You never know...

The end of January, and thus the beginning of the end of summer, is upon us here in Montevideo. We´ve started up work at La Obra again, and (as always), my duties-as-assigned here have a tendency to take me in unexpected directions.

Take, for example, the past few days in the Centro de Estudios. Certain extremely unlucky secondary schoolers in Uruguay end up with exams for the previous school year scheduled during February – to help out those familiar with the U.S. school year, this would be the same as having to come back to school at some point in late July or early August to take an exam. I´m honestly not sure if this is an every student sort of occurance, or a luck of the draw affair, or a re-take schedule, or quite how it works, but regardless, they exist. A few of the regulars at CdE have such exams, and have been coming in for pre-test reviews. Sounds pretty pro-forma, right – just like during the school year!

Of course not; this is my life, and there´s always a twist. The twist this go-round is the absence of Virginia, my co-worker and our science expert of the three of us who are in the CdE on a near-daily basis. She won´t be back until school starts up officially in March, and in the meantime, Claudio and I get to be the resident experts in every academic field, including the sciences.

The only problem with this is that I haven´t taken a science class since freshman bio at TLU in 2003. Claudio is in the same boat – the natural sciences just aren´t his principal area of interest. Of course, Ximena (one of our regulars) has her chemistry exam in about two weeks. I haven´t taken chemistry since the 2001-2002 school year, and I would lying if I said it was my favorite subject when I was a junior at Brazosport Christian School (no offense, Mrs. Beatty).

However, my preference for biology and physics over chemistry and my lack of recent quality time with a chemistry textbook aside, I have become Kevin Patrick Baker, chemistry teacher…o, más accurado, Kevin Patricio Panadero, maestro de química. I have been explaining chemistry for two days now in Spanish – everything from the basics of atomic structure (“los protones y neutrones están en el núcleo, pero los electrones están afuera del núcleo en niveles se llaman “orbitos.” El primer científico para hablar sobre los orbitos fue Niehls Bohr en 1913…”) to what happens in a “reacción de combustión” (I probably can´t explain this well in English, but fortunately, Ximena´s chemistry class is more about fundamental concepts than fine details of the reaction process and complex hydrocarbons and whatnot, so we landed on our feet).

Of course, for someone like me who loves to learn, this has been a heck of an adventure. I´ve re-learned the basics of high school chemistry in two days, and (maybe it´s just the momentary excitement getting to me) am actually ENJOYING talking about chemistry. I´m also learning all kinds of new words…when we work with the periodic table, the most common phrase out of my mouth is “este elemento se llama en inglés “chlorine”…¿puede ser que es algo cómo clorino en español?” For the record, “chlorine” is “cloro” in Spanish. It´s been fun, Ximena´s been learning (and has been very patient with my butchery of elemental names and scientific terms), I´ve been learning, and it´s all a part of the adventure of life…not to mention proof that the typical “ugh, I´m never gonna need to know this crap” line uttered by about every high school student at one point or another is, at least when you´re an ELCA mission volunteer, not true!