Food

As a resident of Mexico, I hope to become an expert of making and consuming Mexican food. The second one in particular. On Sundays, I usually spend the time between services at the house of the preacher, and that time period includes lunch. That means that at least once a week I get an actual homemade meal made by a mother (read: a well balanced meal). I have learned there to tear up tortillas and not use any silverware. Just use pieces of tortilla to grab some meat, beans, rice, whatever you're eating, and then eat it. I think I've decided that this way is superior to the traditional way of eating tacos or of using a fork.

Also, I feel as if my cooking has gradually started to get better. My first week was sandwiches and cereal. Now my diet is more varied (though still not very much). I have some type of sausage usually, and eat it with rice or beans. Also, there are different types of rice and beans. I have made spaghetti. I even made soup one time. Though in all this cooking, most of it is done using a George Foreman Grill and a microwave. Which I don't really know if that counts as cooking.

Also, taco stands here are excellent. And everywhere.

In our classes, we are supposed to only use English. We are not really allowed to speak in Spanish at all. I try to respect this rule, and even enjoy the challenge that it presents. Trying to explain things to people using other words, and trying to make it as simple as possible can sometimes be fun. It isn't catchphrase by any stretch of the imagination, but in some ways it is reminiscent of that awesome game. Anyway, at times the students get frustrated if I don't use Spanish or if I have not let on to them yet that I know it (at least decently).

One class this week was like that. This was an interesting class for several reasons. Before I get into it, I should explain the system. There is a starter level, 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, and then conversation. Each level usually takes four weeks for one hour every weekday. Sometimes classes are two hours and then it only takes two weeks. We have exams every fourth Friday, but at least after these past exams, I felt much more like a business than a school, but that is a different topic.

Back to the class. It was one of the two hour types, from 7 pm til 9 pm, and the level was 2a. At least it was supposed to be 2a. I was trying to do an exercise in the workbook, however, and they could not pick out a subject or a verb. This made the exercise impossible. The next day I had several example sentences ready, and for basically two hours I drilled them on picking out the subject and the verb. At one point during the lesson they said that they needed to teach me Spanish to make class easier. So I suggested that we go get some tacos, which we did after class the next night. Once we were out of class and going to get the tacos, I started speaking in Spanish, and they said something to the effect of, "Ay, you were tricking us!"

Hopefully that won't mess up my not speaking Spanish in class. Also, hopefully I will be able to hang out more with the locals and get to hear and use more Spanish, which is why I came to Mexico in the first place.

I would have posted sonner...

...but we lost our power. On Wednesday at six o'clock I was getting ready to head over to the school when I heard a knock on the door and on my window. I opened the front door to see what was up and saw two men in some sort of uniform. It turned out that their uniform was for the electric company, and apparently the electricity had not been paid for three months. I had been in Mexico about two and a half weeks, and all of the guys had been living in this house for only about three weeks. We should not have had to pay the bill of someone else, but apparently we had to. I immediately went to the school and told Paco, who is the guy in charge, but as it was already past six and the electric company office closes at three, we could do nothing but get candles. And have fires on the roof of our house which is made of concrete.

The next day, Thursday, Paco spoke to the landlord. The landlord called back a while later and said that he paid it. So we should get power, right? Nope, apparently he only paid for half of the bill. It was again too late whenwe found this out.

Friday rolled around and we still had no power. If we are not able to somehow get it today, then we half to wait all weekend. Paco went to the offices and paid the bill himself. A couple workers showed up at about 1:45 pm, and they were going to turn the power back on. Unfortunately, we had somehow paid for the upstairs apartment of the house in which we live instead of the completely seperate downstairs, which is the part we live in. I was talking with the people trying to get things worked out, and someone else called Paco. He showed up after a few minutes and was talking, complaining, arguing, persuading, and in general trying to do anything to get them to turn our power back on. He was somehow finally able to manage it, and our power was turned on right at about 2:00 pm after 44 hours of no power.

Unfortunately I have no excuse for not posting since then. I apologize.

On Friday, I gave exams for the first time here. The classes are based on a four week cycle, and that was the end of the four weeks. Which also means that I now have a whole new schedule and all new classes. Which I guess is good. I am definately going to be teaching more than I was.

For primarily Luke and Bland:
Sunday, October 21, 2007 became an extremely historical day. The three fingered wave was conciously done by a Mexican. The hero of this day is a wonderful ten year old girl named Dulce who I go to church with. She responded twice with three fingered waves that day. Also, the next day, a student used the three fingered wave at school. So far Mexico is an Anti Whit Wave free country. Let us hope that the horrendousness that is the Anti-Whit does not make an appearance on Mexican soil.

