Fish outta water

he salido

2009-08-24T10:21:00.000-06:00

I ain't in Mexico no more! I'll probably delete this blog soon.

oink oink oink

2009-04-27T17:34:00.002-06:00

Alright! Piggie vacation! The Mexican health authority has just canceled ALL classes throughout the ENTIRE country until the 6th of May. Some think that it's a Mexican conspiracy to keep voters in their homes and away from the polls. Right now they're having federal elections. Sometimes an overreaction can work in my favor! Yeah, yeah, better safe than sorry. (and why don't we err on the side of caution every flu season? I mean, 64,000 Americans DIE every year from the yearly flu mutation.)

Mazunte

2009-04-16T17:25:00.002-06:00

I just got back from Mazunte, an isolated somewhat virgin beach in southern Oaxaca. It's surrounded by actual virgin beaches, a sight hard to wrap my head around for a guy coming from a touristy beach city. Imagine: Miles of nothing but sand, waves, and bushes. The reason for the lack of development is that it's a protected natural reserve. In the spring, big mother honkin' sea turtles scrape their bellies up the shore, dig a trench that'd put the western front to shame, and poop out a few dozen eggs. We weren't lucky enough this time, but this same time 2 years ago we went to Mazunte and had to move our tables out of the way of one of these big dumb majestic animals. Discovery Channel spit, up close. Picures can be seen here.

Bus wreck

2009-04-16T17:02:00.002-06:00

Oh yeah, so on my way back from getting bent over by the Oaxacan immigration gang-bang, the bus got into a semi-head-on collision with, uh, a semi. While coming out of a turn in the heights and wilderness of the mountains a sketchy, rusty 1960's bobtail SMASHED into the front left corner of our bus. The dude stumbled out in a drunken haze. All the passengers took note of this in alarm, "Ay guey! Ese guey anda pedo!" (Aw damn! this fuckin' dude is fucked up!). The majority of us filed out of the bus to check out the wreckage. One passenger got in the drunk's face and starting ranting - yelling - about how there are women and children in the bus, etc., etc., until he popped him in the face. The drunk was unfazed. Without cellphone coverage, some passengers began to get nervous and opted to hitch hike their way out of the mountains. The federal police came by and told us that they'd advise the bus company that we were stranded and would send for another car to take away the drunk. Confidant that a new bus would come, I and 5 or so others stayed behind. Night fell and I waited for us to get smashed to bits by a speeding oncoming car under the pitch black new moon. To my dismay, our replacement bus was the departure from Oaxaca City for Tuxtepec that followed ours. It was full so we had to stand for 4 hours or so until we arrived. Also, the cop car meant to take away the drunk never came. At first the other guys asked him to come along with us and we'd take him to the police station ourselves. He wasn't havin' it. In the end they each got an appendage and carried his squirming mountain bus smashin' ass onto the bus. While en route we came upon the cop car meant to take him away. Strangely he was eager to change vehicles. The fat federal cop never even got out of his car and the drunk hopped right in back.

I love Oaxaca immigration

2009-03-02T18:30:00.001-06:00

The problem with the immigration office in Oaxaca has always been the same. They change the requirements to process a new or renew the work visa on what seems to be a daily basis. Previously, I had always called in advance to find out what the new and improved requirements are, which has always turned out to be a fool’s errand because one document or another is always required beyond what they mention over the phone. Now, the fool’s errand is not even possible. I have to renew my visa and upon calling I’m told that they can no longer tell us what is required over the phone and that we have to come into their office for them to tell us. I tried explaining to them that I’m a seven hour trip outside of Oaxaca and continued to explain to them how much sense it makes to travel that distance only to find out what I need. After bickering in a language in which I only have limited proficiency with two different people, I was finally told that I could check the website. Now, wasn’t that easy? I found where work visa update requirements are listed, and dutifully prepared the mentioned documents, copies, etc. Naturally, I always bring every scrap of paper I think they may ask for beyond that – just in case.

When I arrived in Oaxaca City, the officer asked me for a mountain of documents not mentioned on the website, some of which I was missing of course. I told her that her boss told me that the website is accurate. Following the contradiction match, said boss came to the desk to see what the commotion was about. She, the very same woman who told me that the requirements on the website are correct and up-to-date outright denied ever saying such a thing.

An argument ensued about the retarded nature of having no idea what the requirements are for certain visa processes. Thirty minutes or so pass until they finally hand me a sheet of 14 required documents necessary to renew my type of visa. The federal requirement noted on the website consists in 4 documents for a work visa renewal.

After reviewing the new and improved requirements which I’m sure will prove to be tentative, I realized that at least one of the documents she asked for this time around weren’t on this list either. Also, I found that the same document is listed twice, but worded differently.

The kicker was when she told me that NOBODY HAS EVER HAD THIS PROBLEM BEFORE! Excuse me? EVERYBODY I KNOW HAS THIS PROBLEM! There’s no such thing as just one trip to the Oaxacan immigration office.

Why couldn’t they have sent me this document via email?

Why does the Oaxaca office, a branch of a federal department, have requirements that differ from the federal requirements?

Are they intentionally fucking with us?

The day rounded off quite nicely when my bus back to Tuxtepec had a head on collision with a drunk driver in Butt Fucked Egypt. More on that later.

Law school

2009-03-01T19:57:00.000-06:00

When I first came to Mexico I was dizzy with the experience of it all: Customs, misunderstandings, different perspectives, and the challenge of learning Spanish. After two years I can comfortably say that I’ve done what I’ve accomplished to do. I’ve done it, and I’m done.

I applied to 10 tier three law schools and have been accepted to 6, waitlisted by 2, and rejected by 2. I was accepted to two schools in my hometown of San Diego, of which it was hard for me to turn down. San Diego is simply far too expensive and the schools offer as much as the other schools I have been accepted to. In the end, I decided on St. Mary’s in San Antonio TEXAS. That’s right – Texas – the state I’ve spent my whole Californian life making fun of. Despite my life-long bias I made a choice based on reason. The cost of living in San Antonio is very low, the city is big enough, has a large Mexican demographic, and the school is a host to clinics and concentrations that interest me. Not to mention. Further, based on ABA stats, the school has a high bar passage and employment rates for graduates. Bias and reason notwithstanding however, I’ve realized that living in southern Mexico has sufficiently calloused my quality of life standards to the point that almost any American city will seem luxurious, be it San Antonio, San Diego, or Nashville.

All in all, I’ll be outta here sometime in July… Two years have gone by pretty quickly, but now that I have something to look forward to I’m sure that the next five months will crawl.

I got burgled

2009-03-01T19:32:00.000-06:00

A couple of months ago, Carolina and I got our apartment busted into while we slept. I suppose I have only myself to blame for leaving my keys and shiny things within plain sight of an open window. The table where I left these things, laptop, cell phone and camera, weren’t within arm’s reach of the window, but certainly, and demonstratively, within broom’s reach. The burglar used the broom we leave outside to drag the table to the window to grab the keys and conveniently let himself in. The keys were left in my plant pot outside. Because the key was bent, I suppose that he used it to push the door toward the hinges to keep it from squeaking. I was thinking that perhaps he could have bent it from pushing it into clay to copy the key, but I don’t think that would have bent it and it would be a lot easier to just pocket the keys altogether. At any rate, we’ve got to change the lock.

The most alarming part was that my shorts, which I always take off at the side of my bed before hitting the sack were found next to the open door when we woke up in the morning. He made off with a measly 200 pesos and interestingly, my debit card was pulled out but not taken. Why didn’t he just take the whole fucking wallet? Supposing that he took a picture of my card or wrote it down to use online or something, I quickly got it replaced. He also rummaged through our drawers in the bedroom, not finding anything work taking. Everything was carried off in my own backpack.

A CD magazine was fished out of my neighbor’s window, but it seems we were the only ones that really got it.

I asked my students if anybody had ever broken into their house while they slept. They said “ay, muchas veses!”

Since then we’ve been looking for a new apartment, but with no avail. Everything is either outrageously expensive or much more slummy than what we’re working with now. I’ve put on a deadbolt and ghetto alarm, which has helped us sleep at night. We still don’t close our windows because the heat and humidity is unbearable. Some mornings we find the corner of the curtains pulled to the side. Evidently somebody is peaking in while we sleep, but they can’t get in unless they kick down the door which would wake me up, prompting me to stab them in the face with the steak knife I keep by my bed.

I’ve since replaced what was stolen and only use my laptop in my bedroom where it is out of sight.

Gas

2008-07-16T16:24:00.001-06:00

It was mentioned here that the gas in Mexico is much cheaper than that
of the US. On the face of it, it's true, but in real terms I don't think
so. I'm no economist, but I tried my hand at proving my belief anyway.
This is what I got: An American dollar is $10.23 pesos, and a liter of
gas is $7.10 pesos. That comes to $2.64 dollars per gallon, or about 38%
less than the US national average of $4.24 dollars per gallon. But,
Americans earn more money than Mexicans. The per capita income of the US
is $45,800USD and Mexico's is $12,800. Americans make, on average per
person, about 72% more than Mexicans. This should surely change the
perspective of gas being 38% cheaper. To give a number to that
perspective, I just divided the cost per gallon by the GDP per capita
for both countries and compared them. The resulting number is 2.21. So,
I guess I can say that in real terms, the cost of gas in Mexico is more
than double the price of gas in the US. There are some problems with
this though. Mainly, that GDP per capita is a skewed number, especially
for Mexico, because of the very few people at the top that make a
retarded amount of money. Mexico also has a problem with, as Luke
mentioned, underreporting. I'd assume that records are particularly
inaccurate in regions with large numbers of indigenous peoples - many of
whom don't speak Spanish.

policiaca de la cuenca

2008-07-15T17:41:00.003-06:00

My last post got me thinking about posting the nasty articles found in the news papers here, so, I did. You can find that blog here. I've cut out a bunch of articles with some really F'd up images and articles to be posted, and in so doing I've horrified the occasional student or staff member passing by or visiting me in my office. And to think this whole time I thought they were OK with what they read. I guess it's taking it a step too far when they're actually collected. The cleaning lady was especially interested in what I was doing with them. I told her that I was posting them on the Internet to show how crazy it is here. Naturally, she said that it's not a violent place. She then asked me if I knew the gardener that was recently killed. I guess natives defend their hometowns even in the face of their own unsolicited inconsistencies.

godfather style

2008-07-07T14:58:00.001-06:00

check it out: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,376861,00.html

This sort of shit happens all the time actually. It comes up in the
local papers, but with pictures! This, however, is the first time I've
seen a mention of mafia shenanigans appear in English speaking news
media. I should scan and post the pictures of this guy who got his
hands, tongue, and cock n balls cut off by the local crime syndicate
here in Tuxtepec. It was the second I've seen where they left a note on
the body. The first one said something about how this is what happens to
you when you snitch. The latest one had something to do with how this is
what the do to their members who don't follow orders.

Summer bugs

2008-07-02T10:19:00.001-06:00

The summer months have brought summer bugs. Some of them are new and interesting to me, and others aren't; flies for example. The rivers of monster ants are straight out of National Geographic. They'll sometimes even envelop half the broad side of an our building, which brings a grounds keeper or three to exterminate them with a few cans of raid. One bug has seemed to have quieted down a bit though: one that I've aptly named the barking cockroach. It looks like a cockroach with wings and hangs out in the trees, outdoing any of the most irritating loci with it's several minute long, piercing chirp.
The most irritating bugs of all however are what they call palomitas de San Pedro (Saint Pedro's popcorn). Though I haven't had to deal with them as of late, they come - hatch, I suppose - once the rain has let up. Clouds of black winged termite-like insects will cover an area in the same fashion a smoke bomb covers a rioting group of Oaxacan teachers. They'll work their way into every nook and cranny of your clothing, hair, and shoelaces. They don't bite or sting, and in fact their wings pop off their bodies as easily as pedals from a daisy.

Thanks 'merika!

2008-06-18T10:54:00.001-06:00

Hot damn! A $300 dollar “stimulus” check came for me today. Although I didn't make dollars, or even pay taxes in the US for that matter, I still qualify. I looked into it and it appears that a great many other American citizens living abroad have too received checks. What I don't get is this: If you're in a foreign country, which economy does the US government think is going to be stimulated; where are they going to spend that money? Duh!

