Gringo In Peru

I’m now an uncle/godfather.

Zoe Alyssa was born early Friday morning sometime when you were sleeping and I was riding a dirty bus to work.

Mom, baby and dad are doing fine and are already home.

Baby Zoe

I’ll officially be the godfather when the baby is baptised. That day is to be determined since we are still waiting for V’s visa. When that date will come is anyone’s guess. We got an e-mail from the lawyer last week that I need to sign more papers and send them stateside. The paperwork never ends!

Yesterday we had Thanksgiving here in Peru complete with turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie, which my father-in-law kept calling chunkeen chai.

Fun times.

While many of you wait for your trypotphan coma to pass, I’m waiting for other things.

I’m waiting to be an uncle. Baby Zoe is still in the oven. My sister was supposed to be induced yesterday, but the doctor decided to wait. I think its happening today, but I’m not sure. Details are sketchy from up north. I’ll blame the pumpkin pie.

I’m waiting to for my new schedule. Classes wrapped up Tuesday and the new session starts Friday. While that seems weird to start things on Friday, it will pay off at the end of the month with an extended Christmas/New Year’s break.

I’m waiting to give a speech tonight about Thanksgiving. Work asked me to give a presentation about the uniquely American holiday. It shouldn’t be to hard. The powerpoint presentation has already been made, I just have to talk. My topics are the history of turkey day, (American) football and Thanksgiving and Black Friday. A colleague of mine has the dinner itself and the parade. The presentation is for Advanced students. I’ll be interested to see how many actually attend and if they have any questions.

I’m waiting for my wife. She’s busy at school because her class has to present a big project tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll see her after my speech and she won’t be completely wiped out. I doubt it.

I’m also waiting for Thanksgiving. Because of all this, we’re planning to have Thanksgiving Saturday. I’ve got a can of pumpkin, a turkey and croutons to make stuffing. Anybody want to join us? The weather is supposed to be 72 and sunny

Today is my birthday. The big 34.

No big celebrations are planned. I’ve got to work tonight.

My in-laws took V and I to a fancy restaurant Saturday to celebrate both of our big days. It was good. What isn’t there to like about five-star dining?

By the end of the day I could be sharing my birthday with my niece. My sister will be induced this evening. There’s a chance Zoe Alyssa Martin could arrive today. Since this is my sister’s first, doctors say the induction process could take a while. My guess is the baby will come tomorrow. If that happens the Graning/Loth/Martin/Marchini clan will dominate the week of November 20th! Vanessa’s birthday is the 20th. My grandpa Loth was the 23rd. I’m the 24th. Baby Zoe is yet to be determined.

The best news of the day so-far was the 94 I earned in Spanish class! I was surprised I did that well. Two months ago I got an 88. The big question now is if I’ll get to study next month. I want to continue, but work is kind of a priority. December may be the last month I can take classes for a while. I’ve been warned that Jan-Feb-March are crazy busy at the English factory.

My Spanish is improving. I have figured out that I need the classroom-type environment to learn. I can’t go it alone. Besides learning Spanish, taking these classes have taught me a lot about how I learn and how I can transfer that to my classes. This foreign language learning is tough.

I just got an e-mail from our lawyer’s paralegal that the final piece of the latest paperwork puzzle has arrived in their office. We are one day closer to going home.

We risked it a bit and sent it thorough the Peruvian mail system. It was certified and track-able. It took exactly one week for it to arrive. We went Peruvian mail simply because of the cost about $20 compared to $70-80 via the UPS and DHL’s of the world.

Now it can be sent somewhere else and we’ll continue to wait.

Aren’t bureaucracies fun?

So far so good in my Spanish class.

The institute almost pulled the plug on my burgeoning second language, again. The powers that be tried to give me an extra class, a day after I specifically asked them for permission to take Spanish class. When confronted about this faux pas the powers that be apologized and told me not to worry.

Wheew!

This whole Spanish-speaking adventure has taught me a lot about learning methods and styles. I need to see the language at use with some context. I can’t watch a TV show in Spanish or read subtitles and pick things up. Practice and the visualization of the language in action helps a lot. Now that I’m learning more, I truly do understand more. Much more then when I was trying to go it alone.

There are only nine people in my class. I am one of two Americans. There’s one Brit, one Estonian, two Chinese and four women from Turkey. It’s a good mix. What’s weird is that we can all use English to communicate. It’s amazing that other cultures see the importance of learning learn English while us Americans won’t bother the borders of other languages.

All this Spanish learning means a lot more bus rides, and time on the bus depending on the day. I usually leave the house around 6:50 for my endless trip to 8:45 Spanish class. Yesterday, I arrived at 8:00. Impressive. Today, I was 5 minutes late to class. For the minute math impaired that’s an extra 5o minutes in traffic. There’s no way you can plan for that, you just have to stick to a constant departure time and hope the traffic gods are smiling on you.

Thank goodness for podcasts. I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Speaking of bus rides, yesterday was an interesting one. We’re stuck in traffic when a woman sitting in the front starts yelling at the driver. Words I could understand and translate included “idiot” and “dumb”. Then she hit the driver in the back of the head with her purse, twice. The rest of the bus just groaned and the woman went back to putting her make up on.

Crazy.

Ok, I know you’ve heard this before, but I will be learning Spanish (again) this month. Maybe next month too.

November and December are the slowest months at the institute, leaving me without a morning class. This allows me to start taking class.

Learning Spanish is not easy, and today’s events did not make things any easier.

First I had to stop at my institute to make sure they wouldn’t stick me with a morning class. I’ve reached a point where I have just enough seniority that I take classes that were not assigned to me. I was assured that would not happen this month. The morning load is light and many classes are on the verge of being canceled.

My second stop was the branch where the classes are. It’s a good 45 minute, jerky bus mini-van ride there. Although my arrival was in plenty of time to register and get to class on time, there was a problem. Since I’m on “scholarship” I had to wait for administration to arrive to approve my enrollment. Classes start at 8:45, they don’t arrive until 9.

So, I waited.

Thankfully, the head administrator used to work at my location. When she got to work, we greeted each other and she told me it wouldn’t take long. I was already 15 minutes late, what’s another 5 minutes right?

So, I waited.

Then her secretary came to work, about 15 minutes late. From my seat outside the office I could see them greeting each other and heard them talking about approving my scholarship. This seemed like good news.

So, I waited.

Meanwhile, the secretary began her secretarial duties, while her boss began pealing Halloween decorations off the wall. This all seemed funny to me, since all I needed was a stamped receipt to enter the class I was already 45 minutes late for.

So, I watied.

Finally, I got my scholarship approved and headed to class. There was only 20 minutes left when I got to class. I missed most of the lesson, but was there in time for the homework.

Sometimes the waiting truly is the hardest part.

Did I mention I’m taking Spanish classes this month?

Two weeks after sending another pile of paperwork state side we found out there was something missing. Vanessa needed three official police records to send to immigration. We had only sent two.

Honestly, I can’t keep it all straight. That’s why the lawyer and his paralegal make the big bucks.

Needless to say, V and her mom went to the proper office yesterday to fill out the forms and pay the fee. We should have the missing piece of what is turning out to be a never-ending puzzle of paperwork this week. Then we’ll send it to the lawyer, who will send it to immigration and who knows where else it will go. Meanwhile, we’ll wait.

The process seems unnecessarily complicated.

This is why there are illegal aliens.