Funny Sentences, Part 2

This month's edition of funny sentences, courtesy of my students.

• Why are you small?
• I want to visit Venecia and walk in the gondolas.
• Then I found Bryan Adams and drank a beer with him and cheers to 80s music.
  
• Can you go on a date with me dear teacher?
• I will get married with my mother's friend because she makes me crazy.
• Could I dance with Shrek? (I should point out that these last two came during a game where I was awarding creativity.)
• I pinch a cake.
• The trouble is your mind.
  
• Please could you give me a glad of milk please.
• I holded your hand when you was sleeping.
• I had been to club and I was boring.

Before I left for the Inca Trail, my students got a bit of revenge. First off, they didn't want me to leave (they were very happy to have me back. They hated the substitute.), and I had used Alberto, the only man in the class as an example for "used to" (as in "Alberto used to be a woman") and to introduce my gossip lesson ("Did you hear? Alberto used to be a woman.") Therefore, he and his partner wrote the following dialogue as gossip practice:
A: Did you hear? The teacher is going away this week to get married to Teacher Tom.
B: What? No, I wanted to marry her.
A: You can't, your girlfriend will be angry.
B: No she won't, she lives far away.

I'm leaving for Bolivia tonight. I'll tell you all about it on Monday!

Yes, I have chicken danced in the name of education

The last week of the month is exam week, my favorite week of the month. It's smooth sailing for me. My students sweat it out while I read a book, and no lesson planning, which means my free time is actually free. (Today I read an entire book. Educating Esme. Thanks Meg! It was very inspiring.)

This month, though, I have 2 exams that involve speaking, which means I can't just sit there with my book. I have to actually listen to what they're saying. For whatever reason, they were the most concerned about the speaking part. One student asked me every day for a week what the speaking topic would be. I finally got annoyed and told him I wouldn't tell him anything if he asked again. I don't know what they were so worried about. They're only talking to me, who they've been talking to every day for three months now. I mean, I've stood up in front of the entire class (both of them) and done the chicken dance. How intimidating can I be?

That's what I don't like about exam week, is the whining. If you ever want to hear a group of adult Peruvians sound like children, tell them to put their pencils down and hand in their tests. But Teacherrrrrrr, 5 more minutes. Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssse! They're worse than I was when my mom would tell me to get out of the pool. And not only do I give the 5 minute warning my mom gave me, but I also give them a 30 and a 10 minute warning. They start whining as soon as I give those warnings, as if I have personally sped up the clock. They do the same thing with the listening CDs. I tell them ahead of time that I will only be playing the CD once, or twice depending on the situation, but as soon as it's over (and sometimes before that) they start begging me to play it again. What part of NO don't you understand? It's the same in Spanish!

And no matter what I do, I can't get them to spell my name right. I even write it on the board, but I still get a load of test papers with "Kelly" listed as the teacher. Today, I even saw a guy write it the correct way, look at it, decide it didn't look right, and change the "i" to a "y." Do you think I don't know how to spell my own name? The woman next to him didn't even bother. She just wrote "Kell."

But it was in my first class that I had the most unique misspelling ever. I've never seen this version of my name before, and I hope I will never see it again. One of my students, who is not the brightest crayon in the box, spelled it "Quelly". She got a 37%. (And before you can ask, that's the grade she earned, not one given out of spite.)

Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

We interrupt this travel/ESL teaching blog for another book review.

Last year, I finally got around to reading The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, after it was recommended to me by several people. I didn't know that I could really get into a book about Afghanistan, though. It didn't really seem to be within my scope of reading tastes, but after the first few chapters, I couldn't put it down. A Thousand Splendid Suns, also by Hosseini, was the same way. I didn't want to stop reading and go to class. This one may be even better than The Kite Runner.