"DOH!" and then "WHEW!"

2008-05-23T11:10:00.000-06:00

So, I got a call from the human resources boss the other day informing me that my visa had lapsed as of this March. I played dumb. At their request I paid them a visit the following day with all my documentation. She said that I needed to take a trip down to Oaxaca City to sort this out. Upon informing her that I had $4,500 pesos, and that it will cost $2000 for the renewal and over $1,000 for the penalty, she said that I could wait until the next pay day. WHEW!

About not being able to work until it's valid again, not a word was said. I figure that if I were to have inquired, then they would have been obligated to say that, well, yeah, you can't work. Surely they realize that I shouldn't be working, but by the same token, they'd rather not leave 45 students stranded for however long it takes the ever so charming Oaxacan immigration office to process the paperwork.

Though obviously I'm being ironic, the human resources ladies were under the impression that the immigration office is indeed a pleasure for us to deal with - evident by the fact that they thought I incurred no fee when I changed my employer and domicile. Pishaw! That was another $2,000 pesos! I just about choked on my tongue when they reasoned that my visa wasn't renewed at the time I changed employers because I didn't have to pay.

oooohhhhh shit.

2008-05-06T16:09:00.001-06:00

So, I, uh, sort of thought that when I paid immigration and waited 3 weeks for them to update the sponsor on my work visa that by so doing would also give me another year. Nope. From the looks of things, I've been a wetneck since uh, let's see.. yup, March 22nd (a "wetneck" is a mashup between "wetback" and "redneck"). It's a hell of a thing to work for a government institution when the government itself prohibits me from working.

So what's the plan, Stan?

Well, I know for sure that they're not going to let me continue working when I point this oversight out to them. After all, they didn't let me work while my visa was still current although listed another sponsor. That said, I'm left with two options: A) Don't friggin' tell 'em. This, to me at least, seems like the obvious solution. Ah, but what'll happen when I try to leave the country? Worse still, what will happen when I try to reenter? The alternative is then B), tell 'em.

Call it paranoia, but I'm worried about what sort of shit sandwich is in store for me. Did you read my earlier post about the new teacher and how they seriously prolonged the visa and hiring process? This was, we think, in part due to the fact that this campus hadn't really wanted another English teacher - he was intended for the other campus who stupidly rejected him after those who accepted him quit. Will the school use my plight as an opportunity to rid themselves of an extra teacher? Something else that worries me is that the human resources boss called 2 months ago, when my visa expired, and asked the English department head if they are supposed to send us a letter to remind us that we need to renew our visa. The English department head said yes, and that they've always done this - so why did they ask? Did they not want to incriminate themselves? Are they faining ignorance as to avoid orphaning 3 classes while I get it fixed? Does the university face paying a fine? Will they pass that savings right on to me?

Supposing that I'm a paranoid schizophrenic and none of the above comes true, I still have to tighten the belt quite a bit. This could be anywhere from one to four weeks without work. Luckily, mangoes grow wild here.

Out Group

2008-04-11T14:11:00.003-06:00

Somebody mentioned to me 'in group virtue, out group vice' when I was complaining to them about how we're not treated as equals at the university. The sociological term basically refers to practices exercised by groups to which one doesn't belong as wrong, though overlooked or even thought of as right when practiced by one's own group. I don't think though that the term applies, at least not in this context. Do American universities remove the foreign teachers' air conditioners and install them in the domestic teachers' offices? Do we notify only the domestic teachers of events that affect all the classes? Do we schedule exams out of ordinary class time, during the foreign language classes without informing the teachers? Do we schedule staff meetings but exclude the foreign language teachers? Do we segregate the foreign teachers from the domestic ones? I think the answer to all of the above is no. Today was funny. I arrived to my afternoon class to the surprise of some of my lingering students. They told me that I was supposed to be at the meeting. I said, “Nope. They don't invite us to the teacher meetings.” “Porque? Eres maestro.” “Porque no nos quieren,” I told them. Half the class cringed, looked away, and nodded their heads like they'd just informed somebody that the game's rained out. A few others said outrightly, “si, cierto.” If there's a silver lining here though, I think it may be that the students get to have their perceptions changed when digesting the behavior of their elder countrymen.

Fish outta water: no me digas gringo

2008-03-14T12:22:00.001-06:00

no me digas gringo

2008-03-14T11:57:00.002-06:00

I hate the term "gringo." It's racist, no matter how you cut it. I tell them, "no - soy estadounidense. Te puedo llamar frijolero?" Nope. I also don't like "güero" that much, but for that there at least exists a two-way street; I can call them "morenos." Also, "gringo", though slight, carries with it a negative connotation; it's derogatory. It also exhibits the same traits as other words that are incontrovertibly bigoted in nature.

Kooba

2008-03-04T22:16:00.000-06:00

We were planning on going to Cuba for spring break (Semana Santa), but hadn't saved up enough dough to accomplish such a task. So, we decided that perhaps the summer break would be better. By that time we would have received our "fondo de ahorro," a fat yearly payout of the money they take out and match from our paychecks. Instead, however, I'm going to make a trip to Pensyltucky to see the folks (it's been a while). After making this decision I read an article in Newsweek about the conditions in Cuba and what the author, a Mexican talk-show host, had to say about some of his callers and their perspective on Mr. Castro as his resignation has made the news recently. It was interesting to read how disparaging the views where between those callers who had visited the communist island and those who had not. Those who had had nothing good to say about the place, quite frankly, placed the Cuban plight squarely on the shoulders of the stubborn dictator. The other group however see the victorious revolutionary as an icon of American resilience; a proletarian hero in the face of insurmountable odds. The difference of opinion between these two groups obviously turns on first-hand experience of the place. Who are you to believe? On a related note, the more I've learned about Cuba, the more I've grown to scoff at those who sport Che Guevara shwag.

Stupid Gringo, you can't go to Cuba! On the contrary. American Law disallows spending dollars in Cuba without a license. I wouldn't have been spending dollars. How can I spend what I don't have? I earn good ol' Mexican pesos, amigo. That's what I'd burn. Besides, the Cuban authorities don't stamp American passports. If they scare off American tourists by documenting your stay, then they don't get your money. But, you can't enter the country without a visa. The solution (between the horns) is stamping a card that you can carry with you! All this aside, I'd be returning to the US after mah main man Barak Obama is in office, the dove I've been hopin' for.

more stuff

2008-03-04T21:30:00.000-06:00

We knew which classes had to be taught considering who passed and who failed last semester, so we planned around that, only to get the hours that we can teach English and which students are available throughout those hours the day before classes actually started. I caught a lucky break because what I ended up having to teach was what I was already planning for. The other two teachers had to change one of their levels.

A new teacher just came aboard. There are two campuses in this region and it was understood that he would be needed at the other campus. This was the plan according to the head of human resources and the assistant vice dean. Both of them have just quit. So, the only person who knew about it was the English department head of my campus. Lo and behold, when Chachi McClueless foreigner gets to the other campus, they're like, 'who the fuck are you?' If I were in his shoes, I would have flipped. Unlike me however he speaks perfect Spanish and seems somewhat passive in nature.

The nice thing is that we handle our own department. We teach what we want, when we want, and with whatever material that we want. We've planned our own system and I think it works pretty well (it's modeled after the Cambridge system).

I've just implemented an online learning resource. Using an open source suite called Claroline. It seems being somewhat Linux savvy comes with its benefits. After talking with Potosino university students as well as those here, using the internet as a learning aid is unheard of. From my perspective, it's unheard of that an online learning resource is unheard of.

I've also just learned that we are qualified to produce state sanctioned translations of official documents written in English en lieu of a university English teacher status. Boy, that's like driving drunk for me.

Look. I've written something.

2008-03-01T23:28:00.000-06:00

    A couple people – literally, two – have complained about how far behind this blog has gotten. I hope this update will shut you up.
    I've been teaching at the Universidad del Papaloapan in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca for about three months now, and as far as things go that concern me, all's well that is well. I qualify this with that concern me because quite frankly, I think the school's system is badly broken. Symptoms of it's dysfunction are found in the fifty percent fail rate, passing grade – sexual favor exchanges, the dismissal of the assistant vice-dean, and a tightfistedness over that which shouldn't be in the face of a laxity over that which should.
    I maintain, though, that all really is quite well because what ought not be forgotten is that I'm to maintain a Germanesque non-interventionalist perspective on things. I'm nothing but an “active observer.” So that is to say that I'm admittedly part of this jacked-up circus of a so-called public university but certainly lack the cultural membership or political clout to affect any change, at least directly. I do however sometimes revel in the – albeit presumptuous – thought that perhaps other departments look upon our language center, of which we're given virtual sovereignty, as an example of ingenuity, diligence, and organization. Having come to understand a certain strange Mexican social dynamic here though, leads me to believe instead that we're despised and plotted against.
    This dynamic has been explained to me by means of three variations of the same a joke by three different Mexicans. I understood the first person who told me this story to be apologetic, and the other two told me as a warning – to watch my back. It goes something like this: There's a vendor walking down the beach with two baskets of live crabs. One has a lid and the other does not. A beach goer asks for some fresh crab. “Which do you want? Japanese crab or Mexican crab?” asks the vendor.
    “Well, which one is which?”
    “The Japanese crabs are the ones in the basket with the lid on it.” The customer inspects the two baskets of crabs and chooses.
    “So,” the customer says to the merchant, “why do you keep a lid on the Japanese crabs and not the Mexican ones?”
    “Well you see, just like any trapped animal they want to get out. I don't have to keep a lid on the Mexican crabs however because when one is about to succeed and escape, the others grab him and pull him back in.” The story is meant to be descriptive, not explanatory; I don't know what it says about the social psyche, just that this is what seems to happen here, though I've yet to witness it personally (I have a suspicion though that it may apply to the dismissal of the assistant vice-dean, who actually resigned though under force). A testament to the ubiquity of this story, aside from that I've heard it from three unaffiliated Mexicans, I shared it with one of the other foreign teachers here and as soon as I mentioned crabs, he finished the story. Somebody had told him already.

... Later I'll substantiate what at the moment seem like bald claims.

So far so good, I guess.

2007-11-23T17:58:00.000-06:00

So I’ve been in Tuxtepec for about one week now and in response to some inquiry, this is how things have been: When I first arrived, another teacher offered her on-campus apartment for me to stay in until I found a suitable place to live elsewhere. There are approximately 12 apartments on campus and a waiting list to acquire one; so demand easily outstrips supply. This teacher however only got it simply to take midday siestas months down the road when she got around to furnishing it. Being that the apartment was completely unfurnished, I slept on the floor with my trusty sleeping bag. Two or so days after arriving I went to Oaxaca, the capital, to process my change of employer on my visa. This school apparently follows the letter of the law and will not allow me to work until this has been completed – I suppose that’s conducive to working at a public university and consequently becoming a government employee, but nonetheless following the law so closely is somewhat out-of-character for the region. So that is to say, it’s strange that they don’t allow me to work while it’s being processed.

The immigration office there is nothing like that of San Luis Potosi. Most notably so is their demeanor. In Oaxaca, the woman (“woman” in place of a more preferable derogative) treated me as though my intelligence was somehow correlated to my poor Spanish speaking ability. Saving you all the details, she said I needed to furnish documents which were not actually called for by the standard form they have online, nor what she personally told the administration, who then told me, were needed. The first thing she requested was a set of profile pictures – you know, mug shots. So, being the good sport that I am, I went to the local studio and had them done. This caused me to stay in Oaxaca an additional day due to old-fashioned style developing used by this particular studio (i.e., not digital or Polaroid). I spent my time wisely and went to Monte-Alban, which was really awesome (a little more on that later). Upon returning the next day, she told me that I needed a copy of every page of my passport (mind you, she had already rifled through all my documents once before – you’d think that she could have told me everything I [supposedly] lacked. Realizing the copy machine directly behind her, I asked if she could make the copies here herself. She unhesitatingly said no. So, I left again, made some copies, and returned. Then she told me I needed copies of the receipt showing that I paid the fee to change my visa (which is paid for at a local bank – it’s strange). That was another trip to the copy store. I returned. Then I needed to make copies of my teaching certificate and the adjoining apostolate. I did so and returned. After everything was said and done another immigration official told me that it’d be ready by the middle of next week. I then proceeded to enjoy the rest of my stay in beautiful Oaxaca, leaving that hell of an experience behind me – or so I had thought.

