Starting To Feel Like Home

It has been more than a month since my last blog. Things are still going really well. During the last week of September I was walking to work one day and I realized that going on this walk was now in my routine and not a strange thing to do in the morning. Basically I don’t feel weird being here anymore, it feels normal. One big reason for that is I am finding it easier to speak Spanish. I don’t really know how much I have improved but it is a lot easier to express myself and to understand people. The only people I am with all day everyday are people who speak Spanish. One of the things that were really hard the first few weeks was that I didn’t feel like I could express myself to the people here and so they couldn’t really know me as I really am. I didn’t really have too many problems with conversations that involved informational exchanges but it was my inability to participate in fully in the friendly banter and jokes that was keeping me from feeling like I was belonging here. In these past two or three weeks I have felt like I have been able to include myself in friendly joking conversations and I really feel like I have bonded with a lot of the people I live and work with.

One of the guys in the community is named Chucho (short for Jesus) and he is from a village in Veracruz that speaks Nahautl, which is the language of the Aztecs. Another guy named German, (pronounced Hermahn) who is from the great state of Oaxaca, speaks Mazateco. They speak these languages to their family on the phone and stuff it is really cool, they sound more like Mandarin or Arabic than Spanish. German and Chucho didn’t learn Spanish until grade school because their village still uses these languages to express themselves in their political, economical, and social everyday life. These diverse and special ways of seeing the world and interacting are being lost with the increasing trend of globalization that is homogenizing the many cultures of the world into the non-culture of capitalism.

Elvida is another person that I have really bonded with. Elvida is the cook for Casa Manuel so I obviously had a natural affinity to her haha. She is such a character; the guys are always saying things to provoke her because they know she will be right over to give them a few hits with the quantity and severity varying depending on what the comment was. Elvida is really politically conscious as well and we have had a lot of good convos.

I have also been able to get to know the people at my job a lot better. The person I work with the most is a woman named Magda (short for Magdalena). She is such a lively and fun person to be around. She always either has a group of people around her talking and laughing, or is quietly and compassionately listening to someone who may have just gotten some bad news from a doctor or is having family problems.

So this past Saturday I just started teaching English to people in who live near the parish of San Andres. The classes were great, I think it is going to be a challenge to figure out how to teach these different levels of English but I already have learned a lot and I am excited about continuing. The Assumptionsts just took over the parish so it is an interesting and exciting time to start this up. This parish is in a really poor area and they don’t have very good schools so they are happy to have a native speaker to help the kids. Mexico city is located in a valley with mountains on all sides. The city has expanded sooo much so that the poorer communities that are being built or have been built need to be higher and higher in the volcanic and mountainous terrain. This gives the church of San Andres so serious views and I will have to send some pictures really soon. It is sprawling city for as far as u can see in some directions, like an ocean of city.

I do have some qualms about teaching the language of the gringos to Mexicans. In this country where so much of the culture is threatened by the United States influence I don’t want to be helping to de-Mexicanize Mexico further by teaching English or being an unconscious salesman for American culture. I do think though that I can make these classes into a democratic learning experience for the students and myself with some creativity and awareness.

Well that is the general update for now, stay tuned for more on Independence Day and my birthday!