Rodolpho

When I moved to Brazil, I wanted to be sort of busy.  Not too busy.  Just enough so I had something to do most days.  The easiest thing was to teach English, similar to what Natalia Gedanke (my former Portuguese teacher) did in New York.

I mostly offered private English classes with only one student, the best way to learn another language.  But in order to earn more money, I did contract to work for English language schools, teaching groups of students.

In one such situation, I agreed, along with many other English teachers (mostly Brazilians) to do a weekend immersion held at a hotel located on a farm, something common in Brazil.  The students, employees at large international corporations, were supposed to speak only English while there.  Yeah, sure.  

I arrived at the hotel late at night and discovered I would share a room with two total strangers (other teachers), one of whom was already asleep.  The school provided me with a lot of written material (but no verbal instructions) I was supposed to use during the classes they assigned me the following day.

As this was my first time working for the school, I was very nervous.  I called Cristina who tried to calm me down.  I calmed down, but then she couldn't sleep.  Sorry!

It turned out I had nothing to worry about.  My first class, with only two advanced English students, couldn't have been better.  There was one man and one woman who were colleagues at their company.  

The man was Rodolpho.  His English was very good and the three of us had a wonderful conversation class (which I love doing), ignoring the printed material I was given.  Also, he kept flirting with his female classmate, suggesting she should marry him.  She politely declined.  This first experience allowed me to relax for the remainder of the weekend.

One evening, there was a carioca at the hotel.  Rodolpho had a good singing voice and did a nice version of Frank Sinatra's My Way.  Afterwards, he asked me what "regrets" (I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention) meant.

A year later, I ran into Rodolpho again at another immersion.  This time, he was my only student for a class.  Instead of what was planned by others, he asked me to help him draft (in good American English) an email he needed to send to his boss in the USA.  He was very appreciative.

Rodolpho was an unforgettable character.