Day Three - El primero dia de escuela
I am a few days behind in writing the journal that we have to keep while we are here, but hopefully these next few entries will be shorter and quicker to write so that I can catch up.
I was very nervous going to class today. I wasn´t sure where I was going to be starting or what I would be studying other than starting with the past tenses in Spanish. Things went pretty smoothly, however, and after some searching I found my class. We are at the tale end of a four week Spanish course and will soon move to a new book, which is kind of annoying because we will have to buy the next textbook as well as the one we will be using for the next week. However, the book and workbook cost 180 pesos ($18) so it wasn´t so bad. It is a lot less than the $100 plus I spent on my Spanish textbook at USU!
There are four other students in the class - Terri from California, David from Hawaii, and Toni from Houston. Three of us are teachers and Terri is a medical student. We seem to be at more or less the same level although some are better at the grammar (me) and other are better at talking en español (Terri). Anyway, the book is not all that different than the ones be use in the US although we are going through at breakneck speed. In one week a person is supposed to start from the beginning of our book and continue to the end! If Dee were to take Spanish here, she would be expected to learn as much in four weeks as it took me to learn in a year. o_o
The next class wasn´t that impressive. Basically, the teacher gives us vocabulary and phrases to practice and we repeat them aloud with small modifications. This seems very much like an audiolingual style of learning, which is not very effective. I don´t know about it. Maybe I should try to find another class to be in.
After school Dee and I just decided to stay a couple of hours to write emails and then we called home. We also decided to wander around the area by the school and find some necessary things. I have been using Melinda´s money for everything since we got here and I needed to find a bank to get some cash out. I also wanted to find the laudry that was said to be near the school and the supermarket. So we took off walking and quickly found where we could take our clothes. The laundry is just a few steps from the school in the opposite direction from what we usually take. A sweet money making deal for the proprietors, no doubt.
At the bottom of a hill we found a very American looking mini mall with a bank and a SubWay. I can already tell that we will be going back there for a sandwich one of these days. It isn´t that the food we have had at our house hasn´t been good (some of it was really good!) but I think our mama is starting to make more American style food for those with more sensitive stomachs. Or maybe the number of people in the house is dictating what is being made.
Speaking of which, we have some very interesting people at our house. We´ve talked about a few of them but things are very different now that they are home. A good share of them go out dancing and drinking every night and then go (usually) to school during the day. I just must be really out of it because I would have never thought to go clubbing every night in Mexico, but everyone probably thinks that we are boring.
Anyway, after visiting the bank we decided to check out the Superama supermarket and after being told to check our packs at the service desk, we wandered around. And surprisingly, things are not that cheap here in Mexico, at least if you go to a place similar to what you would find in the States. $2.30 for deoderant, $3 for pickles, etc. Some things were very cheap, like bread, but for the most part things were more money then I would have thought they would be, especially having walked around the Mercado. It seems to me that the Mercado caters to people with little money, or who are looking for a bargain, and those who go to the supermarkets are more middle or upper middle class. It is insteresting to see the differences.
So after a lunch of some bread, yogurt, pickles, and drinks (not as good as in Paris, but not bad) we headed back up the hill and emailed some more from school. Then we went home in time for cena (dinner) and chatted with our housemates. It is kind of sad because our mama and papa are not talking as much as they were when there were only a couple of us around, but then we all tend to talk in English with some translating from our more proficient (not me) speakers. It was still an interesting coversation though. I chatted with Martha, who is a large white gal who is married to a black man, who was telling me that things are still very tough for them in the South. She and her husband and son go to a church with a young congregation because they would be ostrecized at a more traditional Baptist or whatever church. She says that things are really not changing a lot in the South, which is sad to me.
Anyway, that is about it for this day. More adventures are sure to follow so stay tuned. ^_^
I was very nervous going to class today. I wasn´t sure where I was going to be starting or what I would be studying other than starting with the past tenses in Spanish. Things went pretty smoothly, however, and after some searching I found my class. We are at the tale end of a four week Spanish course and will soon move to a new book, which is kind of annoying because we will have to buy the next textbook as well as the one we will be using for the next week. However, the book and workbook cost 180 pesos ($18) so it wasn´t so bad. It is a lot less than the $100 plus I spent on my Spanish textbook at USU!
There are four other students in the class - Terri from California, David from Hawaii, and Toni from Houston. Three of us are teachers and Terri is a medical student. We seem to be at more or less the same level although some are better at the grammar (me) and other are better at talking en español (Terri). Anyway, the book is not all that different than the ones be use in the US although we are going through at breakneck speed. In one week a person is supposed to start from the beginning of our book and continue to the end! If Dee were to take Spanish here, she would be expected to learn as much in four weeks as it took me to learn in a year. o_o
The next class wasn´t that impressive. Basically, the teacher gives us vocabulary and phrases to practice and we repeat them aloud with small modifications. This seems very much like an audiolingual style of learning, which is not very effective. I don´t know about it. Maybe I should try to find another class to be in.
After school Dee and I just decided to stay a couple of hours to write emails and then we called home. We also decided to wander around the area by the school and find some necessary things. I have been using Melinda´s money for everything since we got here and I needed to find a bank to get some cash out. I also wanted to find the laudry that was said to be near the school and the supermarket. So we took off walking and quickly found where we could take our clothes. The laundry is just a few steps from the school in the opposite direction from what we usually take. A sweet money making deal for the proprietors, no doubt.
At the bottom of a hill we found a very American looking mini mall with a bank and a SubWay. I can already tell that we will be going back there for a sandwich one of these days. It isn´t that the food we have had at our house hasn´t been good (some of it was really good!) but I think our mama is starting to make more American style food for those with more sensitive stomachs. Or maybe the number of people in the house is dictating what is being made.
Speaking of which, we have some very interesting people at our house. We´ve talked about a few of them but things are very different now that they are home. A good share of them go out dancing and drinking every night and then go (usually) to school during the day. I just must be really out of it because I would have never thought to go clubbing every night in Mexico, but everyone probably thinks that we are boring.
Anyway, after visiting the bank we decided to check out the Superama supermarket and after being told to check our packs at the service desk, we wandered around. And surprisingly, things are not that cheap here in Mexico, at least if you go to a place similar to what you would find in the States. $2.30 for deoderant, $3 for pickles, etc. Some things were very cheap, like bread, but for the most part things were more money then I would have thought they would be, especially having walked around the Mercado. It seems to me that the Mercado caters to people with little money, or who are looking for a bargain, and those who go to the supermarkets are more middle or upper middle class. It is insteresting to see the differences.
So after a lunch of some bread, yogurt, pickles, and drinks (not as good as in Paris, but not bad) we headed back up the hill and emailed some more from school. Then we went home in time for cena (dinner) and chatted with our housemates. It is kind of sad because our mama and papa are not talking as much as they were when there were only a couple of us around, but then we all tend to talk in English with some translating from our more proficient (not me) speakers. It was still an interesting coversation though. I chatted with Martha, who is a large white gal who is married to a black man, who was telling me that things are still very tough for them in the South. She and her husband and son go to a church with a young congregation because they would be ostrecized at a more traditional Baptist or whatever church. She says that things are really not changing a lot in the South, which is sad to me.
Anyway, that is about it for this day. More adventures are sure to follow so stay tuned. ^_^