While there I went to a little jazz show. It was quite nice and they were pretty talented. The ironic thing is that the first jazz show I attend in my life happens to be in the depths of southern Mexico – go figure. Oaxaca is a little touristy. In fact, while in the very tiny bar where the jazz show was held, the majority of the patrons were speaking English. The saxophonist picked up on this and, quite bravely I should say, tried his hand at introducing their songs in English. I, having been used to listening to very bad English, might have been one of the few who knew what he was saying. But I applaud his effort just the same. The zocalo, which is basically a gigantic plaza, is very nice. In fact, I took a 360 degree panoramic shot of the place, but have yet to piece all the pictures together. One thing to mention however is that despite the scruptiousness of the food served throughout the restaurants there, it can be a bit expensive if you’re a peso earning sucker like myself. I slept in that very zocalo twice; both times in the middle of the day when it’s teeming with people and both times without any intention of doing so. That’s what happens when you’re tired.

I said that I went to Monte-Alban. Look it up. What I can say about it that you can’t find on wikipedia is that as soon as I walked into the main field I was instantly thrown into a computer game I used to play called Serious Sam 2. It’s your basic shoot-em-up first-person-shooter the evening news baldly warns parents about. It became crystal clear to me that the writers of the game used Monte-Alban as one of the scenes for a particular level. The pyramids in their design, size, and position were exactly as I had remembered them. ‘Holy shit’ was my first thought, and my second was ‘where’s my plasma rifle?’

To and fro Tuxtepec and Oaxaca one has the option of singing Oaxaca for 6 hours through the majestic Oaxacan mountains, or if you travel at night the bus takes a tamed route between the base of the mountains for 7 and a half hours, if you’re willing to pay 100 pesos more (gringos: “to sing Oaxaca” means to puke. Think about it, “wa-ha-ka” really bears some resemblance to the sound you make when you puke). The decision’s easy.

Upon my return to Tuxtepec, I was informed that I had to leave the on-campus apartment immediately. Turns out the grounds keeper saw me coming and going and mentioned it to the administration who has a contract with the actual tenant that states that she is the only person who can reside there. Another teacher, who has been quite nice and very helpful showing me around, let me stay at his place while I found a place of my own. After looking at a few apartments, I decided on a spacious 2 bedroom for 2000 pesos a month and no deposit. I think the selling point for me was that one of the rooms had hooks built into the walls intended for a hammock. When I returned with my things that night, I asked if they locked the gate. She told me that for security they instead let out their vicious man-eating dog between the hours of 11pm and 7am. I suppose they had a sense of humor when they inappropriately named him Pollo. This ended up not resting well with Carolina, who’s moving down after Christmas. Putting that aside, I set out the little I have and tried to sleep, but the screaming triplet babies next door kept me from doing so. What’s more, the vicious man-eating dog is also vociferous. I hardly got a wink that night. The following morning I explained to the owner that my girlfriend is deathly afraid of dogs, and I couldn’t sleep with a it barking all night on one side of the apartment and on the other, screaming babies. She kindly returned my month’s rent and I found another place. I’m now in a one bedroom apartment, which too has hooks for a hammock.

Tuxtepec is in the middle of the jungle. I’m told that there are monkeys, leopards, toucans, and a variety of poisonous creepy-crawlies in the further reaches of the thicket. The city itself is situated in the middle of arch of a very big river called the Papaloapan, which the school named itself after. It’s not so much hot as it his humid and I’m told that during the summer it can reach upwards of 115 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s so hot that it’s uncommon for houses to have water heaters and for that matter, more than one faucet on showers and sinks. Many buildings are built with an additional aluminum roof to absorb the sun’s head and to keep it off the actual roof, keeping the building as cool as possible. Here is also the first time I’ve seen air conditioners in Mexico on more than just commercial buildings.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are a lot of indigenous people here, some of whom don’t even speak Spanish. That’s about all I know about them so far. Many place- names here though are from their language. Papaloapan means butterfly, and the other English teacher said something about how the Spanish used this word to derive the Spanish word for kite. There are also many towns in this region that end in –tepec. This supposedly means “hill” in the native language.

The bus lines don’t have numbers. Instead they’re color coated and named. For example, the buses that take me to the school are Ejode and Sra. Ursula. Ejode is dark orange with a military green stripe down it and, well, I don’t remember what the other looks like. On their windshields, they also have written the major places they go. I’ve speculated that they color the buses according to the lines to accommodate the illiterate population. This however is unfounded. The buses seem to me like hand-me-downs of 1950’s school buses with the muffler ripped right off of ‘em. They’re loud and the drivers grind each and every gear. Most of them are actually quite comfortable on the inside however. The seats are padded and many of them play music! To get off at a designated stop in town or wherever you like out of town you yell “baja!” or whistle and he lets you off.

Tuxtepec has a population of about 100,000. They’re much friendlier than Potosinos in that you can have a conversation with a perfect stranger about anything and most people say hello when you pass them on the street. An oddity however is that they’ll say “güero” to white people as a way to either get our attention or just as a means to say hello (I say “us” meaning myself and the other white person I’ve seen here, the other English teacher.). The fact that there aren’t really any other white people here (even Hispatic white) may lend to the reason why I’m referred to in this way more often. It sure the hell beats “gringo,” which really isn’t beyond them though. In fact, the other English teacher’s landlord calls him gringo all the time, though affectionately.

Yesterday I asked the school’s human resources office to contact immigration in Oaxaca city to check on the status of my visa. She reported back to me stating that immigration said they can’t find it the visa it self, a little green booklet, but they have all my other documentation. After checking again today they said that they should have a new one made for me by Monday. If that’s the case, then my 3 week vacation will have come to and end and I’d begin teaching probably the following Wednesday. If you’d like more information about my very cushy working conditions, please refer to my previous email.

If there’s still any specific information about Tuxtepec you’d like to know, then I’d be glad to answer. Keep in mind pictures are forthcoming.

-Chris

quick response to questions axed

2007-05-24T22:58:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I’ve eaten at Frida’s a few times already – the one right there on Valentine Gama and Caranza, right?

The only race related conversations I have in my classes are the ones that I can more reliably testify to; the racism that I’m familiar with in my region. It would be a little presumptuous to nosy my way into their can of worms. This doesn’t exclude my ability to reflect on what I think I see however, at least not with members of this region. This liberty permitting, this is my opinion (which after re-reading, might apply to all forms of prejudice, etc.): I think the acceptability of pointing out another’s differences which correlate to their social status and/or negative public and personal perception is at least saliently oppressive. This is so because it cultivates and maintains a false mode of thinking that there is some sort of causality happening there – that these sorted qualities direct their plight. And surely this is somewhat believable from the accepted understanding that the generally held thoughts of a group-mind are rarely logical and easily swayed. So at least for these reasons, the circularity of their respective plights persists (ranging from criminalization to poor self-esteem).

I’m guessing that your Spanish phrase there translates to something to the likes of ‘take it as it comes,’ hinting at that words have their respective meanings per context. Yep, it seems that’s pretty normal for languages (see Wittgenstein).

Sorry I haven’t taken this opportunity to continue the southern trip, but your message’s topic seemed to roll right off my fingers faster than it would have. Next time perhaps.

installment 2

2007-05-06T02:43:00.000-06:00

The bus ride to Tuxtla was cold. When we stopped half way through the trip I figured that it was going to be cold as hell because the bus was. On the contrary – wherever we stopped was hot as hell. I guess the air conditioner on the bus was just cranked up full-blast.

We arrived early in the morning, before most businesses were open and people cluttered the streets (which we found to be the norm – streets filled with people – during normal business hours). While eating breakfast I found myself talking to another foreigner. We were talking in Spanish because it was obvious that English wasn’t his first language. Turns out it was French. He was a French Canadian. I suppose that explained his standoffishness. His attitude wasn’t consistent with his behavior however; he directed me to where I could find a cheep hotel and where to go in order to catch the bus to Cañón Del Sumidero.

The first hotel we found was dingy. It was smart of us to inspect the room that we’d get before actually paying for it (aquí, se paga antes). The next one we found was much nicer. 150 pesos a day for 2 people (vale la pena si se gasta dolores).

The streets are narrow and filled with short darker-skinned people. Racism is thinly veiled here by the way (though I can’t exactly say that about southern Mexico). I mean, shit, moreno and guerreo mean “darky” and “whitey”, respectively. And they’re often used. One time while walking down the street the dude at the local economic kitchen, which I frequent, hollered at me, “que onda, guerreo?” I confirmed with Carolina if he said what I thought he said.

After she did, I responded, “que tal, moreno? He was cheerful in his greeting to me as much as when he received my response. It’s really strange – I almost want to associate how their behavior contrasts with the meaning of what they say, i.e. it’s context, with how us U.S.Anz (at least socal) use racial references in jest – you know, like Chapell style. It’s only a hunch right now.

Anyway, The awnings in front of the shops were daunting, considering. Several places sold dried fish (cod? I don’t know), shrimp, and crickets. When my Spanish teacher learned that I was going to southern Mexico, she assigned as homework to try some dried crickets. I got a zero on that assignment. Story of my life (well, it was anyway, to be honest).

Tuxtla is too small of a place to use full-blown city buses. Instead they use colectivos, a taxi like concept but with lots of people crammed into a mini-mini van. The sort that you’d expect more so on a southeast Asian or Japanese road. Boy, it’s cheep though. Think of it as a hybrid between a taxi and a bus. They have a specific route, but will pick people up and drop them off wherever they like as long as it’s on that route. The fee is pretty much at the whim of the driver. I got the feeling he just sort of guesses how far he went for the particular person. It’s sheep though, regardless. We took one of these such contraptions down to the canon, a 20 minute ride that only cost us 9 pesos each. In San Luis that would have been at least 50 pesos with a regular taxi.

Later we paid for and boarded a long boat with dual formidable sized Evenrudes strapped on the back. It was opened aired with 4 benches that fit about 3 people. These boats were so elongated that when there wasn’t anybody, or very few people in the boat, the driver, who was in the back, couldn’t see forward because the nose would rise above his head when it moved. Instead, they’d be constantly turning to see ahead of themselves. there were others with raised seats in the back though.

The boat ride was down the river that runs through the canon right on into Guatemala. For about an hour we brainstormed about actually going to Mexico’s southern pal, but then decided that it would be more trouble than it’s worth – time and money. I did get a gnarly chapaneco poncho though. Later you’ll find that as awesome as my poncho may be, it did me little good for the whole trip, which may be more so my fault than the poncho’s.

a short begining

2007-05-02T16:33:00.001-06:00

So we left at around 6am from our house and waited without the sun at the bus stop a half a block away for what likely the very first bus that runs along Himno Nacional. It was dark and there was a slight breeze – nobody was on the road. The first bus we saw was hauling so much ass that we weren’t able to read the route number on it’s windshield quick enough to realize that we had to flag it down until it was too late. The next guy with our route number, I think it was 5, was crawling. And when he stopped at our bench (which here, are much better than some rotten old wooden SoCal bus stop benches liable to give you splinters and always have either an advertisement of some DUI attorney, lousy used car dealer, or says this space for rent), it actually waited until more than us 2 were it’s passengers. Some lady came and we were off; a middle aged woman probably hustling to get to her job. She struck me as morbidly determined and unhappily accustomed to being who was probably usually the first person on this bus.

We waited around the bus station for a few minutes until Carolina showed up. Her father, mother, and sister all came to drop her off. She was going to be gone with 2 guys and another girl (who we were meeting up with later in Oaxaca), so I guess they just wanted to make sure that nothing seemed fishy. She’s 24, but you know, things are different here. Anyway, we got 2 drinks – non alcoholic – for the bus ride to D.F. norte, which actually takes 4 ½ hours despite the 3 hour projection by MS Map Point. I slept most of the way anyhow.

