Alright, so I'm a day behind updating my blog, but it's for a good reason: I've been out and about with some friends and enjoying myself.
from Tuesday:
Today was my (second) first day of school with Mónica. She was my teacher during my first week of classes at Intercultura and now she is my teacher during my last week of classes. ¡Que interesante! I really like being in Advanced 6. It's not as hard as I expected it to be; it's actually enjoyable. We don't have to learn any new grammar, we only need to practice using everything we have learned orally. Because of this, we spend the majority of class time talking. And it's very conversational, so we can talk about basically anything we want to.
During class, she had four children's books sitting on the table. (I love the fact that I get to work with children's books and Spanish al mismo tiempo!) Each book told a legend from a different country in Latin America. I chose the Peruvian legend "El Secreto de la Llama." (The Secret of the Llama.) We were given 15 minutes to read the legend, define (in Spanish) any vocabulary words that we didn't know, and then we were each to orally present, without notes, the legend to the rest of the class.
In case you are wondering, "El Secreto de la Llama" goes like this:
There was a very poor family that lived in the foothills of the Andes mountains. The only item of value that they had was a Llama. It was valuable because it helped them with the harvest. The family took very good care of the llama and every day the father would take the llama to eat. One day, the llama wouldn't eat; the next day he wouldn't eat. This continued for days so the mother suggested that the father take the llama to a place very far away to eat.
The dad did this, but the llama still wouldn't eat. The same day, the llama began to cry. Trying to console the llama, the dad asked, "why are you crying llama?" Obviously he didn't expect a response, but the llama replied "the world, as it is, is going to dissappear. The waters are going to rise and the ocean will destroy the land." Entonces, the llama said that the family had to go to the highest mountain peak to escape the waters and should bring enough food for 5 days.
During the walk, other animals began to follow the family (always a pair: male and female). The foxes didn't want to go to the mountain, because they didn't believe the llama's secret. The waters began to rise, and at the last minute, the foxes ran up the mountain. Water touched the tip of their tails, and according to the legend, this is the reason why foxes have black tips on their tails. There was a glacial freeze and it was very dark, so everyone thought that the sun had died. Finally, the waters began to diminish, and the people and all of the animals could return to their land. Today, because of this legend, this is why Peruvians adore their llamas.
Obviously, this story is very similar to that of Noah and the Arc, so we discussed the similarities. I was the first to present, and afterwards, Mónica said that my presentation was "muchísimo" better than that of my first week in her class! haha. For homework we had to look up another legend from a latin american country and present the vocabulary and the legend orally. I ended up choosing the legend of "La Llorona" from Costa Rica. I won't tell that legend too, because if I keep writing, I will bore all my readers to death. But I thought the legend had a good moral to it.
After class, a classmate and I hopped on a bus and went to San Jose. Our objective: to go to Libreria Lehmann (the best bookstore I have been to since I have been in this country). Last week, my classmate had noticed that I was reading a novel in Spanish. Apparently, she had never read a book in Spanish, so we went to find a book for her. (Thank you Flagler; without you, I would have never had the courage to open a book in Spanish!) I ended up buying two more books by Costa Rican authors, because I am enjoying my current read so much.
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