Mr. Rogers would be jealous...

What a first week of classes.

Sunday I traveled back up to San Martin with Abel (the pastor of that community - the Cuban) to start my first class and meet the kids.  Now remember, this is the community where I put up posters, met a couple teenagers, and, with fingers crossed, hoped that people would show up.  With that information, it was kind of hard to prepare for a class that I wasn't even sure would even happen.  The class was supposed to only be for youth in high school or already graduated, but that was just a guess, like most .  So, I gathered a few review games on introductions, copied some worksheets, etc. and headed along.

The bus ride to Guapiles from San Jose is about 1 1/2 hours.  Abel and I spent the entire ride talking about Cuba, communism, and stereotypes of Americans.  I had no idea.  Abel told me that first of all, under communist rule, citizens do not have access for foreign television programs or radio stations unless approved by the government.  They also do not have personal internet access in their homes and are only permitted to certain sites.  On top of this, they are not permitted to produce any document that criticizes the government or the country.  If they do they will be arrested, punished, or penalized in some way. He also told me that if Cubans decide to leave the country, they are required to stay wherever they are for at least three years.  Talk about an incentive to stay in Cuba.  Then, after three years, they have to ask for permission to come back to Cuba, and they don't always let you in.

The worst of it all is that Cubans are taught that democracy is evil and the United States is the cause of all evil in the world.  Yes, I'm taking liberties, but if you could sum it up, I think they would say it like that themselves.  Abel told me that when Russia was communist, the two countries shared everything.  Cubans could travel easily to Russia with no problem and their economies were inextricably intertwined.  So, when the USSR collapsed in 1991, Cuba's economy and people suffered equally.  And during this time of hardship, Cuba sent teachers into the schools proclaiming that the United States and democracies like it were to blame for the collapse of Russia's government and the financial burdens of those times.  And many people believed and still the government and their teachers and resent America for it.  They are bred to be skeptical of our intentions and assume that our motives and relationships are always centered around money.

However, what's worse still, is that students are taught not to question.  They are taught not to think or criticize or analyze the actions of government officials.  Abel told me that if students do question teachers they are reported to the office or asked to sit in the hall.  And, as a teacher, I can say that teaching children not to question the material they are taught or equip them with the skills to analyze their world is the most debilitating transgression an educator can commit.

Abel told me that even though he has spent years out of the country, traveling, he is aware of the stereotypes and prejudices he still has from his 20+ years living in the country.  He said they're so ingrained that sometimes he is unaware of his thoughts and has to make a conscious effort to evaluate a situation or piece of news regarding the U.S. with objectivity.  I couldn't help but think how these overt attempts at animosity and intolerance towards Americans in Cuba carry the same brainwashing weight as racism passed down generation to generation in a family or the acceptance of stereotypes among friends or rampant backdoor discrimination still present in the workplace.

When we got to San Martin, and I had tried to file folder away the eye-opening conversation I had had with Abel on the way up, we met up with Isabela's family (two parents and nine children - one still in the oven).  Three of her younger children (Julio - 12, Maykel (like Michael) - 6, and Daysha (girl) - 4) came along.  One of her eldest daughters, Isabel - 17, also came with her boyfriend, Kenneth - 18.  We set off for the church where the classes take place.  When we got there, Julio and Maykel found a ball, as all boys somehow do, and we began to play a mini-game of soccer.  Two boys heard the ruckus and timidly peered into the church grounds from the road.  I called them in and they came to play as well.  Abel, surprised by the 7 children we had managed to gather, though the majority of them came from one family, told me to go ahead and start the class even though it was only 9:30am and the class was supposed to start at 10am.

So, here I was from a 4 year old child who has never been in school to a 17 year old teenager who has one more year until she graduates with a solid several years of English classes under her belt.  No activity or review game I had in my bag of educative tricks could accommodate that large of a learning gap nor captivate the interest of both parties at the same time.  But I tried anyway.  I did introduction games like passing a ball of yarn and introducing themselves to the person they passed the string to:  "Hello, my name is _____. What's your name?" Yet with every activity, the divide became more apparent and I could feel that rush of panic flailing around in my heart like a cat in water.

All I could think was "First impressions are everything and this one is terrible," "They think this is horrible and they'll never come back," "Everybody's bored and they think it will always be like this," and, of course, the first year teacher fallback doubt phrase "I have no idea what I'm doing."  I had felt all these things before during my student teaching, except the safety net there was the kids had to come back.  They didn't have a choice.  In San Martin the class is optional and I can objectively say that the first class was a disaster.

