jeanne in tequila country

I wrote this blog entry my last night in Mexico, which was July 10, but the site wouldn't let me upload it and then I forgot all about it till today....

After sending friends the message that I’ve finally posted photos on my blog, my friend Paul wrote me an email saying it was nice to read my last blog entry and see the photos. Oh, is it that bad? Are people just waiting for me to stop writing about Mexico?

Maybe he just meant my latest blog entry.

I’m in Guadalajara, in the old posada. I splurged on a private room. I have the one that is halfway up the stairs, with windows facing the street. It feels good to be spending my last night in Mexico here, in the same place where I started. I’m just relaxing, watching my telenovelas and sports news and mystery movies on cable, trying to eliminate unnecessary items from my suitcases because I think they’re overweight. I’m also enjoying the 24-hour wireless internet.

The principal and owner of the school drove me to Guadalajara, and they treated me to a nice lunch in a fancy restaurant. I had a chile en nogada, which they have been raving about for a long time. It was weird. It’s a chile filled with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and stuff, and covered in a creamy walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. It’s to celebrate Mexican independence, so it’s green (the chile), white (the walnut sauce), and red (the pomegranate seeds). It was a funny way to end this stay in Mexico, because it’s not really representative. I prefer the plain old chile relleno—spicy, cheesy, fried, so not that good for your stomach, but damned tasty.

I guess there’s nothing else to say. I’m done with this almost-year in Arandas, so I’m done with this blog.

It’s my last night in Arandas. I’m hungry. I gave away all my kitchenware, and I’ve defrosted my fridge, so there’s no food except an apple I already devoured. I thought about going out to the taco place I love, but it’s a bit of a walk and it’s late. It’s probably better to clean out my system anyway.

What a day. I went to the school to say goodbye to everyone at the end of the cursos and to pick up money for some furniture I’ve sold. The school bought my fridge. I came back and watched the final game of the World Cup while uploading pictures to my blog and eating lunch. I cleaned everything. I waited and waited for people to come by to pick up all the stuff they said they’d come to pick up. In the end, most of them did come, though later than I expected, and I sold or gave away everything I’m not taking with me. Fátima is getting married in December, so I gave her lots of little household items. Cristina came by to say goodbye, and she took all my food and other little things, either to keep or to give away to poor people. Rocío finally came with her boyfriend, and they took the fan. Aracely showed up late and picked up the little TV table.

I didn’t realize till everything had been taken care of, how anxious I have been the past few days. How did I think I could have had a party in addition to trying to get everything done? I’m ending my stay in Mexico this year the same way it started—in a frantic rush. A week before I had arrived, the school in Guadalajara notified me that a space in the TEFL course had opened up, and so I scrambled to finish everything all in one week. I didn’t sleep much. This week is a lot better, but it has turned out to be more hectic than I’d expected.

The apartment smells funny because of the fridge.

Cristina cried when we said goodbye. We’ve had so much fun in these few months, and, despite the language barrier, we have become very good friends.

Rocío gave me a handwritten note before she left with the fan. It said that she hopes I don’t forget her, and it recalled some of the fun things we’ve done together—evenings at the movies playing pool, cooking lunch together in my apartment, going to Atotonilco for a fiesta. And I want to ask her tomorrow, when she comes over in the morning to return the bathing suit that I left at her house, how could I ever forget her or the fun times we’ve had?

I’m not very good at goodbyes. Others tend to be sentimental and sum things up, while I just say goodbye. Later I do the sentimental summing up, once the goodbye has already passed. But I guess it’s also because I am the one leaving. I have a lot to look forward to, and I may not come back, but they are staying, and they’ll have to work with new English teachers, not knowing whether they will become friends with them. And they’re staying at this insanely disorganized school.

Tomorrow the principal and the owner are going to drive me to Guadalajara. They have some errands to run there, so it works out perfectly. I won’t have to transfer all my crap between taxis and buses that way. I’ll stay at Casa Vilasanta, “my” posada, and I’ll do some errands myself, before leaving early Tuesday morning for Columbus.