Right now I am in Hermosillo, Mexico, which is way over on the west side. However, there is a possibility that I might go to Monterrey after Christmas. I am going to be looking into things there and trying to decide, but if anyone has any thoughts about Monterrey that would be cool. Right now I am leaning towards going.

Although many other things happened over the past week, I will not write about those now. Things are going pretty well, except the whole power thing which I thought was humorous and a part of living in Mexico (kind of like moustaches), and I think that they will continue to do so and even improve.

Two Weeks

Today marks the end of my second week in Mexico. I feel as if I am finally starting to get settled, in some ways. I actually cooked a meal for the first time since coming here. And yes, it did include refried beans. I also cooked the meal in the microwave and on a george foreman grill. I was getting pretty tired of just sandwiches and cereal.

Also, I used the public transportation system for the first time yesterday. There are a lot of buses in Hermosillo, and I took a couple of them to get to church. It costs five pesos (about fifty cents) to ride a bus, but I will probably still walk around a lot. For instance, it is probably about 1.25 miles to get to a grocery store, and I could have taken a bus today, but I walked there and back instead.

One important way in which I feel as if I am getting better at living here is the water situation. I have been buying and consuming about a gallon of water every day (yeah, it is pretty hot still). Today, instead of buying a gallon of water, I bought a five gallon jug and a pump. That way I can still drink out of a manageable sized thing, but water will also be probably about three times cheaper. My only question is why did I not start sooner?

Anyway, that is all I have right now. I am going to try to fit the pump onto the waterjug better now.

V_

New in Mexico

After not doing much of anything new and different since going to first grade, the past thirteen days have seen a lot of change. I was at the same school all through grade school, and then I went to Harding. I was on my own, but it was still a christian school and I knew several people going in. I have done a fair amount of traveling, but always with either friends from school or family. Then, on October first, I boarded a plane to Hermosillo, Mexico, where I did not know anyone or anything.

Hermosillo is in climate and layout similar to Phoenix, Arizona. It is very hot for the majority of the year, thought in the dead of winter I have heard that it does actually get into the thirties. Also, Hermosillo is very flat, though it is surrounded by mountains. That was the extent of my knowedge of where I was moving.

I was hired to teach at a school called Go Engkish! in Hermosillo (they actually did not mispell English, but to keep it out of Google searches, I did), and the guy in charge, Paco, was going to meet me at the airport. I am glad that we were able to find each other fairly quickly because it had been a long day of flying and as about ten o'clock in Hermosillo, but midnight in Nashville where I began the day.

After a day of observing classes and a morning of training, they threw me right in the mix of teaching. I took over classes of a couple of the other teachers, but they have not really gotten the schedule all worked out yet. The level of the classes varies a lot. The lowest level, Starter, is for peoplewho know no English at all. Then there are ten levels that get progressively more capable. Finally there is the Conversation class. This class you just go into and speak with the students about whatever you want. In my last class I was going to show the Greg Oden cribs video that is in you-tube and talk about stuff around the house, but we never got to that. We were sidetracked into literature and politics.

I have not taught nearly all of the levels, but what I have taught so far hasn't been that bad. Some classes are more enjoyable than others, of course, and teaching complex grammar is, well, you can imagine. I am actually supposed to be teaching right now, but the students in my class have not shown up. This happens occasionally, and it is good, but somewhat frustrating as well.

There are eight other teachers. All but one of them arrived before me. The other guy teachers are JP (my roommate), Jeff, Steve, and Cheston. The girls are Polly, Heidee, Nicole, and Cindy. This is probably the part of my life that has changed the most. Having gone to a private Christian school and associated with Christians my entire life, it is very different to now live with the other teachers. Actually, the girls have their own house, but it is across the street.

I was just interrupted for a couple hours because someone who was not my student showed up and I had to teach him. Oh well. In Latin America you need to be flexible. That is why we have our ruberbands. Pop, pop, pop.

I did go to church last Sunday. I found the local church of Christ online, but could not find its physical location until an hour and a half after the service started. I caught the very end of the sermon and went to class. The preacher's family let me stay at their house all afternoon and then I went to the evening service. They actually asked me to pray during the Lord's supper in front of the whole congregation. On my first day. Anyway, I think I will enjoy these people a lot, especially since it will be so refreshing.

That is all I have right now, but I wil try to keep posting fairly often.