M., the six-year-old in the family I'm staying with, taught me a hand game. I'm pretty sure the rhyme goes like this:
Zum, zum, zum
de la juventud
te acompañará
a decir la verdad
por la cola, cola, cola
por la Coca Cola
por la Coca Cola
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Man-Eaters
Already a couple of weeks ago, I went on an adventure that I've been meaning to write about. The Spanish school where I'm taking classes arranged for those who wanted to go take some canoes through some mangroves*.
We all got on a bus, and our first stop was for a nice lunch by a beautiful beach.
Then we walked through the little village where the bus dropped us off, and got in some canoes.
And then we were off!
I don't think I was the only one who thought we were going to be paddling the canoes. Turns out the guides were in charge of that, and used poles to push us along Venetian-style.
The mangroves were beautiful. We saw some little crabs, anchovies, and lots of different birds along the way (the water where the mangroves grow is sea water, not fresh water). It all made me feel very adventuresome and nature-y.
*I've always thought the word "mangrove" was actually really funny. I think it should mean something like what I chose for the title. I don't think it actually does, though.
We all got on a bus, and our first stop was for a nice lunch by a beautiful beach.
Then we walked through the little village where the bus dropped us off, and got in some canoes.
And then we were off!
I don't think I was the only one who thought we were going to be paddling the canoes. Turns out the guides were in charge of that, and used poles to push us along Venetian-style.
The mangroves were beautiful. We saw some little crabs, anchovies, and lots of different birds along the way (the water where the mangroves grow is sea water, not fresh water). It all made me feel very adventuresome and nature-y.
*I've always thought the word "mangrove" was actually really funny. I think it should mean something like what I chose for the title. I don't think it actually does, though.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
I looked out the window, and what did I see?
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| A photo from the car--driving across town to pick up graduation robes for J. (married to one of the sons of the people I'm living with). |
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| From a window of the apartment M., from Holland, is staying in. She's in the old part of Cartagena. So many of the buildings in the old part of Cartagena are built in the Spanish style, with a courtyard in the middle (like you can see here). |
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| This is in front of the house I'm staying in. The girl next door had a HUGE 7th birthday party on Saturday. Later that night, the neighbors down the street threw a graduation party. The chairs are for their party. Delivered by horse. |
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Cue the Lightbulb
It seems like when people ask me about how teaching is, I usually bring up classroom management. Classroom management was one of the most difficult things about my first year of teaching. Now, trying to get ready for next school year, I've been reading a book about Love and Logic techniques and Fires in the Middle School Bathroom and trying to fine-tune my classroom rules and procedures.
With all my research, though, still I've been baffled by the secondary student mentality of misbehaving and how (my books tell me) it's often motivated by getting something or avoiding something, which might include manipulating others. Honestly, the more I work with junior high and high school students, the more I realize how I wasn't very typical at that age at all. I never got in trouble at either school, and I can only remember two instances of correction at home during those times. All through school, I would just go to class, sit down and listen, and expect that everyone else was going to do the same.
This is why I can't even understand why students act out in class. So, with the books I've been reading and the recorded seminars I've been listening to, I've been trying to imagine what it's like to be an adolescent. And it's like learning a foreign language, or trying to fit into a foreign culture. I can learn about it and read about it, but I can't speak without an accent, and I can't help but stick out on a subway in Seoul.
I just don't get it. Or I didn't until yesterday.
I've been taking Spanish classes while I'm here. I'm in the advanced class (a nice ego boost), and the teacher has been good at getting me to improve some of the gaps in my Spanish--mistakes I make over and over, grammar I never quite learned, etc. One of her primary methods of teaching is stopping us (me and one or two other students in the class, usually) when we're speaking and we make a mistake.
This has done a couple of things for me. First, like I said, it's helped me improve my Spanish. Also, it has taught me that I could be a little less...soft about feedback in the classes I teach. That is one thing I want to change about my own teaching.
I don't think I want to do it quite as often as she does, though--the technique has also had a few other results. For one thing, since I've been here, my Spanish has become a lot more slow and hesitant (in any situation, not just in class). I also sometimes get frustrated in class and don't want to say anything so that I don't keep making mistakes and getting corrected.
Well, on Friday, we read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' short story I Sell My Dreams.* The teacher wanted us to summarize the story. This activity started off well, but then began to deteriorate. In addition to all our linguistic mistakes that needed correction, we weren't summarizing with all the detail she liked. So she began to ask very specific questions to help us. I remembered the plot of the story well, but I couldn't always remember who looked at who or who said what when and why. Our answers were getting worse, and she was getting frustrated with us, sometimes adding a bit of agitation into her questions and comments.
