Inside a Language School


I have been the proud completer of four days of Spanish school. My routine is as follows: wake at 5:30 am to finish undone homework and get dressed, at 7:00 eat breakfast of scrambled eggs and stale rolls, leave for 25 minute walk to school at 7:30. Normally I would love a long walk before school (gives the brain some time to wake up and lets the muscles move before settling in to stagnancy for the next several hours). This walk however is on some of the busiest streets of the city, which means absolute gagville on car exhaust. I am serious when I say that the vehicles emit black toxic clouds that swamp your little pedestrian body. Well as gross as it is, I survive it. I then embark on a journey of Spanish grammar for the next 5 hours.


My school is owned by a gay boy that has decorated it in typical flamer style. I enter through the gold painted door and sit down with my teacher at a table accented with pictures of moons and stars (each one is hand-painted a little different). I hit the books with my teacher, trying to do language exercises and getting frustrated because I donıt have all the answers. Damm that perfectionist complex. I love the sun, and since it is a rarity, I make my teacher have lessons in the sun whenever it shines. I am donning new sunburn on my cheeks from Friday because of the serious sun worship that I instigated at school.


Everyone gets a break for 25 minutes, which is much needed. We all gather in the garden for tea (made from a bunch of roots and flowers floating in a huge kettle) and fresh baked rolls and plain cookied type things from the bakery down the street. The school owner, Pablo, always puts on some dancey type disco music. The favorite has been Madonna's Immaculate Collection. Ugh. We jig around and gossip for awhile then go back to studying. School is out for lunch at one oıclock, when I run home back to the family I have been assigned to live with. Olga (the woman of the family) has lunch on the table, which is not to be missed. Lunch is the large meal of the day, so I get ready to load up my plate. We usually have tamales that make you feel like you are a botanist. I unravel the insides from this elaborate coupling of long leaves. The fold used to keep them inside might be something you could find in an origami book. After the steamed leaf dissection, I plunge my fork into the yummiest tamale of a steamed grits type substance containing raisins and whole chicken pieces. Watch out for bones and olive pits. Yikes. There is always some type of super sweet drink to wash it all down. Kool Aid times two.


At 3:00 school activities begin. Back to school I go, belly bloated, for more fun. Last week we jumped a chicken bus for a small town outside of Xela (2nd class buses that have fine feathered friends flapping around in baskets, also the typical type of transportation). When we got close, but not all the way there, the bus kicked us off (that was as far as it went). We had to wait at the only road into town for a pickup truck to come by. Anyone who is going into town picks up people and squishes them in the back of their truck for 15 cents a ride. In we all go, piled on top of each other for a 15-minute ride on the bumpiest road. I swear there were potholes big enough for dogs to bath in. I was having a blast bouncing around the back of it. I even caught some serious air during the ride, giving my head an encounter with the ceiling of the camper.


When we arrived in town, we saw a beautiful church that looked like a childıs mobile on the exterior. It was painted primary colors with all these figurines of happy little people in different positions poking out of the architecture. Inside was a the most marvelous thing I ever seen. The ceiling had two chandeliers made from the most random street trash type finds: old Maudi Gras beads, colored records, sequins, bottles, broken toys... amidst all of this were bare naked light bulbs. Somehow it worked out to look quite elegant. Though this was very enjoyable, it wasnıt the best part... the walls were completely lined with glass cases containing life size replicas of various religious figures enacting different poignant pieces of life. Some where gruesome... a woman lying down, looking quite dead, in a regal red velvet gown. All the figures were dressed fancier than drag queens on Halloween. Sparkles and sequins seemed to be dress code for these religious characters. There must have been twenty scenes that you could visit and make light a candle in front of as a way of asking for some type of special attention to be made to your life which was symbolized by the scene in the glass case.


Before leaving town, we visited a house that had an altar to Saint San Semone. He is the saint of debauchery. People bring offerings of cigarettes and booze to lay at his feet. It is nice to know that one can become a saint and not be perfect.


Other school actives include salsa dance lessons, where I learned some new fancy steps. I tried out my new moves later that night at the local discotech. It was swamped with people, making it nearly impossible to dance, I just sort of swayed back and forth. Still, even though there was a lack of creative dancing, due to space constraints, I was not able to dance alone. Men insisted on asking me to dance all up in my space. I declined time and again, then finally went and got Pablo and made him be my pseudo partner so that we could both just sort of dance alone. I have never seen a club like this, the men were so fun... they stood on top of all the bench/seats and did the wildest porn star type dancing. When you walked by, they would look at you like that dance was especially for you. I smiled and walked pass, loving how great it all looked.


Not all the adventure happens during school activities. Sometimes it happens on the way to school. I was walking back to school in the afternoon to take some Salsa dance classes. I am singing little songs in my head, entertaining myself during the long walk. I turn the corner onto the street that my school is on. It is very narrow, the width of one car, give an inch on each side. It is also windy. You feel like you are very remote and possible in the middle of a fairytale or something. Anyway, I am walking and I see this guy in front of me sort of swerve. I think he is drunk, or just lost his balance on the ridiculous street rocks. Both of my guesses were wrong. It turns out, that he really was wondering what the female anatomy felt like. Perhaps in my teal oversized raincoat, I looked perfectly desirable for such scientific experiments and discoveries. Apparently so, because while walking past he reached out a hand and squeezed my breast. He actually got mostly raincoat, so his scientific discoveries may be flawed. Nonetheless, to make sure that he experience was as authentic as possible, I yelled really loud and slowly (in English) FUCK YOU. I turned around to stare at him as he walked passed. He turned around to look at me again, and just to make sure the message was received, I said it again and held up a long universal gesture of the middle finger. I also gave ice dagger eyes so that he couldn't miss what I was saying.


Arriving at school, I entertained all the teachers and students with my reenactment of the encounter. We all got a good laugh in before it was time to hit those books again and study some more grammar. During my lessons I found myself daydreaming about how learning the language is just a small part of going to language schools. The best part is making new friends with whom you can dance and tell stories to in broken Spanish.


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