I am a Peace Corps Volunteer

25-August-2019, Sunday, 12:39 CDT

Wow. Welcome to another edition of Poco a Poco, likely the most significant post yet. I slacked off and made excuses for myself last week, but there was A LOT going on. Let’s start with the swearing-in ceremony. As of Wednesday, August 14, we are officially volunteers. We spent the rest of that week chilling and training in a fancy hotel in Queretaro. On Friday, we dispersed to our respective sites throughout Central Mexico. On the way to Puebla, I visited the massive Mexican capital of Mexico City. I spent the weekend in Puebla at great hostel with an awesome host and left for Tepexi one week ago. This week has been full of positive experiences. 

Let’s start with the students, 51% of the reason why I am here. They are amazing. All of them are at least willing if not eager to learn English. As always, we share the responsibility of motivation. Teachers need to make class interesting and engaging, and students need to reach for the hand that’s being extended to them. I don’t foresee motivation being a problem as long as I continue to improve as a teacher. And I’m already noticing areas that I need to improve. 

It’s difficult to give directions to people in a language they don’t understand. After working on an information sheet about themselves, I asked students to practice speaking by sharing what they wrote on it. I modeled what I wanted with the student who spoke the most English, told them to pair up using exaggerated hand gestures, and wrote “partners” on the board then pointed to pairs of people. In short, I did all I thought was necessary to convey a message and assumed it was enough. Wrong.

Students continued working individually on their information sheets though I wanted them to be speaking (they truly want to do good work and were worried about not finishing it). So I got their attention and tried again to get them talking, and again they kept writing. Now, classroom management is self management, and at this point I realized I was getting frustrated.

They’re ignoring me because they’re afraid. Unbelievable. 

That wasn’t the case at all. They simply just didn’t understand me. And that’s not their fault; they don’t speak English. It was my fault. So I tried it again, maintaining my cool, and finally they understood and began timidly chatting with each other in their basic English. Sometimes language teachers need to give directions three or four times before students begin to get it. It’s vital we stay calm and confident in our students’ abilities and intentions. To quote the maestro of classroom management himself, Dr. Thomas Starmack, “If you want it, teach it,” and that’s what I continued to do.

With that same class, the very next day, I was giving a diagnostic test. “I,” I began, pointing to myself and speaking slowly, “need to know,” pointing to my head, “what you,” pointing to each of them, “know,” pointing to my head again. “This is not,” shaking my head, “an exam.” I wrote “exam” on the board and crossed it out (exam is examen in Spanish, so I figured they’d get it). Then I wrote common Mexican grades on the board--10 9 8 7--and struck each of them out. Heads nodded, they understood it was not for a grade and relaxed. Next I had to make my life easier by teaching them what I wanted.

Teachers have a lot of work, and grading is a big chunk of that work. TEC doesn’t have scantrons or even internet in the classrooms, so that makes even more work for teachers. I’m grading the diagnostic tests by hand, the old-fashioned way. The first class numbered their papers any which way (there’s also little paper for printing here, so I used the projector to display the questions). Because the students numbered their papers differently, the key I made matched up to few of their papers, which meant they took longer to grade. Problem. Solution: if you want it, teach it. With the next class, I wrote on the board how I wanted them to number and answer the questions. Some got it right away, others later, and even some way later, but eventually they all got it. These are the strategies that ease the difficulties of life as a English teacher in Mexico.

OK, now for some fun stuff to temper the boring pedagogical stuff. To end pre-service training, we had an event called Mex Factor. Peace Corps staff and trainees performed acts such as juggling, dancing, an ad hoc discussion of whether robots should have rights, and of course, singing. Rob and I, with very little practice, sang an original song titled, “Mi Esposa” (My Wife). Below are the lyrics in Spanish and English.

