My Spanish Teacher

Angela is a dream-come-true for a would-be anthropologist trying to learn a new language. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:15 pm I arrive at her middle school classroom at the International School of Panama (ISP) for my one-hour session. There are usually 2 or 3 young students in the room, being tutored by another teacher. It is a warm, welcoming, and colorfully decorated room. Angela greets me warmly and we sit down to begin.

I might be the most non-traditional student she has ever had. We never do any drills or standard language training. I figure, she does that all day with middle schoolers, and I can (and do) work with textbooks to learn the grammar. What I need is practical instruction in how to get around town, how to shop for groceries, how to talk to shopkeepers, and how to understand cultural nuances. So I prepare a lesson each time based on my needs. I think she is enjoying it because not only does she not have to prepare a boring lesson, but she gets to expound upon Panamanian culture and customs to an eager audience.

Angela is a very attractive, fit woman in her late forties; the mother of two daughters (one a senior at the school and the other a freshman in college). I know she is divorced from their father, but I don’t know if she has remarried. I wait for her confidences rather than asking many personal questions, although she is very forthcoming with stories and examples from her own experience. I know she adored her father, who died some years ago, and that she spends every Thursday evening with her 82 year old mother, who loves to go to the casino. Her daughters both live at home with her in a neighborhood near our own. The younger one is a tall basketball-playing senior at ISP whom my husband says is “a great kid”.

I arrive with a page of notes and questions from my preceding few days of adventures and misadventures, and after a few minutes of polite pleasantries, she asks, (in Spanish) “What’s on for today?”

Here are the topics we have discussed so far: politics and the current Panamanian elections, public and private education in Panama, shopping for housewares and for groceries, Panamanian recipes, travel destinations in Panama, religious affiliations and observance, holidays and cultural celebrations, crime and violence, and oodles of linguistic and grammatical trivia. Topics I have in mind for the future include: pets, ecology and the environment, public health and the health care system, youth culture, and the elderly. Angela is a goldmine of information and perceptions, which, I realize, are one person’s perspective, but I feel so lucky to have found her.

Here’s to teachers everywhere!