a touching surprise

This afternoon, I heard an unexpected sound: my doorbell. I wasn't expecting a student, and didn't see the UPS truck out the window, so I figured it was some marketing/sales type, and grudgingly went to open my door and say I wasn't interested.

Instead, I found two of my former ESL students! And I am ashamed to admit, one of my first thoughts was, "Oh no! High-context culture (theirs) means I have to invite them in, feed them, and sit and chat for AGES when I have a huge presentation due tonight that I intended to spend my precious "naptime" hours working on."

Anyway, I smiled, hugged them, and proceeded to, yes, invite them in, offer something to drink, and sit down with them. Incidentally, I had never had these students in a class per se, but last summer I hosted a conversation practice/lunch group at my house on Saturday mornings, and these two guys were among the most faithful attendees. They told me that they had come up on purpose to see me, because they missed me at ESL classes. (I am not teaching this semester because, frankly, the every-Saturday from 9-2 commitment became too much for me since that's just about the only family time we have, with me in school or singing nights, Scott traveling for work, and then naptimes in the afternoons and church on Sunday mornings. So I resigned. But now I'm sort of rethinking it!)

We sat and chatted for an hour or so before I sent them home with a couple jars of homemade strawberry jam; high-context culture means gifts are appropriate, right? Conversation is a bit of a struggle, since they're definitely still English language learners, and I haven't spoken Spanish since the AP test in high school, not to mention that I'm not especially gifted in making small talk anyway. But it turns out they want to invite me to a party (the end of the year ESL party) and had lost my contact info but remembered my house. They also want to know if I like roller coasters (yes) and want to come to Six Flags with them sometime this summer. Arturo brought me a DVD (he's a DJ, and I think it's his demo disc) which has his email address on it, so I wouldn't lose it again. Both guys were just amazingly sweet, and kept telling me how much they appreciated my teaching, etc. Vicente kept reciting English idioms we had worked on last summer - "better late than never" was a favorite, as well as "a penny saved is a penny earned."

I was just incredibly touched. These guys went out of their way (I think they took the bus up here!) to come thank me and offer a way to include me in their lives again. I almost got all teary. And you know what? That hour of conversation was a blessing. And my presentation went just fine.