The Monkey in a Zoo

A couple weeks ago, Gustavo told me I am like the monkey in a zoo - everyone wants to see me and pet me. It is true that I have been treated kind of like a rock star, which I must admit is awesome. What Gustavo didn't add, but I thought then and see as true now, is that everyone gets bored with the monkey pretty quickly. Think about kids who go to the zoo. They always want to get to the monkeys, but the monkeys only keep their attention for about five minutes. That is me. I was exciting to the secondary students for the first couple of weeks, but now they are over me. I am just another teacher who makes them do things they don't want to. I am, however, still the monkey with the primary students because they only met me for the first time last week. In one of the classes (I think 2nd grade), one of the girls put a sticker on my shirt. Next thing I knew, I had several stickers on my shirt from cute little girls. I put the stickers on a piece of paper and took a picture of it because I couldn't quite figure out how to take a picture of my shirt while I was wearing it. In another class (I think another 2nd grade), a few of the girls gave me clay creations they had made. So cute! The picture isn't great, but all of the creations are miniature and quite good.

I think it's time I confess something...I love it here! As Melissa will attest, I wasn't sure about things after the first week. I felt overwhelmed, and I was definitely a fish out of water. I don't know what changed, but every morning I wake up excited for the day. I am not saying I didn't love every day at LP, because I did. I will always love LP, and the students and families will also have the top spot in my heart. I'm just surprised at how much I am loving this experience. I am actually beginning to think I was supposed to be Colombian - except for the language, of course. Don't ask me why, yet. I don't have the words to explain it, but at some point I will. When I figure it out, I'll share.

On Saturday I got my hair done. It had been four months since Jill covered my gray with highlights (Now everyone knows that I have gray hair. I know everyone thought my color was totally natural :)). I decided it was important to hide my gray, but I was afraid because I knew I could not explain in Spanish what I wanted done. Fortunately, I had Kelly offer to go with me to the salon on Friday afternoon to explain what I wanted done on Saturday. While she was explaining to the hairdresser (William), I heard her say, "mas natural." Since I had just told her I wanted to cover my gray so it looked natural, I wasn't worried. Guess what? My hair is now mas natural. It is ash blonde with a touch of gray - basically my natural color. Kelly translated what I told her and William did exactly what he was told to do. I am not blaming them; I am the one who did not explain clearly what I wanted done. Melissa told me not to worry about it because it's better to be less blond than more gray. I agree, but I am still getting used to the color. Today one of the 7th graders told me she likes my hair color, so I guess it's not as bad as I think.


Today is Gustavo's birthday. In his honor, I have include a picture of him with his birthday cake. Gustavo is hilarious! When I saw him this morning, this first thing he said to me was, "Where is my present?" Considering English is his second language, I am impressed with how well he is able to make jokes and funny comments. It's nice when humor translates.

Nolie asked me to give an update on how my Spanish is progressing. I would like to say, "Muy bueno," but that would not be completely true. I am learning a ton of Spanish, but I am struggling with putting it together to make coherent sentences. Everyone keeps telling me Spanish is difficult to learn (I am sure to make me not feel so bad about my inability to communicate), but I feel like I should be doing better than I am. I want so badly to be able to talk to the people around me. Yesterday, a group of 9th grade students took it upon themselves to help me learn some casual conversation language in Spanish. I made them have casual conversations in English class this week, so I think they figured turn-around is fair play. One of the phrases is, "Aja, y tu que?" and the other is, "Que hubo." Supposedly, both of them mean something like, "What's up." I told the girls it seems odd to be learning slang when I can't even speak Spanish correctly, but they seemed to think it important for me to learn.

Sorry for so few pictures. I'll do better with the next post.