13 enero – Spanish School and Martha’s 50th Birthday
It is Marthas birthday today and she turns 50. You wouldnt know it to look at her. I dont think she has one gray hair and her skin is bonita. She showed up today with a new hair cut. Yesterday she had hair at least halfway down her back and today it was cut as short as mine. I took another pic of her new look.
On the way to school I stopped to buy some sweet treats for her. She was pleased I remembered and thrilled with the treats. She keeps telling me she likes sweets and, as she pats her belly, says mas kilos. Today she was wearing a shirt from the States someone had given her. Something from Buffalo NY.
Theres a mishmash of cultural dress here from the very traditional skirts/wraps/hats and braids to American t-shirts and ball caps. I see a lot of Hollister t-shirts.
Martha and I worked hard on verbs, conjugating them and learning their meanings. She has a variety of ways from conversation (asking each other questions) to describing the meaning of the words to each other in Spanish and then guessing what we are trying to describe, to just plain practicing conjugation, out loud, the exercises in a number of work books.
My homework this weekend is to memorize verbs. Verbos, verbos, verbos. I think progress will only come if I can get more verbs under my belt.
Kathleen and Carrie, the other two Americans staying with Hipatia, are spending the weekend in Mindo at Barbara Wilsons place. So, tonight I was with Hipatia on my own. We had a conversation about the weekend. I told her my plan to take the Hop on/Hop off bus. This is apparently something new. She hadnt heard of it so we talked about that. And then we talked about my plan for domingo (Sunday) to go to the equator. I had a little boost of confidence being able to exchange that little bit of information via Spanish. Celebrating the small successes