Tonight I decided to visit my host aunt and her brother (my host uncle) who is also one of my counterparts. My host aunt always offers me food when I go there so I visit fairly often :) I really do enjoy chatting with her though--she is such a sweet lady. Anyway, my counterpart walked with me to the house and told me "sit down!" like he usually does which in English sounds more like a command than what he actually intends, so that always makes me giggle. Then my host aunt (Ruth) offers me gallo pinto to which I bashfully say yes to try to not seem too eager and that I'm only visiting for food... Then she heads straight to the kitchen to whip up some food while I chat with my counterpart. This is the usual.
We actually had a pretty good talk as he asked me what I think of the behavior of the students in the instituto. I told him it's pretty bad, especially with the classes being so large (40-50 students). Not many students actually study and few do work in class. It's sad really. I was going to suggest that the classes need more quizzes or tests so the students would have something to study for, because I thought back to my Spanish classes in the States and I remember thinking, Oh, I have a quiz Wednesday, I need to study! But, there's not much motivation to earn good grades either. Before I could share my brilliant (hardly) idea, my counterpart began talking to me about how there is a lack of guidance and family dynamic here. He said a lot of students don't have moms or dads living in the homes and there's not much support nor love. I then added that without role models they have no view of what it looks like to behave well or support your family. This made me really think about my job, especially working in classes where there is very low motivation and consider whether or not my job really is to teach English or to support these students and value them as individuals. I know that they're not going to become fluent English speakers and I'm trying my best to better the program, but what these students really want is love and someone who looks into their eyes and sees them for who they are. I know, it's getting mushy, but it helps put things in perspective.
Near the end of this conversation, my aunt served me dinner. My counterpart always asks me if I want coffee and I have found that whether I say yes or no thanks, coffee always finds itself next to my plate, so now I just say yes, but it is fun to throw in a no thanks here and there and still see that item appear. This night in particular, my counterpart came from the kitchen with coffee in hand and asked me "do you like it strong?" and I hesitantly said yes curious to know how strong it was. He waited for me to take a sip to ask if I liked it and I said yes; even if I didn't it would still be yes. Apparently by "strong" he meant extra sugary. Ha!
As I finished my dinner, my counterpart brought out his boombox (wow, that's an old word) to play some English songs for me. It was great. They were pretty much all from the 80's, which I happen to love and it shouldn't be a secret to anyone who knows about my passion for singing out loud especially karaoke ;) What an experience this was though. My counterpart would start a song, ask me 2 seconds later if I knew it, before I could even process the 5 tones that played, and then he would start singing in a high falsetto--think Andy from the Office but with a Spanish accent/broken English. I had to giggle. We sat there and sang the high notes until a small portion of all 20 songs had been played. I relished this moment, thinking about how unique and precious it was. I asked to borrow his cd to copy the songs onto my computer and next week he's planning on coming to my house to check out the English songs that I already have. I told him to bring a cd and he could pick out the songs he wants. It's great that we both share a love for music (and singing in a high falsetto).
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