I took a remis to the lavarap (2.5 pesos in cab fare) and told the man ALL in SPANISH that I needed my clothes washed and dried, dark clothes separate from light clothes, washing all in agua frio. The only part we got confused on was when I asked him what time my clothes would be ready, he wrote down the store hours for me. I finally got him to tell me that they’d be done at 16h (4pm). As I was finishing, Brenda came in with some jeans. We then walked to the nearest panaderia and bought some doughnuts! 2 pesos for 4 donuts (66 cents). We then went on to Spanish class. After Spanish, Bre and I were supposed to go observe an English class at the Rividad school.
The class was the MOST CHAOTIC thing I’ve ever seen in a school. There were probably 25-30 students, all in their SIXTH year of English (so they were seniors)….and maybe FOUR could speak any English! One of the four was an exchange student from Finland! 9-10 of the students spoke ZERO English and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked “What’s your name?” The teacher had NO control over the class and the students were all talking to each other, drawing on their hands, on the desk…etc. The teacher focused her attention on about 5 students who were actually trying to do the assignment.
One girl, who spoke pretty fluent English kept asking us questions, then had to translate everything we said back into Spanish. I couldn’t believe how unruly the students were. Makes me appreciate the well-behaved students in the US (well for the most part they’re well behaved!). I took a picture of one of the desks that had writing ALL over it. The place is trashed and we told the students that in the US if you trash things it says you don’t respect your school, don’t respect your country, or your family. The teacher encouraged the students to talk to us after she realized that they were not at all interested in what she was trying to teach. The kids have complete control there. Bizarre.
Later, Bre and I wanted some Mexican food, so we went to the ONLY Mexican place in Villa Maria, but it was closed! We opted for real hamburgers on buns instead. The burgers were good, even though they put a slice of ham and a fried egg on the burgers WITH the cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, etc. Strange, but good. We got peach smoothies too and our meal was $5 US each!
Once Bre and I parted ways for the day, I went back to my favorite shoe store with the patient man who likes to sell me shoes. I bought 3 pairs of NICE leather shoes for $125 US …total… It’s CRAZY like that here! Don’t worry, Troy, they weren’t all for me!!! I went to pick up my laundry and it smelled SOOOO good. The man gave me the 20 peso bill that I accidentally left in my pocket, which I thought was such a NICE thing, considering he could have pocketed it! My laundry cost 20 pesos (so about $6 US) and it was nice to have jeans that didn’t sag!
I took advantage of the siesta when I got home and at 7 Nani decided we needed to go shopping for her nephew’s birthday present. He wants a helicopter (his 5th birthday is Sunday). We couldn’t find a helicopter, so we went for coffee (well in our case submarinos con chocolate blanco) and a piece of cake. We then did a little window shopping and drooled over all of the shoes we wanted and decided we’d make noquis for dinner (or try to). Lucky for us, the grocery store sells noqui mix so all we had to do was add water. We saw that we were going to have enough for about 5 people, so Nani’s parents came over for dinner. Maria Rosa and Jorge are so cute! They speak about 20 words of English each, so I tried to speak as much Spanish as I could. They were pretty excited that I could talk to them some in Spanish, but they’d start talking so fast I couldn’t understand a lot of what they said. I showed Maria Rosa pictures of my family, house, friends, etc. She kept saying “QUE LINDA!” when she’d see pictures of my blonde hair….haha.
The noquis turned out really good, so I know for sure that I can make them at home. Maria Rosa and Jorge told me that my food was muy rico (very delicious) so that was nice.
At about midnight they went home and Nani and I got ready for bed. Tomorrow is my LAST Spanish class, so I had to do some homework before bed.
The class was the MOST CHAOTIC thing I’ve ever seen in a school. There were probably 25-30 students, all in their SIXTH year of English (so they were seniors)….and maybe FOUR could speak any English! One of the four was an exchange student from Finland! 9-10 of the students spoke ZERO English and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked “What’s your name?” The teacher had NO control over the class and the students were all talking to each other, drawing on their hands, on the desk…etc. The teacher focused her attention on about 5 students who were actually trying to do the assignment.
One girl, who spoke pretty fluent English kept asking us questions, then had to translate everything we said back into Spanish. I couldn’t believe how unruly the students were. Makes me appreciate the well-behaved students in the US (well for the most part they’re well behaved!). I took a picture of one of the desks that had writing ALL over it. The place is trashed and we told the students that in the US if you trash things it says you don’t respect your school, don’t respect your country, or your family. The teacher encouraged the students to talk to us after she realized that they were not at all interested in what she was trying to teach. The kids have complete control there. Bizarre.
Later, Bre and I wanted some Mexican food, so we went to the ONLY Mexican place in Villa Maria, but it was closed! We opted for real hamburgers on buns instead. The burgers were good, even though they put a slice of ham and a fried egg on the burgers WITH the cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, etc. Strange, but good. We got peach smoothies too and our meal was $5 US each!
Once Bre and I parted ways for the day, I went back to my favorite shoe store with the patient man who likes to sell me shoes. I bought 3 pairs of NICE leather shoes for $125 US …total… It’s CRAZY like that here! Don’t worry, Troy, they weren’t all for me!!! I went to pick up my laundry and it smelled SOOOO good. The man gave me the 20 peso bill that I accidentally left in my pocket, which I thought was such a NICE thing, considering he could have pocketed it! My laundry cost 20 pesos (so about $6 US) and it was nice to have jeans that didn’t sag!
I took advantage of the siesta when I got home and at 7 Nani decided we needed to go shopping for her nephew’s birthday present. He wants a helicopter (his 5th birthday is Sunday). We couldn’t find a helicopter, so we went for coffee (well in our case submarinos con chocolate blanco) and a piece of cake. We then did a little window shopping and drooled over all of the shoes we wanted and decided we’d make noquis for dinner (or try to). Lucky for us, the grocery store sells noqui mix so all we had to do was add water. We saw that we were going to have enough for about 5 people, so Nani’s parents came over for dinner. Maria Rosa and Jorge are so cute! They speak about 20 words of English each, so I tried to speak as much Spanish as I could. They were pretty excited that I could talk to them some in Spanish, but they’d start talking so fast I couldn’t understand a lot of what they said. I showed Maria Rosa pictures of my family, house, friends, etc. She kept saying “QUE LINDA!” when she’d see pictures of my blonde hair….haha.
The noquis turned out really good, so I know for sure that I can make them at home. Maria Rosa and Jorge told me that my food was muy rico (very delicious) so that was nice.
At about midnight they went home and Nani and I got ready for bed. Tomorrow is my LAST Spanish class, so I had to do some homework before bed.
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4 comments:
Nani & her family seem so nice! Love the pics...where was Jorge?
:) Adie
I was looking at the pictures and Jake walked up and goes "I see my Ninny, I go Ninny's house pweeeeeeeeese"..haha..can't wait to see the shoes!!!!
sds lhlihkv12zc cceww 2q2DAEq1fyh - Jakey
Love Jake's comment! :-) So Nani is like 4 years older than you, right? She's NOT your host MOM!!! Her mom is like your mom... Anyway, you're going to have to bring home some of that noqui mix!
-Amy Iwert
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