Moving to my grandmother’s house was one the most unforgettable days. Grand Rapids, MI, was just like I saw it in the movies in Mexico from US. There was grass around the houses, the homes are so different, have basement and attic. So different to what I was used to. So many changes, from the shower, water and trees around the houses. So beautiful and I was so ignorant about many different simple things in a house in America. Just for example in our house in Mexico having one light bulb in the each room was all we could have. And realize that the chandelier in the dinning room had 8 lightbulbs.
Moverme a la casa de mi abuela fue uno de los días más inolvidables. Grand Rapids MI era como lo había visto en las películas americans en México. Había pasto alrededor de las casas; las casas son muy diferentes, tienen un sótano y un desván. Muy diferente a los que estaba acostumbrada. Muchos cambios, desde una ducha, agua, árboles alrededor de las casas. Tan hermoso y yo tan ignorante de las diferentes y simple cosas en una casa en America. Por ejemplo en una casa en México el tener un foco en cada cuarto era lo único que podíamos tener y sin embargo el candelabro del comedor de mi abuela tenía 8 focos.
We arrived in July. Just couple months before school started. Not long after we arrived a lady showed up in my grandmas house, to enroll my siblings to high school. Obviously I already graduated and 2 years into university my self. I was more interested in learning English. Community Ed. of GR was providing classes at Instituto Hispano. Here different classes were offered to Migrant Families. They provided free transportation, and that helped us a lot, 4 days a week Monday to Thursday.
Llegamos en Julio. Justo dos meses antes de que empezara la escuela. Y después de llegar a Michigan una se♦♦ora se presento en casa de mi abuela, para inscribir a mis hermanos en la preparatoria. Obviamente yo ya me habia graduado e ido dos anos en la universidad. Estaba mas interesada en aprender ingles. La comunidad de educacion de Grand Rapods estaba proveyendo classes en el Instituto Hispano. Aqui diferentes clases eran ofrecidas a Familias Migrantes. Ellos proveian tambie transportacion gratis y eso nos ayudo mucho, 4 dias a la semana de lunes a jueves.
Meeting my new teacher there, was so much fun. She was from Cuba. Her accent, her story and her personality were so beautiful and special for me. My favorite part of this class was to meet people from different countries. From Latin America, Vietnam, china and Bosnia. We had to make conversation only in English. We could not speak Spanish except to my Latino friends. One day we sat together in a conference room and I almost felt like we were the ONU. People from different nationalities and languages. Here I made a long time friends, we were the beginning of a new changing generation. After a one year of school learning the very basic greetings, numbers, colors, some vocabulary. I was ready for more, more grammar, more complex questions, more conversational skills. I did not want to repeat again another year of just basic. One thing that was cool was to see many professionals, native English speaking people volunteering for this program. There is when I met my good friend Ana. She welcome me to the program every day. Offering her help to me every day to learn to make more complex sentences and questions. Every step I took it was the beginning of a new change in my life. Appreciating those steps makes my life more rich.
Have a nice week!
MI Spanish Connections 