Thursday 12 April 2012

Coup d'etat in underwear

It appears that I was not the only one struggling with the Spanish.

I arrived to find a lady, not quite the same size as Hatti Jacques but of that ilk, planted in front of the blackboard, actually it is a white board and pens these days. At least there is no chalk for the teachers to throw at you.

The two diminutive girls Annike (Ger) & Bar (Isr) were so disillusioned with the first few days that they had a chat with the school and that was the end of Alvarro. Despite agreeing with the level of his teaching, I was rather sorry to see him go. His "day job" was as a trapeze artist for a local show. He was good fun but not much of a Spanish teacher. I hope he is better on the high wire than conjugating those verbs! There again Harry bloody Houdini himself couldn't get me out of my confusion with the damned things!

With Mabel (for that is her name) as our new teacher, we were in for a whirlwind! She galloped in to the first session like a dray horse pulling a few kegs of Young's Ordinary. We didn't have a chance!

She gave us her biography, only speaking Spanish, which included; A degree in literature, Theatre studies, learning Japanese and Salsa dancing:

"A graceful thing is the Elephant bird, 
seldom seen but often heard...."

As she turned to the board, the three of us exchanged glances  with a lot of raised eyebrows! Mabel (she must be the only Mabel in South America) was a force to be reckoned with. No speaking in English, not even questions (sorry - preguntas). We made it to play time and joined the other children in the playground and wondered how we would get though the morning.

We returned and continued at some pace, although she calmed down a little. Just as she was beginning to make an impression on us a faulty zip on her skirt decided to play up.

As she turned towards the board to write about "pronombres demonstrativos" (that was different depending on the day of the week or whether it was raining or not) there was a hint of white underwear. it was small to start with so didn't matter. Each turn to the board revealed another inch of white bombachas. Of course we all looked at each other and were giggling like school children (yes i know we are for this week).
It was beginning to get serious and were increasingly shown a substantial amount of white cotton - remember this is Hatti Jacques little sister we are talking about, so there are acres of the stuff!

I was gesticulating to the girls that they should say something before it becomes embarrassing for all concerned. Still they didn't pipe up. As the zip came lower the waistband of her skirt loosened and was going down like a Zeppelin. More and more sail cloth hove in to view and at this point i refused to look up from my text book and was biting the end of my biro.

At last Annike plucked up the courage to tell her!!!

Mabel was a little flustered but her Drama training came to the fore and, like any old stager, carried on to the end!

So when i come back an can not tell you the correct "adjectivo posesivo"- It wasn't all my fault!

Finally got some news on the Bike - hopefully the parts will arrive from Germany this week & I should be able to collect her wednesday next week! The other good news is that my new bank card has arrived but is debatable if i can get it here in time to pay their bill!





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1 comment:

  1. Hahahahahaaa, so your Spanish vocab is certainly improving even if your grammer isn't.......
    Sorry to read of your bike related woes.
    I'll be in touch by email shortly!

    ReplyDelete