The Mexico City bus terminal is ridiculous. Pushin’ and shovin’ all over the place. It’s pretty big, too. I’d say that it shares the same amount of foot space with the San Diego airport (I forget the name right now – Jefferson?). It didn’t bother me really. What did bother me was that we had to wait eight and a half flippin’ hours for the next, and probably last, bus to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Oaxaca.

Only an hour had passed until I decided that it was in my best interest to find cheep beer and make the wait fly right on by and at the same time guarantee solid sleep on the 12 hour bus ride. It’s win-win, right? Eventually all that I was concentrating on was keeping my cool in a Mexico City bus terminal. During this, I spent a lot of time spacing out watching the shoe shiners. There’s something transfixiating about observing their craft. This is, of course, until you’re approached by what may very likely be the most underqualified hooker ever. This happened to me, and I think she told me that it’d be alright if I had her baby – that I didn’t have to worry about it. After a moment she finally gave up on me.

Before I knew it, it was time to “board” the bus. As it turned out, it's really 15 hours to Tuxtla.

While it's still fresh in my mind

2007-04-28T10:34:00.001-06:00

--self incriminating material has been removed, but corruption has it's benefits -- southern mexico trip still forthcoming.here's a picture of when i stayed in a cabana in mazunte, oaxaca.

Boom, clap, cha-ching

2007-04-15T10:41:00.001-06:00

Sunday, April 1.

This evening I experienced the most violent yet brief thunder storm in my life. It began when I heard some thunder in the distance, in the mountains. I didn’t think anything of it, so I proceeded to watch the Cardinals take a well deserved beating (I was more interested in watching the Giants game, but it wasn’t aired here – I’m happy enough that they show at least one game though). Sure enough the thunder came rollin’ in. I think I identify the time where it was pretty god damned sever when a home shaking clap came down so loudly I jumped in my seat and had the other usual stimulus response, “HOLY SHIT!” It prompted me to hustle outside to see what was really going on and was greeted with more of the same teeth shattering lightning and thunder. Mere blocks away, giant solitary bolts would come striking down close enough where that the sound and sight occurred simultaneously. Sometimes you could feel the noise in your chest. And the detail of the sound was enhanced as well: when the bolt first comes down it gives out like a crackling sound before the clap.. crahHKBAM! There was rain too, but not very much. It was windy however and so the rain came down a bit sideways, hitting you on your face.

The storm left as quickly as it had arrived.

About 30 minutes later it began raining like Noah was ready to go. Half of our terrace is now flooded. Oh, and our roof leeks, but it’s pretty negligible.

Locked and loaded. I’ve packed 5 days worth of clothes for a 12 day trip so I’ll be coming back a bit dirty. I will be however saving 25% on the rest of my bus tickets. Teachers and students get a discount on bus tickets, but only with a teacher’s ID card. My work hasn’t yet been able to provide me with one, though I deserve it. Also, neither have they issued one to several other teachers who rightly deserve them. They’re just laggin’ really. So I took it upon myself to, uh, make some. So I did. They’re pretty damn good if you ask me. Scanner, photoshop, print, cut, laminate. Bada bing badda boom, an ID that reflects the same fly-by-nightishness of the original.

(none of this though will get sent until I return)

I'm back

2007-04-15T10:24:00.001-06:00

I’m back, very sick, and my camera was stolen by Mexican military personnel. A lengthy post is forthcoming, whenever I feel up to it. Don’t fret however; there still are pictures, but not the ones I took.

on the road

2007-03-30T19:48:00.000-06:00

I’m leaving bright and early on Monday morning for Tuxla Gutiérrez, Chiapas. I hope that while I’m there I’ll be able to visit San Cristóbal del las Casas to see if I can find anything Zapatismo. I’ll be there for a few days until we go to Oaxaca, the city; capital of Oaxaca the state. We will only be there for a day in order to pick up my roommate’s wife from the airport. From there we continue westward to the ocean. We’ll be staying for about 4 days at Playa Mazunte, a beach just south of a more popular beach, Puerto Escondido. After the beach we’ll return to Oaxaca to drop my roommate’s wife back off at the airport and then stay there for a few more days until we return to San Luis. My roommate is Oaxaceno, so I’m sure I get to see only the most interesting things of the place. Here’s a map of our route.

Al says the earth is on fire

2007-03-27T07:02:00.001-06:00

Did anybody catch another left field analogy by old boy Albert at some senate panel hearing in regards to climate change that went to the tune of, “If the cradle is burning, you don’t speculate as to whether the baby is flame retardant.”? Oh, it was funny with his slow speech and slight southern drawl and all.

Malo Suerte

2007-03-26T07:09:00.001-06:00

After work Saturday I managed to get in a few winks until the festivities began. After a week of split shifts – waking up early and going to bed late – it’s nice to sleep past 4 in the evening (normally mid-day naps run only until then, when I have to go back to work). I woke up at around 7. Feeling as great as I did, it seemed natural to stand up in bed and walk off onto the ground. I wanted to start the evening off on the right foot. Well, it turned out to be the left, and like a ballerina. At a little after 7PM on Saturday, March 24^th, I broke my middle toe; the consequence of introducing 163 pounds rather abruptly.

Well, I’m not sure if I broke it. I think that it would hurt a bit more if I had, but it sure is purple, though not severely swollen. At any rate, I still went to the club and soon realized that it were better that I sat, so I did.

The next morning, today, I got up to take a shower. Showering around these parts can be quite a task. First of all, you have to turn on the water heater about 45 minutes before you intend to bathe. We leave it off to save gas (a common practice in most dwellings). Once I have some hot water, I crank up the hot water faucet for only cold water to dribble out. It takes some time to warm, and then I increase the total pressure by turning on some cold water. For the most part it’s still like being pissed on. After 5 minutes or so, the pressure just drops. Figuring that we ran out of water, I laughed it off (a learned talent), dried off and walked out. Rounding the corner to my room, I heard the clanking of dishwashing. Upon checking it out I realized that the bastard dishwasher, my roommate, was hogging up all the water. So, I told him to stop and started my shower back up again. This time, after lathering my head up with shampoo, the water really did run out. Luckily however, there was still that dribble from the hot water left. I might still have some soap in my hair. Normally, we’d simply turn on the pump to send more water to the tank, but we share it with the people downstairs and only they have access to the switch, so we’re sort of at their whim.

The good news however is that I bought a hackie sack for 15 pesos. It’s pretty good quality. I went to a museum today. It was alright. I’ll write more about it later. I also saw 300. It’s bad-ass. My room is a sty. Semana santa is rapidly approaching.

The student reviews have come back and my students love me. Out of 16 teachers, I came in between 2^nd or 4^th for every category for every class. I think it has something do with having an intermediate level instead of an advanced one. It’s a commonly held that students of advanced classes are arrogant know-it-alls that are often impossible to please. Getting good marks from my 7am class took me by surprise seeing how that I often don’t even realize that I myself am even there speaking English, little alone teaching it.

el zoologico, gracias a sr. Juarez

2007-03-20T08:12:00.000-06:00

So because we’re too goddamned lazy to get up early enough to go to Huasetca, we instead decided to fill our day with going to the zoo! It was about 30 minutes away. We took the bus – it was sort of greyhound-like. Well, it wasn’t the world famous San Diego zoo, but it was something. Most of the animals didn’t appear to be very happy. The cages were small, and by no means did many of them belong in the high plains desert – tigers and black bears for example. To get a general idea for how big this place was, we were able to see everything within the course of about 2 hours, including lunch.

Oh, and you might have noticed that today is a Monday. Thanks to a one Benito Pablo Juaréz, a former Mexican president, today is a holiday. I haven’t been able to get a great deal of information from my students about what he did. So far this is what they’ve told me: He separated the church from government and he was around when Mexico kicked the French out. These are two things that are very good. I am also told that his death is somewhat mysterious. People say that he died of heart disease (although my encyclopedia says that he died of a stroke), but others believe that he was poisoned by the conservative opposition – perhaps even the church. His rise to power is also shrouded in mystery, at least according to my students; how ever he went from an impoverished life in Oaxaca to studying law and eventually winning his first political office is unknown. I have a strange Abe Lincoln vibe about him, but no real way of substantiating this, other than he was once upon a time poor and studied law. Juaréz is on the 20 peso bill and there’s a giant bust of him in front of one government building or another downtown. While walking with a friend of mine one day some time ago, I asked her who that was. She told me it was Juaréz. I remember asking her why they make statutes of corrupt politicians and saying that all the presidents back then sold Mexico out. As I now realize, I was sort of dogging a national hero. I must have not offended her that much or something though because she still talks to me.

The Oaxaca-Chiapas-Quintana Roo excursion is a mere 2 weeks away.

stuff

2007-03-19T11:14:00.000-06:00

I was going to go to La Huasteca (waz-tec-ah) today, but that plan fell through at the last moment. We were all strapped up to go, money put aside and everything. The hurdle though was that we had to leave at 3 in the morning the day after St. Patrick’s day. Ironically though, this fact bore no influence on our not going. Simply, we all fell asleep (and we blame each other for not waking everybody else up). This isn’t so bad however because at least I’m 700 pesos richer – the amount that I had intended to take. Bus fair is 500 pesos alone! La Huasteca is about a 5 hour bus ride from San Luis, to the gulf state of Veracruz. There are waterfalls there. Here’s a picture I grabbed from a person’s camera that had already been.

Earlier in the week we were eating breakfast at this place when a parade began parading down the street. It didn’t seem that we were the only people who hadn’t expected it, now drawing a small audience on the sidewalks. There were small home-made floats, some fancy cars, and lots of people dancing. At first it all followed a red theme. Later, a blue one. As it turned out, these color-coded groups were rival high schools. I don’t know what the purpose for the joint parade was though. Maybe they were going to have a soccer game later or something.

Speaking of la pelota, Cruz Azul recently lost against SLP, a big upset for Cruz Azul apparently. Today Chivas are going to play América, and América is from Mexico City. Potisinos, I think, don’t much care for this team. Generally speaking, Postisinos care for neither the team nor the people. For some reason I derive some humor from what they call people from Mexico City: Chilangos. It just sounds derogatory.

I’m 162 pounds now – two pounds away from when I had my license renewed in ’03.

For the past week I’ve been seeing posters for Violinista en el Tejado (yep, Fiddler on the Roof). This is surprising to me because I never would have expected a play about Jews in Russia in über Catholic Mexico, little alone conservative San Luis. But, así es, so I went. It was alright. They held it in some historic theater – a small one. In some parts of the halls I had to duck a little to pass through. They translated “if I were a rich man,” my favorite song in the play, to “si que fueron rico.” “Tradition!” as I had already suspected however, is translated “tradición.” I was trying to listen for how they translated “matchmaker” because it had come up in conversation once that there really doesn’t exist a straight translation. I don’t believe this though – surely there must be. The best a couple friends have both come up with, after admitting that, yeah, there really isn’t a good translation, is “Cupio,” or Cupid. I haven’t tried bablefish yet.

whateverandever

2007-03-16T06:58:00.001-06:00

Many people side with the PAN around here. I’m interested to see what the new U.S. government will do in regards to this country, especially seeing how this one leans the other way. I’m talkin’ ‘bout dems, of course. And speaking of their relations, nothing happened here during that hillbilly’s visit. This place is pretty much content with many things as they already are, unlike some places where they’re not too fond of free trade.

I’ve recently switched my affiliation from Libertarian to Democrat (yeah, I can vote absentee from abroad, as well as re-register, which I have just done). I figured that I want to have some say in primaries for a change, and I’m so far interested in the candidates. This getting along act they’ve got going on is curious. I read on some British news website – the Guardian, BBC, or something – that Obama was on some 10 people that could change the world list.

We’ve had 2 parties here so far; both of them on the first 2 Saturdays that we’ve been here. Last Sunday the landlord sort of put a stop to that. She said that we could have a party once a month or so, and people have to leave by 12. That’s pretty much balls though because that’s really when people start showing up. So, whatever.

