In case you haven´t experienced it for yourself, learning Spanish is a slow and difficult process. More specifically, learning to hear and speak Spanish is a slow and difficult process. For me, it´s been a constant struggle to piece together the sounds coming out of peoples´ mouths, and most of the time it sounds like a continuous gurgle. I have gotten a couple lessons from our friend Raquel (a former Fulbright English teacher), which have been somewhat helpful. Yesterday, Jess and I got called in to help rehearse some students who were memorizing skits in English. We were actually pretty impressed, not only because some of them were able to concentrate with continuous traffic noise and the occasional school brass band outburst, but several of them spoke fairly understandably in English with a British accent. (This was also a little discouraging since they were only in middle school and could already speak well in two languages. Teach your kids Spanish from day one and save them a heck of a frustrating experience later on.) Most of the kids, however, were in and out of the classroom and chatting with each other, and it was not really possible to control them with my limited Spanish ability/authority (I think we´re going to be called in to be judges in the skit competition on Tuesday). But, things are progressing, slowly but surely and hopefully it won´t be too long before I can have at least a short conversation.
In more exciting news, I got to reach one of my life goals (not really, but I´m taking dramatic license) of playing futbol in a South American country. At 8pm Friday night, leaving Jess my faithful translator behind, I jumped on a motorcycle (also for the first time ever- although I wasn´t driving), grabbed on for dear life, and took off into the dark city. I didn´t really have any clue about where we were going, so when we pulled up next to a big barbed wire fence (all soccer fields have barbed wire around them here) and found myself at the power plant, I was intrigued. Turns out, the power plant is the only place in town that has field lights at night- so, unless you want to play in the heat of the day, it´s the place to go. It also cost 6 Soles (about $2) per person, so I got the feeling that not too many people played there. There was also actual grass, which one doesn´t normally see on regularly used fields. The game was fun, although I was definitely the worst player on the field by far. At least there were no injuries. Hopefully I´ll get some more chances to work on my moves. I´ll let you know how that goes.
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Greetings from the Palmers back in NC.
For the learning Spanish part: it really helps if you go out on a limb and try to communicate as much as you can in Spanish, and it helps to do so with a partner whose primary language is the language you're trying to learn. Make a deal with this other person (or other people): "I'll bluntly correct your English if you bluntly and constantly correct my Spanish."
Don't worry about going slowly in the actual speech. You'll learn faster if you stick to Spanish-only or occasional code switching, even if it means it takes you three times longer than usual to get thoughts out.
Another note: if you're really putting in the intense learning effort that the above requires, you can be physically exhausted by it. This is normal and very much worth it.
As for the soccer thing: practice juggling the ball with your feet, keeping the bouncing ball below your knees with each bounce. If you can manage this, your game will improve dramatically. If you've already mastered that, move on to juggling the ball from your feet to chest level with zero spin on the ball.
Sounds like you're having a great time. Have fun. :)
¡Buena suerte!
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