these days

I am in my third week at the American School Foundation of Mexico City.  An entire year has passed by since my last blog post.  I am finding myself compelled to write and to share, to reflect.

The past year finishing at my former school was challenging and rewarding.  There were lots of struggles with the institution and the organization of the school, which all make my successes even more rewarding.

A lot has happened, including a new pet, a new job, a new house, and new adventures.

Here are some highlights...

I adopted a little street dog, Canela:

My students created a technology-rich family event with their own websites and a QR code scavenger hunt to navigate their parents through the day:

Roberto, not just a highlight, but someone who has been there to lean on, to adventure and goof off with:

I also was able to spend a significant amount of time traveling throughout Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia the past year:

More from me in less than a year.
Love.

new year's resolutions

I never really make resolutions at the turn of the calendar year, but at this juncture in time I am finding it very natural to make resolutions about the coming year. This past year has been one of my most challenging, but after lots of hard work and struggles, I see this year unfolding before me full of promise. I made the difficult decision to stay for a second year and I believe without any doubt that it was the right decision. After getting to travel all over the country with some friends here, I went to Seattle for the other half of my summer break. I was steeped in love, laughter, nature, good coffee and good company and truly have returned prepared. I was able to spend time with some of my nearest and dearest friends and family and somehow leaving them to come back to Mexico hardly felt sad. I have come back incredibly refreshed and armed with so many things I now know I need. My cab ride from the airport greeted me with crowded streets full of colors and sounds and it just felt good to be back. I start Spanish classes at UNAM in one week, signed up for real internet, and am joining a gym... my resolutions include action, acceptance, travel and fierce positivity. After a year where I felt like I was so bombarded with challenges that I constantly kept my head down, I am ready to look up and out and take in a fuller experience this year.

one thing i know i have shared

At the end of the year, when everything is so exhausted you can't remember what it was all about, I had a moment this morning where I could see it again clearly. Today, I had the fourth and final read-a-thon with my fourth graders. Each quarter we have had a day entirely devoted to reading and it has been one of the most rewarding things to spread a love for reading to my students. They get so excited about the read-a-thon: they bring blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and their favorite books. I bring popcorn and a book in Spanish and join them on the floor to read. Every ten pages they read, they take a green paper circle to tape to a caterpillar that started in one corner of the room and has slowly wrapped its growing green body around the walls of our classroom representing our collective reading and our collective love for it. Today, since it was our final event, I opened the event to parents or family members. Several parents came today and I think they found it quite confusing as they walked into a silent room. How could their child be so excited, talking nonstop about a silent, no frills event? Could this really be it? Our school focuses so much on throwing parties and having big shows and performances as the events the students share with their parents. And here I was, inviting them for a quiet moment on the floor with their child. It was so touching to see. One student was particularly inspiring to see; a girl who struggled and hated to read in the beginning of the year brought her busy-and-important politician father, in his designer work clothes and fancy shoes, to come and join her to read together. She was wrapped up in a blanket as they shared a book together on the floor. It was such a lovely and simple thing. In an affluent community, these types of moments are not the ones that get the glory. But the love for reading, the love for reading together that my parents gave to me, shared with me, raised me on... beyond all the data and doubts and difficulties when trying to sum up accomplishments at the end of a school year... this is one thing I know I have shared with my students.

the cool seat on the bus

the other day i took the bus during peak hours. usually i take the bus during peak hours against the flow of traffic so there is a comfortable amount standing room on nearly any bus i take. this time though, i was going with traffic and i was running late. there was definitely no choosing a less crowded one, i just had to jump on the first bus and squeeze my way into a little cranny between a woman and her baby and a worker and his buckets. this fortunate place was just at the top of the steps and happened to be with a handrail nearby. i was squeezed up into the windshield, and after shamelessly complimenting my eyes, the bus driver had to ask me to move because he couldn't see in the side mirror.