Nirvana's in SLP

2007-03-08T07:21:00.000-06:00

I’m genuinely happy. When from time to time this notion crosses my mind, that this seeming simple introspective discovery of personal happiness surfaces without effort or provocation, then I think it’s safe to say that I’m indeed, genuinely so. Teaching is great, even when I learn the grammar point or whatever moments before I teach it. It’s easy really, and they generally believe whatever I tell ‘em. The level of respect and perpetual kindness that the ladies practice back home is a far cry from that which is observed here. The ladies are so nice, it’s almost embarrassing. Back home I had always been walked on when I do whatever whenever for whomever – not here. That is to say, my pains have finally been made worthwhile. I guess this is reciprocity. There’s a first time for everything.

Every few days I’ll take a trip down to the corner store to buy a sixer of Sol or Tecate (about 30 pesos). While I’m walking home I’ll crack one open – yeah, right there on the street – and stroll down the avenue sippin’ on my brew. Life is good, indeed. Bukowski, eat your heart out. (speaking of which, if somebody can get me his short story colletion, Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, then I’d love you forever).

At this very moment I’m listening to some brand spankin’ new Modest Mouse. I think they’ve pulled a little to far away from their hard, un-post produced low-B sound, but hey, it’s still good.

I’ve recently changed my computer (Windows; the operating system) so that it talks to me in Spanish. I’ve done this in hopes that it might provide for a lesson on, uh, computer skills in Spanish (or something) – this, alongside of the ubiquity to which I’m already exposed (i.e., immersion). Some of the time I have to work off of my memory of what a dialog box or whatnot is saying because I haven’t a clue. The other day I shut it down when I had intended to lock it. Hey, it’s all part of the learning process.

I’ve moved. We now have a big fat terrace that overlooks the street. The terrace takes up more foot-space than the house itself. We had a moderately sized party last Saturday and intend to have one for every Saturday that this universe can provide us with.

The only thing that sucks is having to wake up at 6am everyday and having to work for 4 and a half hours on Saturday from 9:30 to 2. This is counterbalanced however with the opportunity of taking a 1 to 2 hour nap in the middle of the day. My roommate also sucks. She’s the 21 year old white Canadian girl. I think she’s depressed or something. That, or she thinks she’s a princess and believes that everybody is scum and doesn’t deserve to hear more than a single syllable dribble off her precious lips. She doesn’t do shit around the house and she refuses to chip in for whatever community things such as dish soap, charcoal and meat for our barbeques, water, or anything else. She doesn’t have any morning classes and I get the feeling that she will eventually have problems paying rent, considering. Ironically, I hope this happens so I can throw her precious little ass outta here. We’ve got a hot place here and people have been biting and clawing to get it, but we had the advantage of knowing the former tenants.

Lots of people are happy here even thought they’re poor as hell and work their fingers to the bone day in and day out.

My shits are solid and regular. I could probably digest a license plate. The flu has recently swept through this place, and I made it out unscaved.

Click here for some photos I've edited. They make for good wallpaper I think.

some photos

2007-02-20T08:42:00.000-06:00

here's a link to some photos that I slaved over uploading. San Luis Photos

prevert student and el toro

2007-02-19T11:14:00.000-06:00

The term is over. We had to spend a day there doing all the paper work, and meanwhile some students would stop by to retrieve their final grade, etc. One student had his ipod and asked if I wanted any pictures. So, I’m like, ok, why not? While he copied these pictures onto my laptop I left the room for some odds n ends. When I returned maybe twenty minutes later, he was still copying these pictures. I asked jokingly if he were giving me porn. As it turned out he was indeed, so now I have 342 soft core porn pictures.

…went to a house party last night. Got wasted. Danced like a fool. So it goes …

The next day, today, I went to a bullfight. Now, this shit is awesome. There’s a lot of impressive horse riding and sheer stupidity there. One dude got gored, and 5 toros were backstabbed. The format of the whole event wasn’t as I’d expected. I won’t explain it here, though. Instead I think I’ll post a powerpoint presentation with photos, descriptions, and such. In the meantime, here’s a picture of me. I’m happy.

ouch

2007-02-17T11:17:00.000-06:00

Welp, this week marks the end of the term. Today is Tuesday and Thursday is the final. The very next Monday is the first day of the next term. No rest for the weary. I have no idea what level I will be teaching, but I prey to Vishnu that I will be blessed with a lower level. The higher levels that I’ve been teaching are albeit fun, but taxing on the ol’ gulliver. At this point I’d like nothing other than being able to pass the time in class holding up pictures and saying “house.. say it.. house… good!”

Try explaining “rich” in terms of the sensory verb “taste.” I used dark chocolate and filet mignon as examples, but feel that they somehow missed the mark… I’m going to chalk this one up to qualia.

I can’t move my neck in either direction without experiencing the worst sensation ever. Aspirin costs 80 pesos and I’ve only got 100 ‘till payday – 2 days away – so I asked everybody within an earshot for some pills and managed to land myself 3 aspirin and a red pill. I don’t know what it was but it made me feel a little relaxed, but didn’t dull the pain. I conducted my classes from a chair and had a student do my bidding on the whiteboard. After my last class a student offered to bring in some pills that he had left over from when he was having some back trouble. We’ll have to see how they work out. He said that they didn’t make him drowsy and that they don’t say not to drink while taking, so I don’t suspect them to be that great.

misc.

2007-02-17T11:16:00.001-06:00

So today, Friday, nobody came to my 5 o’clock class. Right now I’m writing this in another teacher’s class. I decided to crash his class because they’re watching The Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s probably not a good movie to show ESL students because even I don’t understand what the hell the actors are saying sometimes. On Fridays you’re lucky to get half of your students; the same statistic is true for when it rains. Surely I’m committing some sort of logical fallacy when I reason that nobody came to class because it is raining and it’s Friday… I wonder if it’s sounder to say that a quarter of my students should have showed up (half of half, right?).

Three female teachers are slated to move into the teachers’ house. I’m not looking forward to that. Luckily however, I should only have to tolerate the lack of elbow room for a week or so. Tomorrow we’re going to be checkin’ out a place around the corner – furnished… affordable… If for some reason we don’t want it, we still have another place available to us: An apartment soon to be vacated by two current teachers. It, too, is affordable and furnished. This plan B also has 2 completely functional toilets, as of now. For as long as the current tenants have lived there, a Brit and South Carolinian, one of the toilets had never worked. The shower in that same bathroom also had (or has still, I’m not sure) a leak that ran (or runs) into the downstairs apartment, directly into a 6 year old girl’s bed. When the other toilet finally broke, they decided to piss into that shower – forgetting that has a leak. The other day after class these guys went home to find the downstairs neighbor patiently waiting at their door to remind them not to use that shower. To the best of their knowledge, the neighbor believes that all that dripped into his little girl’s bed was water. The other funny bit needs less explanation. These guys shat into bags until their toilets were fixed. I don’t know what became of the bags.

My neck is killing me and I think my wisdom teeth are coming in. I’m told that dentists are cheep and reliable here. The Brit, for example, got a few fillings for a mere 500 pesos. As with all my past dental troubles, I will probably wait until I’m in unbearable pain. Currently it’s only an occasional nag.

Once again, we don’t have any water. I think that either the ground tank is leaking into the ground or that we’re not getting any water from the city. In either case, I have serious doubts about getting a shower within the next week. Pretty soon I’ll have to start teaching French instead of English. To flush our shits, we’ve been filling up a bucket with water from what’s left in the water heater. This won’t last for long however until I, too, am shitting into bags.

rain, apartment, water, and bags of shit

2007-02-12T16:48:00.001-06:00

Requested Politica

2007-02-06T13:25:00.000-06:00

Alright, about that other stuff;

the political stuff: At least one class believes that the whole Zapatistan movement was a wasted effort – that no intended social benefit arose from their struggle. I’m not sure if I believe them simply because of their status. Moreover, that assessment flies in the face of the research I did in school. Their opinion though falls right inline with what they told me about the teacher’s strike in Oaxaca. They said that, frankly, it was bullshit on the part of the teachers. They recognize that Oaxacenos are severely underprivileged and that for teachers to demand higher wages is improper considering. That is, everybody down there is paid tiddly winks, so teachers should expect the same treatment. Further, they said that the governor down there, Ruiz I think his name is, who they were trying to oust, paid-off the organizers of the teachers’ strike to encourage them to not make any waves. My students said that what happened was that many teachers found out about this kickback and decided that they wanted some for themselves, and went on strike in hopes to get some of that money. Cars were burned, shops were looted and a few teachers were shot, but I don’t know about the extent of their wounds. According to my students, the strike leaders are now in jail. But my roommate, Oaxacan, says that this isn’t true. My roommate also told me that there’s a teacher strike every year and last year’s happened to be the nastiest. Some suspect that their coverage was due in part to the political climate of the time: A presidential election.

I was also informed that Fox, the guy that was previously in place, was useless because he married some woman, Marta I think, who is somehow related to the former dictator of Chile.. I may be getting that totally wrong though – I forget. They all had very nice things to say about Calderon, so I suspect that they didn’t vote Obredor. But like the rest of the world they don’t like Bush. I thought it interesting that they refuse to believe that Calderon is Bush’s lapdog (thought I’m not prepared to substantiate that claim this very moment).

And speaking about US-Mexican relations, they don’t like Venezuela because Chavez openly criticizes Mexico for being US friendly. The larger reason that some Mexicans don’t like Venezuela is however because of its increasingly socialistic political environment. I find it shocking that more Mexicans don’t appeal to socialism – it may just be this part of the woods though. While watching the Super Bowl I saw on Caribbean league baseball – yeah, winter league, eh? – Mexico getting whooped by Venezuela. 9 to nothin’, at the bottom of the 6^th. Later, Mexico held onto some later inning with 5 behind, bases loaded, and one out. They fucked that up and probably lost. We joked that maybe Chaves called the manager and said that he’d nationalize their ass if they didn’t win. I don’t really have all the facts in to form an good opinion about Venezuela yet, though.

Oh, and corn. Mexicans are pissed about their corn. Through NAFTA, Canada and Mexico brokered a deal where the Mexican government cuts subsidies to corn growers so that Canada can sell their stock to Mexico. Canada, in exchange, is supposed to eliminate all their tariffs on their corn exports to Mexico. They haven’t done that, but Mexico has already cut their subsidies. The result is that corn and especially tortillas have shot up in price. Boy, I tell you what, they need their tortillas here.

Recent events; nothing fantastic

2007-02-06T13:22:00.000-06:00

If it turns out that nobody’s aboard for Puerto Vallarta, then I may be traveling south for the Holy week and then some. The final destination will be Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo, on the Yucatan peninsula. We will however stop through Oaxaca and Chiapas for a couple of days each. This may be more chalked-full of interesting experiences than Puerto Vallarta anyhow.

Spanish is hard.

On Monday it rained like a sonofabitch. At one point while walking to work I had to take refuge under the awning of the entrance to this Argentine steak house. The bonus was that normally less than half of the students show up when it so far is drizzles.

Thursday the power was out throughout at least this part of San Luis because for the two days prior the wind was blowing like days reminiscent of spring in Mammoth. You couldn’t walk down the street in the middle of the day without getting dirt and what-not blown into your face, eyes, and ears. Leaves and branches littered the streets for a while. Even our tree-like bush decided to end it all too; it’s horizontal now, roots and all. Maybe it’s taking a little siesta (heh, Word doesn’t believe that ‘siesta’ is misspelled and it actually has ‘forty winks’ as one of the synonyms). Because using a class room after 6 requires lighting, we had the rest of the evening off and had ourselves a little barbeque. Later we bumped into 3 lovely girls and the local joint.

Student evaluations have come back: they’re wildly inconsistent and some are even irrational. It’s left me reluctant to go to my morning class, but more than happy to go to my first evening class. The coordinator has also finished her rounds of observations and hadn’t any complaints, so, whatever. They only thing she mentioned was that I missed good opportunities to correct pronunciation. I disagree. There are times to correct and times to just let them blabber on in English. It’s more damaging to stop them from talking because that’s what I’m trying to get them to do. I think it’s better to correct pronunciation only when they’re giving me one sentence or something.

Friday I broke a 4-day trend of not bathing. For one of those days the water heater was on the fritz, then we ran out of water on top of the roof (water that trickles in from the city stays in a holding tank below the house and is automatically pumped up to the top to provide water pressure), then after we manually turned in on, the dirtiest water you’ve ever seen came out of our pipes. Whatever was trying to get through our pipes clogged up the water to one of the showers. I’m now on my 3^rd day in a row having had a bath.

