It’s 7:06 am. I’ve just finished watching the sun rise: at 5:45, the different blues and greys of the night sky (the madrugada sky, actually) define into clouds, and the Sierra Nevada mountains, 200 km to the east, are silhouetted by the sun rising beyond. My schedule here demands that I wake up at 5 am four days a week, and I feel well acquainted with the Barranquilla sunrise.
Today, as I was walking out of my building at 6:30, my phone rang. The caller ID informed me that Cecilia, my 7:00 student, was calling, but the voice that greeted me was definitely masculine. Does Cecilia have a manly morning voice? “Hola?” “Good morning, Eliza” “Good morning...” What language do I speak to this unknown voice, at this unfavorable hour? We shared a moment of silence and I started worrying that I was very late- sometimes I unaccountably lose 15 minutes somewhere in the morning. “Estoy en camino, Ceci! I’m running out of the door...” “Eliza, Ceci is still sleeping. She is very tired.” Aha. Ok. This must be the mysterious, bohemian hospital executive husband who turns up in so many of my student’s colorful anecdotes. Class canceled. I turned around to return to my apartment, and before my phone was in my bag, it rang again. “Eliza, I’m going to my farm at 10:00 this morning. Would you like to go with me?” Cecilia and her husband have a little coffee farm up in the cool Sierra Nevadas, a completely different world from this city, with rivers and waterfalls and fresh fresh air. Of course I would like to go, but not alone with Cecilia’s husband...I guess the sun rise today was just for the sake of it.
Anyway, my students in Soledad are waiting for me. Today we’re going to discuss gender roles in Brazil, and think of reasons why the percentage of woman heads-of-household is so much higher in the Northeast of that country. This half-quarter-trimester the gringas are running the show at ITSA, and I’ve decided to raise my standards. I made up my own test for the mid-term, and the students did very well! At least the ones who studied/cheated did. I’d like to give you an example of the test I was supposed to give these guys...the listening part is the most ridiculous. I didn’t listen to the recording, but judging from the questions, it’s impossible.
Choose True or False for the following statements:
a) Fay has a hundred glass horses.
b) Ron thinks elephants bring good luck.
c) Ron got tired after the dragon dancing rehearsals.
Keep in mind, this unit has nothing to do with Chinese culture or festivals from around the world. Barranquilla doesn’t have a Chinatown, and dragon dancing is not something people do here. Imagine if you were learning a language, and you listen to something of which you only understand 20% of the words. Would this topic make any sense? No! Poor students. On my test, there was no true or false, no multiple choice. They had to write and they couldn’t guess. It took the class 2 hours, but I gave them cookies afterwards. And they did well! I am really happy that I raised the stakes for them. They say that the class flies by...I am by no means a very good teacher: the class “flies by” because I have this impulse to entertain them, and so I act a little kooky. Still, I think that they’re learning something.
On another note, the bus ride to work has been depressing recently. The posture of the street people, the look in the addicts’ eyes, it’s so sad. I see so many spines, covered in dull, greyish skin, exposed as the body bends over a bag of trash. The other day, on a corner where the saddest prostitutes usually sit, I saw a teenage girl. She wasn’t sitting, maybe she was just there coincidentally, maybe the other women aren’t even prostitutes. But a man on the bus looked at her and said something to another man sitting ahead of him, punctuated by a salacious laugh. A tiny old woman with dried-apple skin got on, and no one but me got up to offer her a seat. I think that life is really hard here, so hard that small hardships go unnoticed sometimes. The impact of this on me, nothing more than a witness, is cumulative, and these lives I see from a bus are only now reaching me. I have no idea what can be done, though.
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