Verse 1

Mi esposa es bonita -- My wife is beautiful 

Ella tiene un buen trabajo -- She has a good job

Conocimos en una cantina -- We met in a cantina

Y ahora deseo yo nunca vi ella -- And now I wish I never saw her

Verse 2

Aquella noche en la cantina -- That night in the cantina

Ella me estudió con ojos de una gata callejera -- She studied me with the eyes of a street cat

No pude negar la mira en sus ojos -- I could not deny the look in her eyes

Y yo supe ella será todo un viaje -- and I knew she would take me on a trip

Chorus

Si tú siempre en una cantina -- If you’re ever in a cantina

En una noche mística -- On a mystic night

Correr lejos, muy lejos -- Run far, very far

De la mujer con ojos verdes y grandes -- From the women with big green eyes

Verse 3

La noche estuvo mágica -- The night was magical

Larga y llena de pasión -- Long and full of passion

Ella dijo que me ama -- She told me she loved me

Y mi corazón gritó, mi mente susurró -- And my heart screamed, my mind whispered

Verse 4

Volvimos al norte, mano en tentáculo -- We returned to the north, hand in tentacle 

Su belleza escondè muy bien -- Her beauty hid very well

La decepción en su alma -- The deception in her soul

La boda tuvo un castillo inflable -- The wedding had a bouncy castle

Chorus

Si tú siempre en una cantina -- If you’re ever in a cantina

En una noche mística -- On a mystic night

Correr lejos, muy lejos -- Run far, very far

De la mujer con ojos verdes y grandes -- From the women with big green eyes

Verse 5

En mi ciudad natal, feliz y estable -- In my hometown, happy and stable

Ella tuvo my mente, cuerpo, corazon -- She had my mind, body, heart

Pero ella quiso lo que no pude dar -- But she wanted what I could not give her

Una vida rica y famosa, encima mi humildad -- A life rich and famous above my humility

Verse 6 

Ella salio un dia nublado -- She left on a cloudy day

Con un hombre, cara blanca -- With a man, white face

El carro estuvo pequeño -- The car was small

Su nariz, grande y rojo -- His nose, big and red

Bridge

Él estuvo el mejor payaso en la escena -- He was the best clown on the scene 

Yo nunca tuve un oportunidad -- I never had a chance

Sus zapatos eran muy grandes -- His shoes were very big

Chorus

Si tú siempre en una cantina -- If you’re ever in a cantina

En una noche mística -- On a mystic night

Correr lejos, muy lejos -- Run far, very far

De la mujer con ojos verdes y grandes -- From the women with big green eyes

And now for the random wrap-up. In Puebla City, people like to talk...A LOT. I sat  at a table after some chiles en nogada and listened to a table--two men, four women--talk for SEVEN HOURS about politics mostly. I contributed little (I don’t speak a lot of Spanish and I don’t even like talking politics in English). I ate dead crickets earlier this week, not bad, food of the future, some say. I wasn’t prepared for my first class on Tuesday and no students showed up :) I ate more chiles en nogada with Tepexi big wigs while 90s soft rock played in the lobby (Linger, Cranberries; Shiny Happy People, REM), eleven of us in a pretty small room, with little talking, embrace the awkwardness. I sat and listened for another three hours while some stalwarts of Tepexi talked politics and were served sandwiches, tarts, and horchata by women employees of the university. Are you still reading this? Thanks. My host family has six kids, and the oldest, Lulu, 10, is already taking up a motherly role by telling her cousin Kiki, 6, to eat his vegetables. Yesterday I played basketball in a pick-up league with coworkers and students of TEC. Basketball is not my sport, but we won with little thanks to me. Yesterday I also attended a baby shower which was much more exciting than those in the states. There was an MC, games, guests attacking an entire table of dulces (sweets), a presentation of gift-giving in which the givers got to draw on the faces of the parents with lipstick. A lot going on hahaha.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a good week, and I’ll see you next time.

Ready to Be Called "Volunteers"

11-August-2019, Queretaro, QRO, 9:16 PM CDT

Bienvenidos, lectores, a un otra edición de Poco a Poco! 

