Daily life + Willy

I am sitting on my bed in the midst of history books. An annoying bird is standing at my window pecking the glass; I think it’s a starling.  Since I am a history major, my aunt designated me the history teacher to four of the kids. My college education was not intended to train me to teach history, so I have to figure it out myself: lesson plans, lesson objectives, variety in presentation and creativity (my weakness).  Thankfully, the boys all love history. My other responsibilities include teaching five piano lessons and one flute lesson each week, helping out with the kids’ choir and drama, and teaching Bible once a week. Mornings are completely free for my own school, afternoons are taken up with doing school with the kids, and evenings are for homework or family time. I may take some classes at the seminary and am discussing with my aunt the ministries in which I could be involved.

I got tired of sitting in the little office at the seminary doing homework today, and decided to take my book outside and read in the sun. A narrow, red-painted bench was near a door, against the wall. I sat there with my philosophy book, stretched out my legs and worked on repairing the swift fading of my California flip-flop tan line. While reading, of course. Through the door, I could hear the humming of a male voice lecturing in classic Spanish fashion – fairly monotone, with a downward pitch at the end of each phrase. Before long, the class had a break and four students came out and sat with me for a few minutes. The girl next to me was speaking Quechua to the girl on the other side of her. We talked for a little bit in Spanish, but hers is about as bad as mine is; Quechua is her first language. My book caught her attention and I helped her read a few sentences. The ‘v’ sound and ‘th’ sound does not exist in their language, so we had some interesting sound-making sessions. Quechua has several fewer letters than our alphabet does, but has several different forms of some letters like k and q. Quechua sounds distinctly different from Spanish – more choppy with rough sounds in the throat. Many people in the Andes speak Quechua; the younger people are bi-lingual, while some of the older people speak only Quechua. The seminary has Spanish classes for first year students to help the Quechua speakers.

The two oldest boys are gone for the evening, playing soccer with the seminary students. My cousin Raquel, and the other visiting girl, Kristie, went to class for those who want to teach Sunday school. That left the house fairly quiet for my aunt and me to finish dinner and clean up the kitchen. Those quiet times always seem to turn into discussion times –one of my favorite memories from last time.

Tonight, I was helping Willy, the youngest, after his bath. As I rubbed the towel next to his ears I said, “Wow, Willy, you have sideburns already.” He looked rather offended and said, “I don’t have sideburns, I have ribs.”