I still had my voice Wednesday, though. I took the class to Brixton Market-- in the Caribbean part of London. Bringing out the "global" portion of the class title. I had them explore the market and talk to the vendors and try to buy something they'd never tried before. AND bring enough to share with the rest of us. (We are only seven including myself, so it's not that big of an expense…) I got everyone Jamaican patties… Mine was Calaloo… which was fine and tasty. My student who tried that one, though, didn't finish hers--thought it was too spicy. The chicken and beef ones seemed to go alright, though… Someone brought us all lychee fruit--which was fun to eat picnic style… and there were candies and snacks from other countries none of us had tried before… and finally (thankfully!) one student got us drinks--also new to us! We were super-grateful for that by then… :) Then we went across the square to the Black Culture Archive, who was having a photo exhibit about Resilient Brixton… It was small but very good. I told the students a bit about the history of Brixton, who lives here--comparing it to the Borough Market area from the previous class. Then we went back inside, where the shops were closing, and they watched me drink tea while we discussed the readings and just the different stuff we'd learned that day. It felt like a good class… and that we learned something they wouldn't have elsewhere!
Thursday I actually started my class in the CAPA classroom. (It was so weird!) We watched a video of Hal Holbrook's "Mark Twain Tonight." The class theme was on Twain's performances while he was in London--so watching this was a good setup for our mini-tour. This performance is the closest we can actually get to watching Twain live… and he was an amazing performer by all accounts. So we watched that, then went by tube (with a wrong turn in there for fun) to Embankment and walked to a few sites where he gave his lectures. Almost all have changed, and none are marked as connected to Twain, but I could tell (or pantomime) little anecdotes about his time in the various sites. Then, we had lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese--one of only two places in London with an actual plaque with Twain's name on it. And just a fun pub and neat place to hang out… And we had the mac and cheese. All three of us felt the comfort-food urge… :)
Both classes had papers due--which means that it's time to transition to the next project… So I used these classes as models for their group project. Could my Twain class perform something live a la Twain? Could my Food Studies class take me to a borough of London and give me a tour and explain the global significance? They seemed to be fine with these ideas… So that will be due in a little more than a month… :)
Today, I am staying inside as much as possible and healing myself. And free writing for a review due asap at work back in the States… *whimper*
Tonight I have tickets to see Ralph Fiennes in Man and Superman… I'm so excited about that-- so I'd better not cough through the whole thing!!
Till next time!
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