Archive for January, 2004

I can honestly say that nothing too exciting happened last week. No major fiestas (although there WERE fiestas)…no earthquakes…no tomales…but, as always, it was still an interesting week. School continues to be a slow (painstaking, at times) process. One day you think you’re doing pretty well and the next day you can’t remember your own name…in any language! It’s quite interesting how the brain works. When you activate that language learning chip in your brain, the brain sometimes works overtime. The result is that other languages that you studied in the past seem to be fresher in the mind. For me, it was Greek. This past August when I was studying Spanish in New York with my friends and colleagues Michael Roth & Jon Meier, at times when I was trying to write Spanish, I found myself writing Spanish words with Greek letters. On the other hand, sometimes the language learning part of the brain doesn’t want to work at all and you have a hard time remembering how to talk and write in your mother tongue! I had a couple of days like that last week. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall. You just have to slow down enough to maintain your sanity until your mind & body work through the confusion and frustration. After a day or 2, you’re ready to enjoy studying another language once again!I started 2 intercambios over the weekend. An ‘intercambio’ is basically an exchange program in which you practice talking English & Spanish with a native Spanish speaker who would like to improve his/her English. I meet with one of the instructors from the school, Manuel, on the weekends. And, during the week, I meet with Luis, a 22-year man I met on the street on Friday night. Both are born and raised in Oaxaca. It’s fun and helpful at the same time. It’s great to talk with variety of people with different styles of speech.

On Saturday, Sarah & Adia were looking for the library to attend a kids program and they stumbled across a Lutheran Church. So, we attended on Sunday. The people were very friendly, helping us to follow along with the service, which was a typical Lutheran service, i.e. a similar liturgy and similar song melodies. They didn’t have a sermon. Instead, they had a Bible study for the adults while the kids had an age-appropriate Bible study…just like we do at Sure Foundation in New York. It’s a Lutheran Church of the Mexico Synod. We enjoyed our experience…

That’s all for now…
Steven, Sarah, & Adia Gabb

ESL Classes will continue on February 5th. The time will be for two weeks from 7pm to 8:30pm, Monday thru Wednesday, with Thursday still Spanish/English Bible Study. We will be studying English reading and pronunciation so come help and maybe you will learn something new!

Oaxaca never ceases to amaze…There’s always something new. We have been here for about 1 ½ months and still haven’t had a boring week. The highlights from last week have to do with nature. On Thursday, Adia was sleeping in her bed, and I was studying Spanish on our bed when I felt a shaking sensation in the floor. Initially, when this sensation was light, I just thought that a construction crew must be doing some kind of heavy work. I thought of a time last summer in Queens when a crew was working to drill footings into the ground for a new 6 story apartment building at the end of our block. We could feel (and hear!) their work all week. I soon realized that this had to be something different when I didn’t hear anything different and when the sensation became stronger. The bed started to shake and the ground felt more unstable. I got up on my feet so as to be stable in case the shaking became severe and was ready to grab Adia. Apparently, this was the third earthquake of the day, but only the first that I felt. The sensation was a little stronger for me because I was on the second floor where the flexibility of the house can accentuate the sensation. Sarah was at lunch (on the first floor) and didn’t feel the earthquake as strongly as I did. I don’t want to be misleading…this wasn’t some huge tremor. It was 5.5 on the Richter scale. However, in relation to the epicenter, this area felt it the strongest. For a Midwesterner/East Coaster like me, I am not used to this, although we have had a couple of small earthquakes in New York in the past 4 years. There are a lot of west-coasters here and they tend to like these little ones because it means that a huge amount of pressure isn’t building up to a big earthquake, which aren’t uncommon here. There was another earthquake (a bit smaller) on Saturday.

The other natural event that kept this week exciting was rain! This may sound weird…but, on Friday, we had the first experience with precipitation. It was a nice steady rain that lasted for 1 to 2 hours, not a big deal for most parts of the world. However, in desert climate like this, the sewer system isn’t build to accommodate much water. A friend told us that there was minor flooding in some parts of the city. Also, the power was going on and off. Rain is very rare at this time of the year, so this was our second odd experience for the week.

Other highlights of the week include: 1) A cooking class with 8 other students from our school in the home of a local woman…we made Enchiladas Verde con Pollo (chicken). It was quite delicious and a great experience! 2) Going to movies at ‘Plaza de Valle’ or ‘Plaza Americano’ as the locals call it (because there is a McDonald’s, Office Depot, Sam’s Club, etc). It’s helpful to our Spanish learning to hear and understand the movie while watching the Spanish subtitles. 3) Sarah, Adia, and I watched NFL Playoff Football yesterday while listening to live music…2 Mexican men playing acoustic guitars and singing in harmony – beautiful music! It was quite the combination and a fun experience.

That is about all for now…School is still going very well. Both Sarah and I are very happy to be blessed with excellent teachers. While all 3 of us learn more each week, learning a new language is a slow process…poco a poco (little by little).

¡Que tengan buen dia!
Steven, Sarah, & Adia Gabb