Finally, I stopped the activities and had everyone sit at the table again, determined to start fresh.  As they moved back to the table, three more teenagers came - Karen (18 and already graduated but very interested in English and eager for more practice), Merlyn (16 and in her junior year of high school looking for help in school), and Andres (Meryln's boyfriends in his junior year as well, undoubtedly there because Merlyn was).

As they sat down I brought out sheets of paper I had prepared beforehand asking for each of their names, ages, grades, and interests in English.  After that I dismissed the younger children to play soccer and talked with the teenagers.  We discussed aspects of English they are interested in learning, what they struggle with, what's easy for them, etc.  We did a practice activity with some worksheets I had made and I saw that the three girls, especially Karen, are ready to work and have enough background knowledge in English that we can really make some progress.  This gave me hope and I dismissed them, partially deflated by the fiasco of the first class and with an unquenchable desire to return in the next 30 minutes to the church with a fantastic lesson for them.  The fact that I had to wait until next Sunday before I saw them again weighed heavily on me and made me anxious until nightfall; however, I decided that now that I knew the population of students, I would teach the younger kids from 10-11 and the older kids from 11-12.  Hopefully by splitting them up I can teach each age group more effectively with different activities appropriate to their maturity level.  It seems that trial and error are the way to do things around here, so I'll let you know how that goes after this Sunday.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Isabela's family at her house.  I played cards and soccer with the kids, watched part of a soccer game, and talked with Isabela about English and all the words she knew.  It was a good afternoon.  There is something about that family that feels like home.  Kids running in one door and out the other, Isabela sitting on her front porch with the sewing machine making costumes for her children for the upcoming celebration of Independence day, the father sitting beside her munching on mamones, the eldest daughter in the kitchen making juice out of mandarins for the family, and Abel spread out on their couch in front of the football game on TV feeling right at home like I already did.

Here are some pictures from the afternoon:

Isabela, her husband, and Daysha around the sewing machine.  The shirt hanging on the back of the shirt is what Isabela made that day.

Maykel with a "sweet" lemon.  I've had a few and they don't really have much of a taste to me, but in their defense, they aren't sour...

Daysha with a 5 cent coin.  We played heads or tails for about 30 minutes.  It's incredible how captivating that game is to children.

This is Abel sitting on the couch watching a soccer game.  This was about the 18th picture that Daysha took of him so I think that would explain his unwillingness to smile.

Daysha and me.  She loves taking pictures, being in pictures, posing, etc.  She actually went inside and got her big sister to put her hair up for this picture.

We also played cards.  Daysha had her own rules so her mom tried to help out for a while.

The whole family knows my aversion to chickens.  They think it's funny when I find a big chested rooster behind me and I jump up like my seat's on fire.  They thought they'd soften me up with a couple chicks.  I held it.  They were right.  They are cute.

Picture with Maykel.

Julio and Abel watching the soccer game.  Julio had managed to evade 20 pictures by putting the newspaper over his head, but the game got interesting enough that Daysha finally got one picture out of it.

I left San Martin at 1:30pm, like usual, and arrived in El Jardin at 6:30pm.  I got dropped off at Hazel's house, sat with the family for a while and talked about natural disasters for a while with the father because he had heard about Irene on the news, and then went to bed.

On Monday morning I got up and went to El Jardin for school.  Once again, I had no idea what the plan was. The director told me to start on Monday but didn't tell me what classes or in what classrooms or at what times.  So I showed up at 7am with, once again, 10 pages full of activities I could do on different topics, and looked for the principal.  When I found him, he welcomed me, introduced me to a couple people, and then took me to the first classroom.  It was the 4th graders.  There were only about 7 of them and the class went phenomenally.  They were enough of them to do all the games but few enough to get their attention when I wanted it.  We played "pass the magic English microphone" game that I made up where they can only speak English into it.  And we also had dueling matches where they had to take 5 steps away from each other, turn on their heel, and say "His/her name is ______" before their opponent.  I taught them a song about names to the tune of London Bridge then caught each student and had them say their names.  It was fantastic.

The second class was with a large group of second graders.  They were much more difficult as they had trouble listening and they were not good at activities that had only one of them speaking at a time - they didn't have the attention span for it.  So, I had to resort to vocabulary games in which each team raced to find different cards of fruit that they were learning about.  The third class was with 6th grade, the oldest of the school.  There were naturally some feisty ones who use sarcasm and disobedience to avoid the embarrassment of speaking a foreign language, but this class went well overall.  I've always been able to connect with students of this age using humor and that made it much easier.  The last class of the day was a small classroom of about 25 third graders who, despite being unjustifiably loud, are energetic and eager to participate.  I spent the last part of that class teaching them the names of 10 vegetables.  At 3pm, I had spent 8 hours teaching 4 classes and I was feeling good.