I have finally posted some photos from the school, because I went today and downloaded some from the school computer. None of the photos were taken by me; they were probably taken by Arnulfo, the music teacher. The first series are from the public classes for the kindergarten classes (of which there are three levels) and for grades 1-5. Then there are some photos from the first communion, which occured quite a while ago.

Now perhaps you won't be surprised by my new haircut.

Isn't it crazy how they have a penalty shoot-out to resolve a tie in the World Cup? It seems a little bit unfair to those poor goalies....

Clase publica de preescolar 2: Cristina with her class

Clase publica de preescolar 2: English

Clase publica de preescolar 2

Clase publica de preescolar 1: Fish

Clase publica de preescolar 1: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (and eyes and ears and mouth and nose)

Clase publica de preescolar 3B: The Hokey Pokey

Clase publica de preescolar 3B: Making windmills from Don Quijote

Rocio, Aracely, the principal Maestra Paty, and preescolar director Chely watching a clase publica de preescolar

Sandra, Adriana, me and primaria students watching the clases publicas de preescolar

Karina (preescolar 3A) and Aracely (preescolar 1)

Adriana, Arnulfo, and Rocio goofing off

Clase publica de primaria: Sofia startled by the ringing of the cell phone

Clase publica de primaria: Talking on the phone with the first graders

Clase publica de primaria: Talking on the phone with the first graders

Clase publica de primaria: The Hokey Pokey

Clase publica de primaria: The Hokey Pokey

Grade 3: Adriana and Arnulfo with the students at their painting exhibition

Adriana and her son Juanito

Rocio, Chely, and Cristina in the cursos diplomados

Cristina and her daughter Sinai

Mini-olympics: Escolta para los honores a la bandera

First Communion: The students doing their first communion were from the third through fifth grades. The angels were students from the kindergarten classes.

First Communion: Carlos reading

First Communion: Angelitos

First Communion: Fatima and Sofia bringing offerings to the altar

First Communion: Carlos and Beto bringing offerings to the altar

First Communion: Beto and his godparents

First Communion: Beto passing out bread

For the closing ceremony at the school, the principal thanked me and notified everyone that I am leaving. A few students gave me gifts. Some hugged me a lot and asked me not to go. One said she had a lot of fun in my English classes. It made me feel good, but it also made me feel a little bit sad.

Not sad enough to consider staying at this utter mess of a school, however.

I’m defrosting my fridge so I’m eating a dinner of things that will have gone bad by tomorrow. Scrambled eggs and bacon aren’t exactly the best things for a delicate stomach, but I already had seafood for lunch so I might as well avoid letting good bacon go to waste.

The lunch was at the school. Someone had made seafood soup, and there was chocoflan (my favorite dessert here: flan baked on top of chocolate cake). It was supposed to be tomorrow, to celebrate the end of the cursos diplomados and as a sort of farewell party for me, but tomorrow is the final game of the World Cup (Forza, Italia!!!), and nobody would’ve gone. I didn’t even end up going to the cursos today, because I just had (still have) too many things to do to waste time being completely bored in some useless course. I did go yesterday, out of embarrassment, but I only ended up being there for about 45 minutes because I went to the doctor to check on my gastrointestinal problems. It turns out there is no infection of any sort, so I am probably just experiencing a slow recovery complicated by nerves.

I am really in a state trying to get all my stuff together. I woke up early to do my laundry up on the roof; then I tried packing. I already had one suitcase half-packed. I was going to use the big suitcase I borrowed from Luis on my return from Columbus in April, but it is missing one leg and one wheel and it was a pain to lug around. Now the bottom is all scraped up because of all the dragging around, and I doubt it will withstand two flight changes now. So I hurried downtown before the stores closed for the afternoon, and I bought a replacement. It’s ugly, but it’s big, and it works! It is the first time I have bought a modern piece of luggage, the kind that stands up tall and has a retractable handle. My other suitcases are all old school, with four wheels and a leash and falling over all the time.

Yesterday Sandra, the second-grade teacher, came over after the curso, because she bought my desk and was waiting for her brother to come pick it up. I foisted many useless baubles on her, gifts I’ve received from students’ parents, clothes and a pair of shoes that I don’t want anymore. Then her brother arrived and decided to buy my sofa set, too. I was so happy to finally have gotten rid of it; the teacher who had said she’d wanted it had decided that morning that she didn’t want it anymore, leaving me not a little anxious. Now the only thing left to worry about is the refrigerator, which many potential buyers have rejected. It’s a cute little thing—I don’t understand why nobody wants it. I think the principal will buy it, however, for the new building where the primary grades will be.

