Funny...but wrong!

Although school is in session and I spend most of mine time there, I have had the opportunity to meet some extremely nice people who have taken me under their wing and shown me many parts of Barranquilla. Two of these people are Kelly and Virna. They are awesome! Last Friday they took me to downtown Barranquilla - not the best neighborhood in the city. With both of them holding on to me, though, I felt extremely safe. We first ate lunch at a yummy vegetarian restaurant where the menu of the day is 6,500 pesos (about $3.25). The meal includes soup, beverage, and the main course. We then went to a goverment building because Virna had to get some paperwork taken care of for her new teaching job :(. When we were leaving, we noticed the Colombian Youth Philharmonic preparing to play so I took their picture. Our next destination was Paseo Bolivar, the first street in Barranquilla and where the city began. The statue is of Simon Bolivar, the father of freedom in Colombia. He is more than a hero here. We stopped at an ice cream shop to have Frozo Malt, which is a desert with chocolate ice cream and a jello/jam-type red topping. It was delicious. It is famous in Barranquilla because it is served at only one heladeria chain, and it is what Gabriel Garcia Marquez ate while he was writing One Hundred Years of Solitude . The last picture is of Virna on a sidewalk in Barranquilla.







The next day I spent about three hours at the Catedraton with the nuns. The Catedraton is a yearly -thon to raise money for the cathedral in Barranquilla. The 10th graders at school collected money for the first three weeks of school in cans and from selling bracelets, and they also had a day where they sold sweets and baked good to raise money. At the Catedraton, the girls presented the cathedral with a donation of 3,000,000 pesos (approximately $1,500) from the school. We ate lunch there and watched some entertainment. It was actually quite fun.









After the Catedraton, I went with Virna and her husband Jose to the Museo del Caribe, but we only went to the exhibit on La Copla. If I understand correctly, coplas are a specific type of Spanish folksong that was very popular in the mid-latter 20th century. The exhibit is from Spain and it has posters, record covers, and scripts from different copla productions. It was fascinating to learn about an artform I was previously unaware of.








We then went back to Virna and Jose's apartment and played games. Their apartment is darling. I love all the mosaic tile-work. After games, Virna made dinner. She is a much better cook than I could ever hope to be. When I got back to the convent, Sr. Ana Elisa was watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I don't know why I had to include that, but I found it so funny. I guess the Kardashians appeal to broad cross-section of people.




I would like to clear up something about which I wrote earlier. When writing about the students here, I explained that I don't like when students are talking while I am teaching. Austin reminded me that my classes are all about everyone talking, so he disagreed with my comment. I agree with Austin, so I will explain it differently. I LOVE student participation and discussion. When the students are involved and engaged and we are all talking together, I love it. What I don't like is when I am teaching or we are having a class discussion and some students are having their own conversation that is completely unrelated to what we are talking about in class. To me, those are entirely different scenarios. Thank you Austin for pointing out my need to clarify.



This next paragraph is neither for the faint-hearted nor for the under-13 crowd. If you are either, stop reading now. This is a story of English gone wrong. Yesterday in 11th grade (12th grade in the US), the girls were telling me about themselves, including likes and dislikes, family, and pets. One sweet girl had just finished talking about her family and was moving on to talk about her pets when she said (and I quote), "I have a bitch." I immediately knew two things: first, the girl had consulted an English-English dictionary at some point to see what bitch means; and second, I needed to treat the situation as a learning experience. The latter was a little difficult as I was struggling to both breathe and not fall on the floor laughing because what she said was totally unexpected (and hilarious). I calmly (maybe I didn't actually do it calmly, but I want to pretend I did) explained that although the term does indeed mean female dog and in the dictionary it would define it that way, in English we do not use it in reference to our pets. I told her it would be best to say she has a female dog or a girl dog. I tried to explain that the term she used is usually used for people, and it is seldom used in a positive manner. She clearly did not fully understand why I was making such a big deal out of it, but she agreed to call her pet a female dog. So the lesson of the days is to be sure you understand the usage of a foreign word before you use it.