Pascual PDF Print E-mail
Contributed by Senor Guapo   
Sunday, 28 December 2008
ESL - The Journey Into EnglishEvery year a class clown emerges, except this year.  I remember a guy named Luis from Colombia.  He was a carpenter, and his truck was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  His truck was destroyed by paramilitaries.  On foot he made the journey from Colombia through Panama, through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico all the way to the United States.  He met a fellow Columbian man who helped him get situated for the first few months.  His name was Obed.

Obed was a student also, and he encouraged Luis to enroll.  Both Obed and Luis were wacky guys, and we had a lot of fun with them.  But I digress.

Last year a fellow by the name of Pascual Bonilla was the class clown.  He was a young man in his early 20s.  He was totally whacked.  The girls hated him.  I guess his brand of humor was annoying to the women in the class.  When Pascual told how his wife left him, Miriam said she could understand why, and the other women nodded knowingly.


Pascual had a crush on Delmy.  Delmy was in our beginners level 1A class the semester before, and she was in a more advanced class.  Delmy had a face like a man, but she had a boooooooodyyyyyyyyyy...  She was always rude to poor Pascual.  One day the coordinators bought some pizzas for our class because we had the highest attendance record.  Pascual offered a piece to Delmy.  She even refused to take a piece of pizza from him.

But he was a sweet guy.  He’d always give a warm greeting and more often than not a hug.  One time we had a party at our house, and he brought probably 50 ears of corn, shucked it all and grinded it so that the women could make tamales.  As the party wound down he cleaned every last dish and cooking utensil before he left.

Last August someone had a dream.  They said that in the dream someone said to pray for Pascual.  They said they woke up praying.  We didn’t think much of it at the time.  Registration night was about a month after that, and then classes started.  Pascual didn’t register.  There are two churches that work together to provide these English classes.  The spring semester is at one church which is near Pascual’s house.  The fall semester is at a different church which is farther away so we rationalized that as the reason why Pascual didn’t register.  Then we went to a party for one of the students who was leaving to return to her country.  We asked a bunch of people at that party, but no one had seen Pascual.  We thought back, and the last time we could remember hearing from him was last July or August when he called just to say, “How’r ya doin’?”

Where’s Pascual?

We were worried, but our concerns were put to a rest when two students ran into him.  Ironically Delmy was one of the people who saw him.  Mrs. Guapo’s stalker works with Delmy.  At the end of the day the two were driving home, and they saw Pascual hanging out with some other follows.  I hope he comes back to school next semester.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 28 December 2008 )
 
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