MID TERMS

Woo-hoo! We managed to make it through 2 weeks of Spanish school and are now beginning our break. We feel like kids again, reveling in the thought of no more homework…at least for a while. Our experience at “Se Habla…La Paz” Escuela has been wonderful so far. We started out in a class with 2 other folks our age (young) who had even less experience with Spanish than we did, so we immediately knew we were going to be okay. The course is set up to adjust to whatever level its students need; thus we started at the very bottom…present tense only for the verbos and a slew of words and helpful expressions (like “Que Padre” for “Cool”). A little akward for normal conversation, but ya gotta start somewhere! The instructors were VERY patient and funny and each one (we had two separate instructors for a total of four hours each day) took a slightly different approach; thus we got to experience the language from different perspectives. After the first week, one of our classmates decided it was a little too intense for him and dropped back to a 2-hr daily session (Que lastima!), so then we were three. Our other classmate was a delightful lady from Vancouver who had some experience with French, but no Spanish. However, she was a real trooper and in the course of 2 weeks we got to be good friends not only with her but also with and her husband and son. Perhaps the fear of failure mixed with all the laughs (not to mention some liberal doses of cerveza) did it! Anyway, this past Sunday found us all in a cantina sipping some Pacificos while watching the US/Canada Olympic hockey match. Did we mention that we were almost the only Yanks in the place? It was packed with rabid Canadian fans. Luckily, the Canucks won the game, we were very gracious in offering our congratulations, and the friendship not only survived but flourished. Unfortunately, their visit to La Paz has ended but Connie (ConniA in Espanol) & Mike are in the process of buying a “winter getaway” here so we hope to expand our friendship in the near future. Can’t wait to see who we’ll meet in our next set of classes!

Next week we hope to travel a little way up the road and over to the Pacific Coast to the port town of San Carlos, where we will try a little up-close and personal whale watching. From what we’ve been told we will be taken out on a smallish boat to view the ballenas and their babies as they frolic in the sea. The boats apparently get fairly close to the action, so we’ll be bringing our rain gear to avoid any big splashes or fallout from spouting! You can be assured we’ll be posting any good pics. This will be our first foray into the interior besides the cross-over on the drive between Cabo and La Paz, so we expect to see some unique country. How well we’ll communicate in a small Mexican town should prove to be unique, too!

An interesting cultural custom we’ve noticed and picked up on is the ancient, meditative quality of daily sweeping. Every morning most Mexican homeowners (or their maids) get out and sweep the dirt away from the front of their homes. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a little shack on a dirt road (no, we’re not kidding) or a palatial estate with gated entrances. Someone is out there in the morning, sweeping the dirt away from the house, into the street. And because it’s a little breezy and a lot dusty in most areas of La Paz, by the time the next morning rolls around it’s time to get the broom action going again, same time/same place. Barb calls it “Mexican Tai Chi” because the slow, repetitive motion sort of puts your brain in a trance. Ahh-so, little grasshopper! Until next time, keep those brooms moving!