And that was the moment I understood my students.
Since I was getting questioned and corrected and snapped at with anything I said, I didn't want to answer any of her questions any more. So when she asked me, I would give the shortest answer that I could, which would irritate her. If I didn't remember the answer (which I often didn't), I would kind of hum that I didn't know and page slowly through my story "looking" for it. I did this knowing that this would just make her more agitated (which was fine with me, since I was a bit mad at her) and that it would drag out the activity longer and longer and we wouldn't have to do anything else with the story.
I realized, finally, that this is what all those books were talking about! I didn't get this idea of manipulation/misbehavior-to-get-what-you-want until that moment. It amazed me how simple it was: I didn't answer --> she got more agitated and the activity lasted longer. I feel like I am more a part of our human family now that I understand this. Thank you, Spanish teacher. Thank you.
*I've read a few things by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I'm pretty much in love with his writing. If you don't know about him...well, you should. He's Colombian. He wrote 100 Years of Solitude, which got him the Nobel Prize. He is famous for his use of magical realism--stories about regular people in realistic settings, except that all of a sudden something happens like a magic carpet flying through someone's living room, and no one finds it strange. He has some neat short stories, like the one linked above. I think it would be worth your time to check them out.
With all my research, though, still I've been baffled by the secondary student mentality of misbehaving and how (my books tell me) it's often motivated by getting something or avoiding something, which might include manipulating others. Honestly, the more I work with junior high and high school students, the more I realize how I wasn't very typical at that age at all. I never got in trouble at either school, and I can only remember two instances of correction at home during those times. All through school, I would just go to class, sit down and listen, and expect that everyone else was going to do the same.
This is why I can't even understand why students act out in class. So, with the books I've been reading and the recorded seminars I've been listening to, I've been trying to imagine what it's like to be an adolescent. And it's like learning a foreign language, or trying to fit into a foreign culture. I can learn about it and read about it, but I can't speak without an accent, and I can't help but stick out on a subway in Seoul.
I just don't get it. Or I didn't until yesterday.
I've been taking Spanish classes while I'm here. I'm in the advanced class (a nice ego boost), and the teacher has been good at getting me to improve some of the gaps in my Spanish--mistakes I make over and over, grammar I never quite learned, etc. One of her primary methods of teaching is stopping us (me and one or two other students in the class, usually) when we're speaking and we make a mistake.
This has done a couple of things for me. First, like I said, it's helped me improve my Spanish. Also, it has taught me that I could be a little less...soft about feedback in the classes I teach. That is one thing I want to change about my own teaching.
I don't think I want to do it quite as often as she does, though--the technique has also had a few other results. For one thing, since I've been here, my Spanish has become a lot more slow and hesitant (in any situation, not just in class). I also sometimes get frustrated in class and don't want to say anything so that I don't keep making mistakes and getting corrected.
Well, on Friday, we read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' short story I Sell My Dreams.* The teacher wanted us to summarize the story. This activity started off well, but then began to deteriorate. In addition to all our linguistic mistakes that needed correction, we weren't summarizing with all the detail she liked. So she began to ask very specific questions to help us. I remembered the plot of the story well, but I couldn't always remember who looked at who or who said what when and why. Our answers were getting worse, and she was getting frustrated with us, sometimes adding a bit of agitation into her questions and comments.
And that was the moment I understood my students.
Since I was getting questioned and corrected and snapped at with anything I said, I didn't want to answer any of her questions any more. So when she asked me, I would give the shortest answer that I could, which would irritate her. If I didn't remember the answer (which I often didn't), I would kind of hum that I didn't know and page slowly through my story "looking" for it. I did this knowing that this would just make her more agitated (which was fine with me, since I was a bit mad at her) and that it would drag out the activity longer and longer and we wouldn't have to do anything else with the story.
I realized, finally, that this is what all those books were talking about! I didn't get this idea of manipulation/misbehavior-to-get-what-you-want until that moment. It amazed me how simple it was: I didn't answer --> she got more agitated and the activity lasted longer. I feel like I am more a part of our human family now that I understand this. Thank you, Spanish teacher. Thank you.
