Parli Italiano?

Early in the school year I mentioned to some kids that I speak Italian. Or more accurately, there was a time in my life when I spoke Italian quite well and I can probably still sort of fake it. 2 kids asked me if I would teach them Italian and I agreed. My brother brought my old Italian book from home down to Virginia when I was there for Bobby’s wedding, and so last week I announced to all 350 kids that anyone who wanted to learn some Italian could come during play hour on Tuesday. Now, I need to explain that play hour is a sacred ting here. School ends at 3:30, then kids work / clean until about 4:30 or sometimes 5. Play hour is 4:30 – 5:30 before dinner and evening study hours. During play hour there is a soccer game on every square inch of flat ground. There is a card game or dominoes game on every table. It is one moment in kids’ days here that is utterly unscheduled and belongs entirely to themselves. But despite all this, the night of my first Italian club meeting, I had a bout 25 kids show up.

They all brought their little notebooks – because learning in this culture = what you write in your notebook. But they’re so incredibly good orally. They listened and repeated and when I corrected their “too French” or “too Spanish” accents on certain words, they fixed them – perfectly. They approach language the way I do. They wanted some rules and frameworks to organize it all, but mostly they just wanted to call out the things they wanted to learn and have me say them and write them for them to repeat and write in their notebooks. They’re so scary good at memorizing things that a few days later lots of them still remember what I taught them and they’re greeting me with “buona sera” and announcing “ho fame!” in the middle of Spanish class. I really can’t believe I’ve stumbled into a culture of people who are as completely obsessed and nerdy about language as I am! I also can’t believe I have an excuse to study my Italian again … in Haiti. Who woulda thunk?