Let’s see, this is a 3-day weekend because Monday is Constitution day. Independence Day is on September 12^th I think. For teachers however it’s really a 2-day weekend seeing that there’s work to be done on Saturdays. Anyway, on Saturday night we went to some club that was playing drum n base or whatever. Not my style, really. One of my students was there. He got severely out of control – whaling around, etc. I heard that at the end of the night he had a run-in with the cops, but it must have turned out alright because otherwise we wouldn’t have known. With us at the drum&base thing was the 50 year old Canadian. She had a lot to drink, and had a little to smoke so she, I think, was a bit out of her element. At some point in night she was flailing about directly in front of the turn tables. The next day, which is today, I passed her on the street and she was surprisingly in one piece.

There’s this German-Mexican dude who owns a juice shop down the street and apparently has hook-ups. He invited us to his cousin’s club later that night. The cover is 70 pesos, but several of us got in para gratis. The 3 girls that we met a couple of nights before stopped by. This club played all mixed regeton, so it was a little more hoppin’. Some of these girls can shake it, damn.

And today was the Super Bowl. We watched it a Caliente, a casino and sports book. There’re big screens, a lounge like environment, etc. Weeks before, they said that they were going to be playing the American feed, CBS, with the calls in English and with same commercials -- the whole thing as it’s supposed to be enjoyed. When we arrived they kept it on the Deportas channel. One after another, an English speaker – the lot of us and several other patrons – would inquire about getting the American feed on. For every person he gave some b.s. excuse. At the end of the 1^st quarter they finally submitted and changed it to CBS. A round of applause came from the patrons when it was changed. I liked how he ‘threw a rock’ to win a Budweiser while playing ‘rock, paper, scissors.’ I won 10 pesos, but the guy I bet couldn’t make 10 pesos with the cash he had so would have to pay me my winnings later. When we went to the store I was giving him a hard time about a donation card for undernutritioned infants. Unfortunately, he turned the same trick on me and asked why I wasn’t going to buy it. Taking the initiative on what was supposed to be my behalf, he purchased the donation with the 10 pesos he owed me. Let’s see, what’s this thing called anyway …? “Un Kilo de Ayuda” (a ton of help, I guess).

Ugh, SO glad I don’t have to work tomorrow.

That’s about it for now I guess.

Soccer and weddings

2007-01-30T14:06:00.000-06:00

Alright, so the soccer game wasn’t that exciting – that is to say, everybody behaved themselves. I did however learn a great deal of Spanish profanity. San Luis lost 2-1. There was no scoreboard and the stadium is still under construction. Everybody is frisked several times on their way in. A friend said that he’s taken in his digital camera despite their policy of not permitting anything with disposable batteries for fear that they might be used as projectiles. He advised me to do as he’s done; bank on your gringo innocence. So, I mentally rehearsed saying what I needed to say, that I’m a tourist and I just want to take pictures, etc… it worked, though I had to say the same lines to each of the three ass-grabbing cops. Lets see, the beer was 20 pesos and it comes to you, you don’t go to it – in fact, you can’t get beer otherwise.

After the game one of the guys, Mexican, asked if we wanted to go to a wedding reception. There was me, one other teacher and 4 locals. We were all scroungy and not at all prepared to attend a wedding reception. The other gringo and I said that we probably shouldn’t, but then he mentioned free food and booze. Say no more. We actually ended up having a great time regardless of how underdressed we were.

More craziness ensued. We went to some person’s house and … well, I’m not entirely sure what happened. The next thing I know, I’m at my front door at around 4am. I lost my keys again and had to wake up my roommates to let me in. They weren’t too happy about that. Eventually my keys turned up in some dude’s car.

Today the first ever anti-American sentiment has crossed my path – well, it was actually directed at me. And by none other than a Canadian! I didn't take it personally though because she doesn’t even know the name of her very own PM. Fool. Nobody takes Canadians seriously anyway (except my dad - love ya, pops!)

Politics, Aliens, and things to come

2007-01-26T13:56:00.001-06:00

Today I went without a lesson plan for my classes. Instead, I decided that it would be useful for the students to practice speaking with some good ol’ conversation. This was easier with the older business people, but somewhat difficult with the younger crowd. Figuring that it would be easier to get and keep people talking is if it is over a contentious subject. For the adults the is was Mexican politics. For the jovens, it was the existence of extra terrestrials (the very thought of aliens gives me the creeps, by the way). My first two classes are comprised of these younger folk. I found that all of them believe that there is advanced life on other planets. I agree. Half of them believed that these same advanced little green men have and still visit Earth. That’s where we differ. Wondering if these beliefs are consistent across all of my students, I took a rough tally of the adult classes, too. As it turns out, every last student believes that there is advanced life elsewhere and half of them believe that we are being visited. I wonder what a broader survey would yield.

More interesting however were the political discussions. Fox, Calderon, Obredor, Chiapas, Zapatismo, Oaxaca, and the teacher’s strike were all at some point falling out of their mouths… but more on that later.

Tomorrow I’m going to a soccer game. You know, the kind where people go ape shit? The guys that I’m going with told me that last time they went, people were throwing rocks and flipped over a car. You can’t bring in digital cameras because they’re afraid that you’ll chuck the batteries. But that’s not all! I also have tickets for a luncha libre match on Wednesday. You know, the guys that wear masks n stuff? I had to come all the way to Mexico to go to a wrestling match! It should be awesome.

I wonder what they sell

2007-01-22T16:00:00.000-06:00

Yum! gimme some of that!

2007-01-22T15:27:00.000-06:00

Throughout the last few years of school when I actually gave a damn I would always scoff at the professors who weren’t able to return tests within the next few days of taking them. After all, I wanted my score damn it. Today I finished grading the last of 62 tests, and now I have some sympathy for those professors forced to score far more complicated tests and essays. I have upper-intermediate and advanced classes, so the tests are a little less objective seeing that there are more possibly correct answers to increasingly complicated grammatical structures. I feel sorry for those teachers who have to teach the mind-numbing beginner levels, but I despise them for how easy it is to grade their tests.

Today I found that the Mexican public education system teaches their youth that the world is composed of 5 continents, not 7. For a few moments I thought that I was mistaken when the entire class roared “NO!” when I said that there are 7. Never mind how the subject came up. When I began listing the continents, to substantiate my claim that there are in fact 7, they roared again at me when I mentioned North America and South America. Apparently the Mexican board of education (if that’s what it’s called) hasn’t got the news that they are planted on two entirely different tectonic plates. Moreover, they howled just the same when I mentioned Antarctica. “Why don’t you guys count Antarctica?” I asked. Because nobody lives there they said. Very interesting. This is my guess: Mexicans are gonzo Catholic. Plate tectonics entails Pangaea. Pangaea contradicts, maybe in a narrow sense, Genesis. Thus, they define “continent” to something to the likes of a large body of land populated by humans and demarcated by their respective indigenous dissimilitude. This way maybe it also allows some sort of consistency with the story about the Tower of Babble. Heh, I’m just stabbing wildly in the dark here.

At the end of class I had a short conversation with the student who had the highest score on the midterm. He’s also a helicopter pilot. He wrote in an essay that a guest to a foreign country should accept their customs in order to understand them (ahem, dependency thesis). I detailed the difference between the meaning of the words “tolerance” and “acceptance.” A light went off in his head and I felt like I accomplished something.

I’ve got gas like a mutha.

One of the administrators at school invited me to go salsa dancing. I felt a little guilty turning down her invite simply because I hate (and am incapable) of dancing. I know that I should learn – you know, take in the culture and so forth – but damn, there are lines that I have a hard time crossing. She doesn’t speak a lick of English and my Spanish has a lot to be desired, so I hope that I got the message across that I wasn’t turning her down because of some other reason.

There’s a humble looking and sounding girl in my morning class whom I’ve just learned is some sort of director of “international economic development” for her company. It blew me away because her demeanor doesn’t strike me as one for somebody of this stature. It led the discussion into international political theory though, which was fun. I [think] I introduced her to the Marxist view of international politics, and being a Mexican businesswoman, I think, she has a privileged viewpoint to truly understand the theory (if you don’t know what this theory entails, then look it up (Marxist international political theory – it has to do with subordination and hegemonic dependency)).

My Spanish classes are going well I guess. The class is composed of me and two Canadians. To be honest I’m not really learning anything because we keep getting hung up on their complete lack of Spanish experience. Obviously geography has something to do with it.

We’re still looking for a furnished home to rent, but our luck hasn’t been that great. And my paperwork still hasn’t arrived from the California government, so I’m still illegal (I’m not supposed to be working, technically). Speaking of which, I just got paid. 500 peso bills look cool. Some bills have a plastic-like transparent section. I think it’s neat-o.

Christ, I’m babbling.

2007-01-22T15:25:00.001-06:00

I’m actually sitting in class right now while the students take a practice exam. The midterm is tomorrow. Like any liberal teacher, I play nice, calming music while we do such things. For the past few classes I played some Paco de Lucia, but he’s had a pretty good run so far, so now I’m playing some Boards of Canada. There’s a student, Mauricio, a sharp little whippier-snapper who finished his practice exam far sooner than I had planned. He’s arrogant, too (as some clever bastards can be). “I’m done.” He announced in a tone like royalty, handing me his completed exam without making any eye contact whatsoever. Bastard. While I looked over his practice exam that took me a couple hours to make and him a few moments to complete, he listened to some NOFX I copied over to his ipod the previous week (he played it loud enough on his phones for me to recognize). Though I shouldn’t bear some competitive spirit when teaching, I took a little pride in finding a few incorrect answers. I, however, handed it back to him in a quite gentlemanly fashion. I had to give this guy something to do while everybody else finished their practice exams, I thought. So while he corrected his wrong answers I quickly whipped up some questions off the cuff: 1) What is the population of Buenos Aires? 2) What is the Socratic Method? 3) How many bones are there in the human body? 4) To which family does the duckbilled platypus belong? And 5) What is the name of Aristotle’s moral philosophy? I then plopped my laptop in front of him with Encarta opened. He found 1, 2, and 4 (his answer to 2 though was wrong – not his fault, but Encarta’s).

In a different class I said “shit” by mistake today and everybody laughed. What is it about profanity that they love? There have been times where I’m out ‘n’ about talking with non-students and they too want to know all the English profanity. In a fit of prudence I tell them about “damn” and “bastard.” They might get some “ass” if they’re lucky. I wonder if I tell them “schizer(sp)” they’d believe me – hell, maybe I should make up some random sounds while I’m at it.

While we were chillin’ at home today, some folks came by and knocked on the door. They asked, “you teach English?” Antonio, who answered the door, said that we do, but this isn’t the school. “That’s alright, we want personal lessons – where are you all from?” Tony said that there’s an American, a Canadian, and himself, Mexican. “May we speak to the Canadian?” I’m not bitter because the student is a 13 year old boy; more trouble than it’s worth, really. If, on the other hand, Carolyn, the Canadian, manages to land the gig at the rate she intends to table (100 pesos an hour), then I may be a bit jealous (the school pays us 45/hr).

I’m supposed to have a private class in a month with two students – the Ruski couple I mentioned in a previous post. I have yet to name my price, though I’m thinkin’ a G per month for three 2 hour sessions per week.

I’ve finished the Borges anthology I purchased months and months ago. There are some folk around these parts who have heard his name but don’t care much for him because he’s an Argentine. They hate their soccer team as well as gouchos, which apparently does not refer to the same kind of person as “vacerro(sp).”

Garage band, Caguamas, y hotdogs

2007-01-16T13:21:00.000-06:00

Note: The day I post is not necessarily the day I wrote. Capeesh?

So there’s this student who, for some strange reason, is infatuated with early 90’s grunge “music.” He always carries around his Nirvana bag and can usually be found wearing a shirt with Kirk Cobain. Apparently he sings in a band and he invited us to watch him practice yesterday. We met him down the street and piled into his friend’s car; three of us into a two door Ford Festiva wanna-be – there were already 4 people in it. We fit all the clowns in the car thus: Carolyn sat on the passenger’s lap, and in the back the drummer sat on one of the guitarist’s laps, I sat bitch and Antonio was smashed into the remaining seat. Without seatbelts we barreled down cobblestone streets into a rather bad part of town. I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all the entire way there. Solamente en Mexico, guey.