It's also unbelievably heartbreaking. While The Kite Runner is about a friendship between two young boys, Suns is about the women of Afghanistan. The first, Miriam, is sent to marry a man she's never met by her illegitimate father at the age of 15. Laila is forced to become his second wife after her family is killed by the constant violence in Kabul. The novel chronicles the recent history of Afghanistan, from Soviet occupation in the 80's, to the Afghanis joy at the Taliban coming in to save them in the 90's. I was amazed at the American's determination to oust the Soviets (because nothing can be worse than communism, right?) and their ability to ignore what happened afterward (and paying the ultimate price for that ignorance a decade later).

At times, I had to put the book down out of shock and thank my lucky stars I was born where I was. According to the Taliban, women could not leave the house without being completely covered and with a man, couldn't have a job, could only use the worst hospitals, and could be beaten for no reason. Any domestic violence was considered a "private, family matter." And no one, man or woman, could laugh, dance, or sing.

Despite all that, it really is a beautiful book. You should pick it up.

Shameless begging works!

I hit the motherlode with packages this week. Waiting for me when I returned from my epic Inca Trail journey was a package from my aunt Bridget that included a book, brownie mix (dark chocolate!), measuring cups (wow, people do read my blog!) and... the anxiously awaited Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue! Yesssss! I immediately opened it up to the NL East to see where my team was predicted to finish. 3rd. Hmmm....

In order to receive a package, you have to actually go to the post office, hand over your package notice, and wait for them to call you to the back, where they will demand to see your passport (the original, a copy will not suffice) and open your package, remove everything and log each item you received. I have no idea why. On Monday, I was only there for 20 minutes to pick up Bridget's package. Wednesday was a different story. I got another package notice, this one from the librarians of Dacula, my favorite librarians in all the land. I had to wait a full hour for my package, but I forgot all about the wait after I saw what they had done for me. Meg (the boss lady) had sent me an email asking for a wishlist, so I sent one, expecting a few things on the list. I got everything on the list and then some. The post office lady just kept pulling things out of the box, until she finally gave up. It was full of peanut m&m's (loads of them!) trail mix, not one but TWO jars of peanut butter, UNO cards, books, crochet patterns, beauty products, lots of travel necessities, chocolate chips for brownie baking (others are very excited about all the brownie baking possibilities) and another baseball magazine (this one says the Braves will finish 2nd. Getting better.) I was in tears, I was so touched. I'm sure my taxi driver on the way home thought I was crazy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! I send you all electronic hugs.

Inca Trail, Day 4: WOW!

The wake-up call for Machu Picchu: 4am. After breakfast, we had to do a bit of night hiking to the last checkpoint before Machu Picchu. No problem for me, though, I was rocking the head lamp. (Although Kris and Armando will probably tell you I was a bit of a blinding menace with that thing on.) The checkpoint was scheduled to open at 5:30, but actually opened a few minutes early, which must be a first in South American history. After we got through the checkpoint, it was about a 90 minute hike to Machu Picchu. It wasn't exactly a sunrise, (since the sun doesn't really rise or set in the mountains, it just gets light and dark) but the sun coming up over the mountains was awesome. It was a clear morning, with only a few clouds surrounding the mountaintops.

The first view of Machu Picchu was from the Sun Gate, which our guide told us could sometimes be the cloud gate or fog gate, but on that morning, it was nothing but sunshine. I was in complete awe. The view was clear, and my camera was functioning. I was pumped.

From the Sun Gate, we hiked down to the keeper's house, which is the view you always see in pictures and postcards. After taking all the pictures we could, we walked down to the main entrance (where you enter if you take the bus) to put our stuff in storage for the day, including my trusty walking stick. While gathering my stuff for storage, I heard a familiar voice. I realized it was one of my former students, who is a trail guide. I asked him how he was, and he said he was doing great, and that he was able to be a guide because of me. He introduced me to the couple he was guiding, who told me I must be a good teacher, because his English is so good. He was only in my class for a month, though, I can't take all the credit, but it was very nice to hear.

