Dee taught the Italian class again at the Friendship Center, coming up with a fun game that everyone really loved. They all asked if she was coming back next week. She seems to enjoy it, noting that there are not many places where she can teach Italian! Several of the immigrants were surprised to learn that she is not Italian.
First I taught some false cognates (English to Italian this time), which is always worthwhile. We played two games. First, I had them select a few toothpicks. They got to decide how many, between two and six. Then they had to say that many sentences about themselves to the class. After that ice breaker, we did a memory circle game. For example, I said I had a giraffe, I went to Argentina and ate an eggplant. (I said this in Italian.) Then, the next person had to repeat my things in the right verb form, and add their own. We had a dozen people in the room. They were smiling and having a great time and told me they really liked it because they got to talk. Then, Wycliffe asked me for the link to the song we did last time with karaoke. He wants to be able to review it. So, it was a winner. And Sorella Canfield, seeing the class smiling, asked me to come back next week. She wants me to teach the other teacher. I told her I got the ideas on Pinterest by searching for ESL games. We'll see if Cecelia wants to know about these ideas.
While Dee was off teaching, I did a bunch more work on my lesson for Friday night. Later I picked up my Casio watch with its new battery from the jewelry store a few blocks away, giving a temple open house card and invitation to the clerk. I also started cutting up the styrofoam used in packing our new fridge, now that 30 days have elapsed. We carried home a trash bag full of it to toss in our bins at home, and there will still be a few more such trips before it is all gone.
Ugo sent word that we have an appointment to go see another possible location for the Institute campus on Thursday morning. It is not far from Termini, in the other direction from where we are now. It is also near the apartment of the Ganziani, which is handy because we are scheduled to do an inspection there right afterward.
In the evening, we had another movie night, watching the Blind Side in English with Italian subtitles, because I couldn't get the Italian audio track to work. This will probably be our final movie night, because we only had one person show up: Junior, our nonmember from Cameroon who comes to almost everything. Apparently watching movies together just doesn't resonate well with this group, as turnout has always been light. It was odd to have two white Americans watch a story about a poor black kid from the projects with an Italian-speaking guy from Cameroon. We aren't sure that he caught all the cultural nuances, but he seemed to enjoy the show.
We also heard back from the Motts, who are very busy as we well know. They will be here at the end of the month with a tour group to the see the open house. Their hotel is just around the corner from here, which makes it easier to get together.