Erin - TP 4

I met with my tutee, Maria, on Wednesday, and she cooked me a large Cuban dinner. I was there for around two hours; we had a great time, but she was a little stressed out because there was some kind of problem with her water system. I have realized that a major hindrance to our lessons will be the fact that our meetings are in her apartment; we have to meet there due to her family and transportation situation, but she has a large crutch because one of her older family members is consistently there and tries to act as a translator.
I learned a lot about Cuba; although I believe in reading as much as possible, I feel that the best way to learn about something or somewhere, if you cannot experience it yourself, is to speak with someone who has. Although she could not explain in great detail due to her lack of English skills, I understood what she was trying to say; her body language helped a lot. At first, she simply asked me if I rent an apartment here in Tallahassee or if I live with my family, which sounded something like, "You...apartment?" When she asked how much it costs, and I told her, she informed me, "In Cuba...free." I was shocked by this, and it sounded too good to be true, so then I asked her, "Do you like Cuba then? Do you like that system?" She took a minute to comprehend and then made a face. With a vocabulary limited to "people", "money", "nothing", and "buy" and a mixture of body language, she explained that, although someone could have a steady job and make decent money, there is not sufficient supply, so people cannot always buy what they want or need.
After my short lesson on Cuba, I decided to help her with basic greetings, since she has to meet new customers on a regular basis. I taught her phrases such as, "Hello, how are you?" "I'm fine, how are you?" and "My name is..." I answered several questions she had, differentiating certain questions from others, like understanding the difference between, "How are you?" and "How old are you?" Before we finished, we went over a few other responses to the question "How are you?" in order to describe how one is feeling; e.g. "I am tired", "I am excited", etc.
Though there was much vocabulary and structure missing, I was simply glad that she was speaking; she appears to have a large discomfort for trying to speak in English, so I was excited about the fact that she was communicating with me, if even just a little bit.