Uno, dos, tres.

Rojo, azul, verde.

Alto, bajo.

Every young Spanish speaker learns the words for numbers, colors, and directions before they can even read. The adult students in Georgina Snyders’ Spanish classes got started a little later.

“I can say ‘My name is …’ and ‘I speak Spanish only a little,’” says Maryann Chwalek, a La Honda resident who enrolled in Puente’s Spanish class, taught by Snyders, this fall. Chwalek, a speech language pathologist who works with schoolchildren, helps many young people whose primary language is Spanish. Very often their parents don’t speak much English at all. So she signed up for a beginner Spanish class to gain some competency and comfort around the language.

She also loves languages in general.

“I think it’s nice to help build a bridge to another person by trying to speak their language. It’s nice to put kids at ease a little bit in their language,” adds Chwalek. “I’m just interested in languages. It’s fun.”

Puente began offering Spanish classes in La Honda two years ago, when Program Director Rita Mancera approached Snyders, a native of Chile, about teaching. Until this year, classes were limited to a small group of beginners. But this September, more than a dozen students enrolled in the 12-week class – enough, in fact, that Snyders now teaches two classes, one for beginners and one for intermediate and advanced learners.

Most students are middle aged or older, and most are women. Beginners are likely to have taken some Spanish in school, but not enough to hold a conversation, says Snyders. In these classes, conversing is the ultimate goal.

“We need to speak other languages,” says Snyders. “They are all very good students and most importantly, they have interest for study.”

Snyders is learning something new, too: how to be a teacher. Back in Chile, she was a veterinarian with an advanced degree. Now she lives on a La Honda farm alone with her husband, their fruit trees and the deer that come foraging for apples. She jumped at the chance to teach her “mother tongue” to locals. And she brings her own touches to her classes: pieces of herself, her interests, her culture.

“Sometimes I bring something from Pablo Neruda to read and talk about. Or I speak about archeology or different things,” says Snyders. That would be for the intermediate/advanced class, which will frequently converse about books or movies, or comics in the newspaper. “This is more free because the people need conversation, speaking the Spanish,” Snyders adds.

Kathleen Dickey enjoys the easy rapport Snyders brings to her intermediate/advanced class. She sometimes gets the words wrong, but never feels foolish. No one is being graded, and it’s okay to make mistakes.

Dickey loves Spanish literature and has taken Spanish classes, on and off, over decades.

But she wanted to deepen her well and feel at ease speaking the language at work.  As a hospice volunteer, Dickey is asked to convey sensitive information to Spanish-speaking families. Those conversations are delicate and it’s important to be able to have them without stopping to worry about conjugating verbs, she says.

“There’s a specific vocabulary needed for those kinds of conversations. Sometimes you need to be able to explain what the doctors and nurses are telling them.

I bring my dictionary and look it up, and then I can tell them.

Then, there’s the emotional side, and that’s the same no matter what the language is,” says Dickey.

Both classes will ‘graduate’ in December, and students will receive certificates from Puente. In true Puente fashion, the graduation party will blend students of Spanish and students of English, who have been taking Spanish classes in Pescadero. It’s an opportunity to eat Mexican food and converse.

Snyders will urge her students not to be nervous about talking to strangers. “I say you speak Spanish now, practice!”

To learn more about Puente’s Spanish and English classes, contact Program Director Rita Mancera at (650) 879-1691 ext. 102 or email her.

Dancing and jumping to happy music is always fun when you’re a 10-year-old with energy to spare. The week of Halloween was extra fun – especially when Gabriela Flores, Zumba teacher extraordinaire, showed up in a blue tutu and a bag full of stickers for the kids in the group.

Flores clearly knows her audience. Several mothers looked on, smiling, on a recent Tuesday afternoon as the 23-year-old led five rambunctious youngsters through a set of energetic dance steps, choreographed to the mambo, salsa, and pop beats of the Zumba soundtrack for kids.

“We just laugh and dance together,” said Flores. And they did, with music blasting from a corner of the local school district’s multipurpose room. The kids worked to keep up with Flores on a series of high-energy songs, smiling back at her as they did modified jumping jacks, leg kicks, toe steps and sliding side jumps, punctuated by arm waves and hand claps.

“I like the songs where you have to jump and turn around,” enthused Miguel Mendez, 11.

