I met up with Marcos today at Starbucks. We had been trying to meet up for about a week, but finally it happened! Marcos is from Venezuela and is 17 years old. He is in Foundations right now. The first thing we did was order drinks. There was a little bit of confusion with his drink order, but the barista was patient and helpful. Throughout our time in Starbucks, we talked about each other's lives and our interests.
I learned a lot about Marcos! He's a very friendly guy. I didn't bring my laptop with me, though. So whenever there was too much confusion after riding on the struggle bus for too long over the same topic, we would use a little bit of Spanish. I know that it's not recommended to speak in their native tongue, but the only time we did it was to figure out where the confusion lay. Once we figured it out, I taught him a right way to say it in English. Marcos has yet to learn many tenses, so it was a bit difficult to understand him at times. We even got into talking about Venezuela's new president who apparently has never received a degree in anything except MAYBE a high school diploma. That conversation led me to teaching him about the words like diploma and bachelor's degree.
Next week he will be learning the past tense, apparently; so that's exciting! We made plans to go to dinner next week and practice placing orders (I totally stole this idea from one of my classmates... I just don't remember which one!). I look forward to meeting up with him more as conversation partners. I may even take him to Trader Joe's!
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