Frustration and Fun

Last night I was super frustrated because I felt like my Spanish was getting worse.  I have only been here 3 and a half days, but it feels like a whole lifetime.  My brain gets so tired after speaking for 5 hours in Spanish, that I can´t even have a conversation in English after that. It is like I am brain dead.  I have more empathy for my students with learning disabilities and can see how they feel when they get overwhelmed and shut down.  It is like... what is the point! 

Last night... I ended up telling my host mom that I was frustrated and didn´t understand my homework.  She was so sweet.  She ploped down on the floor-mattress-couch next to me and tried to help me.  She did not understand the grammar exercise either, but worked so hard on it.  I just let her keep going even though I knew it was wrong - one, because I didn´t know how to argue... and two, because it was fun to be with her and she cared so much. 

After we did the homework incorrectly :) we laughed and talked for a long time.  We made plans for telling the director of my school that I am ¨¨mal de patria¨ (homesick) and need another student to live with me when Alicia leaves.  She acted out all the parts and even told me to put water on my eye and sing a song about how I was lonely.  It was so funny.  Really, she just wants more students because she has several rooms.  I told her that I told the director that Alicia speak in Spanish... and practice a lot, so that is no problem. 

I also told her the story about how yesterday, at the school... my profesora was getting coffe and I warned her about the ants in the powdered milk.  ¨Con cuidado - hay hormigas en la leche,¨I say.  Äh, no ha problema.  Yo soy acostumbrar.¨ Hahaha.... my host mom laughed and laughed and re-told the story to Alicia when she got home.  We all laughed some more.  It made me so much happier to be laughing in Spanish... meaning I understood it on a deep enough level to have humor.  I was also happy that she didn´t understand the homework, either!!!

My host mom also taught me how to make coffe at home after she heard about the ants in the milk.  It was so cute.... she showed me all the steps like I was a little child who had never opperated a coffee maker.  I let her, though, because I had never done it in Spanish!!! What a good way to learn, no?  It is something I already understood and could follow along, well. 

I already notice my English syntax changing... Do you see that as you read?  Haha... I´m becoming a Spanish speaker.