Hello hello!
So I have been really bad about getting this updated… so oops!
Our first week of work was really interesting but SO VERY LONG! By Friday I was in my I-don’t-want-to-be-with-people mood. Our classes were really interesting, and we were deep into our project of surveying the community to develop new programs based on their interests and see what public services could also benefit from some attention from a private institution like the incubador social. This involved making a comprehensive but quick survey and then going to households nearby, most of whom did not want to talk to us. Alas. We got some of the information we needed, and did even better the following week when the parents of the kids we had been tutoring in math came for a focus group.
In reality, this second part was far more helpful than the first. And you saw a group of people who wanted to work with the community to improve the education standards. In example, we were teaching 5th graders 3rd grade level math and sometimes even easier concepts. What also distinguished this group from the people who accepted our surveys was that these were parents of kids who attended the public schools in the area, where most of our survey subjects since their kids into other areas for education. The focus group helped us come up with some good ideas for how to get the community more interested in organizing themselves to deal with some of their issues, ranging from vandalism, to public security and keeping people from getting drunk and wasting time in the abandoned lots, to creating a public gathering space for the kids of the community to play. It was really cool seeing the parents of the two kids I had been tutoring and hearing them say that their kids came home and said to them “when my teacher explained this I didn’t get it, but when I go to my teacher at the incubador she explains it right.” Yeah, it was a sweet success moment. Especially after many late nights trying to plan out what I was going to teach them and how I was going to have to do it.
Tutoring really was great though. I had two kids who I was working with, and we spent a lot of time with fractions and division. I had a girl who was very spirited and was obsessed with Argentina. She plans to go there one day. She also brought me music and which is now on my laptop. Our last day together, after the sweetest moment of teaching them how to reduce huge fractions by finding the highest common factors and seeing them both light up when they got good at solving the problems I gave them, we ate the blow pops I brought from the U.S. and talked about our favorite kinds of music. It was especially fun because my other student is a very shy boy. I had to ask him questions directly to get him to answer them, but he can crunch HUGE numbers in his head. Without writing them down. And getting them totally right. It was SO COOL! He wasn’t as good at division, but he could do huge multiplication problems in his head. And this last day, when he got much better with fractions and division I swear that his eyes sparkled. It was fantastic!
Sorry, that ended up being a summary of my two weeks of teaching and projects. Let me get to the other adventures. So first Puebla.
We left on Saturday morning after I went to bed early to make up for my sour mood. The drive was brief and we all fell in love with the city as soon as we got there. It was an incredibly beautiful colonial city, everything was tiled, painted brightly or very well cleaned. We used the guidebook I bought at the New England mobile book fair to find a place to stay and it was fantastic! It was an old colonial house with an open courtyard in the middle where we had breakfast the next morning. The 5 of us stayed in a room up these tiny metal servant stairs, which was decorated with various scenes of public life with Mexico’s famous Calaveras. We had a balcony that overlooked the street and we only had to walk ½ a block to get to the Zocalo.
Our day consisted of wandering around endless markets full of different kinds of handicrafts, going into the endless GORGEOUS churches, having FANTASTIC mole poblano (one of those things you have to eat when you are here), taking shelter from the summer rain under an artist’s street stand and talking to him about his works, and finally taking some time to rest from the hot day in our room before trekking out again and sitting in café with live music before Hector and I started dancing. At that point this very odd man from a table nearby decided he also wanted to dance and tried to make Jamila dance, but she said no…
The next morning we walked around another street market, and then we went to see the pyramids of Cholula, which is just outside of Puebla. There was supposed to be a civilization there belonging to the Olmecs that may have been bigger than the gran Tenochtitlan! We got there early enough that Hector was able to attend mass in the church on top of the largest pyramid while I sat outside with Jossue and talked about American immigration policy. It was a very lively conversation, as those of you who have discussed it with me know.
After Cholula we went back to Puebla so I could meet a driver at the Camino Real who would then take me to Toluca to meet my Dad for an educational reform conference. I got there around 9 pm after driving for 4 hours through Mexico City and into the state of Mexico. Dad’s plane was delayed, so I went to bed after reading a book for pleasure for the first time in months!
