CRIKEY!

Day 24

Fate must have found someone else to pick on, or it decided to cut me some slack and give me an A for effort because I actually had a pretty good day. It takes the smallest thing to throw the day into the good or down into the bad category. It all started with 6th grade A. We had begun to learn about Australia, which just delighted the kids as they said, “dingo, canugurooo, koualah” over and over. But what really tickled me was the song we had to sing for the chapter. And being the native English speaker, I get to say it out loud again, AFTER we’ve all listened to the song on the CD. Oh joy. I’m the only one that is cracking up inside over this, because only I can hear the difference in pronunciation, but I say the song with an Australian accent, just like the CD. The whole time I keep thinking, “Crikey Mate!” and they have no idea how stupid I sound. They just faithfully repeat what I say, sounding like strange Aussies with gum in their mouth. The American in me wants to say, “This shit ain’t English, I’ll learn you’se guys some Americun.” Because when we turn the page to talk about subjects in school, we talk about how we like ‘maths.’ Say what, I believe Maths should go take a class in English because it’s trying to be plural when it’s singular, it’s just MATH. They already add sounds to beginnings and ends of words, no need to give them more letters to mix up. Oh British colonialism, forever leaving your legacy. I hope you burn your tongues at tea time.

Later, during recess, I muster the courage to go hang out in the teacher’s longue. And oh boy the terrifying walk there was worth it. We’re all sitting around drinking café and one teacher who has just started to learn English is telling the principle she can’t stay after school for the meeting because she has to go to class directly afterwards. I start to zone out, staring into the dark oblivion of my cup, and then the principal asks Janibre to say something, to test her skills. She nervously laughs and I look up, she nods at me, encouraging me to watch her performance. I smile and then she proceeds to say quite a few things. As both the principal and I process the performance, there is an awkward silence. She awaits our response, but we aren’t quite sure what just happened. My brain has fizzled to a stop, my wrinkled brow showing the thought process skidding to a halt. So I ask the only honest question I had, “Es vasco que dijiste?” (Did you just speak Vasco? [Vasco is another language in the north of Spain]). She erupts into laughter, falling on top of me in mortal embarrassment and the principal is folded over, the laughing spilling out of his mouth. “Vasco!!!” she screams, “No that was English!!’ Finally understanding their laughter, I’m instantly infected with the giggles and exclaim, “Madre Mia! No es lo que hablo yo!” (Oh my, that’s not how I talk!) At this point Janibre is crying and the principal is gathering everyone else up to listen to what just happened. They think it’s a hoot that I took her English to be Vasco. Later, when the bell rings for classes to resume, we all begin to breathe normally and I ask her to repeat it. Sounds tumble out, none of them as independent words. I finally manage to scrap together the sentence as “Today is a lonely day.” why a Spaniard would ever need to say that, I have no idea.

The day only got funnier though with 4th grade A. We were talking about class subjects, reviewing the vocab in the book. I hold up a flash card and they shout out the subject. We got to P.E. and they all yelled “Peh” using a Spanish pronunciation of the word. I couldn’t stop laughing and they tried again, “Pee” and still I laughed. “No, no. You have to say EACH letter separately, P. E.” They finally got it, saying each letter really long, “Peeeee Eeeeee.” But that’s not all. Since the world is so techno crazy lately, the book also listed I.T (information and technology) as a subject. When I held up the I.T flashcard they all yelled “it, as in the noun, ‘it.’ I felt so bad, but I started laughing again. “No, no, Iiiiii. Teeee. Two letters.” It’s so refreshing to hear other makes simple language mistakes when you yourself are feeling like a moron.

Random highlight, Gema, my awesome bi-lingual coordinator gave me 2 pomegranates from her mom’s farm today. She warned me though, be careful, they stain permanently. Great I thought, I only have a handful of outfits anyways, now I’m going to get inconveniently red splotches on my stuff and make it look like I’m bleeding out half the time. I’m off to Google, ‘How to eat a pomegranate” shortly.

After school got out I decided to check out a grocery store/ market in Álora because I had time to kill before the train came and the one in Malaga would be closed before I got home anyways. So I stroll into the “Supermercado Santiago” and who else owns the store but one of my students family. As I buy apples and cereal her dad walks around with me, telling me prices, how garlic is more expensive, but zucchini is a great steal right now. He says my Spanish is beautiful (probably because it comes with hard cash in hand) and he is so proud of his daughter learning English. As we both agree that she is a great student and hard worker, I wonder if the dad is being honest with me. In a small town in the country, where they speak in an almost impossible to understand Andalucian accent, I wonder if the parents really care that their children learn English. The town has a few British tourists, but they don’t instigate the need for English everywhere. I wonder if it is worthwhile to even teach the kids English now if none of them are ever going to use it…

Sorry that today’s post is lame. Long day and no progress on my stupid grad app cover letter. I hope you all got out and voted! The big news here isn’t that there are bombs in Athens, that the USA is having a huge mid-term election or that the Spanish economy is in crisis, STILL, but that the Malaga futbol coach has left / been fired. Now they have no coach and desperately need a new one. It kind of reminds me of the DC basket ball team, the Magic or something like that. They suck, they will always suck. Coach or no coach, they won’t win. So stop giving a damn in the newspaper everyday.

Oh, but one last funny thing, the newspaper printed an interesting statistic yesterday: 244 pedestrians were killed while crossing the street in 2009. At first glance I thought, hmm, it’s a big pedestrian city, sure, people are likely to die. I don’t know why they bothered printing this, it’s like saying, “244 goldfish die by heavy handed feeding by young children’ bound to happen when two groups like that cross paths. But, the statistic continued, saying, 164 of the 244 (that is 75%) of the people killed, were killed while crossing the street CORRECTLY! Come on Spain, put down the espresso and respect the right of the little blinking green man, we peddies want a safe passage to the other side of the street. That’s Spain for you.