Flashback to Friday

Last Friday, a woman at the University of Zilina asked me to come and meet with the head of the Department of Foreign Language. When I arrived at 9, not only was she not there, but she'd left me with no time or place or full name of the person with whom I'm supposed to meet. So, I go wondering around this massive building looking at names on doors to see if any ring a bell... I finally find someone who can help and I find the right woman's office and not only is she not there, she's out of town! Another woman finds me by chance (maybe hears me speaking English) and meets with me instead; during which she tells me, I had a meeting with the out-of-town woman at 11 (it was 9:30) yet no one told me AND - yes - the woman wasn't even there. Just another example of systems here....

Anyway - this woman was extremely helpful. By the end of the meeting, she was telling me about her children and went ahead and told me I was just like her third child. She was so sweet and helpful and chatty, but if we're being honest, I'd only known her about 30 minutes. But she started off by telling me how fateful it was that we were even meeting. It's like things always are...I talked to someone (a man at the Bible School) who knew someone (the original woman at the university) who told other people (English Dept.) who told the people across the hall (Foreign language Dept.) that there was an American girl in town looking for something to do.... And there we were. She teaches technical English for aviation engineering students, and I'm supposed to work with them on more conversational skills. I will go to a meeting on Wednesday to find out what classes, what days, and what courses exactly, but I'm excited to be helping someone (or, a department, really) that really values my asset - speaking English as my first language.

This is still on a volunteer basis, but it is one of the perspective jobs for September. If all continues as planned, classes start February 15! Anyone have suggestions as to how to get intermediate English speakers engaged in conversation?