The next morning I finally saw him and put on formal clothes (also for the first time in a long time, since I’m being really low maintenance here and usually getting up 15 minutes before we have to leave for any place). We were herded to a museum nearby where we were fed a very good breakfast. We were separated because he was to sit with the other panelists, and I was seated with the wives and companions. Despite the awkwardness of this situation, they ended up being really interesting and nice people. When I told them that I was working on a private educational reform project with the Tec in Hidalgo they all made lists of places in the state that I needed to go and told me it was so awesome that I was here for the summer working. Many of them also had daughters thinking about going to study in the US so we traded info so they could go.
The conference itself was interesting in terms of people watching. There were VERY many greasy politician types all trying to talk to dad and convince him that he wanted to help them with their latest schemes. Anyway, when we were finished with this and Dad gave his spirited Science is AWESOME talk, we went back to the hotel and I was very spoiled because he let me get a massage. It was amazing. That night we went to have Argentine food with a friend of Dad’s and we were again very entertained. That evening I packed up my Dad’s bag with my stuff that I wanted to send home, including my ballet folklorico dress that you saw in the previous post.
The next morning I drove back to Pachuca really really early so I could walk in with only 20 minutes left in the sustainable development class that we had joined with a group of tec students. What I meant by that was that I was late because the drive and traffic was bad, but I still got there pretty early.
The following weekend we asked for Friday off. So Thursday was the day we finished classes in the morning. We were supposed to see Xochitl, one of the politicians running for the governorship of Hidalgo, but her audience was already too large for us to get in. Instead we went to a resaurant with a big group from the Tec to watch the game. WHICH WAS AWESOME BECAUSE MEXICO BEAT FRANCE!! And it was cinco de mayo all over again, so everybody was SUPER happy! An excellent way to end our week. We went home and hung out for a while before we made dinner and packed for our journey.
We THOUGHT we were going to leave at 7 am, because in the usual fashion no one had told us that we were not leaving until 10 am, so we all sat in our living room wondering what the hell was going on. When we did go, it was a 5 hour driving through first through the gorgeous empty deserts of Hidalgo and through the mountains until we got to the lush forests of Veracruz. I fell asleep for a while despite the INSANE driving methods of our friend Daniel, who was taking us around this weekend. This meant that when I woke up with my head leaning against the glass of the van I was looking down into a death drop. Needless to say I FREAKED OUT.
There were a number of truck accidents and construction situations in the mountains, so once while we were waiting for a very long time hector decided to get out of the car to use the bathroom. Of course 5 minutes after he got out we started moving again and we HAD to keep going! We were all laughing/worried about what would happen until we saw him chasing the car like a mad man. Then it was just hilarious.
A few hours later we reached the coast and our hotel on the beach. We got up early in the morning and swam in the warm water of the Gulf. Then we did do the sea slug thing and lay around in the sun, trying not to touch the black sand that burned your feet like acid whenever you stepped on it. It was SO HOT the entire time! It was almost painful to be outside. Our next stop was Veracruz city, which was colonial and felt smaller than Puebla. I didn’t love it the same way I loved Puebla, but Hector and I went for a wander around the city while Jamila, Evelyn and Jordan took naps to avoid the oppressive heat. We met up with them later to go to the Zocalo and have coffee in this famous coffee place where they pour milk into your cafes con leche from these huge heated metal kettles. That evening we watched old couples dance in the zocalo to the music of a live band, since there were Mexican Caribbean concerts all over the city. Dinner was on the tec, so we went to a fantastic Argentine restaurant. SO MUCH CHIMICHURRI and it was fantastic! Afterwards we went back into the Zocalo and found a place to sing karaoke. Hector sang Volver volver while the ENTIRE crowd joined in and sang very spiritedly. Jamila, Evelyn and I did ‘Merika proud by singing hit me baby one more time. It was embarrassing but super fun ☺
The next morning we went to Xalapa, which we all agreed was the best city we had been to in Veracruz. There was an enormous political rally going on in the Zocalo, but we avoided it by going into a very cute, colorful little restaurant that looked over the tiny twisting alleyways. It was a pretty hilly area, and MUCH cooler than the rest of Veracruz because we were in the mountains. I do wish we had spent more time there, but I found a new silver ring that covers my finger the same way that my favorite one does.
