BUT, the profesoras at the school and the students coordinators wanted to do something to let us celebrate the 4th, so they got pizza and chips and sodas for all the international students to have at lunch to celebrate. They were really excited about making sure we were able to celebrate our holiday, and it was really nice of them to go out of their way to do that for us.
ANYWHO, our ESOL class started at 9 at the Fundación Prats, and some things were a little weird from the start. In the first 20 minutes of class, a bunch of scooters drove around the corner on the street, honking their horns and being a nuisance to our class, so we got up to watch them all drive by. Then, we started hearing drums but we kept going with class until we heard a cannon start to go off outside the Fundación Prats. We were so confused and we kept jumping every time the cannon blasted. At 10, Karie and Terry excused us from class to take a break and to walk to the Site so we could watch a movie about race for our class. We walked outside, where the drums became louder and we could see a large group of people gathered on the far side of the Plaza de San Martin, near the government building. We started walking toward the sound of the drums and the large crowd of people, only to notice that a) everyone in the crowd was wearing construction hats (except us) and b) everyone in the crowd was male (except us...well, except for Cain, but he was walking with Mary and Annie and me). We figured out that a group of construction workers were protesting something (I'm still not sure what) and we quickly left the plaza so as not to get caught up in the protest if violence broke out.
After class, we had our little 4th of July celebration at the Site. When our celebration was over, we still had about an hour before our next class. Mary and I walked around the now calm Plaza de San Martin and took pictures, then walked down the street so I could find an ATM. I had a bit of trouble when I kept putting the wrong PIN number into the machine, but once I realized my mistake I was able to access pesos with no problem. We went back to the Site for our Spanish class, and when class finished we went to a café on the corner for hot chocolate and café con leche because we were hungry and freezing. The server in the café was very friendly and pushed us all to use our Spanish to talk with him, which was really interesting. I got to talk with Cain and Mary about why they chose to study education, and it was really inspiring to be with other students that are so passionate about teaching English as a second language. I also found out about Western Oregon's teaching license in bilingual education, and I wish we had a program like that in Indiana because even though it's expensive to implement, it has to yield amazing results and growth in the students.
When we finished eating/talking, we went back to our houses, and I had a decision to make. The other students in my program were intent on visiting Iguazú Falls while they were down here, and they wanted to go this coming weekend since we have Monday off from classes for Independence Day. I wanted to go, but as you probably know, I like to plan things out WAY in advance, so planning a trip for this weekend felt very rushed to me (Let it be known that this trip requires an 18 hour bus ride EACH WAY). I talked the decision over briefly with my parents, and they told me to take full advantage of every opportunity I have to explore Argentina while I'm here (YOLO, anyone?). So, I walked back to the Site to meet my friends after their last class got out, and we walked to the bus station (let it also be known that the bus station is about 18 blocks from the site) to buy our bus tickets to Iguazú Falls for this weekend. And then we walked home, and I was super tired and hungry and just wanted to go to bed but I hadn't started my homework or blogged yet and...that leads us to me, sitting on my computer in the living room after midnight, trying to write down everything about my day. So now that I've accomplished my task, I'm going to go to bed, because I'm seriously still exhausted and we have to get up early tomorrow morning to visit al Colegio Español, a private school in the city.
If you want to keep up with what we're doing in our ESOL class, you can check out of class website: http://cultureandcommunity.weebly.com/. I'm posting this website because we're looking at a lot of cool materials (such as the first video under week one resources from Chimamanda Adichie - seriously take the time to listen to her because her message is SO COOL) and I don't feel like stealing Karie's pictures to put on Facebook, but you can see some of the things/places we've been as a group from going to the last link at the top of the page (the Buenos Aires pictures are from an excursion only for the students from Western so I'm not in any of those, but you'll find me in all the rest!).
ALSO, in case you're super behind the times and not on Facebook (ahem...Linda and Dan...) here's the link to look at the pictures of my trip as of today:
:)
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