Friday, October 10, 2014

poca a poca

It has been a long week with challenges and successes.  I still haven't figured out how to get internet at my new apartment and I'm not sure that the washing machine is working (clothes are starting to pile up fast!) but on the positive side, I have my time table (or schedule as we in the states might call it) all worked out and I found myself speaking Spanish to students today as if it was a voice I had no control of but that just came out of me!

There is a saying that I have heard MANY times from the native Spanish speakers around me as a way of encouraging me as I learn to find my way here, it is "little-by-little".  I heard it so often I began to think that it must be a common phrase in Spanish and sure enough, it is.  As the locals would say "poca a poca", or little-by-little, I am getting used to the time, the customs, the language and my life here in Spain.

Amanda has enrolled the girls in the local primary school, where they speak only Spanish but for the few hours of English class they get during the week.  They have been there a week and have made friends in the way that children can be so quick to do.  I ask them to tell me some names of their friends and they seem unable to name even one but still they are "close buddies"; the world can be so simple through the eyes of a child.  They are picking up Spanish poca a poca and even sharing some of it with Amanda and I when they get home.  I am certain they will master the language before me and Amanda.

Along with the Spanish, I have also learned much about the way education works in Spain (maybe not this broad yet but at least in the schools near Madrid) and I hope to share some of that with you in an upcoming post.  There are also some interesting Spanish holidays coming up and I am excited to share those here as well.

For me, this weekend will be spent celebrating the week's successes, finding solutions to the current challenges and RESTING!  Who knew an experience like this could be so exhausting!

Cheers!

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