A Typical Morning at School in Antigua

2016-02-11

A Typical Morning at School in Antigua 

As we fly home, it occurs to me that in three weeks on the road, I've written only four posts. Usually my head is filled with the wonders of our trip that I can't stop writing. The fact of the matter is that my head was filled with Spanish all day, every day. Just dropping off laundry is a thought process. During every meal, on the streets, in the stores and shops, I had to think. Think hard. Listen carefully. Put together what was being said, translate it, formulate a reply and try to pronounce words properly. My mind was overwhelmed most of the time and trying to write in English ended up being a mixture of  'Yoda Speak' and 'Spanglish'.  

For some reason, I had a weird internal clock going for most often time we were in Antigua. While everyone in the household was fast asleep, I was up around 4 or 4:30. I would wander into the kitchen in my slippers and fleece, start some water on the propane stove and prepare my instant coffee.

Our Kitchen

By 4:45, I would be studying. Conjugating verbs, learning numbers, figuring out sentence structure and completing homework. I knew when I went into this that I learn by writing and by repetition. Much repetition. Saying something 20 times, getting the pronunciation correct, putting the words into a sentence with correct structure and repeating again 20 more times gets me close. But I may forget all of it during conversation. 

John would usually wake a bit before 6 and we would figure out who takes a shower first. The shower was always a challenge. The water pressure in Antigua is almost water pressure. When all was well, we could shower and have some hot water. More typically we would be hoping for enough pressure to activate the instant water heater in the shower head. 

Three mornings the water stopped completely when I was showering, twice with a head full of shampoo. The worst time for me was when the water stopped for over five minutes and John resorted to getting water from the wash sink to rinse my hair. Having no water is such common occurrence that Chiki always had a large sink filled with water. The room temperature was hovering in the mid 50's. My darling John found a bucket to retrieve water from Chiki's wash basin and doused the shampoo from my hair. I'm sure there were obscenities, in English, that flew from my mouth, but most of the shampoo was out. Good enough. It wasn't until later in the morning as we sat in the sun for lessons, around 11 AM, that I finally warmed up. That morning, John lucked out and had water for his entire shower, but he certainly had his share of waiting minutes for the water to come back. Lessons learned-shower in the evening. Many parts of this world would be happy to have the water that Antigua has. It is so precious and required by every living being. I won't get on my soapbox now, but this precious water is taken for granted by most us, most of the time. Soapbox topics will wait for another time.

Breakfast was usually just after 7 AM. Our typical Guatemalan breakfasts consisted of rice mush with fried plantain, fresh fruit and tortillas, or eggs with fried plantain, refried black beans and tortillas, or pancakes with fried plantain and tortillas. Breakfast was served with healthy dose of coffee and Spanish conversation. Again, thinking is involved. Translation. Formulate an answer in my brain. Figure out the pronunciation and slowly reply. Slow is necessary, so I can make my mouth do what my brain is telling it to do.

Our classroom, in El Jardin, was short 10 minute walk from home. On the way we passed two little tiendas, two fresh tortilla vendors and plenty of school kids, also heading to a day of lessons. One sound of Antigua that will stay with me is that of the tortilla vendors, and the pat-pat-pat as they pat their product into perfectly wonderful maize tortillas. In every block, there are at least two tortilla vendors. At El Jardin, Juan (that would be John) and I split up and would wander off to tables that our teachers had set up. Plastic tables and chairs are interspersed all over the patios and walkways, set just far enough from one another to prevent each table being disturbed by the lessons at the next table. 

The mornings were cold, in the mid to upper 40's. Coffee was always the first stop in El Jardin, if for no other reason than to have something to keep my hands warm.

My teacher, Maribel, is a jewel.  Like me, she bundles up for the cold morning at El Jardin. She is an excellent teacher, a beautiful woman and a perfect match for me. We would usually spend the first couple of hours working on grammar, words and the dreaded verb conjugations. She intuitively seemed to know that I needed to write and say words many times to get them into my head. I take more time than most folks to formulate a sentence that accurately conveys my thoughts in English. In a language I barely know, I'm sure it was a tedious affair for Maribel, as she waited for me to remember the correct word, verb conjugation and pronoun and then frame the correct sentence structure. Our discussions varied from politics, discrimination, history, geography, industry, food and day to day life. She was as interested in learning about life in Hawaii as I was about learning of life in Guatemala. We frequently reached for a phone to get a reference for a topic the other could understand.

Promptly at 10, all lessons adjourned for 1/2 hour break, known as refaccion. A small room off one of the patios was swiftly filled with teachers and students, queuing up to buy some food. Guatemalan tamales, empanadas, tacos, or tortillas filled with meat or cheese. Every plate got a liberal dose of guacamole and various sauces and chopped vegetables. On our first day, I tried a white soup, sprinkled with a few black beans, that was so bland I wondered why anyone would want it. John explained that the soup was puréed white beans, which are far more expensive in Guatemala than black beans. We joined the other students in the large, grassy courtyard to enjoy the sun and visit.  Many of the students munched on the chocolate covered frozen bananas. I was usually too cold for that.

After refaccion, Maribel and I would often join Juan and his teacher, Marina.

Our two maestras would have us play games with cards or scrabble like letters, ask us various questions or have us ask each other questions. It was sometimes frustrating working with John. I probably frustrated him too. John's command of the language was more advanced than then mine when we started school. It was hard to understand his pronunciation. Just like Maribel, Marina is a patient instructor and after a number of sessions together, I began to enjoy them more and more. Working together in class with John gives us the building blocks to continue studying when we go home.

As classes concluded at noon we watched the students zoom out of El Jardin.  Juan and I helped our maestras put our table and chairs away and wander out of the area long after most students were gone.  On our walk home, we would strategize about what we needed to get done in the afternoon.  

Side Note...

This post was started on our flight home.  The plan was something along the lines of, ‘A Day in Antigua’.  Since this just kept getting longer and longer, I decided to describe only the morning.  The rest of the entries for our adventures in Antigua and Spanish school will be more in the form of bullet points.  Or, as I keep them in my writing book, ‘short-shots’.  

Little writing book...don't leave home without it!