Back to School

Yesterday was my first day at the American Language Partnership International here in Santiago. I was picked up from my hotel and brought first to the apartment where I will be living for the next four weeks. I like the location very much -- it is in a safe residential neighborhood, and relatively quiet despite the fact that it is within walking distance of virtually everything in the city center. It´s a couple of blocks from the monument, which is the key landmark of the city. But it´s also near the shopping district, and about a dozen blocks from the school.

It is a furnished apartment. Now, it´s been a good many years since I´ve lived in school-owned or operated housing, so perhaps I had to exalted a notion of what the term ´furnished´refered to. There was, indeed furniture in the apartment. But there was nothing else. NOTHING -- not even a sheet of toilet paper. Other than the actual furniture per se, there was one plate, one fork, one spoon, and one knife. Period. So I have had to go out and buy everything necessary for a four week stay.

When I later commented to the director of the school that I was surprised both by the fact that the apartment had no amenities and that I had not previously been told I would need to purchase whatever I needed to cook, clean, and generally speaking live normally, he responded that of course they couldn´t supply plates, etc. It would be un-hygenic to allow someone to use plates that had previously been used by another person. I guess he has never been to, or heard of the concept of restaurants...Odd enough by itself, but there were bedsheets. Now, think this over -- what is likely to be less sanitary -- bedsheets that someone else slept in or a plate that someone else has eaten off of?

Other than that, the apartment is perfectly adequate, although every room is approximately the same size -- i.e. the bathroom, the bedroom, and the combination kitchen-sitting room are of about the same dimensions, which is to say they are small. There is cable TV, and I´ve been pondering the irony of watching Jay Leno´s premiere show last night. Most of the channels, naturally, are in Spanish, but a handful are in English, so I´ll be able to keep up on the news from the US, which I´m grateful for.

As it turns out, I am the only student in the class, and the only one at my level. The teachers, Angela, is quite energetic, and keeps the pace moving by changing activities frequently. It is not rote memorization and drills. So far, in two days of class, I have listened to Spanish language songs, written a composition, done some verb study, and had a session on Spanish language proverbs. My favorite En boca cerrada no entran moscas, loosely rendered in English -- Flies don´t enter a closed mouth. Wise words.

Seems like a good place to close for now.