Elocution Lessons

Written 27-2-08

last week i went to school.

my friend James, who deserves mention, is this giant, lunatic Kiwi with a tendency to drink a bottle of tequila, then take off his shirt and give people rides on his back across the bar while drinking his second bottle. he is also a great friend and we get along well. anyway, his girlfriend was volunteering at the public school here in San Pedro teaching english, which is the poorer school. over beers, he told me about how they have fun, teach the kids how to say "Nice to meet you" and draw animals and stuff. it sounded fun after a couple of beers, and i suddenly blurt out "I wanna come help!"

this is absolute absurdity, as i don't even like kids. my left eye starts twitching when i'm around small people for too long. it could be a viable medical condition...i'm looking into it. before i know it, i've volunteered myself to be up at 7:00 am. i have no idea what came over me, but i actually dragged my lazy ass out of bed, put on something "conservative" and met James for breakfast before the maddness. we show up at the school to meet Lara from New York, the teacher we were helping.

the first class was ok. we introduced ourselves, and answered questions about what part of the world we were from. or Lara and I did, James speaks about 3 words of spanish. he acts more as bouncer, sitting next to the troublesome kids, trying to keep them in check. now when i say "troublesome," that's the understatement of the year. the kids were dirty, underprivledged brats who would do anything to take advantage of you, especially once the their teacher left for however long they wanted. James was quite literally pinning a few of them down and threatening to shake them. some of them sat there like little mobsters threatening other children, kicking them, punching them. some of the boys called me over to ask who my favorite "Luchador de California" was. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the only one I could think of off the top of my head. they grinned maliciously, and comenced to talk about a fight they had heard of where he almost ripped off the other wrestler's arms. special kids...at least Lara was awesome at commanding attention, and some of the kids actually wanted to learn english. there were these little girls...the kind who melt your heart (even mine) when they smile, who after every english exercise would walk up for you to check that they had written the sentence properly.

at one point, on a verb exercise, there were 25 little Guatemalan children chanting
"Lara is funny!"
"Raquel is brave!"
"Jose is strong!"

I also want to point out that James' name in spanish would be Jaime, but he thought it was Jose. since the first day they have known him as Jose, so he can't change it now, or else cause some serious confusion. i have special friends. after we taught the first class, we were so drained of energy that during our break we had to grab a beer. at 10:00 in the morning. it was James' idea, i swear. we went back for a second class, and i can honestly say that the first class was a bunch of angels going to communion in comparison to this group. the good thing though, is when your patience runs thin, they don't understand when you call them a group of "hellish little bastards." if they had understood, the gang-banging 5th grader in the back row might have shot me.

we made it out alive after the second class, and i had to go lie down, my left eye practically swollen. and yet, i felt a proud. thanks to me, about 40 Guatemalan kids know how to say "Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Santiago. You are pretty." as if there weren't enough of that going around in central america.

i should have just taught them to whistle and cat-call while following me down the street.