I’m sorry this is not exactly the most exciting news, but it is what is running through my mind all day and night when I’m trying to sleep and can’t. I have lots of stuff to sell and give away, and tomorrow is the last day to get it all out of here! I am flying out of Guadalajara on Tuesday morning, but the flight is so early that I will have to stay in Guadalajara Monday night in order to be at the airport in time. I plan to leave for Guadalajara Monday morning, so that I can do some errands there, like buying a case for my guitar. That means getting everything done tomorrow….

I’m a little annoyed with Rocío right now. She is always hanging out with her boyfriend, and I can’t reach her because her home phone is out of service and she’s not answering any text messages, probably because she lent her phone to her father again or it’s out of battery or she has no credit. I accept that she spends all her time with her boyfriend, but she said she would buy my fan and take some of my stuff, and I have no idea when she’s going to come to get any of it, if she comes at all. She also told me that her friend Jico has invited us all out tomorrow. I have no idea what that means because she has flaked out a couple times already, since her boyfriend arrived. At least she did come to the café Thursday with Cristina and me. That was nice.

I just remembered something funny about being at the café with Cristina and Rocío. There was this good-looking guy who walked through, and Cristina was talking, but mid-sentence she and Rocío were totally checking him out, and Cristina stopped talking, and their heads were following him the whole time he was in view. It was so obvious that I could not stop laughing, both times that he passed our table.

Later Cristina’s husband and two daughters came, to pick her up, and the kids had ice cream. Since we had been drinking beers, I was a little tipsy and talking a lot. We laughed a good deal. I kept making mistakes in my Spanish and they kept making fun of me. They told me to speak some Chinese, and then they were asking me all kinds of funny questions, like have I ever worn a kimono. I said, those are Japanese. And Cristina said, “And what are you again?” I was explaining about being Chinese American, and her husband was making fun of Cristina and Rocío, saying, “You are just like the people who think that Mexicans go around wearing mariachi suits all the time, with a bottle of tequila and dancing folk dances.” So then they were pretending to be stereotypical Mexicans. It was funny.

I don’t blame them for being so confused about East Asian cultures. There’s no education whatsoever about different cultures, and there definitely aren’t a whole lot of Asians in Arandas to clear up the confusion.

Tomorrow is the clausura at the school, meaning the closing ceremony or something like that. This also means a few hours of, excuse my language, pendejadas. I’m not going to translate that, just so you get the idea of what I think of the school. We’re going to give awards and the report cards to the kids, and of course this requires a flag ceremony (for which the kids have been rehearsing all week). The whole event will take two hours for each the kindergarten and the elementary school.

Today I went to the phone company again to turn over my phone line to the school. Cristina and I had gone on Tuesday but it turns out she cannot have a phone line because there’s nowhere to connect a phone line in her apartment. Unbelievable. So I sold the line to the school. But of course I had to wait all freaking morning for the principal to finish bumbling around with her work to do come with me to the telephone office during the last day it is open before I leave (it’s only open Tuesday and Thursday from 9-2). She had filled out a form incorrectly, so we were at the superintendent’s office trying to fix it. It took her a whole hour to figure out how to count how many students are in each class and how to fill out the form. At several moments I wanted to snatch the pencil out of her hand and do it myself because it was taking her so long to understand what to do.

Yesterday morning all of the teachers were invited to breakfast at the home of one of the kindergarten students, María José. We were to meet at the school at exactly 8:15, the principal said, because we had to be early in order to return in time to finish all our work at the school. So of course we were all there at between 8:00 and 8:30, and the principal still hadn’t arrived. Rocío called me and told us to meet her at the house of María José, so we left the school around 8:45 to meet her there. One of the teachers called the principal, who said she was at the school waiting for us. Yeah, right. The other school staff were at the school, and we had told them to notify the principal that we had left for María José’s house.

