I’ll just go ahead and apologize for that title right now.
I’ve known since last November that I was going to be coming back to Ecuador to teach guitar. In Spanish. Since the last time I was here I’ve had two more semesters of college Spanish and I’ve taken everything English off my iPod. The main (and almost only) goal of my first three weeks here was to do intensive language classes, and then there’s just trying to function normally in a Spanish-speaking country, so I’ve had a lot of practice.
The thing is, I’m still a worrier. I even know exactly where I get that from, and that most of the time it’s totally unfounded. It’s still really hard for me to keep up with normal conversations in Spanish, even though when people slow down and treat me like a little kid (which I actually totally appreciate) I’m totally trackin’ and for the most part I can express my ideas.
So this morning I was awake at the crack of dawn because I was both totally excited at my first “real” day back at a ministry site and because I was completely nervous about having to function all day in Spanish and communicate some pretty specific ideas. It did, at least, give me a chance to study (for the bazillionth time) my music theory terms in Spanish. It’s funny the other things you have to learn as well. Even planning out how I was going to explain and demonstrate things, I realized I needed to know more than just how to say “Treble Clef” in Spanish. For instance the names of specific fingers (Dedo pulgar, índice, corazón, anular, y meñique, thumb to pinky, in case you were wondering).
I headed down to the office pretty early, studied a little more, discovered Cameron was going to be late, and got a pancito con leche from Gusta Pan next door (yeah. Gusta Pan. Be jealous, Beechwood). Eventually Cameron got to the office and I threw two guitars into Demo (their car) and we headed off on a bit of an adventure. We basically followed the Trole route so I’d have some sense of where I was headed.
Where I was headed was Lourdes’ store. There’s some minor drama going on with some of the Episcopal churches in South Quito which I won’t get into, so for now, at least, the Tienda is our ministry site. When Cameron and I got there, we hung out for a little bit with Lourdes, her husband and Nancy, another Episcopal priest. Turns out Nancy was my first student.
It was a little weird that my first official guitar student ever was older than me, but I got over it pretty fast. Probably mostly because it was also a little weird that my first official guitar student ever doesn’t speak my native language, and now we’re back to what I was originally worried about. But even though I’d been thinking for weeks that I was going to crash and burn (no matter what I’ve been telling everyone else, that’s what I was thinking) it turned out to be an absolute blast.
I went from Nancy (who blew through exercises like a machine) to Omar (who already plays a lot of guitar, but with whom I think I’ll be doing a lot of music theory) to lunch to Maria José (who’s been my buddy since the first time I came to Ecuador and who never seems to get discouraged with anything I throw at her). I’m definitely going to have to get better about staying within my scheduled time, but with only three students (I didn’t realize at that point that Lourdes was going to give it a go as well) each one went well over an hour.
Turns out I apparently had the ability to have some conversations with each one of them, and to explain some music theory at least to the point of playing E, F, and G (or Mi, Fa, and Sol in Spanish fixed-Do Solfeo music theory) on the primera cuerda. That whole thing about using Spanish you didn’t know you had? Been doing it all day. And somehow I was still smiling and not totally shot at the end of the day. There are definitely some detail words I need to look up for the guitar-playing aspect of it, but for the teaching and fellowship and ministry aspect, I had a blast and I feel like I accomplished something today, and enjoyed being with really cool people and seeing my students really get to learn something.
Other adventures from the day include bad country music (which is, por supuesto, any country music), hanging out with Roberto y Miguel at the mall, dinner and book study with the other interns (we’re up to 3!) at Matt and Marlo’s, and watching hilarious YouTube videos. It’s been a busy day, but what I can’t stop happily thinking about is being out teaching guitar, and that’s a really huge relief.
