Today has been an ordinary Sunday. I woke late (my new normal under this medication for sleeping well) and I prayed morning prayer in private. I went to the girls’ shelter prepared to continue our drawing exercise, a still life with kitchen objects, or to read from the book of witch stories. These activities would not be necessary this morning. I arrived at 10 a.m. to find a theatre arts workshop in progress. With the help of three young women who are performing arts students, the girls were practicing their favorite dances that they found over the Internet. They also rehearsed some simple dramatic scenes. Then they practiced singing the popular songs of the day. One of them is by a Peruvian cumbia singer named Maricarmen Marín. It’s called “Por Qué Te Fuiste” (“Why Did You Leave”) and it hit the Top Ten in Bolivia last year. I hear this song everywhere I go. Click here if you want to slip this earworm into your head. I was always wondering who sang this song and what it was about. Now I know, and the discovery brought me down. How clever, underhanded even, to mask a sad, sad story in such upbeat music! As for me, I prefer the blues if I want to hear about love gone wrong. What you hear is what you get. Anyway, I was bummed out for being not very useful this morning at the girls’ shelter; I could have stayed home.
Taking a step back, I feel like I am not really connecting with the girls. I can’t speak very well with them, and it’s hard to understand them when they speak. They are not as engaged or as focused with the art projects as they are with other activities. It doesn’t help that being there usually makes me feel melancholy instead of happy. I’ll give it a few more weeks, and then I’ll decide whether to continue volunteering at Nuestra Casa or not.
Taking a larger step back: where am I now with language acquisition? I entered classes at Maryknoll at the intermediate-mediate level. To advance to the intermediate-upper level I would need to demonstrate the ability to speak in the past, present, and future; I would need to be able to tell stories with more detail than at present. I would also need to grow more comfortable expressing my opinion on various themes, especially current events in my life or in the world around me. Finally, I would need to consolidate the use of basic grammar, including the agreement of gender and number, and the proper usage of past, present, and future tenses. On that final count alone I would say I have not acquired what I have learned. While I have on occasion demonstrated an awareness of what I have learned as signified through an improved ability to express myself, I do not think I have made any advancement at all beyond the level where I started three months ago. Of course, I am willing to be disproved through an oral examination, that is, another interview with la coordinadora, Kitty Schmidt. But I am skeptical that I am a better Spanish speaker than I was in February. I listen, speak, read, and write more in Spanish, simply because I have to here, but this does not signify progress beyond what I could do before I came to Bolivia. This is a source of disappointment for me. In all honesty, if I returned to the United States tomorrow and resumed ministry at Church of the Good Shepherd immediately, I would be no more useful to the Spanish-speaking members of our parish and neighborhood than I was when I left. Or am I being too hard on myself? Has there been progress, albeit too gradual to notice? We will see. I will ask for an interview with Señora Kitty when classes resume.
This afternoon I wished my Mom a happy Mother’s Day (in Bolivia El Día del Madre is on May 27, a fixed date) and cleaned my room thoroughly. Off now to a quiet evening: prayer, dinner, more prayer, fussing over what to pack for my trip, some reading maybe, and an early bedtime in the hope of leaving by mid-morning for La Paz.
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