don't panic

victor has been whistling "there's power in the blood" since 6:45AM.  he is on his 57th verse.  its now 8:17AM.  nothing wrong with the song but at that pitch and repetition one could go crazy.  no one is, yet.  i'm just saying.

 

we have two more characters that have joined our story, jafet and fernando.  jafet showed up a week ago.  he is a kind, calm soul. fernando came this past monday.  both of them speak english but came to learn more.  i started talking to jafet when he got here.  i got a string of words out and he tilted his head back and smiled.  he said, "you speak very fast american english".  i slowed down a bit and threw in a british accent and he understood me.  i thought about trying the british accent the next morning of class.  it didn't go over quite like i'd hoped.  they still looked lost. 

 

we call fernando 'mr. president'.  i got tired of sitting at the head of the table at meals so i moved a couple chairs down and sat across from mama gloria.  no one noticed until fernando came and i pointed for him to sit in my previous place, since clemenica was now pointing to me to move back.  he sat down and clemencia called him 'mr. president'.  the title suits him; he is quite a bit more refined than, say, wild-man phineas and i'll-eat-what-you-don't-eat victor.  i don't mind sitting across from mama gloria, i actually enjoy it.  the down side is, i'm closer to phineas, not that its a problem but i have to make sure not to look at him while i eat (or take a deep breath if a breeze comes in the window).  the guy has a large mouth and for some reason doesn't know how to close it when it eats.  he actually looks quite barbaric if you watch him.  i've suggested he close his mouth when he chews and he will for about four chomps, then its open again. so now it just amuses me and/or grosses me out.

 

wednesday night there was an earthquake.  thursday morning in class everyone was talking about it.  they were chattering about it in portuguese but kept making the motions like the house was shaking and saying 'chuva' the word for rain.  i thought they were talking about a storm that passed that night so i assumed they meant the thunder shook the house.  had i known what 'terremoto' meant i would have had a clue.  one of them asked me if i woke up when the house shook.  i said "no, i slept all night" (for once). they were really surprised. february is rainy season here, we get storms at night on a regular basis, i really thought nothing of it.  they couldn't believe i didn't wake up.  clemencia said that one of her friends from the states saw the 'weather' on the news and called to see if she was alright. i thought, wow, that must have been some thunder.  in my little teacher head i thought, "great, i can use this and teach them a conversation using the storm".  after we finished a vocabulary list and some definitions i wrote out a fill-in-the-blank conversation on the board that i wanted them to complete and then practice.  i gave them a word bank next to it.  they followed my instructions and did as they were told but when the few of them that had dictionaries looked up the words they would intermittently look up at me with quizzical looks.  the quizzical looks are a common thing so i thought nothing of it until i went to ADRA that afternoon to teach.  jair asked me if i felt the earthquake.  an, earthquake?  so that's what my students were talking about.  no wonder they looked so confused.  

 

little cricket, you have much to learn.