Food...I mean, English Class!

Since Carnaval has been over for almost a month, things in Barranquilla are finally starting to happen. Projects put on hold for indefinite periods are starting up. Classes are held with regularity, and normalcy of the Barranquillan sort is beginning to settle in.

Of course, in a week there's a full week of vacation for Semana Santa - Holy Week/Easter, but we're not going to think about that yet.

Instead, let's focus on how last weekend, a project that has been discussed since basically the time we got here finally came to fruition: English classes for English teachers throughout the whole of Barranquilla.

Coordinated through the Secretary of Education, these classes were begun last year by the former Response Volunteers. Three hour sessions held on Saturday mornings, they're a chance for English teachers of all English abilities to gather and learn about US culture, as well as have a space to practice listening and talking English.

With six volunteers in the city, we hold two different classes on alternating weeks. With Jessica and I co-captaining a class, naturally, naturally our topic is...food! She likes to bake, I like to cook...we thought we'd take red and blue and make purple. Our idea: use food as a lens for culture, covering geography, cultural trends, holidays, nutrition, recipe exchanges...and have an awesome excuse to cook up food every other week. We call it: "Food and Culture in the US: A Taste of Culture"

Okay, so, maybe we like food a little too much...but 18 teachers, a giant batch of homemade English muffins, peanut butter and jelly (of the homemade strawberry sort) sandwiches, and three hours later, we have to say it was pretty much a success.

...And what's our next class? The West: Vegetarianism, Fast Food, and Easter. California-style pizza and hot cross buns, here we come...!

For the fact Colombians are usually apathetic about peanutbutter, 

our class got surprisingly into their PBJ's

Of course we taught the song "Peanutbutter and Jelly"...at the "And Jelly!" moment here...

We had them use charla paper. They turned into professional artists...it's a little hard to see, but this is a masterful rendition of a "breadbasket" with all sorts of goodies from the Midwest. So good it made me a touch nostalgic...

A good day

 

Today was a good day. There were points of this day where this was not a sure thing. But thinking it over, I’m fairly sure it cannot be overall classified as anything but.

Today’s major events included 1) Park cleanup, 2) Baby shower, 3) Music.

1) Park Cleanup

The first, biggest and best of today's events was the park cleanup, for which I can take absolutely NO credit.

A little background to this: my head coteacher, the bilingual coordinator at my school, is incorporating a program into English teaching that she developed (and for which she won first place in the city last year). Its basics include increasing self-esteem and confidence of the girls. In the eleventh grade, the girls are required to do a year-long volunteer project that they’ve developed.

Just to give perspective on where we started, when we introduced the project we first we had to explain what volunteering was in Spanish, before even attempting to discuss it in English. Last week they presented their ideas.

It’s hard to present this without gushing all over the place as I’d like, so here are the facts—

A group decided they wanted to clean up Parque Metropolitano, which boarders the stadium near Soledad, which is like our Harlem or Roxbury, if you will. Except poorer. Many of my students live in this area.

But they didn’t want to just cleanup the park. They wanted to then teach English to neighborhood members in the park.

Wow, I thought, how incredible they decided to do this. When was it going to happen? we asked. “This weekend!” they said.

Yeah, right, I thought. No way anything would actually get pulled together this quickly. But after a few last minute time changes, it was confirmed it was happening and I hopped on a bus to head to the park. After an unintentional bus tour of Soledad, I managed to arrive at the park slightly late, where I saw this:

And heard the sweet sounds of children laughing and sharing English (the little boys were today's students, the girls are mine :) ).

At least twenty girls from my school and from another school had showed up, filled multiple bags of trash, and were teaching English to the children in the park…all of which was completely planned and executed by them. There are no words to describe my emotions.

2) Baby Shower

I arrived home to find my house looking like this:

 

It was decorated for the baby shower of my older host sister who doesn’t live in this house. How do you say baby shower in Spanish, you ask? That would be: “Baby Shower.”

It’s a totally imported idea, replete with lots of games and food. We had one of these just two weeks ago for a cousin. Same idea, but everything in pink. So, for the next six hours…we baby-showered.

