53. Spanish Class

I had just been thinking that it had been a very long time since I was in a “classroom” setting, but then I remembered that I just finished that correspondence course in January. Granted, that took me a full year longer than it was supposed to, but whatever.

Anyway, Spanish class isn’t exactly fun. The first day was sort of fun because it was new, but the truth is that I haven’t exactly applied myself, haven’t been studying verb conjugation or vocabulary. I think part of the problem is that my teacher is a little…what’s the right word here…maybe odd. He’s odd. And sort of an Ewok. Or at least what I think of an Ewok. I not sure that I actually know what an Ewok looks like, but the name seems right. Or maybe a gremlin. He’s about 5 feet tall. Mustached. Wears cartoon character ties. Divorced with 2 kids. Has a severe blinking habit. Oh and is a cobbler when he’s not teaching. Really. He makes shoes. The Mr called him Yoda because of the strange gurgly Yoda sounding tick noise he makes all the time.

The Mr’s instructor is an older gentleman. Very civilized and seems entertained by the Mr’s lack of Spanish and French pronunciations. The Mr is lucky. If I had his instructor, I’d be all Spanish Spanish Spanish.

So Yoda (his real name is Gerber, but I can't not think of him as Yoda) and I spend our 4 hours sort of chatting – me asking simple questions in Spanglish (yes, I’m capitalizing it) and him responding in Spanish Spanish Spanish – and both of us copying stuff from another teacher’s notebook into our notebooks. He likes to use different colors in his notebook, so his is prettier than mine, which annoys the hell out of me.

After two sessions of sitting at little wooden desks and uncomfortable plastic chairs, today we hijack the class and take our teachers to a Museum of Weaponry (I don’t know if that’s what it was called, but there were lots of weapons – guns, rifles, canons) and then we took a very long lunch break. Total Spanish class slackers.

Here's a picture of me and Yoda. Note the tie.



After a tasty dinner at Burger King, we went to Panza Verde for drinks. One of the founding members of the Buena Vista Social Club was playing a short set. There wasn't a place to sit in the little room he was playing in, but we could hear from the bar and didn't have to pay the cover. The margarita was ok, but they just aren't the same in Guat as they are in Mexico.