more and more people piled on the bus through the front and the back, squeezing into each other with the doors barely closing behind us. soon after, i noticed two fingers holding two pesos out of the corner of my eye. since my little perch was right by the fare box, soon all new comers were passing their fare up, up, up, up and i put each one into the box, took a ticket from the driver and passed each one back, back, back, back. after i silently indicating to the driver it was my stop, i dodged through the crowds and sprang out the door. my friend mariela was waiting for me and as i told her about my trip she was laughing and laughing. she said passing money on the bus like that is something that has long disappeared but used to just be the way the bus worked... she told me i had a "true folkloric bus experience." it certainly ended up being one of my favorites!

familiarly foreign

After hitting the snooze button for an hour and a half, I had to get up out of bed and dodge the feeling of dread about going to work I’d been having all week. I got ready at super-late speed and ran out the door. I bought a hot drink and a pastry from the sweet street vendor who knows my order now. I darted through traffic and flagged down the bus, driven by a man who knows the stop where I get off now. As I sat on the bus, holding my champurrado so it wouldn’t spill, I realized this is the exact same morning as I've had countless times in Seattle. Oversleeping, dreading work, being a regular somewhere, running to the bus… The sensation that countries and borders are fabricated social concepts washed over me. At the same time, I watched a very different world go by outside the window of the bus, I thought about how very different countries and cultures truly are from one another. And because the times that I will do this same morning again in Mexico are few enough to count, I thought about how I can make the most of this experience. How can I soak up everything there is to learn and see… How can I push my fluency, how can I experience the culture more fully... I am learning so much about humility, the importance of relying on others, about how to build a life for myself when everything comfortable and familiar is very far away. And although these are quests that will never be fully realized, in my time here I want to struggle each day to make the most of it. And the small comforts and familiarity I’ve (re)created for myself here that make a new country less foreign and make myself less of a foreigner, are landmarks of a small success in that process.

a pleasant surprise

After turning in an English exam, a sixth grade boy told me, "I've never written anything like that before in my life. It really came from deep down in here," pointing to his heart. I dug through the pile of exams when I got home and fished his out first. We had been doing a unit on civil rights and the students responded to a prompt where they were an African American activist in the 1960's who was asked to write a speech for Martin Luther King to read at a rally in Washington DC. His response really was lovely:

"Dear friends,

Today we're here to protest about our rights. We all know that white people think we're different, but do not ever think that too, my folks. We are all equal! Just because another person tells you to do something, or to feel something are you doing to do it!? If they tell you to act like a dog, like less than you are, are you doing to do it!? Of course not, and all stops here today, folks.

Let's change our topic a little. I know you have heard that we're about to convince the president to think differently about our rights, but some of you think that it won't work. It will! It must! He is thinking but you should continue with the protest, continue with our actions. White people will notice they need us, and that we won't help them until we have the same rights, the same treatment as them.

Folks, believe in it. Believe in hope, believe in god, pray he will surely hear you and help us with this. Folks believe with all your heart that we can, because if you believe it we really can do this!

(clap, clap, clap)."

Indeed. Clap, clap, clap!

sloth

There are so many things that I need to work on, yet often times I find myself drained and doing nothing. I have a sink full of dishes, a basket full of laundry, a stack of ungraded papers, an empty week in my plan book, Spanish homework, and a completely untouched 100% un-started giant paper to write for my university. Moments ago, I found myself on the couch, watching youtube videos in my pajamas. What happened to my plan of breakfast and dishes done by 9:30 and ready to work on planning from 10 - 12, then walk to the coffee shop to work on my UW paper? I guess it has become a (boring) blog post. Where do my energy and focus disappear to? Certainly I need more yoga and vegetables in my life... Advice?

back to blogging

After a conversation with my mother (who swears she isn't just saying this because she's my mom) who was insisting (other days one might refer to this pattern of conversation as nagging) that I spend more time with my blog. And after finally remembering my blog title and URL, here I am. Reminded through past entries of my own thoughts and words that have captured some of the most interesting and challenging moments of my young life, I realize how quickly and how blurry those months have passed. The (sparse) past entries reminded me how much I needed reminding of these months I have spent so far in Mexico.