We arrived at a storage yard and small garage for one taxi company or another, got a case of “Caguamas” (ka-wa-mas: 940ml bottle of beer – sort of like a 40, but smaller) and had a listen. They played some of their own songs, some Nirvana and some Smashing Pumpkins. They believed that I am somehow supposed to know all the lyrics to every English song ever. After 4 or 5 caguamas of Leon they convinced me to sing. I did that one Nirvana song off of that album with the baby in the pool swimmin’ for a dollar bill…? It goes “heeeeeee’s the one who likes all our pretty soooooongs but he don’t know what it means…” I don’t remember the title. The nice thing about their little understanding of English is the ability to make up the words without them realizing that I’m really just saying gibberish – screaming, actually (grunge, remember?).

One thing leads to another and I’m puking in the bushes. Then a taxi comes and we shuffle in. Bada-bing, bada-boom, and we’re at my house. It was suggested to me that I go to the hotdog stand down the way. So I take some orders and somehow remember what everybody wanted. Once I received the dogs and paid for them, I started to walk away when it struck me that I had a hell of a lot of hot dogs. And I paid a pretty peso for them too. I turned to the guy and said something like, ‘hey, I didn’t order this many hotdogs.’ We then exchanged contradictions for a moment; ‘yes you did.’ ‘no I didn’t.’ ‘yes you did.’ Etc. Finally I decided that I’d just deal with it and sell them to all these people that have somehow ended up at my place. I managed to sell one to some kid on the street for 15 pesos on the way back home. When I arrived home everybody was like, ‘hey, give me my hotdog.’ I told them no, because they hadn’t paid me. Emphatically they told me that, yes, they had in fact given me some money. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and sure enough there were wads of pesos. It’s a good thing I didn’t sell the rest of them to other strangers on the way back. Nobody said anything about the missing dog.

On Sunday I ended the day watching SD lose against the Pats, but it was a good game. I was supposed to be on the radio today, but I sort of blew that off.

One of my students is a stripper – I think. My Saturday class is 4 hours long, so we take lunch half way through. I joined half the class at a joint down the street. The told me that the rules were that I had to speak Spanish the whole time because I make them speak English the entire time in class. Fair enough. To make a long story short, one guy said that we should go to this place, Golden Globe, to watch this other student dance. “Dance?” I asked. Yeah, dance – and “sin ropas.” I was calling them liars, but the rest of the people there – they all know each other – kept saying that it is true, that she really is a stripper. I asked her what a dancer needs to learn English for. She said that she wants to speak English so that she may some day live in the U.S. I presume that she doesn’t want to strip in the U.S., because English speaking ability really makes to difference in that arena.

This same class mentioned to me that I am the most prepared teacher they’ve had. Awww..

I’ve covered everything leading up the midterm with 3 days to spare, including review. Let’s see… we have Taboo, scrabble, word up, … Oh damn, that reminds me: I signed up for the TV and DVD tomorrow and I don’t have anything lined up. Damn. “Prepared,” my left foot.

… I ended up showing the first half hour of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. They hated it. Fuck ‘em – it’s a good movie.

2007-01-16T13:19:00.000-06:00

I think I remember somebody telling me when I first arrived that the Mexican pizza places are a joke – that they don’t know how to make pizza. How correct they were. And, to defend myself from somebody accusing me of some self fulfilling premonition, my roommate agrees. On the menu however was an onion and tuna pizza. I’m tellin’ ya, these guys like their tuna. Have I already mentioned the isle at the grocery store, half of which is dedicated to tuna cans? It’s that and mayonnaise; they’re addicted to them both. There’s mayo with lemon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s jalapeño mayo. Good luck finding peanut butter though. Caramel goat milk spread is good.

One American food that Mexico has managed to improve upon is the hotdog. Holy shit, man, they can make a dog. There’s a stand down the way that makes 9 different kinds of dogs. I just scarfed down one with jalapeños, guacamole, bacon, and Vishnu knows what else. My eyes rolled into the back of my head upon the first bite.

Tortas are good too – you can find torta places everywhere. A torta is basically a sandwich, Mexican style.

“Micheladas” are the worst thing ever. I’m not sure how they’re spelled, but they’re a drink with beer, clamato, some spices and hot sauce. BLECH! In Fresno I found some girls that liked Tapatio in their Coronas and I thought that they were just sort of, you know, crazy. Turns out there are plenty of crazy people out here bent on ruining a perfectly good beer.

Old Milwaukee is the most expensive beer I’ve seen yet. There are plenty of different beers down here that I don’t think make it into the states. So far my favorite is Montejo. They’re not big on ales. Most beer is light yellow, “cerveza clara.”

I’ve recently learned of some tradition only Mexican families observe: I don’t remember the name in Spanish, but it’s something like “3 kings day.” Among other things, a cake is made and a little plastic doll is buried in it. Whosoever takes a bite and gets the doll (it’s supposed to be baby Jesus) is supposed to make a ton of tamales to be eaten on February 2^nd. I don’t remember what that day is called. “3 kings day” is on the 7^th or something. So far, after talking to students about the holiday, I’ve heard two stories about where a family member intentionally swallowed the doll so that they wouldn’t have to make or buy a ka-zillion tamales (Mexicans have big families – and they bring their friends, too).

I have a student that stays after class to talk to me about this, that, and the other. I’m not sure if she’s dropping me hints or is just genuinely interested in English and “American culture.” We shall see. I’ve learned that it’s quite common for teachers to date students.

I enjoy teaching, more or less. It can be a pain the ass though to give the same lesson 4 times in one day. All the bugs are worked out by the last class, but my fuse is a little shorter then. The first class gets a cheerier teacher, but a lesson riddled with errors. For example, I was pronouncing “gerund” as “gur-und” when it’s “jer-und.” The next day I broke it to the class that I am a total fool. Its amazing how forgiving they are; youngsters (14-19) and professionals alike.

I’m on the Mexican, woe woe, radio – this Sunday that is. I’m not totally sure what to expect, but one of the teachers, an American, is the host. Every week he has another teacher on as a guest. All they do is bullshit. Sounds fun. Also, they play whateverthefuck they want. Copyrights? Pishaw! “did you bring any music with you?” he asked. I mentioned a hundred gigs or so of mp3s. “Perfect” he said.

I was almost creamed crossing the street two days ago. Red lights are apparently ignored late at night. So are stop signs. We took a taxi home who, by the way, took the long way home, and blew through every stop sign. Ay ay!

Tap yer toes a clap yer hands.

Whatever

2007-01-10T14:06:00.000-06:00

Who the hell uses “Mustn’t?” Nobody in the U.S., that’s for sure. But oh no, I have to teach it. It’s like when I learned in Spanish class in high school that “car” is “coche.” Nobody uses “coche,” especially in Mexico. What happened the first time I used “coche” with a Spanish speaker? They laughed at me. I found that instead they use “carro.” Likewise, it wouldn’t be responsible of me to allow them to use “mustn’t.” I mustn’t teach “mustn’t,” but I’m compelled to by the school.

Recently I’ve been prefacing my lessons with something to the tune of, “look, I have to teach this because it’s on the test.” The test is prepared by the school. “If you are speaking with a native English speaker from the U.S. – which is why all of you are here – do not use this grammar structure (or phrase or word or whatever). Instead, say … “

Yesterday I spent the entire day for each of my 5 classes pounding into their heads the difference between “I’d” and “I’ve” when talking about a past desire that ended in the past versus a past desire that continues on into today. Later I took a look at the test. It’s not on there. It’s bullshit anyway.

Over a week into the course and they’re still admitting new students. They’re out of books and will likely not get anymore for another month. The book was written in 1994 anyway. Regardless, these new students will likely draw a blank when confronted by a few sections of the test, the material of which had already been covered (and there’s no book for them to study on their own, or to furthermore reference back to a topic yet to be taught). I suspect that they’d admit a student all the way into the last week of class. I’m beginning to see that this and other schools in the area hold the peso in higher regard than student success.

I’ve begun looking for a place with Carolyn. Bev, the older one, is showing her age: Lots of suggestions about, well, everything we should and shouldn’t do. Uninformed decisions really. She’s also proven to be a pathological liar. Image a 50 something year old Canadian woman telling you that she was married to a 20 year old obese hockey player just a few months before she moved here to Mexico, after getting a divorce. She makes up the most bizarre and unimportant white lies simply for .. what? No reason at all. So strange. I can’t wait to get the hell away from her and whatever the hell disorder she suffers from.

.. this post is unedited. If there are errors, oh well.

so far so good

2007-01-04T13:50:00.000-06:00

So I’m into my first week of teaching and so far it’s pretty fun. I am teaching 4 classes of “upper intermediate” students, and one four hour class of “advanced.” The classes that are the most fun are those comprised completely of younger students, which is really only one of them; 5 students, all between 15 and 20. With them I can have a little fun and they’re more forgiving. There is another class, 15 students all of whom are older business types, that is a bit serious and a little demanding. I’m the youngest person in the classroom. On the first day one of the students decided that she disagreed with some sentence structure or another (it had something to do with using “was” instead of “is”). Because she was flat wrong and arguing about it would have detracted from the focus of the lesson, I was sort of short with her about why I was right and she was wrong. When I got home it dawned on me why she believed what she did, so today I made a short point about her confusion – detailing to her and the class … well, you get the drift.

When I get home and start chatting with my roommates, I have to force myself to stop annunciating and avoiding slang in my speech. I use a lot of four letter words just to shake the trend. For the first hour or so after work I tend to sound like some sort of automated over-the-phone menu system.

I haven’t held my “advanced” class yet. It’s only one day a week, but as I said, four hours long. There’s another teacher who has the same level 5 days a week. I think I’ll enjoy this level the most because the first few lesson plans involve argumentation. Shit, finally a practical application of some good ol’ fashioned philosophy.

I wonder what my students thought of me when for a moment I thought that the English alphabet has 26 letters and that “satellite” is spelled with one L. Ah well, I corrected myself later and there were only 2 students there.. one of them probably didn’t know what the fuck I was saying anyway.

2007-01-03T15:31:00.001-06:00

Does anybody know the difference between “speak” and “talk?” It’s the first day, and some damn punk is already stumping me.

new years, etc.

2007-01-02T15:15:00.000-06:00

Oh my Vishnu. What happened? Where am I? Today is January 1, 2007 – I think. Mexicans do things a little bit differently for New Year’s Eve. As it turns out, they spend time with their families and even exchange gifts, much in the same fashion as in Christmas. The real fun doesn’t begin until some time after 12. Until then people are lighting off fireworks in the streets and in their front and back yards below power lines and trees; next to cars and houses. It was really a war zone walking from the house to the club. A helmet and a flack jacket wouldn’t have been entirely inappropriate.

This teacher’s girlfriend has some connection at this club called Tonic. She used said connection to get a hold of a few “VIP” passes. If it weren’t for these passes, we wouldn’t have been able to enter. I felt like a rock star. There was a band and the place was packed. Mixed drinks were 35 pesos. Lots of dancing and lots of pretending that I understood what the pretty girls were telling me … I think you all get the picture – it’s a “fancy” Mexican club on New Year’s Eve. Use your imagination. This girl I was dancing with (yeah! I’ve been dancing!) said that she wanted to pick me up and take me to dinner the next evening at 8pm. She never showed. Whatever.

5:30 AM rolls around, the lights come on, and people start to leave. As I was walking down the street I came across some guys around my age hanging around their car that was blasting some kind of Mexican music or another. They asked if I liked tequila. I told them that of course I did. So the booze kept flowing, but now street side. Their English was unintelligible so, well, it was interesting. I got home at about 7am.

Tomorrow is the first day of work. I really hope that my brain recovers enough by 6am in order to teach how to use … past continuous reflexive pronouns or whatever (I totally made that up, but really, I’m going to be learning this grammar shit moments before I have to teach it). I’m not a religious man, but if you’re out there somewhere, save me Superman.