By 7am, it was already a hot day. It was fabulous. The first thing we did was hike up Wayna Picchu, the mountain behind Machu Picchu. Only 400 people can climb Wayne Picchu in a day. We were numbers 82 and 83 at 8am. It took about an hour to get up, and it was steep. After hiking for 3 days, I kept asking myself "why am I doing this?" To get to the top, I had to crawl through a very small tunnel (those Incas were tiny!) then had to scramble up a few precariously perched rocks. The view from the top was fantastic. The only thing surrounding Machu Picchu is mountains and trees, with the river and train tracks waaaaaay down below. Coming down from Wayna Picchu, my already sore knee became quite painful. I had to limp around on a bum leg for the rest of the day.

Armando gave us a tour of the ruins afterwards. Despite my bum knee, I had a fantastic time walking around the ruins and taking it all in. Kris decided it was more interesting to look at from a distance. I told him he was more than welcome to keep looking at it from a distance, but I had every intention of exploring every inch. (I like to think I shatter the stereotype of whiney
Americans.)

After I had finished exploring every inch, we took the bus down the mountain to the town of Aguas Calientes, a town that exists solely to get to and from Machu Picchu. I was downright dirty, and I know I smelled bad, but I certainly wasn't the only one. While we were waiting for the train, Kris asked me where my walking stick was. Oops. It hadn't been returned with the rest of my stuff from storage. Oh, well. We intended to rest during the 4 hour train ride back to Cusco (it's not that far, the train is just that slow), but we ended up sitting with a very chatty and hilarious group made up of 3 Canadians, an Irish couple, and a clueless Australian girl. (When Kris told her he was from Norway, she seriously replied, "Where's that?" Thank goodness she wasn't American.) The conversation made the long ride not seem so bad.

All in all, the Inca Trail is one of the coolest things I've ever done. Maybe it was the buttload of karma I racked up volunteering a few weeks ago, but everything worked out perfectly. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Inca Trial, Day 3: #@%&*! Camera!

The second night was the coldest night, and my Peruvian long underwear wasn't quite enough to keep me warm. I woke up several times in the night trying to get warm and comfortable. The tents we had were apparently made for Incas, seeing as how short they were. They certainly weren't made for vikings, Kris barely fit.

When I opened the tent in the morning, there was a fantastic view of the clouds sitting low in the valley. I grabbed my camera, only to discover that it wouldn't work. I couldn't even turn it on. Somehow, I managed to get it to take a picture of that view, but if you notice, that's the only picture I have of the third day. I have to wait a few weeks for Kris to return to Norway and email me some pictures. Luckily (?) it was so foggy in the morning, it didn't matter. I couldn't see anything anyway, but the thought of going to Machu Picchu without a camera was enough to make me cry.

Camera or no, the third day was the best day on the trail. The first hour and a half were straight uphill, which felt a bit like deja vu all over again from the previous day, only this time I didn't have nearly as much trouble with it. Apparently day 2 gave me iron lungs. I should really run a marathon as soon as I get home. When we reached the second pass, we crossed into the cloud forest, and the weather immediately got warmer and very humid. Just before lunch, we came to some Inca ruins overlooking the valley that we couldn't see due to fog. While we were there, though the fog broke. I reached for my camera, only to remember that it wasn't working. Argh.

During lunch, it began to rain. I put on my purple poncho, and we hit the trail. Despite the rain, this was the best stretch of trail. It was the jungle, so the rain was not only expected, but it just seemed appropriate. The trail was original Inca stone that went uphill and downhill (and was flat at times!) with a couple tunnels to walk through as well. The views were spectacular. Mist-shrouded mountain tops, with the sun hitting the valleys below. (I promise I'll have some pictures in a few weeks. Stupid camera.) We hit the campsite around 5pm, making it a very long, but very rewarding day.

The last campsite included a lodge with electricity, and a shower for the cost of 5 soles. I passed on the shower, though, I'm hardcore. After dinner, I managed to fix my camera. (Hallelujah!) I was going to have to hold the shutter open myself, but at least it would function. I was more than ready to get to Machu Picchu.

