by My site got hacked (again!), and I’ve just this minute got it unhacked. This is the first part of what happened after that.
Wednesday 19th December
Timișoara was beautiful following the weekend’s snowfall, but the snow had frozen and the roads and pavements were treacherous. I only had a pair of two-hour lessons but getting to both of them was a mission. In the morning I slipped and fell on the ice during the 40-minute trudge to my appointment in the Soarelui area. The lesson wasn’t the easiest either, as my devoutly religious student tried to sniff out my beliefs. “But what does Christmas really mean to you?” In the early afternoon the plumber came over and fixed my hot water – snow had somehow got into the boiler from a duct. He fixed it impressively quickly but I still had no chance of catching the bus to Dumbrăvița for my 92nd lesson with Matei. Or so I thought. Traffic was gridlocked to the point where I managed to catch the bus up just by walking, and I clambered on two stops later. I called Matei’s grandmother to say I’d be pretty late, and that seemed to be fine. I gave him the full two hours. After the lesson I walked 2 km over the border into Timișoara, to the nearest bus stop where buses were still going to and from. I caught up with S in the café where we first met in September, and she wasn’t too bothered that I was seriously late. I gave her a box of biscuits as a Christmas present; she’d earlier given me the Romanian translation of The Little Prince.
Thursday 20th
A much easier day. My only lesson was at the university, a stone’s throw from my flat. My student teaches Romanian and linguistics there. Her surname is Pop, and we went on a whistle-stop tour of English phrasal verbs that feature her name. I’m just popping out to get some milk. A message just popped up on my screen. Pop round whenever you like. My grandmother even used to say, “when I pop off”. Pop is just such a fun word. It probably helped Kellogg’s sell many thousands of extra boxes of Rice Krispies. Just snapping and crackling would never have been enough. (When I think about it, there’s a lot going on there. A trio as in “snap, crackle and pop” is often deadly effective. Spelling “krispies” with a K, which of course is emblematic of Kellogg’s itself, also plays a pretty big role.) In future we’ll hopefully have two-hour sessions, half in English and half in Romanian. A Romanian teacher would be enormously helpful for me.
Friday 21st
After the monthly tram trip to pay my rent in non-Romanian cash, I had two lessons. One was with David, my 11-year-old student. He’s a nice kid, extremely polite, but he has a habit of responding to my questions with “I don’t know”, killing the conversation stone dead. In his room he has a collection of Harry Potter books, and even a photo of him holding one. “So, do you like Harry Potter?” I don’t know. David is an only child (one of many) and there is certainly pressure on him to achieve at school. He’s in the A-stream. Extra maths. Extra Romanian grammar. Lots of questions that have a definite, right and wrong answer. In our previous lesson I asked him what he’d be doing afterwards. “Santa,” I thought he said. What will Santa be doing? No, not Santa. Centre. Centre of excellence. In the Romanian language. All this means that when faced with open-ended questions, he seems afraid to give the wrong answer. He likes games though, and I ensure that those take up almost half of each session. I was getting a bit stressed at the prospect of flying out the next day, and trying to find last-minute Christmas presents in a god-awful shopping mall. That evening I went to the cafeteria in Auchan but when the woman behind the counter insisted on speaking to me in English even after I told her not to, I stormed off.