*I've read a few things by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I'm pretty much in love with his writing. If you don't know about him...well, you should. He's Colombian. He wrote 100 Years of Solitude, which got him the Nobel Prize. He is famous for his use of magical realism--stories about regular people in realistic settings, except that all of a sudden something happens like a magic carpet flying through someone's living room, and no one finds it strange. He has some neat short stories, like the one linked above. I think it would be worth your time to check them out.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Planes, Trains, and Automoblies (well, at least automobiles)
But anyway, the first subject (but who knows how many I'll actually do) is transportation--specifically its various modes here. I felt like a stalker taking a lot of these pictures, but I'm glad to have them.
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| The traffic here is pretty crazy. People zoom and stop fast, the motorcycles weave in and out. I was nervous about crossing the street for the first week or so--it took me awhile to figure out that people actually do stop at traffic signals. If you notice, they are directly above the first car in line, though. You can also see lots of yellow taxis in this photo. They are a good form of transportation. There's no meter, but the base fair is about $5000 (about $1.50 US dollars). Don't be deceived by the low price--taxi and bus fair and some restaurants are about the only things that cost less than they do in the US. |
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| The buses are a major mode of transportation. There are lots of them zooming around in different directions. They cost $1500 (Colombian Pesos), about $.75 in US currency--unless you have a kid who sits on your lap. Their fare would be free! |
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| The first time I saw a guy hanging out the door of one of the buses, I thought it was a passenger being cheeky. But that's his job! He shouts out where the bus is going and watches for people looking for a ride (there aren't any official bus stops). He also collects the money and answers questions about where to get off. |
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| There is another kind of bus called a chiva. |
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| The chivas are apparently used as normal buses in other parts of Colombia. Here, though, they take tourists around to tourist destinations, or partiers from club to club at night. |
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| There are also micro-buses. You can hop in the back of one of these old Land Cruisers to get where you need to go. These guys seem to hang out more in the neighborhoods than downtown. There are always a handful of these in the parking lot of a gas station I walk through to get to the Spanish school each morning. One morning I tried to make eye contact with the driver to make sure he wasn't going to hit me as I walked in front of him. But he just thought that meant I wanted a ride, and told me to hop in. |
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| Or you could catch a ride on a motorcycle taxi. Hop on the back, and they'll take you where you need to go. Everyone in this picture is waiting for passengers. If they're riding and they're free, they'll honk at you if it looks like you might need a ride. Taxis also honk to signal they're free. |
Friday, July 20, 2012
Daily Routine and the View From the Street
I'm staying in Colombia for five weeks. My schedule here has worked into a pattern. In the mornings, I get up and shower and enjoy a nice cooked breakfast that D. in my host family prepares for me. Then I walk to go take classes at a Spanish School in the center of old town Cartagena.
When classes get out, I go with some of the other students* to choose a nearby restaurant and get something to eat. When we're finished (at least an hour later), I work my way back towards the school with a few others--who might be taking a dance class or getting another (private) Spanish lesson. I go back, though, to work with J. from the foundation for young mothers. We work for about two hours on French. I can tell J. studies at home. I hope she gets a good foundation in French before she travels to Marseille to complete her six months of culinary training that she was given a scholarship for.
After that, I might team up with some of the others from the language school and go on a little outing around the school, or wander around a bit on my own, or I might just walk back to my host family's house. I might work out and shower again (it works well to shower twice during the day), or just sit out on the patio reading. I get dinner from the family around seven, and hang out with them until it's time for me to go to bed.
The other day when we were walking back to the school after lunch, we turned down a street I had never been down before. It fascinated me, and I went back later to take a few photos.
*Perhaps a subject for another blog post, the students at the language school are quite the crowd. I guess I expected a lot of college students on holiday, but they are definitely the minority. I have, however, met people from Canada, the Netherlands, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. I've met young and not-so-young professionals on sabbatical (from countries where that is one of their rights as a working individual) to study Spanish or to travel for an extended period of time. I've met lots of people who work in education--teachers of history and ESL and other languages and school counselors. I've met an individual studying to get an MBA and one studying engineering. I've met more people than you would think--of a variety of ages--who quit full-time, salaried jobs to travel around the world over ten or more months. I've met an older couple traveling together, a family with kids, friends that partner up to travel, and lots of people going it solo.
When classes get out, I go with some of the other students* to choose a nearby restaurant and get something to eat. When we're finished (at least an hour later), I work my way back towards the school with a few others--who might be taking a dance class or getting another (private) Spanish lesson. I go back, though, to work with J. from the foundation for young mothers. We work for about two hours on French. I can tell J. studies at home. I hope she gets a good foundation in French before she travels to Marseille to complete her six months of culinary training that she was given a scholarship for.
