9:54 p.m. - 2007-04-11
en espanol
Lucky you, two in one day.
Sometimes I seriously wish I spoke spanish. I speak a little french, like enough to tell you about 7 things about me and ask about 15 questions, like how are you and where do you live. And I know french numbers and maybe 20 adjectives. So, by no means anywhere close to even "conversational" but I could probably get through an emergency between my tiny vocabulary and hand signs.
Spanish, i know the numbers 1-10 and 14 thanks to Bono. And yes and no and bathroom and beer. You know, the basics.
Today, two girls who were 6 and 8 respectively, and spoke about 3 words of English between them, showed up unexectedly at our program. We had no idea who they were. Apparently they just got on the bus to the after-school program.
We do have about 7 spanish speaking kids who can also speak english. But some of them are really young, some of them are cranky about translating and some of them are naughty and might mess up the translation on purpose. Ugh. We eventually got their names and called the school and after 3 times with no answer, managed to get in touch with the right people, including their parents. Who apparently TOLD THEM TO COME!!!
Umm...we love having new children in the program. And even if we don't speak Spanish, we do a pretty good job with the kiddies who do. But please at least freakin' call first!
After speaking with the school administrator and eventually the parent, we discovered that seemingly the reputation of our program is spreading wildly through both the Chinese and Hispanic communties in Oakland. Word of mouth, people. Or should I say palabre de boca. ha!
