Learning Patience

Ok so I know I'm not the most patient person in the world. And I wear my heart on my sleeve-when I'm pissed off, sad, happy, whatever-everyone knows it. But I decided to muster all the energy I could to suppress these inadequacies and teach English to Colombians ages 15 to old señores and señoras with grown children. I thought the difficult part would be vocabulary and grammar, especially when I as a native speaker have no idea what the function of the word "do" is in a question ("Do you have a boyfriend"-a question I've been asked one too many times by my students) or what the Easter Bunny has to do with Jesus; this little lack of knowledge being discovered in a discussion of American holidays.

But honestly, after too many personal questions about why I'm here in Medellin, how long I'm staying, if learning Spanish is hard, and having to cut my speaking pace in half and act as if I were talking to a five year old, I thought I had learned a good amount of patience. But when people are idiots in English AND Spanish, I just can't deal. One example is my friend Gloria, a señora of about 40-something. She asked me a simple question, how do you say jabon in English. I told her soap. For Spanish speakers the word soap sounds like a lot like soup in English so Gloria asked me to spell it. Happily, I began S-O- and when I got to A, she didn't know what to write. She wrote H, and I said no, A, and she was confused. I said A, you know like the first letter of the alphabet. I said you know what alphabet is right? And she said yes. So I said the FIRST letter, holding up one finger to demonstrate. Scratching her head she didn't write anything. Ok, I said, testing the patience I had built up this first month of teaching, "Alphabet, what is that?" And she said alfabeto and I said good, ok so the FIRST LETTER. Still looking at me like a deer in headlights I began to write the alphabet on the board. "Gloria, what is the FIRST letter of this." I even pointed, A, for god's sake, A!!! I finally reverted to Spanish (something I don't do so much but I really should, because when they don't understand my English explanation I could just save myself the frustration and just repeat what I said in Spanish, but no, I want them to actually understand and learn English). I ended up saying the letters in Spanish to her through gritted teeth until she understood and said "ohhhh, it's just that when you say A it sounds like H," as if the problem were my fault, my ineptness at pronouncing my own language.

Other cases where my inabilities at remaining calm have been demonstrated when I've asked for more details from some of my students. Take Laura. She's a pretty 18 year old who finished high school and has applied to college to be a plastic surgeon. But again, she's not one of my brightest bulbs. She failed the university entrance exam for her major not just by a little bit, and always comes to class at least 20-30 minutes late. When she does arrive, I ask her how her weekend went, what she's been up to, etc to get her speaking in class. She responds with the standard "good" or "fine"" and then gives me nothing. When I ask what exactly she did she says "Nothing." I never take that as an answer. "You HAD to have done something!" What'd you do Saturday night for example?" Then she flashes me this braces-clad dumbfounded smile and says "I don't know, nothing." And I'm like think, come on you did something. You're an energetic, fun girl. And when she finally actually tried to think of what she did, she couldn't find the right vocabulary. Ok, so tell me in Spanish and I'll help you with the vocab. So she starts thinking again and says, "Ah no, I can't think of the word." This has been her response when I've asked her to tell me about herself, her weekend, or her interests. Ok, well I can't work miracles, so instead of getting frustrated and trying to force something, anything out of her, I give up and move on, telling everyone "if you're not going to speak in class, then don't bother coming because I am here specifically for you to practice talking."

So I've just come to terms with the fact that I can push people. If they don't want to talk they they're not going to talk. And if all else fails, then I should just speak to them in Spanish.