You find me in the last week of Pre-Service Training! This time next week we will be in our homes of the next two years. Wednesday is the Swearing-In Ceremony, where we will officially graduate from being “trainees” to “volunteers.” This is a very exciting time for PCVs. All the long hours and hard work of PST have ended, and we can finally begin what we came here to do. On Friday I’ll leave Queretaro for Puebla City, where I’ll stay till Sunday; it’s about a four hour car ride. In Puebla, I’ll stay with another host family and explore that city a little before heading south to my future home of Tepexi de Rodriguez. I’ll also have a radio interview (in Spanish of course!) to inform Mexicans on how I plan to help their students (guess I better figure out how myself lol). Another exciting thing about Puebla City is Fes lives there. This upcoming weekend I’m going to see him for the first time in like ten years! We were ensured by our leaders that Peace Corps service will include high highs and low lows. Thankfully, I’m in the midst of an upswing right now.

A couple things happened this week that I’m going to share. The first is an instance of serendipity. Sitting in class on Tuesday, I noticed a 100 peso bill near my foot (about five bucks). I picked it up and put it in my pocket till after the session. When it was over, I asked the members of my cohort, “Did anyone lose a sum of money.” Of course, I got the obligatory “how much is it” joke among others but, ultimately, nobody claimed it, so I was 100 pesos richer--till after class.

I was walking home on the same route I take every day when I saw an unfamiliar face. This guy, no older than 25, was taking out a lady’s trash. I saw her hand him some change for the service, maybe ten or fifteen pesos. I greeted him as I walked by and was compelled to stop and talk for reasons unknown. His name was Juan, and he was from Belize, a small coastal nation south of Cancun and that. He had a kind face and a bright smile. A full pack was mounted on his shoulders. He appeared to be vagrant, and I like vagrants--if they work, and he was willing to work. Juan told me he had studied in NYC and named a few boroughs. He told me he was taking a train to the United States. At first I thought this a dubious claim, but then I found this news report from August 2018. Hopping trains is, apparently, a super efficient for migrants to traverse Mexico in hopes of finding a better life in the US. When he told me he was hungry, I remembered the 100 pesos I had found. “Cmon man, I’m going to Alta Fibra (a bakery) and I’ll buy ya some food (except in Spanish).” So I bought him 80 pesos worth of pan dulce and wished him well.

In other news, I took my language proficiency index exam on Tuesday to label just how much Spanish I’ve acquired in my 28 years. I was disappointed when I received my result of Intermediate Medium because I was really shooting for Intermediate High and was happy with my performance in the exam. I have the annoying tendency of comparing myself to others and being disappointed if they surpass me. It’s much better to “hike your own hike” (<-- a hint at my post-service adventure if you haven’t already heard). But I got over it and realized that the level I attained in two months of speaking the language isn’t bad at all. My goal is to be fluent and native-like by 2021, and I will achieve that goal, well, at least the fluent part. 

Ok, and now for this week’s random wrap-up. My buddy Rob and I are performing an original song called Mi Esposa (My Wife) for a “talent” show on Tuesday (report back for lyrics and video), my new favorite Mexican song--one that I find extremely relatable--is called Nunca es Suficiente (It’s Never Enough) by Natalia Lafourcade, went to another soccer game yesterday--an early red card, bicycle kick goal, two late goals by the home team, beers flew, it was awesome, we had a Spanish class on curses this week--of which I will share none in this post ;), I bought dolls and dinosaurs for my nephews and nieces in Tepexi, and I was lucky enough to see a team of ants carrying a dead pillbug up a wall.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in el estado de Puebla!

Me and my boy Juan-Miguel, a BA poet from AZ

A selfie with awesome friends: (from right to left) Greg, Rachel, Cheyenne, Anna, and Rebekah

¡Siempre Gallos!

