My last week was filled with the feeling of calmness, confidence of knowing the city and my newly created routine. I think that one of the most challenging things during travelling is feeling like a stranger in the places that you visit, constantly confused, questioning everything. This is exactly how I felt when I first arrived in Buenos Aires, which I thought of as a huge, busy and unwelcoming place at the time. After spending countless hours exploring this city, visiting museums, learning about Argentinian history, chatting to locals and engaging with Argentinian media I can finally say that I feel like I got to know this place, or at least a little bit of it. There is a special kind of comfort in knowing where you can find your favourite coffee, what bus to take to the place you work, where you can buy your favourite empanadas and that there are kind people here I can always reach out to.
Work in the English school has been challenging, but also incredibly rewarding. Teaching English as a second language definitely takes me back to the times when I was attending very similar classes, spending my afternoons after school on trying to understand and learn this hell of a language with all its exceptions, hard pronunciation and grammar I honestly despised at the time. During my last class we were learning all about different kinds of pronouns, and I was again surprised at the complexity of the language I got so used to using on a daily basis. It is so easy to forget how incredibly hard your brain works when you speak your second language, jumping between different grammar types, tenses, lexicon, vocabulary, constantly forming a conflict between what you’ve been taught since you were born and what you’ve learnt along the way. I was incredibly happy to see the kids becoming more confident, speaking up in the class and overcoming fear of sounding silly or wrong. I remember that in my language learning journey this feeling was what I struggled with the most, the barrier that stopped me from speaking for much longer than not knowing the grammar or vocabulary. The school I’m working in now, and especially the wonderful teachers who work there, make sure to increase students’ confidence during every single class with fun and incredibly creative games. Last week we played ‘guess the movie’, in which each of the students got two Disney or Pixar movies each, and had to come up with the clues for their classmates. I could see that it was not only a good speaking exercise but also just a fun game, with Coco and Mulan definitely being my favourite movies to guess.
This week Finley and I also prepared a presentation on our countries and cultures that we were presenting to different classes each day. I must say that it was probably my favourite part of each class, being able to share my home while being so far away from it. I was so happy to show the students and teachers foods I was eating all throughout my childhood, such as my favourite Polish dumplings, żurek soup in bread and gulasz. It was really interesting to see students recognising similar Argentinian foods, despite our countries being almost eight thousand miles away from each other. Because after all, are empanadas and pierogies not similar to each other? When talking about Poland I just simply couldn’t miss out on showing everyone Polish Tatra mountains, the place so close to my heart that I miss everyday while abroad. Showing the pictures of the peaks that I know so well, paths I’ve walked so many times and lakes I fell in love with while hiking was something truly special. Something that students got really excited by was the fact that in my presentation most of the pictures used were not taken from Google but rather from my own travels, making this experience a little more personal and I hope special for everyone. Finley also presented on Scotland, showing so beautifully the place we live and study. Seeing the pictures from Fife with the wild North Sea and old buildings of St Andrews took me back to Scotland for a second, despite being so far away from it. In addition to chatting to students about Scottish natural beauty, we also shared some of our favourite traditions, amongst which Burns night was one of them. This January night is definitely one of the most special ones for Finley and I, the one celebrating life and works of a poet so important for working class Scottish people (of course celebrated with veggie haggis, neeps and tatties!). Finley even recommended her favourite Rabbie Burns to Dana, one of the teachers in the school who loves reading!
That’s it from me for today, I can’t wait to share some of my adventures in my next post!:)
Finley and I enjoying empanadas in La Boca