Okay, so I’ve been
teaching this hip hop class the past two weeks because my mom is the artistic
director of a dance studio here.
Initially, I thought “Why not? I’ll get to practice my Spanish with
young people and get out of the house a bit.”
It has been so much more than that. I kind of conducted my own little
observation on them. It’s interesting
because by the end I got a good grasp of who these people were. They are so
different, but are a family. In the
group there is a mother, a doctor, a 16 year old prodigy, two street dancers, a
student, and a conflicted 20 something year old.
It’s truly interesting
plopping yourself in the middle of other people’s lives, not really knowing
their language, and getting to know them.
And I’ve been trying this whole time to see how they act toward me, what
their impressions are, how they see me.
On Thursday during the final class, I realized that they genuinely like
me. Which sounds dumb, but it’s
incredible to me. People from different
countries coming together and bonding over dance. I felt like a young paceña for once instead
of an outsider. Hanging out with them
has given me major insight into the Bolivian teenage/young people culture. I got to observe how girls and boys act
around each other, how they treat each other. It’s honestly not much different
than US young people culture. Except
“flirting” as we would consider it there, isn’t actually flirting here per se. Sometimes you have to have a little fun and
put off your schoolwork to truly learn.
No comments:
Post a Comment