Like every day, today was an adventure.
I taught 4 reasonably good lessons to well-behaved students and one bad lesson to "indiciplinados" who just would not be quiet no matter what I did. I kicked Dinho out within 2 minutes because, during my AIDS lecture, he asked "How do you know this information? Have you seen the sick people yourself?" just to make all the other students laugh and make a fool (or try to) out of me. After he left, I actually got some good questions when people realized I was serious.
When I got back home, I chewed him out as best I could (in Portuguese) for disrespecting me and the lesson, for not realizing how serious AIDS is, and just in general for clowning around when he could be helping me out in the classroom. He really is a unique kid here, having lived next to Americans since he was about 10 years old.
I think I made an impression when I said it seemed like he was trying to make friends through his behavior, which he obviously doesn't need to do - and if he kept up being rude in the classroom, that he would lose me as a friend.
I've compared him to a velociraptor from Jurassic Park - testing everything for weaknesses.
Had our second Changana lesson tonight, and it's really quite fascinating. I'm catching on pretty quickly. Still having trouble understanding some Portuguese, but I have equal trouble getting some English from neighboring countries.
Peace
John
