The Istituto Michelangelo is where I am taking my classes
and it is about a five minute walk away from my apartment, which is very handy.
It is a big building on two floors, with a rabbit warren of rooms that serve as
the classrooms. I’m not sure how many there are, but all the people who are
crammed into the lobby before classes, somehow disappear down one hallway or
another. There are bathrooms scattered everywhere
and even gardens
My
room is about 20x20 with vaulted ceilings and frescos painted on the walls and
ceiling. It makes for a gorgeous room, but terrible acoustics. Classes run from
9-1, with a pausa from 10:50 to 11:10. There is an actual bell that rings at
the aforementioned times. Classic! It sounds like it has seen/heard better
days, but it is rung faithfully. Four of us newbies joined my class in what
seemed like the middle of the session, so we had to pick up where they were.
The class is made up of 6 Mexican ladies, a very frightened looking American
gentleman and a German lady, and me.
As a Canadian, it is amazing to see the
stereotypes seeping through everywhere. I feel like Ban Ki Moon, sometimes,
trying to broker deals amongst people. The German lady can’t stand one of the
Mexican ladies, and has no problem showing her disdain every time she speaks.
The frightened American won’t speak unless spoken too. The other Mexican ladies
are all happily chatting away during the class and I’m never really sure
whether they are speaking Spanish or Italian.
One day, one of the Mexican
ladies brought in bags of gummy bears to share. So we passed them around, but
the German lady, not wanting any herself, refused to keep passing the bags
around, and she certainly didn’t want them anywhere near her either. So we had
to keep reaching across her, which infuriated her. When we are doing our in class exercises,
some people work in pairs, and discuss. The room having those lovely vaulted
ceilings, gets very loud, very fast. Maybe that’s why the American looks so
frightened! Whenever it gets too loud, the German lady covers her ears and
scowls at everyone and can’t do her work until she uncovers her ears when
things quiet down.
Sometimes the teacher leaves the room to make photocopies
for us – but she leaves for 10-15 minutes at a stretch leaving us to our own
devices – more food being passed around and Span-italian conversation. After
pausa, we have the conversation part of the class, whereas grammar was the
first. This gets quite interesting and really has no plotted trajectory – the
teacher leads a very loose conversation on a whole range of topics. Today we
spoke about ice in drinks. Mexicans need lots of ice in all their drinks,
Americans – it depends on the drinks and Germans find ice horrific. Representing
Canadians, I say that we just leave our drinks outside, just to further the
stereotype that we live in igloos on the tundra year round.
No comments:
Post a Comment