So, mom, you're right. I spend hours behind the screen of my computer writing exams and plans and homework, but not recording my own experiences in doing so. I am adapting to a new culture, learning another language, having the little adventures that seem to follow me no matter what continent I am on... in short, I am living the life I want for myself; the life I want for myself includes reflection and a meditation on these moments. To watch them pass more closely. To appreciate the beauty, the absurdity, the humor, the tragedy that I see unfolding outside my window. As I watch life and observe forms of day-to-day chaos from behind my coffee cup, I am going to do better to reflect and meditate upon them from behind my computer screen.

my neighbor

Since I last wrote, I saw more of the city than I had in all my time spent here previously, put together. Museums, neighborhoods, pyramids, festivals, día de muertos (which was amazing beyond anything I could have imagined), taking a boat to a nighttime play performed on an island, and most importantly, listening to my neighbor take up a new hobby: woodworking. Even now, in the dark, I am listening to the misguided clattering of wood and tools. The "box" he made for a Christmas gift took hours daily for over two weeks in its construction and I am fearing for my sanity as his new coat-stand project is just now underway. At the end of a busy day at school, just when all the "Medi, Medi, Medi's (phonetic spelling of Mary)" are starting to dissolve from my ears, I've relaxed long enough that grading papers at home starts to seem doable, the clacking and pounding starts literally echoing through our enclosed little courtyard. And now, upon the start-up of his power saw, I think I am going to go find a cafe.

R&R

As I continue with the final stages of my masters, this weekend I think we stumbled across the most useful component of the program yet. I don't remember what the R&R in the course title is supposed to stand for, but reconnected and refreshed was how I was feeling after 5 hours of being glued to my computer. Seeing the familiar faces of members of my cohort in their respective countries, sharing struggles, supporting each other with ideas, empathy and solutions was much more refreshing and useful than I anticipated. It was so nice to talk to people with similar training, background and language about some of the heaviest issues we're lifting as new teachers. Hearing about the successes and challenges that everyone is facing, finding out how everyone is making it in a foreign country and learning a language while being a first year teacher was truly inspiring. I feel lucky to know a group of passionate, adventurous people who are having experiences parallel to my own around the world. After a bout of school-related stress dreams, it feels pretty nice to walk into my classroom on a Monday morning with a little inspiration in my pocket.

words from a student

Last week, my 6th graders had an assignment to look at this link about the BP oil spill. They wrote some comparative statements about its size and a reflection/response with their thoughts, feelings, and ideas... Here is one that I want to share:

"The thing that happen affect us and that is why we have to work together. Because the oil spill is killing the water, the nature, the animals, and also the humans home. We have to work together to save it if we want that our sons live here because it is very probable that the world will not die because a ball of fire comes from the sun. It is more probable that we die because we kill our animals, our nature, our home, we pollute our air. It is funny we can't live without our atmosphere, air, water, nature, food and what are the things that we are killing? Do a question to yourselves: why we destroy the things that we will die without? ¿Why we destroy our home if it is the home that gave us life? Only 1/5 of the world is trying to save it, in the reality it is less than that helping. We can do it, but only together¡¡¡¡"

a list

Since I have been in Mexico, I have filled my days with the little things that typically characterize my life... things that are simultaneously interesting, boring, silly and lovely... A short list includes:

• singing with a mariachi band in front of my co-workers
• waiting and waiting and waiting for change from a machine that clearly says it does not give change
• taking the metrobus for the first time late night post-cantina (sorry mom, but fortunately it turned out to be one of the amazing women only cars)
• accidentally buying toilet paper con aroma and subsequently scenting my bathroom like a giant grandma-baby
• crying in a class meeting about racism in front of my 6th graders
• climbing through the window of a vacant house to discover the most amazing rooftop view of the city i have seen to date

