ABC easy as 123

I don't think the "Jackson 5" ever taught English as a second language. ABC is NOT as easy as 1,2,3. It's been three weeks of classes now and the students are still struggling to pronounce "H" and "I". In Portuguese the letter "I" is pronounced 'ee' so its hard for them to remember that "E" is 'ee' and "I" is a long 'i'. They also struggle with pronouncing 'th' combination. i must have spend a full 10 minutes trying to get them to say 'thirty' and 'theater'. The 'th' combo into the straight 't' is too much for their mouths to comprehend. Theatre comes out sounding like 'feadur' since they constantly want to pull their lip up to pronounce the 'th' like a 'f' or with their tongue behind their teeth so 'the' sounds like 'duh'. So, just in case you're wondering, we are all mentally exhausted after class each day. I'm tired with trying to come up with creative ways to get them to say it and they of course are still trying to figure out exactly what i said, what it means, how to say it and when to use it. This passed week i tried to go onto formulating questions and conversations; i was faced with a room of blank stares. I realized we had to go back to the beginning. Again. (I think it would really help if these folks invested in some dictionaries and then actually did the homework that i gave them.)

I have several students who have studied English before. Sometimes they understand what i'm teaching and then translate for the rest of the class. Sometimes they don't understand and still translate to the rest of the class. My classic example is Phineas. He really is turning out to be a good guy. I sorely misjudged him at first and was quite scared of him. We both gave each other some space before we realized that the other wasn't so bad. When Phineas talks, he talks. He starts out like a train with a full load of cars, and after a second or two he is full steam ahead without even a pause for a breath. He starts to talk louder and faster until he is on his way to Swaziland, no stops for this load. I've had to silence him several times in class because it becomes quite apparent that no one else is really understanding what he is saying and eventually some students who sort of knew what i was talking about look up at me and say, "Professora, he's not right." Phineas says, "yeah" and "yes" and "ok" with a big smile on his face whether he knows what you are talking about or not.

I had this conversation with Phineas at lunch last Thursday. We were sitting eating salad and numerous other veggies and Victor raised both arms and set them on the table, surrounding his bowl, like a gorilla in the zoo would to protect his food from the other gorillas. I proceeded to do the same only make the actions a bit more accentuated, (victor and i compete for the position of drama king or queen of the day on a daily basis.) Phineas then copies us adding a grunt. Followed by Mama Gloria who is never to be outdone. Fortunately, Clemencia wasn't at the table or she would have thought we all lost our minds. When you can't exactly engage in dinner conversation you soon create new ways to entertain yourselves. Phineas at one point said, "King Kong." I got excited, there were two words i recognized. I said, "King Kong? The big Gorilla? Did you see the movie?" Phineas smiled brightly and said, "Yes!" I said, "When?" He said, "Yes!" I said, "No, when did you see the movie?" He said, "Oh, OK, yeah, i saw..." and proceeded to quote some numbers to me. I then thought, maybe he was talking about a year. He said, "One thousanda, nine, uh, ty, yeah, nineteen?" Then repeated himself, "Yes, One thousand Nine hundred Nineteen" I repeated back, "The year Nineteen nineteen? You saw the movie in 1919?" He quickly said, "Yes, I saw that year" I said, "Phineas, you weren't even born yet" He said, "Yes, a boy, there was a boy." I stood up to take some plates to the kitchen and just smiled at him. This conversation obviously was going no where. I just looked at him and said, "that's great, Phineas" and headed to the sink.

Clemencia still trusts his translating abilities and still frequently asks him to translate what she is saying to me. I'm not sure why since it always ends with one of us shaking our heads or me rolling with laughter. Earlier last week one of my students asked if i would go to his church the following Saturday to hear him and his friends sing some songs they had prepared for the service, i agreed. On Friday at breakfast i told Clemencia that i would be going to a different church the next day and she turned to Phineas and asked him to translate for her. She said something in Portuguese for him to tell me and this is what he said, "a muhter has a daughter." I said, "what? a mother has a daughter?" He replied, "yes, yeah, yes, yes!" Victor looked at my face and asked, "you no understand?" I said, "not a clue." Phineas tried again, "deh, sex, deh sexy sex, uh feminine, mother, yeah, daughter, yeah." I could contain my laughter no longer. This was too much. Somehow me letting Clemencia know that i was going to a different church the next day had earned me the reply of "sexy sex feminine". After breakfast was over, Clemencia found Arlindo outside weeding and called me to have him translate exactly what transpired. Turns out she was saying that she wanted to talk to me as a daughter and tell me that she would have to think about whether she was going to let me go or not. That's where the mother/daughter thing came from. She didn't know what sexy was, so i tried to explain to arlindo and he then tried to explain to Clemencia why i was laughing so hard. Ah, the joys of language barriers.

I've committed a few blunders of my own. The night Mama Gloria found out that her brother died, she came out of her bedroom crying. After Phineas told me (i still wasn't quite sure what was going on, but since Mama Gloria was upset i knew it had to be something bad), i gave her a hug and said "amo te" but i said it wrong. Apparently it's supposed to be 'te amo', because after i said it Clemencia quickly looked at me and said, "no, no". Instead of telling her i loved her and that i was sorry, i had told her to go die. (I guess you can write 'amo te' -like in a letter, but you can't say it, as i found out.) wow.

This morning during class i experienced a new chuckle. (Just so you know, the class is made up of adults, 20's, 30's and 40, Victor is the youngest at 18) I had drawn a picture of a little girl up on the board. The class was instructed to get into groups of two and look up the names for types of clothing a person would wear and basic body features like face, mouth, hair, body, arms, legs. About 15 minutes later i started asking them what the name of basic features was and would write the name they told me on the board. Five minutes into this exercise one of the mothers in my class grabs her chest and says, "professora, what these called?" I took me a second to realize what she was asking, then another second to keep from laughing. I had no idea this was going to turn into a sex-ed class. Then i had to remember that they really don't think of them like we do, to them they are just another part of the body. You would understand what i meant in just one day of driving around town. I see woman walking down the sidewalk, baby tied onto their back by a blanket, swing the baby around front for a meal on the go, with little or no discretion. or while waiting for the bus. or in the market. or on a van made to seat 15 midgets, stuffed with 25 full grown adults, (plus some suckling young).

The mosquitos are biting something fierce so i'll end this chapter for now. Mama Gloria is laughing again, Phineas is smelling better (i still wouldn't stick my face in his pit if you paid me but at least you can't smell him coming), Victor is singing a happy tune and Clemencia is saying something in spanish or portuguese, not sure what, but smiling. And me? I'm appreciating the food more. Yesterday i ate at a student's house and now have a new and more profound thankfulness for what is served here at the school. I weigh 53 kilos now, apparently that rations me more food. I asked to weigh myself today and i pointed to what i weighed when i got here and she saw what i weighed now and looked fairly shocked and said in portuguese, you need to eat more. (yeah, i know)

i tried to include a picture of the week so hopefully this works. friday when i was in town, i saw this little girl who was quite enamored with the water spigot, she started out in her sandy bathing suit and eventually ended up in her birthday suit. a prize goes to whoever can come up with the best caption. cheers.