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| The Arcs at night |
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| UPQ repping unpopular views of my boy HDT
21-July-2019, Sunday, 9:42 PM CDT
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This completes Week 7 of Pre-Service Training (PST). To supplement all the theory we’ve been getting in class, the Peace Corps has established an agreement with Universidad Politécnica de Querétaro (UPQ). All twenty-one of us have been paired with an English teacher at UPQ and will practice co-teaching and co-planning with these counterparts before we’re shipped off to sites in...less than a month! I came to Mexico to do primarily, two things--teach English and learn Spanish. I’ve been doing the latter every day but virtually none of the former before this past week.
It’s about a half hour bus ride from the city to the university. Many Mexican universities are located outside of the city, where there is more space and a more centralized location for commuting students. After a quick speech from our leader, Miguel Islas, we were cut loose to meet with our counterparts. I am partners with Grace Kim, a funny, smart, likeable trainee from Rockville. We met Mexican English professor Alejandra in her classroom ten minutes before class started. After a student altered an unwilling plug with a pair of needle-nose pliers, our presentation was ready. We introduced ourselves, gave some background information, and asked students to write three questions.
Many of the questions inquired about our feelings on Mexican food and people and how our lives were different in the states. Grace and I expressed our sincere love of Mexican food.
“What is your favorite?” one student asked.
I remembered telling a crowd at my future university that, “Me gusta toda comida (‘I like all food’ roughly)” and told him that I couldn’t decide between gorditas, quesadillas, tacos, guajolotes, and so on.
“What do you think about the Mexican people?” another asked.
“Every Mexican I have met so far has been friendly, helpful, welcoming, and kind. I think the Mexican people are wonderful.” Grace answered similarly. It was nice to see smiles sprout on their faces at our responses. All of the students were respectful and attentive.
“What’s different about living in Mexico?”
“Many things. For the first time ever, I showered with a bucket in Mexico.” This surprised many of them because most have running water in their homes. “Also, I can’t go up to the tap and fill a class with water to drink.” This was a little harsher, but it’s true. It’s a humongous privilege in the US to have such ready access to potable water. It’s just not the same here in Mexico.
During one class with advanced English speakers, we finished an activity early, and I was freestyling as best as I could. We somehow got on the verb “inflate.”
“What are some things we can inflate?” I asked.
“A ball.”
“A bike tire.”
“A balloon.”
“A condom.”
We all laughed at this, and the answer made me wish I could start teaching tomorrow. But, alas, we have three more weeks of training. Finally being in the classroom again reaffirmed my love for teaching ESL. Soon I will be back on the job and back in the weeds, likely missing the relative breeze of PST.
For our dose of culture this week, I’ll share my experience of visiting Tula, Hidalgo. Tula is about two hours from Queretaro, and I felt every minute of the ride. I went with my host brother Miguel, my best friend here Rob (from New Haven), my host mom, and Rob’s host mom. Us men were stuffed in the back of a Nissan Rogue, and traffic was briefly terrible on the way because of an accident. But we made it there and back, and I was no worse for the wear.
Tula was amazing, more impressive than El Cerrito because we were allowed to climb the pyramids. These pyramids also had giant stone figurines that were really cool to see. Rob was not impressed, but I didn’t hold that against him. We get along well because we share a dislike for politically correct speech and a like for roasting one another. Here are some pictures from our visit.
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| Me and my boy Rob |
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| Pyramid at left was likely only accessible by royalty |
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| El Coatepantli (Muro de Serpientes, Wall of Snakes) depicts humans devoured by giant rattlesnakes as sacrifices |
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| No info on this one but cool nonetheless |
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| Where the sacrifices happened |
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| View from atop the royalty pyramid |
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| Makes you wonder what it looked like back in the day |
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| Rearview of pillars |
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| View from other pyramid |
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| Tula, Hidalgo |
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They're called "atlantes" and they weren't shown in public. They used to hold up the roof of the temple atop the main pyramid. They represent elite Toltec warriors and were adorned with butterflies, mirrors, feathers, turquoise, knives, and other weapons.
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