the Alcalde speaks

The most interesting thing is happening today. Starting at 9am this morning, the mayor of Ollantaytambo started speaking in the town square. It is now nearly 1pm and he is still talking - and some other people from the town government. They are talking about the works that have been done and how much they cost and the works they plan to do and how much they cost and other sorts of general town business and the whole town has been out all day watching and listening. It is amazing to me. I can´t quite imagine this happening at home. I know there are town meetings, but have you ever actually been to one? And it was never in the main square with schools and businesses shut down to go and listen. I listened for a while but can´t understand very well - this is still true of speeches and things though my one on one spanish is getting very good.

Fun to see it out the window as I am looking for games to play with my English class this afternoon. Learning how to be a teacher is an interesting process and sometimes I have excellent classes that I am so excited about and sometimes I blow it and we end up just kind of looking at each other. Luckily, when that happens I just laugh and say ´okay, what do you want to learn?´ and they ask me all sorts of questions we would probably never get to in normal lessons. Today we are going to go over the alphabet again and again. I am finding that though many people have spent years studying English, their pronounciation is so so so bad that they are impossible to understand. This is frustrating for them and for me so I am trying to spend a lot of time with that and mke the English they have learned more useful to them. Sometimes they get frustrated that they feel like they aren´t learning more new words but I just keep explainging to them that it doesn´t matter how many words they know if no one can understand them. We´re getting there though.

I start teaching kids next week in an elementary school so that will be a whole different level of learning to teach and preparing classes. Of course I will teach different things to four year olds than I will teach to first, third and fifth graders. I suspect my prep time is about to go through the roof. But it is fun anyway and I think it will be more fun to play games and such with kids. The adults learn more with games than lectures but it takes a while to get them to be willing to play and be silly. But, I firmly believe that you are learning more if-as you are laughing. When they are paying more attention to the game, they aren´t being so nervous about the words and if you can get them to be shouting and laughing as they are saying words and phrases in English then they will be less likely to be shy about them later.

I am headed to Cusco tomorrow to pick up a package from Geoff and Whackadoos and then staying for The Village People. Hopefully they will actually play this time and not disappoint us again. Although last time there were going to be a dozen or so of us going together but by now everybody but me and Donnie have split town so it will just be us. Not quite the same experience, but I´m sure we´ll have a great time anyway.

Love you all!
em