There’s one last thing that I’m still struggling to come to terms with: Mexican time. That is, whatever equation is used to translate a length of time when spoken to the real amount of time that is observed. For example, 10 minutes is something like 45 minutes, “right now – orita” is something like 15 minutes, and “tomorrow” never comes. Teachers tell me that although class may start at, say, 9AM, students will start arriving around 9:30. We’ll see how this goes.

… this is how it went: my 7am class doesn’t have enough students enrolled yet and my 9am, which has 7 students enrolled, was totally vacant. I have 3 more classes today, but I’m not expecting much of a turn out. I’m told that people will start showing up a week into the term. I’ve been advised to not teach any lessons and instead just bullshit around with them for 1 and ½ hours. Otherwise, when students start showing up, I’d have to repeat the lessons.

Crazy crazy crazy

2006-12-31T16:30:00.000-06:00

I have two new roommates and they share several things in common: They are both hail from Canada and are female. The both also enjoy drinking a lot and smoke like chimneys. The big difference between them though is that one is care-free and 21, and the other worries about everything and is 53.

Last night the older one, Bev, and I went to some restaurant where we put down a bottle of Chilean wine, 2003, and two appetizers -- stuffed mushrooms and potato skins. Oh so good; not like anything else I’ve ever tasted. The stuffed ‘shrooms came with something called “salsa mole.” I asked what it was, but because of what’s likely a language barrier, the only response I got was, “salsa.” Whatever it is, it’s the best “salsa” I’ve had it my entire life. I could drink a bottle of it. As the night went on, and this somewhat elderly woman put down more wine, she offloaded all of her social problems onto me. Apparently I’m a good listener. I’ll save you the details of all the wrong turns she’s taken throughout the past 4 decades or so of her life. We paid the bill and continued down the street (with a certain swagger to our step). There was some good music and person-generated noise bellowing from a down the way, so stepping inside to see what all the commotion was about seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I had 2 shots of tequila and a Tecate (it’s as ubiquitous as Budweiser here). Behind me I saw a table of 4 girls, alone, who were giving me the once over. What the hell, I thought, so I staggered over and introduced myself. We carried on a clumsy conversation in Spanish until – finally – they confessed that they knew a little English. The night went on until one of the girls asked if I had a phone number. Unfortunately I do not, so she asked for an email address. That, I do have. So I wrote it down and handed it to her. One of the girls from across the table snatched that up from her and copied down my email address for her self, then it got passed around until they all eventually had my email address. Fine by me. Later, the girl who initially asked for my info, Irma, had to leave. Upon doing so, she wrote down her physical address, home phone, and cell phone numbers for me. I didn’t ask for them. A hug and a kiss, then she was gone (If you don’t know, the whole hug n kiss thing is standard operating procedure in these parts among opposite sexes and women – I’m a fan of it, regardless). She asked that I call her the next day to go dancing. I don’t dance, but hey, fuck it. So I called her and she asked that I call again at 8pm for her to tell me which club they’ll be at and I’d meet up with her. So I did and there was no answer. Que serra serra (whatever will be, will be). Instead I left her a text message inviting her to attend our low-scale house party the next day.

But hey, I don’t need some chick to keep me from going out anyway and having a good time, so I did. The new 21 year old whipper-snapper and I went to what may be considered downtown SLP. In Mexico there are mixed drinks that can be purchased in 12oz cans that look like any other soda can. We got a few and went out into the bustling plaza and put ‘em down. Soon we heard a live band playing covers of American classic rock songs. We went to the source, got a table, had a listen and put a few more back. Before I continue, don’t get the wrong idea, this girl is such an American princess (though, yeah, she’s Canadian – it still stands) that I can hardly tolerate her. Once we were done there, we were walking down the street and heard good regeton and laughter, etc. from a place and went in. The place was shoulder to shoulder. There too, was a live band, but better. This get-up had horns, a few vocalists and was of overall higher quality. So we’re sitting back when this drop-dead gorgeous Latina asked me to dance. So, with some hesitation, I did. This girl can move her hips better than Chakira could ever hope. This girl is so sexy, I’m not even going to waist my time trying to explain it in this post I’m wring at 6am (I just got back – Mexican’s party late). The night goes on, and she volunteers her phone number to me; this, much in the same way as the girl from the previous night in that it was never elicited; I never asked for her info. She, also like the last, insisted that I call her the next day. I’m beginning to realize that certain privilege come with being a white American. These girls are falling into my lap without almost any special effort on my behalf.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. It’s observed a bit differently here. People exchange gifts much in the same fashion as they, and we, do during Christmas. It’s a day spent with family and not going out and getting crazy, as we do. This does not mean that eventually people leave their homes to get crazy in the new year – i.e., after 12am. As luck would have it, one of the guy’s father whom we were talking with at the 2^nd club owns some fancy shmancy club down the way. He and his gang, including Fantina, the super crazy sexy hot girl that gave me her number, will be coming by moments after 12 to go to this club, VIP passes in hand. Tomorrow is likely to be insane.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. Tomorrow we’re having a dinner party at the teacher’s house. During the past couple of party days, we’ve taken the liberty to invite many, many people. God knows who’s going to show up. Among them however are the group of 4 girls I met 2 days ago. I’m wondering what’s going to happen when Irma and Fantina both show at the same time. Cat fight!

I wonder if I should be concerned that my 21 year old roommate, Caroline, hasn’t returned home. It’s now 6am.

…

It’s the next day, and Caroline walked through the door at 2pm, just as I was waking up. “Where the hell were you?” I asked. Really I shouldn’t have asked though – if I ask no questions she will tell no lies.

So many other things to tell, but maybe for another post. I found a place that offers free wireless internet, but there’s something wrong with my laptop. They’re nice enough though to allow me to hook an Ethernet cable right up to their router.

People are so nice here it’s crazy. I’m sure it has something to do with the color of my skin, but whatever. This is not TJ!! I’m not sure if I’ve already posted this elsewhere, but SLP is really the Hamptons of Mexico. There are Hummers, Corvettes, Escalades, etc.

Interesting things

2006-12-31T16:29:00.000-06:00

Some interesting things:

I purchased some Oxy and when I squeezed the bottle, it came out brown. I think now I will be more conscious of my skin color. It’s like living on a planet where everybody has 3 legs, and the pants are made to accommodate. Applying brown facial cream is like putting on pants and discovering an extra leg. I wonder if elsewhere, where the Oxy is white, a brown person raises their brow as I did.
There are no gas lines. Apparently, gas is purchased in limited quantity. Some guy comes by and fills your tank. If you’re not home when he comes by, your tank doesn’t get refilled. They show up somewhere between 9am and 5pm – er, excuse me, 17:00. I’m not sure what the cost is quite yet and frankly I don’t give a damn. All I want is a hot shower. It would be nice also if this place were heated by the same tank (or heated at all – electric for example), but that may increase the chance of it being depleted come shower time. It’s currently 58F in my room. A small price to pay for a scolding hot shower, whenever it may come.
Mexicans drive with futility. There is a severe lack of stop signs and lights. The existing lights and stop signs are held in low regard anyway. I don’t know what the word “yield” is in Spanish, but I’m sure plays no role in the Mexican driving game. Whoever is supposed to go and who stops at a crossing is determined by whoever has the larger vehicle or whoever is the most insane. After driving around town with the boss fellow today I must have counted a dozen games of chicken while crossing intersections or merging. Nobody honks. What a coincidence, I just heard screeching of tires and smashing of metal right outside of my room.
Everybody has heard that you shouldn’t drink the tap water here. This really sucks when you’re thirsty and you’ve no bottled water. A sandpaper throat temps one to stick their head right under that spout, but then the prospects of dysentery helps to make the right decision. I worry about brushing my teeth of washing my face.
When it’s really cold some people put on gloves, a scarf, and/or a beanie. Other people wear surgical masks. At first I thought it was because they were protecting themselves from pollution or something. Realizing that the pollution isn’t that bad at all in SLP, I asked an English speaking local what the deal was. Turns out it’s because it’s cold. I have to be careful of letting in ethnocentricity when passing judgment, but sometimes reason kicks down the door. The only thing I can think of is that a surgical mask keeps their nose warm from their breath.
The wine section of the grocery store is divided into the regions from where they were bottled. I didn’t recognize a single label in the Estados Unidos section. Either their being scammed or these mystery labels aren’t that great. Canned beer is more expensive than bottled, chewing tobacco is totally alien, and the Spanish version of Maxim is Sexo. And like Mexican television, it’s better (well, the pictures are anyway).

By the hair of my chinny chin chin

2006-12-26T18:23:00.000-06:00

Things almost ended before they ever began. Every averted disaster was my fault, save the most devistating one. To begin with, I waited at the wrong gate for seven grueling hours. Let me explain to you how stupid I am: After landing into LAX, I inspected the departure listings and found but one flight for Mexico City. It’s departure time was the same as the departure time of my actual flight. So after waiting for longer than I’d wish upon any other poor soul, the women checking tickets advised me that my flight was at some other section of the airport. Getting there required leaving the terminal, going outside, catching a bus, checking in all over again, and finally boarding. The gate was at the furthest end of this section of the airport. I ran the entire way; even fell on my ass down a flight of stairs. As I borded the flight, they closed the door right behind me. Just barely made it. A nice elderly man on the plane kept trying to talk to me, but I didn’t understand him. I just nodded and grinned like a dumb gringo. He might have been asking about why I was covered in sweat and panting. The next leg of the journey involved going through customs and then catching my connecting flight to SLP. It departed in one hour. I did my best to navigate myself to the gate number printed on my ticket. I swear to vishnu that there was no such gate number. I think it was 630A, but the highest gate number in the whole of Mexico City International Airport was 80. So I asked somebody: “Donde esta ese puerto?” She directed me to terminal B. Terminal B ranged from gates 9 to 16 or something. I looked at the signage of every gate and found one that said San Luis Potosi. It had a different flight number however. I showed the lady my ticket, asked if I was in the right place, and I think she said yes. No departing flight was ever listed on the departures board. Crazy crazy crazy. Once landing in SLP, a one horse airport, the 12 or so passangers proceded to baggage claim. About 4 articles were unloaded from the plane. 3 of us sort of stared at eachother. They had lost our luggage. Try trying to figure this out with a Mexicana – the airline – customer service lady who doesn’t speak a lick of English. Well, I got it figured out and so did they. The folks here at English Unlimited helped me to follow up with my baggage claim and are now telling me that Air Mexicana is going to be dropping off my stuff today between 6 or 7. We’ll see. The latest disaster development: I have no hot water. Checked the water heater. It’s out. Tried to light it. Nothing. Tried the stove. Nothing. No Gas. The man in charge is aware of this, but who knows when it will be turned on. If it were 90F out then I’d have few qualms with bathing in ice cold water, but not when it’s 55F. Oh, and for those of you who knew about my documentation problem – it’s really not a problem. Mexico, go figure. .. all this will probably be edited later. I’m writing this after having been awake for, lets see, 33 hours with a couple one hour power naps thrown in there.

Introduction

2006-11-28T01:45:00.000-06:00

So I've accepted a job teaching English as a foreign language in San Luis Potisi, Mexico. I'll arrive there early in the morning the very day after Christmas. I begin on the 2nd of January. Some have shared with me their sympathies of having to travel on Christmas day, but it doesn't bother me. Indeed, I think that this holiday is foolish in some aspects (and in more ways than the obvious theistic one). A few have even thought that the company that hired me, English Unlimited, has forced me to travel on this day. On the contrary; flying on December 25th was my choice. My starting wage will be 45 pesos per hour - supposedly a prime rate for entry level teachers - and a minimum of 25 hours per week. I'll save you checking the conversion rate: That's a whopping $4.05 in U.S. dollars. However don't despair-- this is a livable wage in this nick of the woods. It seems that everybody who learns of this is more excited for me than I am for myself. "Oh, you're going to have so much fun!" they say. Well, what's excitement for them is anxiety for me. I'm going to be performing a job for which I bear little qualification for, and have even less experience. If there is any elation accompanied by this change though, it is for leaving my current dead-end warehousing job - the place for which I hold a special kind of loath and hatred for. Click here to read what Wikipedia has to say about San Luis Potosi (notice that the elevation is 6,157 feet - burrrr):