I can hardly believe that I have been in Villa Hayes for a month (well almost a month). I am on my third week of classes here, and starting my first week of classes in Benjamin, a town which is a 15 minute bus ride away.
Classes in Villa Hayes take place in the second story of the school that my host family runs. In the mornings and afternoons it is a kindergarten, grade one and preschool, where Ruth teaches. On evenings and Saturdays it is one location for a larger university. I have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at this location. Each class is aproximately 2 hours and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a morning class (8-10) an afternoon class (3-5) and an evening class (7:30 - 9:30). The students are all quite eager to learn, however attendance is not the greatest. The classes are also mixed levels and I worry that I may be going to slowly for the more advanced students and to fast for some of the other students.
My first set of classes in Benjamin begin this Friday, I have visited and met a few of these students and they seem quite willing to learn, at this point I have only one class scheduled for them, on Friday mornings (8:30-10:30). I hope to be able to schedule another on Wednesday mornings or at another suitable time. Unfortunatly my Tuesdays and Thursdays are quite busy in Villa Hayes so that is not an option. It is a quite hot bus ride, and the fifteen minute walk to the bus is quite hot as well. I belive I will need to make a purchase of a guampa and a thermos for Tereree, because of the temperature and fear of becoming dehydrated.
For those of you who do not remember or do not know, tereree is basically cold mate. For those of you who do not know what mate is, it is a herbal green tea, the loose grass and leaves are placed in a cup/gourd/horn etc and a straw (bombilla) is used to consume the water that is poured over the tea. In Paraguay it is consumed cold because of the extreme heat. In other places, such as Uruguay or at my house back home it is consumed hot.
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8 comments:
good thing you explain to some of us what tereree is, now I am sooo in the loop... who knows, maybe someday I'll be part of the cool crowd and sit in a circle and drink it... okay, maybe not, water is good.
I drank something warm today - wassail. It was actually good. My being cold all the time might actually drive me to try something new :P Its frigid here, look carefully in your Christmas card cause I'm sending you a snowflake.
<3
Jo
P.S. Hope your new class goes well!
we will have to drink cold mate when we get back to chicago...for it will be quite hot.
You're living in Paraguay and you haven't been drinking tereree?!? What kind of Mennonite are you?
I'm kidding. I'm glad to hear that things are going well down there. We miss you!
Thank God for tereré!
Ha. I can sympathize with the mixed levels thing. It is basically impossible to not bore some and lose others completely... maybe Goldilocks will find the combo that is just right.
Sounds like you are doing well and not having to travel too much... that's good!
Yikes, you're busy. Best of luck balancing all this. You still have time to learn Spanish, obviously - it's noticably improving.
keeping busy, Becca. Keep hydrated!
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