Tomorrow: A Wonder of the World

Inca Trail, Day 2: Beware the Altitude

Our wake-up call for Day 2 was at 6am. The plan for the day was to climb, and to keep climbing, so after breakfast I tried chewing on some coca leaves to help with the altitude. I didn't like them, so I gave up after a minute or two. The minute we left the campsite, we started uphill. The morning was chilly, but by 7:30, I had already worked up a pretty good lather, and was breathing pretty hard. The goal was to ascend 1,000 meters in only a few hours. It was pretty brutal. I was hot while I was walking and freezing when I stopped (which we had to do pretty often). I was also hungry every hour due to the amount of energy I was burning. Every time I looked up, I got pretty discouraged. It was so high. And far. And steep. Armando advised me not to think about the future, though, only the present. But it was really hard not to keep looking up. Around noon, I finally made it to the summit, at 4,200 meters. Finally! Five hours of going straight uphill in serious altitude isn't as fun as it sounds. As I reached the top, the Brazilian guys from our meal group were already there and cheering me on. I felt like I should make a speech. (First, I'd like to thank my walking stick, without which I wouldn't be here. I'd also like to thank my guide, Armando, for his words of encouragement and advice. Finally, I would like to thank Kris, for retrieving my water out of my unreachable pocket whenever I asked for it. Thank you all.)

From there, it was literally all downhill. Downhill is a bit rougher on the legs, but at least I didn't feel like I was going to die with every step. It started raining about halfway down, though, making the rocks a bit slippery, which of course means that I slipped and fell. I have a nice gash on my right knee to show for it. After that, Armando was constantly begging me to be careful.

We arrived at the second campsite a little after 1pm, and were done for the day. Good thing, too. My legs were too tired to go any further, and it rained the rest of the day. Along the trail, the bathrooms at the campsites didn't actually have toilets, but holes in the ground that required hovering or squatting over. Luckily, the second campsite actually had toilets (but no seats, of course), for which my very tired legs were extremely grateful.

The rest of the day was spent in the tent, listening to the rain and playing cards. We played several rounds of Tic, the official Rowedder family game (and the only game I really know) and I learned several Norwegian card games. Between our 5:30 tea time and dinner, we taught the Brazilians how to play "Spoons." (Okay, so I know 2 card games). While playing, we acquired an audience of Peruvian porters, who were fascinated by the fast paced game. After the first round, the Italians joined us, along with their guide. Spoons with Italians and Brazilians is a very, very loud game. But oh so much fun.

Tommorrow: Inca Trail, Day 3: Disaster strikes in the jungle. (I'm getting good at these teasers, aren't I?)

Inca Trail, Day 1: And we're off!

I'll be posting my amazing Inca Trail experience in daily installments, kind of like an original Charles Dicken's novel. Or Bridget Jones' Diary for that matter. You'll just have to stay tuned for the next 4 days to get the full story. Enjoy! I know I did.


Day 1: Kris and I had to meet our guide in the main square at 6:30am. Sadly, this is only a half hour before I usually teach my first class, so I really didn't have to get up any earlier. Somehow, we managed to get a guide all to ourselves. We camped and ate meals with another group, but we had one guide and two porters just for the two of us. I don't know how I managed that, but it was really nice. We didn't have to wait for other people, or feel like we were holding anybody up. As our guide, Armando told us, we were the bosses.

When we arrived at the head of the trail, we had to show our passports at the checkpoint. Only so many people are able to enter the trail a day, and you have to make reservations ahead of time, so we had to show passports and paperwork before we could get started. Then we were off, while a Peruvian woman snapped photos of us beginning our hike. I felt like I had just entered an amusement park and would have the opportunity to purchase the photos at the end of the day.

