Spanish Classes

Today I started my first Spanish class with Rotary here in Peru. I had to get up around 6:00, leave around 7:30, and then get to my class by 8:30. I brought a lot of materials with me to get the best out of my class. Jacinta got me notebook, and I took all of my notes with my sparkly gel pens. Memorization tool that works, right there! I'm in the beginner's class because my Spanish is definitely not the best. I wish I had done better on my exam, because I definitely think I am ahead of the other people in my class.

My teacher's name is Andre, and I believe he is Peruvian. He speaks English very well, and teaches in English because everybody knows English. Today he taught us the alphabet and how to count. I already knew everything we learned today, although there are some letters in the alphabet I forget how to pronounce sometimes. I can easily count to 20. Just last night, I had to count to 20 about 20 times since I was playing hide and seek with my little 6 year old cousin, Rafaela. Quick little story time: It was fun playing with her, it was just interesting because I understand very little of what she says. I didn't realize we were playing hide and seek until she started counting. When we weren't playing hide and seek, we were playing Connect 4, building towers, and playing with Barbie's. I haven't done any of those things probably since I was her age.

Back to the class, Andre had us spell some words to practice, as well as have us listen to our peers and write down what they were spelling to see if we could hear. I worked with my partner, Martin, who is from Belgium. He speaks French, and I could have conversations with him a little bit in Spanish and English. I just feel dumb because I was the only American in my class. All of the other Americans in Lima are in the more advanced classes, although there are Americans at my level in different cities. And because I'm American, that means I'm the only person in the class who can only speak one language, which is English. Everyone else there speaks their native language and English. Right now I'm focusing on Spanish, but I would definitely like to speak other languages besides English and Spanish someday.

After class, I was very awake. I was in a great mood I think just from being up in the morning and getting out, even though I got basically no sleep. When I got home, I was wide awake for a while, but then I crashed for about 3 hours. It made up for all of the sleep I didn't get last night. Maybe I should do this more often, because that was a very revitalizing nap.