Ways to Spell W:

Things are progressing rather slowly in the English class I teach once a week at the local school. It doesn’t help that the teacher shirks his duties as soon as I arrive and coolly strides out the door as if we hadn’t agreed that he needed to be present at all times. Maybe this is for the best. Last time he was sporting a Marijuana shirt. Plus, he apparently maintains order by hitting the kids with a belt, a method I refuse to condone.

In the last class I gave my first quiz. Since we’d been studying the alphabet for, oh, at least a month, I figured a quiz on the alphabet was fair game. The objective was to correctly write down the letter that I dictated. Mind you, I said each letter at least five times and gave them ample time to cheat by looking at their notebooks and neighbors’ papers. Yet, looking at the quizzes, you wouldn’t know the kids had ever heard of the English alphabet. One kid wrote the letter “e” five times and the letter “ll” four times. I didn’t repeat letters. Here are some of the ways they chose to spell W:

Dabio
Davoyu
Daboyu
Davollu
Daduyo
Dadoyu
Dabon
Td

Dabon and Td are my personal favorites. Many times while I’ve been here I have encountered the belief that there are indeed two English languages: the real one and the one which is the written pronunciation of English for Spanish speakers. One girl needed to learn the “Our Father” in English and her teacher had given her a copy with it written in English and Spanish, along with the English pronunciation which looked like gibberish. That’s all good, except once I had gotten done teaching her how to say it she said “Thanks, but I need to learn this version” as she pointed to the pronunciation. In vain, I tried to explain to her that, actually, English is not written like it is pronounced and that no third language actually exists.

La Hora Peruana:

Peruvians themselves will tell you that they perpetually run at least one hour behind schedule. This phenomenon is widely known as la hora peruana (Peruvian time). Up until now I can’t really think of any particular moments when this has irked me. Sure, I still have a slight sense of panic when I’m going to arrive at a meeting five minutes late, but I never really mind when the meeting doesn’t start for another hour.

This Saturday, I went with a group of people from my site and a local NGO to go see another caserío, knowing fully well that it would surely last longer than it was supposed to and that I might be a little late to the meeting that I had at 3:OO. However, I only went on the one condition that we would be back before 3:00. I should have known when they arrived two hours late to pick us up that is was hopeless. But I made the guy in charge promise to get me back on time and I explained that I actually had to be at the meeting. Somewhere around 3:45, nowhere close to my community, and stuck between the armpit of a sweaty man and the deadweight of a sleeping man, the guy in charge says to me, "Well, it looks like you´re going to make it on time." Then he started running random errands. That´s when I started to get annoyed. Momentarily I loathed the hora peruana and then I realized it didn´t actually matter. I got to my meeting at 4:30.