Gueros at the game

Bek and me

Lizard on the verge of death :(

Ants are amazing creatures, cooperated to climb a wall with this giant meal

These dolls are common representations of Mexico's indigenous people

Practicum Reflections, a Silly Story, a Soccer Game

4-August-2019, Sunday, 2:40 PM CDT

Hello Constant Reader, and thanks for coming back this week to read of what’s going on south of the border. Last week I wrote about a lesson I planned for the practicum and promised I’d share how it went in this post. Well, for the most part, it went really well. Students paid attention while I explained the different parts of an essay, most were able to differentiate between the different parts, and all were challenged by the practice I had planned--a little too challenged I discovered.

Between the hook, thesis statement, transitions, explanations and so on, the sample essay was broken into fifteen parts. For the one advanced class that I taught, I think the difficulty of the activity was perfect. But for the other classes that are closer to basic, the task was too challenging. I believe it’s good to give students input that’s a bit beyond their current level so they’re constantly improving. But this activity was more than a bit beyond their level. My colleagues suggested cutting it down to one body paragraph or including fewer specific parts of the essay. Both were good ideas that will be implemented for the next time I teach the lesson.

A few end-of-practicum words from Josh Spetter

On a different day of the practicum, I met two students for the first time. From the beginning of class they were on their phones or laptops looking at cars and off-task. Like all good teachers should, I made them a priority because the rest of the class was on-task. I called on one for an answer, and he gave an exceptional one. I praised his answer and did not tell him to put his phone away because nobody likes being told what to do. After listening to the answers they were whispering and not sharing (because they were inappropriate), I learned that they spoke, probably, the best English of the class. RIght then I decided that they needed more challenging work. When they finished the assigned stuff, I asked them to write their own questions, ones for me to answer. They responded to the challenges I gave them and personally said goodbye after class. I think it’s better to “catch” students being good and give them positive attention than to constantly tell them, “Be quiet. Put your phone away. Pay attention.” Like I said, nobody likes being told what to do.

"Look everybody, a thesis!"

I don't know, playing parts?

One day in Spanish class this week, our teacher asked us to write a story together. She gave us a subject, we wrote one or two sentences on it, then passed the paper to the next person. Of course it ended up funny. Here’s the translation of one:

Exquisite Corpse

By: John-Michael Bloomquist, Jason Canhoto, Erin Duncan, Grace Kim, Kory Kramer, Kyle Mellon, and Andrew Willis 

One day, looking back on my life, I remembered that, when I was a boy, I was walking through the forest when I found a centaur. I was single because my wife existed only in my mind. My job was a dictator. The cat did not find new planets, but that is better. The cat fell in love with an alien cat. They were very happy. Suddenly, Trump and Putin started a nuclear war. In my dreams I saw a cow. Finally, I decided to go home after a long day.

Last night my buddy Rob and I went to a soccer game. It was the first pro soccer game of my life. Gallos Blancos (White Roosters) played Cruz Azul (Blue Cross). We cheered for the home team, Gallos Blancos, and they won 3 - 0. It was a lot of fun. Here’s a cool cultural difference: two bottles of beer cost 85 pesos (about $4.50), which is cheaper than in many bars around the city. In the US, how much do we pay for beer at a stadium event?

Estadio Corregidora 

¡Vamos Gallos Blancos!

Hustlers in foreground, city in background

Now for some random stuff. Some of my favorite Spanish words: bufanda (scarf), mariposa (butterfly), palomitas (popcorn), estupefacto (astonished), and enfurecer (infuriate), it’s common for women to clean the mens’ bathroom without closing it, the other night Robert Porto said, "I'm gonna go to the bathroom and eat this tamale," the other day I watched as my “niece” made cupcakes with an Easy Bake oven and missed my family a lot, this weekend I attended a friend’s birthday party and there was a piñata (you’re never too old to have a few swings), and Mexico’s college students are smart, driven, and funny. Till next time.

PC Mexico Party Time