New student

Yesterday I started spending some time in the afternoon teaching my friend, the taxi driver, English. We met a couple of years ago when I first came here, and when I came back from Lima the other day, I asked if he wanted to practise his English with me. He works a lot, from early morning to late at night, 7 days/week driving his cab, but we managed to find a few hours throughout the week to schedule a class. It is very different to teach an adult. He has different questions and interests than the kids, but I really enjoy it, and we are moving along as slow as we need to. Pronunciation is a big one and I didn´t realize how hard it is for Peruvians to make the th-sound or adding the proper t or n to the end of a word until I started teaching English. Makes me more conscious of my Spanish pronunciation too. We spent most of the time on the alphabet and some basic words, especially some tricky ones. We have now spent a couple hours in the afternoon together and I am amazed how well we are understanding each other. Once in a while I have to look up a word in my dictionary, but today in the car on our way back to drop me off, we actually discussed genetics and height!! Based on my limited Spanish and his limited English, we should not have been able to understand each other, but we did!! I am glad I am being forced to try to make myself understood. If there were more English speakers here I wouldn´t be getting this much practise.

Today´s class at the orphanage got cancelled. When I arrived, water and soap bubbles were oozing out from under the metal gate and it turns out they were scrubbing the floors, cleaning the place. I was a bit sad I didn´t get to see them but that´s just life down here...
Tuesdays here are cheap movie night, $2. I only had two options in English: The new T om Cruise movie and a horror flick, easy choice. Not a huge fan of horror movies. As I walked home in the dark, as quickly as I possible could (although there were still lots of people around), I heard my name and was attacked by lots of little hands and arms, dragging me down for hugs and kisses. It was the girls for the orphanage, on their way home. Highlight of my day for sure!!

PS. I have been drinking "magic wand" tap water for a couple of days now and no stomach problems. WooHoo!