I took the train home with our bikes and as soon as we arrived, I made pasta for dinner and snuggled into the couch. I fell asleep watching Harry Potter 6 dubbed over in Spanish.

TV here is an interesting thing. They mostly play what seems like American movies and TV shows, either dubbed over with Spanish or with Spanish subtitles. I'm trying to watch more TV dubbed in Spanish, because Muriel is right, I am lazy and need to force myself to learn if for no other reason than to understand what is being said to me, and to be understood. Oh, and also because it is an absolutely beautiful language. Like a lovely cocktail of Italian and Spanish.

So I'm settling in, Muriel has actually told me she feels like I've been here longer than for a couple of weeks. I'm cleaner than normal, when living in someone else's house-- I do all of my dishes the moment they are dirtied, I pick up crumbs if I drop them...

I've never been one to keep my room tidy, but I'm learning here. I try to keep everything clean so that the spiders don't have any place to make more webs. Yes, I've basically moved into a nest of spiders. The place is so old, they've had time to hang out, find the best places to catch bugs. And the windows don't close all the way. Muriel laughs at me, but I have pretty severe arachnophobia. I spider skittered across my desk while I was at it, and I leapt up and grabbed the bug spray and started spraying, muttering things to the spider as it feebly came to a standstill and curled each little leg into its body. That was it. I started running around my room, spraying each corner, spraying all of my clothes, spraying the door... a spider larger than the size of a half dollar (GIGANTIC) slowly unfurled and crawled out from under a pane. AUGH! I sprayed him until he was coated in white, and he still managed to crawl into my room before he shuddered to a stop. I was also shuddering, in the corner, crying and spraying a circle around myself. I HATE SPIDERS. That being said, I have made a pact with the spiders of the room. Stay out of my way, stay up high where I can't see you, and you can catch mosquitoes to your hearts' content. Come anywhere near me, my bed, my desk, my clothes, and you will suffer an early death at the hands of a madwoman crying and goosebumping and... well you get the picture.

The cats do nothing! They sit around and chase butterflies and leave me to my spidery doom! Ok, maybe not nothing. Coco the cat is trying to "woo" me. People don't seem to neuter pets here, and Coco, my neighbor's young cat, is trying to woo all over my arm. I keep telling him "No means NO, Coco!" but he doesn't seem to care. He yowls and chases me around and tries to hold me down. Not cool, Coco, not cool at all.

I'm off to hang up my clothes outside. The house has a very old washing machine, but no drier, so I hang my clothes on a line outside of my room. Unfortunately , it rained last night and I had to scramble, tugging the shirts and dresses off of the clothespins. I ran them into my room and hung them up on the doors and shower curtain rod. Most of them are still a little damp, so I'm going to try hanging them outside again in the sunshine.

Later in the evening, I'm meeting with the expatriot group that has been so friendly to me for my first weeks here, having drinks with some boys who are visiting from San Fransisco (friends of a friend of mine... isn't it funny the way the world is connected?), and going dancing with Diana, who is leaving in a couple of weeks.

I really like my home. I'm glad to have some work, though I'm going to have to earn more money in order to make it in Buenos Aires.

Muriel has loaned me her spare bike for the duration of my stay, and has told me that I can ride it around, provided I get a lock. I've ridden around the neighborhood, up and down the streets, hopping off when a car gets too close for comfort (drivers really are crazy, here!), to a heladaria where I discovered my new-found favorite ice cream, Dulce de Leche con nuez. Salty caramel ice cream with walnuts. The sad fact is, I'm craving it just typing it. I think that might mean that it's lunchtime...