English equivocations

Every Peace Corps volunteer in Peru gets asked to teach English. My native language is a hot commodity here - a perceived ticket to the success of a good job, and a mark of prestige. Consequently, I am asked to teach English by pretty much everyone: teenagers, parents of three year-olds, shop owners, farmers, municipality workers, etc. etc. But the most common requesters are by far Cajabamba's school principals. As the language of global commerce, English is a required subject in Peru's public schools, but very few capable teachers can be found in rural areas. As an example, one student told me about the time her English teacher stood at the door to the classroom saying "Between, between," as she welcomed the arriving students. In Spanish, "entre" as a preposition means "between," but "entre" as a form of the verb "entrar" means "enter/come in." A logical mistake for someone who relies heavily on a translation dictionary for their knowledge of English, but one that a trained teacher would never make.

Thus every single principal in town wants to snag a gringa to really teach their students English - they know their current English teachers can barely speak the language, and we Americans are an obvious source of potential improvement. My answer is of course a consistent "no," with an explanation that English is not the work I came here to do, and a reminder that every single school in Cajabamba is in the same situation - I'm not looking for a dozen full-time jobs as a language teacher. The only exception would be an opportunity to teach the teachers themselves - in my opinion a much more worthwhile and sustainable use of time.

What continues to catch me off guard is when a Peruvian counterpart overhears my sitemates and I conversing amongst ourselves in English, and asks wonderingly: "Oh, you all speak English with each other?" Their expression is always one of primarily surprise - although they definitely know we are American and know English - but they're also both impressed and interested in the novelty of it. While from my perspective, it seems that it'd be quite obvious that we English-speakers would speak in our native tongue when in similar company, to people from my town this is far from obvious. We PCVs may well be the only truly bilingual people in Cajabamba, so I guess it makes sense that our linguistic skills would be a source of fascination.