When we arrived I went on a trek to Walmart to buy supplies for coming here to Huixcazdha, and then packed like a mad woman because we left early the next morning. The drive took 2 hours to get to Huichapan, where we will be living for the next 3 weeks. It is the size of a pueblo. I imagine a few thousand inhabitants. We are currently staying in a hotel with the most adorable women who take cook breakfast and dinner for us. I feel more like I’m living in someone’s home than I do at a hotel, which is what I prefer.
We left our stuff here and got in a car driven by a madman. We knew we were late for something, but no one understood why were driving 120 km/hour on TINY ROADS and then COBBLE STONES to get to Huixcazdha. It is normally 45 minutes from here, but we made it in 20 minutes… with a few near death experiences involving dodging 16 wheeler trucks, almost falling into a ravine, and then flying sky high every time we went over a speed bump (which was ample here) or around a curve.
It all made sense when we arrive in the “zocalo” of Huixcazdha. All of the children, jovenes, factory workers and some others had gathered to welcome us. The doctor who is in charge of us here led us up to stage where we introduced ourselves to the audience and planned a symbolic tree outside the elementary school together in order to symbolize the beginning of the work we were going to do there. Then we saw the opening of the Centro Civil de Aprendisaje where the first computer with internet have been made available to the villagers.
Ok, for this to make sense I need to explain a few things.
Huixcazdha is tiny.
The total population is 480 people.
They had drinkable water for the first time in 1986.
Electricity came in the 90s.
All when Doctor Manrique came and decided he wanted to help the community out.
The only way to get there is by going down a road that until it was recently covered with stones, was made of dirt.
Life improved significantly when Dr. Manrique opened an amaranth processing plant that employs the majority of the people in the pueblo. It makes products for the government of Hidalgo to combat malnutrition and obesity because amaranth products are high in protein.
But many of these still work the lands of the ejidos they received after the revolution. They are proud of being campesinos, but they are also the most welcoming people that I have ever met in my life.
So we met people from the factory who walked us around the factory, allowed us to try their fabulous mazapanes, and then took us into their homes, let us pick plums and figs from their trees and then made us promise that one day we would come for lunch and enjoy wickedly hot enchiladas.
Yesterday we came up with the projects that we are going to make happen in the next two weeks. We are creating a community survey to see what hours we make everything happen, which we will administer tomorrow, but for now here is what we have:
- teaching English (all the American students have to do this in the afternoon)
- basic computation and internet usage classes (this includes creating a way of measuring the various effects of internet on the community)
- public art classes (I was appointed to lead this by the group, and I already have millions of ideas)
- music, theater and singing classes
- a few sports tournaments
- a socialized garbage collecting program: the village is SUPER clean, but we want to make the recycling program something across the pueblo instead of just in the factory. We’re going to incentivize it by having the money from all the bottles collected from the people put into a fund to buy paint so they can do murals on the walls of the public spaces in the village
- and a village wide compost system that can then use the fertilizer back into the soils of the ejidos
And so tomorrow I am getting up really early to work on the farms with the campesinos. While I dred it, I think it will also be really interesting. Afterwards we are going to go out and survey the community, which will involve going into their houses for talks that span much longer than the actual survey. But this is due to the fact that the people are so lovely and welcoming, so I really don’t mind.
The days are VERY long here, but now that we have been doing productive things here I’m enjoying myself again. Today we spent the morning crunch numbers from the census and studying migration trends from pueblo, which as you all know is totally my cup of tea… and we are going to have a discussion with a man from the village who recently was deported from Atlanta and has now arrived back in Huixcazdha. A lot of the migrants from this village went to North Carolina or Huixcazdha, but they always come back to their families or disappear completely from the knowledge of their families. I thought this was a really interesting trend to see.
Ok, I need to go eat these amazing mangoes that my friends brought me back from the market. They smell fantastic, and I know I’m not going to have any of these when I get back to the U.S…
Love, D
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