The breakfast was very nice. We had fruit and juice and coffee and cookies and very lovely gorditas (like little tortilla-pitas) filled with potato, beans, chicharrones (pork rinds), or chiles with cheese.

Then we had this ridiculous day of meetings where the owner and the principal lectured us about how to be good salespeople (how to treat the parents of the students) and how to have good self-esteem (how to accept our many, many faults). The principal was saying stuff about how we have to treat the kids better than we do. Then she was lecturing us that if we want our students to wear the complete uniform, we have to wear the complete uniform as well, and that if we want our students to be punctual, we have to be punctual ourselves. (Um, hello?! How can she ask us to be punctual when she is more than half an hour late to important events herself?)

In the afternoon today, Rocío and Cristina and I finally got together again. We met at a café and had beers and talked. Aracely had said she would come, but very conveniently she had to go somewhere else this afternoon. I think she is still avoiding me because of the day I stormed out of her house, when her three-year-old wouldn’t stop hitting me. Anyway, we ended up discussing a lot of terrible things that have happened at the school. The principal is pretty incredible in her control-freak behavior. She said to us in a meeting on Tuesday that we make decisions when it’s not our place to make them (because the teachers had decorated a wall with a piece of fabric that they weren’t supposed to use, unbeknownst to them). This was followed by a long lecture about how the school is not a democracy but a hierarchy, just so that she could pound into our thick heads who is the boss (or tyrant, rather). Apparently for the two years Cristina has been at the school, the principal has been doing this for the whole time, wielding her power and getting upset at the teachers by saying, “You have forgotten who I am,” and demanding apologies.

It is truly infuriating all the estupidezas that occur in the school on a regular basis. I think maybe this is related to the crazy health issues I’ve been having—daily diarrhea and headaches. I am happy to be getting out of here, but at the same time sad to leave the wonderful people I have met here. Yesterday in the meeting, everyone started singing songs to me, because I’m leaving, and Adriana, the third-grade teacher, started crying, and I almost started crying too. I will miss Adriana and Cristina and Rocío a lot.

I’m going to miss my telenovelas, too. I’m totally addicted. Every evening I watch two or three, always “La fea,” but also the one afterwards, “La verdad oculta,” and the one before it, “Duelo de pasiones.” “Duelo de pasiones” is really stupid and very frustrating to watch, but I find myself curious about what is going to happen next. I also find myself strangely enchanted by the lead male, but I figured out lately that it’s because he looks like Luis, haha, with strong eyebrows. “La verdad oculta” is not quite as dumb, because there are some exciting things happening, jewel thievery and murders, but it’s still a melodrama. I’m going to miss these stupid shows! I think I’ll probably be able to find them on cable back in the States, though.

This weekend I was thinking of having a big farewell party, but seeing as all the teachers are married with children and have to hurry home to them after all the hours of stupid cursos diplomados, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Well, it won’t happen at night, anyway. I think they have something planned for me on Sunday, during the party at the end of the cursos. I guess this means I have to go to at least some of the cursos, ew. But since I have lots to pack and do before leaving, I have excuses not to go.

It’s been raining all afternoon, which is rather unusual, as it tends to rain at night here. When I walked out of the school today the rain had stopped for a while, and the smell of rain here is different. The rain reveals Arandas for what it really is—a big ranch. It smells like wet hay and horse doo-doo.

It rains in my bathroom because there is a hole in the plastic covering the bathroom vent.

Today was the last day of school for the kids. I was busy last night making little cards for all the students and taping candy to them. We had the public class for the primary grades together today, and my English section with them ran really long. I thought it would be cool to show the parents that they can now communicate in English, at least a little. I pretended to call them on the phone, and they were all in a house in different rooms, and I would ask for someone but they would tell me that he or she was busy, and I would ask “Where is So-and-so?” and “What is So-and-so doing?” They don’t answer in complete sentences, and they haven’t mastered the questioning themselves at all, but at least they are communicating! It went long, though, because all of the students wanted to do it, so I had all 30 of them do it and it took a long time. Then we did the Hokey Pokey, which they really enjoyed. I remember enjoying it when I was a kid, especially at the roller-skating rink, but now I think it’s kind of boring, doing the same thing over and over again. I guess I have a lot to learn about child psychology or something.

