• pointless and chatty

    I’m sitting here in bed, sipping coffee and trying to decide if I’m well enough to get up. I can type, so I’m not too sick. But maybe this is only just the beginning?

    Yesterday, the youngest was felled by a raging fever, chesty cough, and splitting headache. Upon talking to a friend, I learned that her family had been taken down one by one. The doctor said it’s a wicked virus, of some sort or another. So now I’m slightly paranoid.

    We finished at Bezaleel yesterday (except now the teachers want us to come back next week so we’re not completely, completely done), and the focus of this weekend is Sorting and Packing. Monday is the last day of school for the children, cinnamon rolls to the teachers (maybe), and a date with my husband. Then Tuesday, my husband goes to Guatemala City to bring back the truck. Wednesday is a fun day (maybe a visit to some caves), or perhaps a last-minute errand day, and Thursday we load up and move to the city. Then meetings, a beach trip (we hope), and home.

    So I’d really like to not get sick now.

    About that Sorting and Packing. We came down with 11 or so suitcases (thanks to a university group that was traveling down around the same time), but we can only go back with six. This could be a problem. True, we’ve destroyed/outgrown mountains of clothes, but we also came down with way more winter clothes than we actually used. Which is kind of good. Because a lot of them still fit, so we won’t have to scramble for warm duds upon arriving in nippy Virginia. (We may end up paying to check a couple other suitcases. Forty dollars a bag seems really pricey, but when compared to what it would cost to buy the shoes, jeans, and sweaters that it’s hauling, it’s a savings. Or so says my husband.)

    I’m rambling. I feel chatty, but in a pointless sort of way. Exactly what bloggers are not supposed to do. We’re supposed to be concise, witty, and pointed. This is not that post.

    Remember all my angst about my kids not learning Spanish? And then remember the sudden (kind of) breakthrough? At that point, I said something like, “If only we had another year here…”

    I take that back. At least for the youngest. Another three to six months of school and I think he’d be almost fluent. Here’s why:

    *He’s a natural motormouth with zero fear of speaking.
    *Proof: the other week when I was approaching his classroom, I could easily hear his foghorn voice above the classroom chatter. Alejandro blah-blah-blah-o…
    *The other morning when he woke up, he said something to me that I couldn’t understand. He repeated it a couple times before switching to English, and then I was like, Oh! He was speaking to me in Spanish! Not exactly what I was expecting to hear first thing my early morning haze.
    *He says he dreams in both English and Spanish.
    *He easily flits between past, present, and future tenses.
    *My older son reported that he’s heard him mix up his English, as in, “That’s my car blue.”

    Making bows and arrows and talking, talking, talking.

    I’m not sure how we’re going to keep up the Spanish once we return home. The children stage mini-revolts when we try to force Spanish conversation (I don’t really blame them because, well, it doesn’t feel natural), and there aren’t any Spanish-only speakers out in our neck of Virginian woods. I’m thinking I’ll read to the children from Spanish children’s books once a day, and we might do some Rosetta Stone, but aside from that, I’m kinda stymied. And sad. We have a good thing going. I don’t want it to end.

  • the run around

    Written a week or two ago (perhaps the 12th? or the 16th?) 
    and then typed up today during the girls’ final exam.

    Wednesday’s baking class didn’t happen. But before I launch into that sorry tale, let me back up and explain what happened the Wednesday before.

    Class was to start at 7:30 am, as usual. I’ve drilled the girls on the importance of starting on time. When making yeast bread, an early start is imperative if we are to finish by lunch. Also, their grade is based on participation. Neglecting to show up on time results in point dockage.

    The majority of time, the girls have been late to class, but last Wednesday it was 8 am before they swarmed into the panadería. I looked up from the book I was reading and rattled off instructions. When I finished, the class spokesperson said, “Sorry, teacher, but we came to tell you we can’t attend class today. We have too much homework to do.”

    “Hm, really? Well then, bring me an excuse from the director, please. I don’t have the authority to release you from your assigned class.”

    That threw them into a pissy tizz. After an angry conference, they all stomped off to the office. Soon they returned, the director in tow.

    Director: Jennifer needs help baking. You can’t leave her to do it alone.

    Me: I’m not here to bake for myself. I already know how. This class is for you.

    Director: Get to work, girls. And Jennifer, if they are sullen and angry, let me know and we’ll put them to making tortillas.

    It was a bumpy start, but they were soon working and laughing. See teacher? We don’t need to make tortillas! We’re laughing, ha-ha-ha!

    final exam: butterhorns 
    (or rather, margarinehorns)

    Then there was the next Wednesday. Again the girls didn’t show. I asked the pastor to call up to the dorm to send them down. Nothing. Sick of wasting time, I went straight to the director. His call up to the dorm was more effective.