Flores has been one of Puente’s five Zumba instructors for several years, leading a twice-weekly group of local adults (mostly women) through Pescadero’s version of the national Zumba craze that has people dancing for fitness and fun.

Flores started a new ‘Zumba® Kids’ class in October when she noticed all the moms bringing their kids to Zumba while the mothers danced and the kids looked on. The kids’ class begins before the adults’ class and lasts on Tuesdays in Pescadero at 5:30 PM for about 30 minutes… Or until Flores decides to pull out a special surprise – in this case, a stack of colorful Disney stickers. Then the dance steps are forgotten.

“It was great. It was fun, too,” said Mairol Hernandez, who is 10. “It’s cool that they are doing it just for kids.”

At 6 p.m., a group of adults started to clear away the tables in the classroom. Flores’ fellow instructors showed up in Halloween costumes like Red Riding Hood and Batgirl.

Flores says Zumba has helped her lose weight and made her a happier person. Kids’ Zumba isn’t about weight loss – it’s just about having fun. When it comes to song selections, she’ll usually cater to their requests. Sometimes there are exceptions, however.

“They’re asking me for one song to move the hips to, because they’ve seen their mothers do it. And I’m like, you guys are too little for those kinds of songs,” she said with a laugh.

Donna Lindsay is known as the ‘Puente shopper.’ And she thinks that’s pretty perfect. Give her a wish list – whether socks or school supplies – and she will fill it. And chances are, she’ll be grinning the whole time.

“Part of it is I like buying things for Kerry (Lobel) and then getting hugs from her,” giggles Lindsay.

The San Mateo resident is no shopaholic. But she is addicted to the delicious feeling that comes from knowing that the pencil cases, Post-its, towels and t-shirts she’s purchasing with donated church funds are going to end up in the hands of students and farm workers who need those items the most.

It all started in the summer of 2010. Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel sent a letter to Congregational Church of San Mateo, a longtime Puente community ally, asking for donations to buy school supplies for South Coast students. Lindsay had recently joined the congregation after a career in Christian education at Ladera Community Church in San Mateo.

Donna Lindsay (3rd from left) with Revs. Rob Johnson and Penny Newall and Puente staffers Kerry Lobel, Abby Mohaupt and Rita Mancera.

“I called up Kerry and said, ‘What school supplies do you need?’ And she said, ‘You’re the first person who has asked. Normally people just go out and get what they want.’”

Lindsay got her back-to-school shopping list – and it was enormous. 200 erasers. 700 pencils. It went on and on.

“It was off the wall,” she says.

Lindsay took the funds donated by her church and went comparison-shopping. “I found out which stores were going to be accommodating for me. Target would let me buy out everything that I needed. Other stores wouldn’t give me the cheap stuff for more than 10 items.”

The next year, Lobel called Lindsay and asked if she would go shopping on behalf of farm workers. The church took up a collection and Lindsay set out to buy work socks.

“This has been my most favorite thing,” she enthuses. “Kerry needed 300 pairs of socks. I had to do 150 pairs at a time, because that’s a lot of socks.”

It’s not the shopping itself that makes Lindsay happy. It’s the chance to tell Puente’s story to strangers who may be eyeing her a little strangely with all those socks in her shopping cart.

“People understand there are farm workers on the coast and they could use some socks. But they don’t understand that people have no way to buy them. So I tell them where it’s going.”

Since then, Lindsay has shopped for gray t-shirts in Oregon, where there’s no sales tax, and come away with a whole pile of shirts for $3.50 apiece. The store workers were so excited about Puente’s mission that they used their own employee discounts.

Another time, Lindsay walked into a Staples with a back-to-school list, a clipboard and a pen. When employees heard who she was shopping for, they gave her a big discount off everything without even having to ask.

“The manager and the clerk – they were having so much fun picking things up. I’m sitting there on a stool while they’re running around the store filling up carts,” she recalls.

This month, Lindsay is on the prowl for bath towels and washcloths – part of Puente’s lengthy holiday season ‘wish list,’ which can be found by clicking here.

“I get the biggest kick out of doing this, and them being able to go over and deliver stuff. I love it. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to do this,” says Lindsay.

Click here to see Puente’s holiday ‘wish list’ and contribute to the spirit of giving this winter. Watch Donna talk about her work for Puente.