The first day was the easiest day on the trail. The day was overcast, but perfect hiking weather, with snow covered mountains in the distance. There were a few Incan ruins along the way, and it was a fairly easy hike. A little up and a little down. I was most impressed with the porters racing by us. Tiny Peruvian men hunched over with the weight of tents, food, propane for cooking, and anything else hikers didn't want to carry. And many of them wearing nothing but rubber sandals (and very deformed feet).

We ended up arriving at the camp site a full hour before anyone else. It was pretty chilly, so I had to don the long underwear I purchased from El Molino a few days prior. (Somehow, I managed to figure out how to ask for long underwear in Spanish. Ropa termico, in case you were wondering.) Dinner was with a group of about 11 other hikers. Five Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Italians (who spoke Spanish with an incredibly strong Italian accent and talked about nothing but Italian food), a Chilean/Swiss, and a Swiss. The dinner conversation was in rapid Spanish, with everyone talking over each other, so I really didn't stand a chance. The Swiss woman was the only other quiet one at the table, so we talked to her for a bit. After dinner, it was bedtime at 8pm, but we were going to need all the sleep we could get. It was straight uphill for day 2.

Tomorrow: Inca Trail, Day 2. If the altitude doesn't kill me, that stink in the bathroom will.

Finally!

For years, Machu Picchu has been at the top of my must-see list. Now that I've been here for almost three months, it's time to check it out. I'm taking the rest of the week off (which, by the way, is very distressing to my students. I was quite flattered by their reactions, and their wanting to make sure I would be returning.) and hiking the Inca Trail. The Trail will take 4 days, arriving at Machu Picchu on the fourth day. I'm hiking with Kris, a Norwegian friend I met in Ecuador. Since I've been waiting so long for this, I figure one of three things will happen when I finally see it.

1. I will be so overwhelmed at the sight and overcome with emotion, I will immediately burst into tears.
   
2. I'll have created such high expectations and seen so many pictures, that when I finally get there, I'll look at it and say, "That's it?"
3. Something in between scenario 1 and 2.
   

I'll be sure and let you know what happens in great detail when I return.

Peru-Turkmenistan Post

As many of you know, Kelly, one of my favorite people in the world, is currently in Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps. We´re doing the same thing on opposite ends of the world, but in very different situations. Kelly´s internet access is extremely limited, so I sent her a letter via snail mail sometime in February. I´m pretty sure I made history as the first person in Peru to send mail to Turkmenistan. (And the second! Both trips to the post office produced the question "¿Donde es Turkmenistan?") I had no idea how long it would take my letter to reach her, but my best guess was about 6 months. I was a little off, though. I received a response from her within a month. I was pretty amazed at the things she had to say. I may be struggling to learn Spanish, but the people of her city speak a blend of Turkmen, Russian, and Uzbek, so it´s pretty much impossible to learn. I was most shocked and saddened, however, when she told me she had (temporarily) stopped the beating of first graders. Thank goodness I don´t have to deal with that. Soviet habits die hard, I guess. I´m glad she´s there to stop them.

Things really are backwards in the Southern Hemisphere

The other day, I did something I didn´t think was possible. I bought vegetables. And cooked them. And ATE them. Granted, it was only peppers, and I put them in my pasta, but still. I don´t even know how to actually cook vegetables. I´ve been eating more and more vegetables since I got here, but not on purpose of course. The vegetables I´ve eaten have been in soups or dishes prepared for me. (However, I still refuse to eat the mushrooms, much to the delight of my roommates, since they get to eat what I´ve picked out. Mushrooms are a love/hate thing, there is no in between. You either love eating slimy fungus, or you don´t. I don´t.) I also eat avocado now, which I never did before. It all started when I consulted Dr. Mom about the horrible leg cramps that were waking me up at night, and she suggested I needed more potassium. I know bananas have potassium, but I did an internet search on the always reliable, never wrong Wikipedia, which said avocados also have lots of potassium. And since avocados are (almost literally) a dime a dozen here, I´ve been eating cheese and avocado sandwiches ever since, and have not had any cramping problems.