    When the girls came tromping down the hill, we—the girls, director, pastors, and I—met under the pavilion. The girls explained that they had a big assignment and were up until 4:00 that morning, and the morning before, too. (‘Tis true, they are newbies to the accounting program and have tons of catch up learning to do.) After a long discussion with the morose, exhausted girls, the director once again sent them off to bake. I stayed behind for a few minutes to confer with the director.

    I could hear the wailing before I entered the bakery. At first I thought they were laughing. But no. The entire room was filled with such theatrics that you never did see. Disheveled hair, red eyes, tears and snot. My husband later told me that he had heard the crying the whole way down in the carpentry. “We have four kids at home,” he said to the guy he was working with. “That’s not going to go over very well with Jennifer.”

    I walked into the room, leaned against a table, and crossed my arms. “What is going on.”

    And they dished out an ample serving of the same old sob story, finishing with, “And we can’t even clean the bakery because Pascuala has the cloths and she’s still sleeping!”

    I left them to their misery and went to talk to Natalia, another teacher who doubles as my right-hand cultural mediator.

    “What do I do?” I asked. “Are they taking advantage of me? Do we bake? Should I let them go?” It was mid-morning by then. Starting that late was hardly worth it.

    “They’re taking advantage of you, I think,” Natalia said. “But I’ll come talk to them.”

    In a non-confrontational moment: Natalia, only observing.

    So. Yet another group conference with sullen girls. In the end, I dismissed them, but with homework. For Friday, they were to write a three-pronged apology letter: what they did wrong, three things they could’ve done differently, and a list of what they’d commit to for the remaining two classes. Copying strictly forbidden. Worth ten points.

    That day, the afternoon tutoring classes didn’t go much better than the morning’s nonexistent baking class. In the first period, only two kids showed. In the second, only one, and then a half hour later, the rest slunk in, all out of sorts. The last class was its normal self, but one guy asked to go get his laundry off the line and never came back.

    When kids don’t attend class, there is nothing I can do to make it happen. The school is lacking such organization that enforcing classes is nearly an impossibility (but only for the extra-curricular ones—everyone shows on time for the academic classes, no problem). In fact, we were looking into partnering with a professional vo-tech as a way to strengthen the Saturday Vocational Arts program but have decided against it. It’s costly (though reasonable), but the risk of losing money because of delinquent kids just isn’t worth it.

    But back to the girls. I never quite know how to handle their apathy and tardiness. Should I be North American hardnosed? Should I just lay back and go with the flow? Should I set the start time for 7:30 but then not take attendance until 8:30 (to honor the customary Hispanic buffer hour)?

    Not that any of this matters anymore. As of today, the class is over. All but one passed, I think. Not with flying colors, but not just barely, either. So I guess it all worked out anyway. Don’t ask me how. It’s a mystery.

  • baking with teachers

    This morning I held a baking class for the teachers and Doña Ana. The class was their idea. I was thrilled to oblige. Interested adult learners are The Best! says the I’m-fed-up-to-my-eyeballs-with-lazy-teenagers teacher (more on that later).

    I charged them Q20 each (less than three US dollars) to cover the basic costs, but then I donated/provided a bunch of fancy ingredients because:

    1) Why not?
    2) I’m sick of cooking with limitations, both budgetary and ingredient-ary.
    3) Eager learners deserve it.

    We made four recipes each of Easy French Bread and Five-Minute Bread. We kneaded in raisins and cinnamon to half of the French bread, and the remaining half we turned into cinnamon rolls and plain rolls with sesame seeds on top. With the five-minute bread we made a giant pepperoni pizza, beirocks, and pepperoni rolls (kind of, but mostly not really). They shaped the last batch of five-minute bread as you would pizza and spread it with margarine and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. (Upon tasting it, we discovered that Osmar, the only male participant, had neglected to add the salt.)

    The teachers caught on to the bread-making techniques super quick. They loved that we were making so many different kinds of breads—it drove home the point that bread is flexible. They had tons of questions and suggestions.

    What about doing it this way?
    Could we add fresh fruit? Why not?
    What about adding basil and black pepper to the pizza crust?
    Could we fill these with ham? Sausages?
    We could make calzones!

    I could tell that my answers were absorbed and then tucked away. Already one of the teachers is planning to make sweet rolls for her husband’s birthday on Sunday.

    One thing that I’ve noticed about baking with Guatemalans (and maybe Nicaraguans, too?) is that they don’t sample the finished product first thing. I am always super eager to cut into a cake and see how it turned out (and have a permanently burnt tongue to show for it), or I immediately tear open a roll to see if it is baked all the way through. But not these women. They wait until everything is done baking and then they divide it out between them and only then do they start tasting. I’m not sure what they thought of me when I scarfed a fresh cinnamon bun. Greedy barbarian, probably.