I sat with the lunch ladies after school, showed them a magic trick with a deck of cards, and then went to walk back to Hazel's where my stuff was.  As I walked, I passed by all the houses I had walked by the few weekends before, but now, it seemed that every house had a child in it that I knew - playing in the front yard, parking their bicycle on the porch, climbing trees to take down oranges.  As I walked by, they all yelled out "Hello teacher!" and "Good afternoon, teacher!"  Mr. Rogers would have been jealous of the beautiful day in this neighborhood.  It was as if it was straight out of a 1950's Leave it to Beaver sitcom where everyone knows everyone and everyone is nice enough to say hi to those everyones.  It was probably the best moment I've had since I've been here.

That night I stayed at the church in El Jardin because Nehemias, the pastor who usually sleeps there, had gone back to San Jose that morning.  The family who lives at the church brought me sheets and a mosquito net to set up the bed in the one-room church/sanctuary.  There are four children:  Camilo (12), Jahayda (7), Hector (5), and Saylih (3).  When Nehemias stays at the church, Camilo's mother allows him to say with Nehemias, so when I stayed in the church, Jahayda stayed with me.  She had her own bed set up across the room.  Before bed, the children and I spent the night in the church sitting on the benches playing cards and coloring pictures.  I read them a book in English and translated it along the way.

On Tuesday morning I got up and walked to Hazel's house to meet her there so we could ride to San Julian together on her bikes.  Three feet down the road my bike broke and we couldn't fix it so we had to wheel it back to the house and go on foot.  Three miles later we arrived at school and I met up with Edgar.  The first class was with 9th grade.  They were still working on prepositions.  The second class was with 7th grade.  Edgar spent this class passing out grades.  The last class of the day, from 12pm - 2pm is with the seniors. For this class I prepared a list of strategies to help with reading comprehension questions.  I presented the list to the students and used a question from a past exam as an example.   I told them that even though my Spanish wasn't perfect, I promised my English was.  The students, only 10 of them, also introduced themselves to me.

All in all, it went well.  In the first two classes I think I am more of an assistant - a resource if needed.  With the seniors I think I will be used much more and have a lot more freedom to create lessons for them and help them prepare for the national exam coming up.    All in all, the day went well.

After school, at 2pm, I walked to the "pulperia" - a small grocery store down the road from the school.  Hazel had a review session for Geology so I told her I would wait for her there.  I wrote in my journal while I waited and slowly, a group of students congregated around me.  They asked me how I was, what I was doing, where I lived.  As some left, others came and I felt all over again that warmth of community I had felt yesterday afternoon in El Jardin.  I had old men, seemingly regulars to this storefront, offering to buy me drinks and asking me about the United States.  Others students rode in on their bikes obviously running errands for their parents.  As they toddle by with bags of groceries on each arm they said "Hi teacher.  See you Tuesday!"  You would be impressed with the amount of weight these children can manage to carry on their bikes and the precision with which they equally balance the load.

When Hazel was done, she came to the pulperia and found me.  We began to walk home under the oppressively hot sun.  As we walked, a huge semi-truck began to pass us.  Enveloped in the dust it stirred, I shielded my eyes with my hand and walked with my head down.  When I finally looked up, Hazel was standing on the step ladder to the semi talking to the driver.  I couldn't hear their voices, but I saw him motion to her to come on and she grabbed my hand.  We ran around the front of the truck and climbed (literally) up the steps to the cab of the truck.  Hazel sat in the back and I sat in the front seat.  Apparently Hazel is friends with the driver's friend's sister... yeah.  And he was offering us a ride.

Now, I have seen probably a million semis in my lifetime, being a regular customer of I-40 East and West; however, I have never actually RIDDEN in a semi.  It was fantastic.  The cab was huge - a child's cubby hole dream.  The seats bounced like a trampoline and were set so high I rolled the window up a bit to ensure I wouldn't spring out.

Evidence:

After we got back to Hazel's house, I spent the rest of the afternoon talking with the family and then I walked back to the church where I stayed that night.  Once again, I spent the night playing with the kids who live at the church:

Bed w/ mosquito net where I sleep in the church.

The same one-room church.  This mosquito net is where Jahayda sleeps.  The table with the cross is the altar.

The front of the church in El Jardin.  Inside this building is where I sleep.

Around the right side of the church leads to the garden, children's room, etc.

Just part of the "ecological sanctuary."

From left to right:  Hector, Jahayda, and Camilo.  They're trying to recreate the magic trick I showed them.. without knowing how to do it.  Camilo just doesn't understand why it doesn't work for him...

I woke up at 4:30am to catch the 5am bus that leaves El Jardin on Wednesday morning.  It was quite a week that I feel about a fraction more ready to prepare for next time.

Everybody give your planners a hug for me.