After that, I might team up with some of the others from the language school and go on a little outing around the school, or wander around a bit on my own, or I might just walk back to my host family's house. I might work out and shower again (it works well to shower twice during the day), or just sit out on the patio reading. I get dinner from the family around seven, and hang out with them until it's time for me to go to bed.
The other day when we were walking back to the school after lunch, we turned down a street I had never been down before. It fascinated me, and I went back later to take a few photos.
*Perhaps a subject for another blog post, the students at the language school are quite the crowd. I guess I expected a lot of college students on holiday, but they are definitely the minority. I have, however, met people from Canada, the Netherlands, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. I've met young and not-so-young professionals on sabbatical (from countries where that is one of their rights as a working individual) to study Spanish or to travel for an extended period of time. I've met lots of people who work in education--teachers of history and ESL and other languages and school counselors. I've met an individual studying to get an MBA and one studying engineering. I've met more people than you would think--of a variety of ages--who quit full-time, salaried jobs to travel around the world over ten or more months. I've met an older couple traveling together, a family with kids, friends that partner up to travel, and lots of people going it solo.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Portrait and Toenails
Here are the photos by Sandrine (see the link to her site on the right hand side of the page to see more of her photos).
This is for her project "Travels and Travelers," for which she's creating diptics of travelers and something representative of their travels. I got the nails done for the trip, so I guess that counts. Sandrine was so drawn to how I have a "classic," put-together style of dressing, but then I had these shiny gold toenails.
I guess that kind of contrast might be representative of the trip--I didn't think Cartagena was really the kind of city that would fit me. I'm not a huge fan of the beach or of the heat, and I didn't think the laid-back South American (and not just South American, but Caribbean) style would really fit with my personality. I've been surprised at how much I really love it here. I'm surprised at how relaxed I feel--not rushed, not bothered by things not following a schedule or going slowly, etc. I've been going to bed early, haven't been thinking about work or grad school...it has been so nice to be here. The perfect break from routine. A good contrast.
Anyway, here are the photos:
As long as we're on the topic of the toenails...while I was getting them done just before I left, I was warned they would attract attention. As I've explained actually a lot, they aren't polish, but a thin sheet of plastic that is heat-sealed to the nail (they're called Minx). I knew I would be running around in sandals while in Colombia, and I just wanted my feet to look nice without having to paint my toenails over and over. When I went to a salon to get them done, there actually weren't a lot of choices for the color/design, but I happen to like gold a lot anyway, so I was happy with that choice.
But my goodness. First I got a very nice picture taken of my toenails (which, if Sandrine's project goes as planned, will one day be included on her photo website and in a book). The little girls in the family where I'm staying look at them and touch them. When I went to the foundation to start the volunteer project, a group of girls called me over--not to ask me about their little assignment or the topic of our presentation, but to ask about my toenails. And then last night a few people, including Sandrine the photographer, arranged to meet to hang out and go salsa dancing. Sandrine had a French friend with her, and when I met the friend, Sandrine introduced me by explaining to the friend, "This is the one with the golden toes."
This is for her project "Travels and Travelers," for which she's creating diptics of travelers and something representative of their travels. I got the nails done for the trip, so I guess that counts. Sandrine was so drawn to how I have a "classic," put-together style of dressing, but then I had these shiny gold toenails.
I guess that kind of contrast might be representative of the trip--I didn't think Cartagena was really the kind of city that would fit me. I'm not a huge fan of the beach or of the heat, and I didn't think the laid-back South American (and not just South American, but Caribbean) style would really fit with my personality. I've been surprised at how much I really love it here. I'm surprised at how relaxed I feel--not rushed, not bothered by things not following a schedule or going slowly, etc. I've been going to bed early, haven't been thinking about work or grad school...it has been so nice to be here. The perfect break from routine. A good contrast.
Anyway, here are the photos:
But my goodness. First I got a very nice picture taken of my toenails (which, if Sandrine's project goes as planned, will one day be included on her photo website and in a book). The little girls in the family where I'm staying look at them and touch them. When I went to the foundation to start the volunteer project, a group of girls called me over--not to ask me about their little assignment or the topic of our presentation, but to ask about my toenails. And then last night a few people, including Sandrine the photographer, arranged to meet to hang out and go salsa dancing. Sandrine had a French friend with her, and when I met the friend, Sandrine introduced me by explaining to the friend, "This is the one with the golden toes."
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