La Escuela de Español Juan Sisay

is a non-profit educational collective, as it states in bold letters on the front wall of the building 100m from where I'm living. The schoolhouse itself has much in common with the few other building I´ve become familiar with: they are filled with natural light and fresh air, the colours, shapes, and materials are products of creativity, availability, and improvisation. I´ll get back to this when I describe where I'm living. Each class is one-on-one, taking place at a small table with teacher and student sitting opposite each other. There are about 10-15 such simultaneous classes, most taking place on the roof under canopies and umbrellas. Diego and I have a table on the corner of the roof, overlooking the street. Classes go from 8am-1pm, with a break at 10:30 and conferencias Wed/Fri at 11am. I'm proud to have been able to understand Diego tell me that he and almost all the teachers are university students, and this teaching pays his way through his physiotherapy degree. He says the big advantage to this school is that classes are in the morning, so he can attend his afternoon classes, whereas most other spanish schools teach in the afternoons. It´s hard for me to imagine, teaching 25 hrs/wk while going in school. I've made a lot of ridiculous sentences (ie, mis padres buscaron un hijo nuevo cuándo salí sin permisión - my parents looked for a new son when I went out without permission. just kidding, mom and dad). I suppose everyone on the roof could hear us laugh a few times. Diego and I are a good match I think. I have a surprisingly high motivation to work hard and learn spanish. In addition to the 5h of class per day I´m doing a couple hours of homework, doing school activities, keeping this journal, and trying to avoid speaking English with the other students. It´s been filling the days of my first week from about 6:30am to 10:30pm. I´ve reflected on how I don´t seem to choose very ´relaxing´ vacations! I did 2 activities organized by the school this week. Wednesday, we took a little bus to a concrete playing field to play several hours of soccer and basketball, Juan Sisay students & teachers vs. local kids. The games were close, it was tonnes of fun, and completely exhausting. I felt better about my shortness of breath when I remembered we´re at 2300m (7500ft). Today I went with one other Canadian to tutor 6 or 7-year-old kids in math. They live on the edge of town in much poorer housing than where I am. I speak little spanish and they speak no english, but we were able to communicate in math well enough. they´re a teacher's ideal students, who genuinely want to learn, and worked on their adding, subtracting, and multiplying for a solid hour before we all went and played soccer on a dusty gravel field. Luis, a little taller than my thighs, is a better player than I am and boy can that kid move. I´ve never been a soccer player before, but I´m really liking it.