3) Music

Afterwards, I spent some time with the other host sister and her boyfriend. We ended up sitting on a curbside outside their friend’s house, talking about Mozart’s Requiem. Then he went and got his guitar and they played beautiful guitar music and sang, until his grandmother came out of her house to shush us. Which is really just hilarious since she must have the most sensitive ears ever (and not going to lie, I’m slightly jealous of her lack of tolerance for noise, since that can only mean she is one of the few who lives without it)…?

***

Maybe this week was hard because of the disorientation from traveling to Bogota last weekend. Or maybe it was just that it was a regular old school week, with hours of classes, a little less sleep than I’d like, and nothing too special overall but still the general struggles of life in a foreign country/family/job. Either way, nothing makes me happier than the fact that, at the end of the day, because of today, this was not only a good day, but I guess I'd have to say a really good week.

No Hay Luz!

Today, upon my arrival at school at the godforsaken hour of 6:00am, I was greeted by a squirming crowd of children. “No hay clases hoy!” they shouted. “We don’t have classes? Why is that?” I asked. “No hay luz!” 

There’s no light. As in, no electricity whatsoever in the school.

 Explanations ranged from a fuse blowout, to a mandated shutoff because they were “cleaning the cables.” Whatever that means. A blowout meant no light for a completely undefined amount of time, since here, schools have no budget for maintenance (We have two classrooms without electricity/light on a permanent basis).

But my students’ hopes were dashed when my optimistic school pressed ahead, and ushered the girls into the darkened rooms. While teachers lead the small children in hand games and chants in our courtyard, the older students gathered outside the classrooms to wait. A few of my tenth grade students gathered around me and we had English conversation time, and thus passed a lovely 35 minutes or so. Then, we all transitioned into the classes.

Generally our English classes are divided into halves, giving us classes of 20-25 students. This also means we get the worst rooms in the school—as in, the primary school rooms with miniature desks or the destroyed computer room, with abandoned computers/computer parts littering the walls and the remnants of a room-long desk bolted into the middle of the floor like a gate. Today, instead of dividing, the teachers stayed together and we squeezed everyone in the dead-computer room, with our oodles of plastic lawn chairs. To pass the time/avoid more generic “EmilyTime” (see previous post), I started an English-song sing-off.

This worked to some extent, but at least we filled the time with songs, and then general English music and aimless student conversation. 8am arrived, still without light, and in came the next class; same situation, different set of tenth grade students.

My two counterparts had sat through the last class, contributing mainly by periodically getting up and trying the lights, to which some electricity had been returned so they flashed erratically, lighting the room like a debt-sunk stripclub until the students mercifully booed them off once more.

For this second class, however, one co-teacher stood up and said, “For our class today, Emily has prepared some activities for us. With music.”

Umm, excuse me?

“Well, class,” I started, standing amid the packed classroom, “We’ve been talking about English music today. Who listens to music in English?”

And thus we began another recital of bands I hadn’t heard for ages, from Evanescence, to “Big Time Rush,” to Rihanna and Adele.

30 minutes in, I was struggling. Of course this would have to be the only time in the history of the school the class had started on time, and there was no sign of reprieve. Only 1.5 hours left to go…and still my counterparts stayed sitting.

The good: my students were still participating in English, so I had some hope. “We’re going to learn all the lyrics a song!” I offered, making my way through the dark, cramped classroom, literally crawling over students to reach the whiteboard. “What song do we want to learn?”

Fully expecting something by Rihanna or Beyonce, or some other “big artist,” I was instead proffered, “We are the World.” (Did I mention that I love my students?)

And so off we went, with me transcribing the lyrics on the whiteboard while students lit it with their cellphones. I alternated between standing to write and sinking to my haunches between chairs so the students could see the words behind me.

And then we talked about what it meant to help the world, and to make a difference, and small versus big goals, and they got homework that included helping someone this week, and then writing down what they did.

I’m not saying this was the best lesson ever taught. My technique was...experimental. My students may not have learned a ton. But we got through those two hours, and there was more participation and smiling in those morning classes than I’ve seen all year. They were speaking English! And they understood what I said—and what some didn’t understand, others helped them to. And they think it’s possible to change the world.

If I was going to be super corny, I’d say something along the lines of, “We didn’t have electric light, but today in that room there was light…” or something like that. But I’m not going to say it. I’m not.