Today was a mixture of fun and frustration. I'm enjoying our time at Thomas Moro, but I feel frustrated by the strange schedules (every day has different classes, and sometimes we have a 2 hour break), lack of classroom management, and lack of respect for the teachers. I appreciate the experience, but I feel that our time may have been richer had we been able to visit other schools.
I am also glad to be taking Spanish classes because I really want to understand this language and be able to communicate with others. I can just imagine the doors that will be open when I become more familiar with it. But at this point I am just frustrated! Not only are their different words for I, you, him-her etc. but those differ on the tense and the verbs that you are using. Things get conjugated differently based on tenses too and it makes no sense to me and I'm not even sure I'm saying it correctly =) I want so badly to be able to talk with these wonderful people, but I'm getting frustrated because I don't understand how to put sentenses together and I am tired of speaking with single words.
Ally, Tracie, Gustavo and I bought some beer and spent the evening with Gustavo's family. They constantly make me laugh and I enjoy my time with them because they have a conversation and I can just listen. I can figure out what they are saying and can follow along - but as soon as I am asked a question, all my understanding goes out the window. I realize I need to participate so I can learn and practice, but it is so tiring =) As much as I love being with our group - they don't challenge me to speak Spanish. I do think of this trip as a vacation, but I still want to learn!
The last thing that I noticed today was my defense mechanism kicking into gear. I love the group we are traveling with, I get along with everyone and feel like I can connect with them too. But we're now in our 2nd week, we go home next week, and home is all over the place; Oregon, California, Colorado, Alaska...and once again I am forced to say goodbyes. I enjoyed time with friends today, but I recognized my reservation: I have already began to pull away and distance myself because I fear being attached. My weakness is my need for people, for companionship and in a way I will lose these people next week, and the though alone is already too hard to bear.