I am getting more and more excited to study education. The idea of learning about child psychology is very appealing right now, because I’ve discovered I don’t understand kids well at all. And today after the public class, we were working on stuff for the school, and I was reviewing the English science books that came today, to see if next year the students can have an hour of science in English everyday. The books are really cool; I love the sections on animals and plants, with all the photos. It made me so excited to teach science to kids in elementary school. I remembered teaching a kindergarten class I had in Taiwan about water cycles, and they were about six years old but they were using words like “condensation” and “evaporation” and it made me laugh out loud. One reason to become an elementary school teacher is to enjoy all school subjects, because I love them all! (What a nerd.)

Some of the kids asked me today if I am coming back for the next school year. I said no, I’m going back to the States to study education. And some of them and their parents kept asking me to stay. It made me feel good, that they think their kids learn English with me (little do they know, haha). I guess the school year is ending on a good note.

It’s funny, because to many people it’s not a good enough excuse that I want to go back to the U.S. and study for a master’s and eventually to teach there. A lot of them think I am going back to be with my “boyfriend,” so they tell me that they can help him find a job here in a tequila distillery or that I should just get a boyfriend in Arandas (what’s the matter, haven’t you found any cute ones here?). One of the teachers has a relative working for Seagram’s and said he could get a job there. I just chuckle and don’t get into anything complicated.

Yesterday was Election Day here. They still don’t know who has won the presidency, because it’s so close, and they won’t have all the results till Wednesday. It’s between the leftist PRD candidate López Obrador (the current mayor of Mexico City) and the right-wing PAN candidate Felipe Calderón. Everyone at the school today was worrying who’d won the mayoral race in Arandas, whether it was their candidate from the PRI (the old party that was in power for several years before losing seats to other parties) or the PAN guy. It was also very close, with a difference of about 200 votes. I am guessing that maybe you can tell the demographics of Arandas from the parties that are more powerful here. The labor party PRD is not very strong. It may have to do with the low to nonexistent indigenous (or even mestizo) population in this area, but I’m just speculating.

Spent the weekend cooped up again, cleaning, reading, goofing around on the internet, only going out to drop off a roll of film and going back a couple times to try to pick up the prints. It’s the only roll of film I’ve used here in Mexico, and it’s mostly of Palenque’s Mayan ruins. It’s just not that convenient anymore to use real film; everyone else has digital cameras, so I let them do the picture taking and try to get them to send me the pictures over the internet. But also I just hate looking like a tourist, and you know people are sitting there saying, “Look at that Japanese tourist; they’re always taking pictures of everything.” (This is not helped by the fact that another Asian American in my course in Guadalajara did take pictures of everything, annoying everyone on the course. Maybe I’m just proving that I myself am the one with stereotyping problems, but anyway I’m mainly just lazy.)

I’m glad that classes are over. Maybe my health will improve with less stress. Maybe I will sleep better at night, now that I won’t have thoughts about the next days’ lessons running through my head at night. I’ll have my afternoon class, but that’s no big deal at all. I’ll still have to worry about selling all my stuff, but I think most of it has been spoken for.

The transition is feeling a little weird. On the one hand, I can’t wait to get out of here, because the truth is that I’m bored. I can’t wait to get back to Columbus where I can go out dancing with friends on the weekends and hang out at the pool with Tricia and help her paint her kitchen or whatever—to be around friends again. I’d also like to be able to eat lots of food and use tap water without worrying about whether it will make me sick with parasites again. At the same time, I’m probably going to have a hard time readjusting to living in a house with three or four other housemates—I’m going to miss the freedom and solitude that I’ve enjoyed for months. I’m going to have to face allergy problems, what with the cats and Ohio’s insane vegetation. And I’m going to miss the food a lot, of course (even if I do worry about it making me sick).

“You’re going to miss us,” everyone tells me. Yes, it’s true. I’ve gotten along well with most of the teachers in the school; they’re great people, and I will truly miss them. And I’ll miss the kids, too. I’ll even miss worrying about how to get them to learn some tiny bit of English. But it is definitely time to move on to bigger and better things.