The Day the Electricity Went Out and I Became a Spanish Teacher

Sometimes unexpected events lead to happenings you couldn’t have created if you tried.  This is the opposite side of the last post. 

8:40am – I arrive home from the high school and there is no electricity.  It is suffocatingly hot without a fan.  A woman in the neighborhood tells me that the electricity will be out until 4pm because they are re-hanging the power lines. 

9:00am – I call the Spanish school to ask if I can go work there for the day…. Hang out in the office and do the grades that I need to do.  They say, of course.  I make some rice and eggs for lunch and head out. 

9:30am – I arrive at the school and start working on my grades. 

10:00am – The director of the school arrives and gives me a mango. 

10:10am – The director asks me if I’m busy.  I say that I am, but that I can do something if he wants.  He asks me for an idea that I have used with teenagers…. Yes, a question that vague.  I answer with an idea from my literacy class in college – a graffiti wall.  He says, “Great.  Go upstairs and help K plan the summer camp we’re having for middle schoolers.” 

That’s it.  That’s how I went from 1 and 1/2 years ago - being in that same classroom in an intermediate I Spanish class (that I struggled to understand) to planning a summer camp Spanish curriculum.  In Spanish.  In that moment, I felt so proud of myself. 

And, our plan rocks!  Together, the Spanish teacher and I are a dynamic creative team that seems as though it is working from one mind.  I really hope that I get to help with the camp.