Back to School

Today, Wednesday, is our third day of school and we’re beginning to get the hang of the routine. Today is the first day Bob felt his Espanol isn't a completely hopeless task. His pronunciation is still not good, but he’s beginning to get it. They started him out with vowels, and then he has to say them in a word which is where he begins to pick up the rest of the alphabet. He still has to look at each word on paper or on the board and then carefully pronounce each vowel. It’s slow, but he’s now getting it right about 60% of the time. His goal for the two weeks is to learn enough with an instructor that from then on he can learn on his own at a more relaxed pace. This stuff still feels like it's coming at him with a fire hose. (Footnote: Cathryn thinks Bob is doing much better than Bob thinks. His initial expectations of progress are/were unrealistic, and he is unduly pessimistic about his ability to do this. Cathryn thinks it’s amazing what he can do/say already after only 6 hours of instruction!)

Cathryn is also finding Spanish school rather exhausting! We know Adrienne will have no sympathy for this sentiment – Ryan and Mackenzie either, for that matter, though it’s “history” for them, unlike for Adrienne who says “Welcome to my world!” On the other hand, Cathryn’s extremely pleased with how readily she’s picking up the material only because it’s not completely new, even if she last studied it 35 years ago. It’s a bit like riding a bicycle, in that once learned, it comes back more readily than when it was first new. Her class will finish working in the Past Tense at the end of this week, the move on to Future tense and Past Participle. Of the 3 students in her class, one is only here this week, then he returns home. The other student is Megan, a 32-year-old woman who is completing her Pharmacy degree in Albuquerque and wants to learn Spanish to communicate with the very large Spanish-speaking population back home. She and Cathryn are extremely well-matched in their speaking level and learning pace and are enjoying each other a lot. Megan went with us to the markets this afternoon (see paragraph below on this).

Today, after school we went off with Cathryn’s classmate, Megan, to fill up our propane tank (for the first time this trip) and then went to two small public markets in downtown La Paz. One of the markets focused on clothes, the other on food. Much of the clothing in these markets is new, but very dated. We’d guess they started out in a retail store in the U.S., then went into a discount store, again in the U.S. and then may have gone through the same cycle in Mexico before ending up in the market. The food market was about half vegetables, which looked excellent, and the other half meat and fish. The meat and fish was mostly not refrigerated and frankly not very appealing. It was 3pm by the time we got there, so maybe it looked better early in the day. We stopped by the CCC, a major grocery store, on the way home and bought the food needed – under rather better hygienic conditions.

Now we have to do our homework, cook dinner, and then we’ll be ready to enjoy a glass of wine and time with our books.