I wonder: can I write in the delighted way that I’ve written in the past if I’m writing about the same place for a year? And if you exchange the word “write” in the last sentence with the word “live”, what is the answer to the question then? Haa. I’ve become so pesada in these last few entries! But I am sure the answer is “yes!”, I can still write and live flippantly and delightedly, assuming that that is the desirable way to do things, of course :)
Good news: I like teaching English! This is only my second week of teaching here in Soledad, but I think it’s pretty fun. I prepare a lesson, and then I go in and see what happens. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I only speak English to my students, and I pretend that I only understand English. When I look out across my classrooms of thirty 16-24 year old boys, I get a lot of blank looks, or students covering their faces with their books when I talk to them, or boys murmuring sweet nothings in Spanish to me. But, I have the enviable and rare position of being in the “right” despite my minority-language status. And they really like realizig that they understand more English than they even imagined. This is why they haven't yet overruled me with Spanish. Also because I’m ridiculous and they want to see what I do next! And, they are 16-24 year old boys. Where do they all learn the phrase, “I love you”? Do they go look in a book? I think the intensity of that particular phrase is lost in translation. There’s a big difference between “te quiero” and “te amo”, and we don't really have that lesser degree. Anyway, perhaps another reason I have attentive classrooms is that after a week, my students all love me and are devoted to me forever! Just wait till I give them a test...
Socially, things are moving kind of slow. We’re just sooooo far away and “in the dark” (sometimes literally: the other night, our power plant made a low humming sound like when the magnet thing in Lost makes time change and then all of the lights went out). But we found a bar we like: La Troja. We’ve been there both Saturday nights. It’s a crazy crazy old place, with people in costumes spilling into the streets and loud music (their entire music collection is on records, kept in a back room). The maître d’ introduces anyone of interest who wanders in, including the Mexican telenovela stars, the salsa dancing old woman and her gymnast daughter, the king and queen of the Gay Carnival and their entourage, a zealous guy who brought a cow bell, and us, the Norwegians. Ha. The second time, we were The Brazilians, but that was more to discourage an incredibly annoying old man wearing a map shirt. And then my Brazilian friend asked, "But don't the men there like Brazilian girls, too?" Hmmm...he has a good point.
La Doctora
We’ve also been invited out with the Doctor, our boss. The doctor is a hot, kind of spacey but smart, lady of around 55, who is dating a guy in the Aliarse office who’s around 25. He just bought a little pit-bull named Mr. Bruce, who hangs out under the Doctor’s desk. Last Sunday, we went to a salsa party with the Doctor and her squeeze, as well as the receptionist Melissa, and her boyfriend/husband/? and his entire family. It was a street party, and got really really crowded, but the office crew had gotten there hours ahead and reserved us a spot on the sidewalk, protected by a rope held up by a tree. We sat in our little oasis, surrounded and sometimes invaded by the growing crowd. At times, we had to make a little blockade with our chairs and brace ourselves against what was really a heaving mass of people. Eventually, the tree fell, brought down by the rope and the crush...it was pretty brutal. But we had a lot of fun, drinking and dancing with everybody else’s boyfriend and spraying each other with canned foam.
Crowded Streets
We’re signing up to join a comparca, or a carnival band. One of the head teachers, Grace, used to dance with this group, and she brought Marcela and me to a supermarket way up in northern Barranquilla to see the practice. They were just out there in the parking lot, doing some pretty elaborate dance routines. I would love to “play” marimonda, the clownish elephant guy wearing a tie. He’s supposed to be making fun of serious business men, I think. But I think we’re doomed to play sexy lady mas (trini Carnival terminology slipping in..). That's ok, probably cooler anyway if we don't wear any clothes! An elephant mask could be really hot. It's hot here.
Marimondas