Don´t worry, though, I´m not a completely changed person. I was pretty horrified and disgusted on Sunday when I walked into the kitchen to find Alayne´s new novio cooking us dinner with chicken feet. I agreed to eat the dinner only after I was assured that my soup did not contain any leftover chicken parts, but Jake made sure to remove the chicken feet from his soup and wave them around my face several times. Real mature. (He got the stink eye.)

Building up the karma bank

I really only believe in karma while traveling in far away places. Too many things can go wrong while away from home, and karma can be a real bitch sometimes. The easiest way to build up karma while traveling is by giving a donation to a church while touring. I'm sure there is something sac religious about giving money to a church to build up karma, but I'm a religious pluralist and think it's possible for them all to work. (Except the made up ones, like scientology. I don't really get that.) Besides, karma is essentially the same idea as the Christian practice of tithing. Give to God (or the universe) and God (or the universe) will give back to you.

That being said, I did not volunteer yesterday at a local school solely to build up karma, although I would be really happy if that helped. I was hoping to be able to volunteer somehow since I got here, I just wasn't sure how. On Saturday, several other teachers and I volunteered to help paint classrooms at a local school. I put on my oldest traveling pants (that I bought three years ago for the British Isles trip I took with Holli, which have now been to over 10 countries, don't have functioning pockets, and should really be put out of their misery) and got ready to work. We expected it to be about 3 hours, 4 tops, but it turned out to be 5. Our supplies were pretty limited. We barely had enough paint brushes to go around, and only two rollers for three rooms, and the rollers kept taking chunks of wall with them. I was assigned to a room with Alayne and Maribeth. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere. The walls really needed to be scraped before we started, but we had neither the tools nor the time, so we just had to paint over it. It wasn't long before we had a group of kids who really wanted to help out. So much so that they got into near physical arguments over the last remaining paintbrush and we had to step in to moderate. After we ran out of paint, we took a break to play soccer with the kids. I played soccer for one season in the third grade, so I'm not exactly good at it, but it was so much fun to play with them. I'd like to be able to do it more often. Maybe they need a recess monitor or something. After a little while the new paint arrived (although it wasn't exactly the same shade of white), and it was time to get back to work, which caused more arguments over paintbrushes, so we asked all the kids to go play soccer instead of painting. By the time we put one coat of paint in our classroom, I was pretty wiped out and HUNGRY (next time I'll be sure to bring a lunch), and all the kids had bailed to go home and eat lunch. Even if it doesn't help with karma, it can't hurt, right? Plus, talking to the kids helps me with my Spanish. They're just happy to be talking.

No more Hitler?

Month #3 of 6 began this week (where did the time go?), and fortunately/unfortunately, Hitler is no longer my student. Fortunately, because, while he did improve over the weeks, he is still prone to mood swings and was certainly not my favorite student. Unfortunately, because the number of jokes I can tell has suddenly decreased. Actually, I didn´t even have to make a joke, everything I said about him just sounded funny because of the name. I´ve passed the pleasure of teaching Hitler onto my roommate Jake for now. For whatever reason, Hitler never took the final exam (or if he did, I never saw the end result) and is repeating the basic level. I don´t know why, but then again, who am I to understand the inner workings of Hitler.

My schedule is staying the same for the third month in a row. Now, however, I no longer have any classes in the basement. The basement is cold and smells bad. It also shares a hallway with a nightclub (although you and I might refer to this nightclub as a "strip club") so I no longer have to compete with loud sound checks and, er, dancers arriving to work for the attention of my classes. I moved up with all my classes, even that once dreaded basico class, even though only 2 are holdovers (and they´re good holdovers). Someone in that class asked me where in the United States I am from. When I replied with Pennsylvania, another student said, "Where Dracula lives." I then explained the difference between Pennsylvania and Transylvania. There are quite a few, you know.