After a day of confusing, stressful and broken Spanish conversations, a brand new washer/dryer unit is sitting in the middle of my kitchen and instead of trying read the directions to install it, I am going to climb back up on that rooftop.

the line between us

before i came to mexico, i experienced a lot of questioning and skepticism about why i would come to this country. there was a distinct, tense and racially charged undercurrent to these comments. once i arrived i have become increasingly aware of the presence of an anti-american sentiment here; equally as tense, equally as charged. the politics, the border, the walls, wars, identities, and imperialism that complicate our shared history have very real implications in the lives of real people.

it is easy to forget, on either side of the "border," that history and hatred between countries manifest themselves in subtle ways in peoples' hearts and minds, and serve to do nothing but injure.

this made its first, undoubtedly of many, appearances in my classroom this week. i am struggling to unpack my own political and personal identities and motivations while encouraging my students to do the same. we had a tearful class meeting following a day of heated rhetoric about perceptions and stereotypes between our countries. i hope to teach empathy and activism to my students; i intend to learn empathy and teaching as activism side by side with them. i want to build my daily curriculum around these ideals; lessons that i need to learn myself.

as i struggle to find ways to do this, i am inspired again by a friend, a teacher i admire, a student of his own students and a true student of this life, who has reminded me in the past that teaching in our time is precarious, necessary work as we walk the precipice of change and reform...

"Teaching tears us down. It is its very nature. We have to give into it. Let go of what we think teaching is and step out there, vulnerable, and willing to fail. We live in praxis, forced to constantly reinvent ourselves. You know how (shotgun degree/ practice/ theory/ philosophy/ friends lifting you up/ millions of thoughts, books and ideas) but now comes the hard part: trusting yourself..."

uhwhat?

i'm not sure if i learned anything in graduate school. i was giving my students instructions today and they all were looking at me like i was crazy... which made me remember that i'm speaking a foreign language, so i am always sure to show directions in writing, with pictures and with actions. after having two other students explain what to do in their own way and another student explain in spanish, i took some questions and let them go to work. as soon as we went into work time, a line of at least seven students gathered around me and asked the dreaded, "what are we doing?"

what am i doing????

pirámides y antropología

The long weekend allowed for me to explore the immense Museum of Anthropology and the Aztec pyramids in Teotihuacan:


In front of the pirámide del sol after climbing back down.


The super giant Mayan calendar in the museum.


One of my favorite photos yet, and the catalyst for a photo project I have always been wanting to do on Mexican alters and ofrendas.

María Catalina and María Elena.


A photo of the pyramid of the moon taken from on top of the pyramid of the sun.

poco a poco

As the world I left behind me grows closer together within itself and farther away in the distance, I am struggling against the exponentially steep learning curve that washes over me daily. Learning a new culture, a new language, learning how to do my job, how to live in one of the biggest cities in the world, I find that who I truly am has become very exposed to me. This puts a sense of purpose into my perspective when I am flooded with feelings of nostalgia and longing for the life I made for myself and left behind in Seattle. Some days the absurdity of my being here makes me laugh out loud, and other days the reasons all seem perfectly clear.

día de la independencia

as far as adventuring goes, there have been a few besides fourth grade fiascoes and playing catch up with my job. one includes a trip to the historic center of the city to see el zocalo all dressed up for the bicentennial. last night was the 200th anniversary of mexican independence from spain. everything was lights and fireworks for el grito, where the president addressed thousands and thousands of people with a bell and the call and response "viva méxico!" it was really awesome that i was able to be here for it, so i celebrated with my friends by having a little dinner party and watching fireworks all over the city from on top of my apartment building.

cuidad de mexico

Hola a todos! Welcome to the revival of my European travel blog, repurposed now for stories about Mexico living. I arrived three weeks ago to Mexico City and have been warmly welcomed by my co-workers, students and their families. I'm living in a sweet little hacienda-style apartment with exposed brick, arched doorways and a fireplace. It faces the garden that has fruit trees and cactus and a little street cat that is trying to adopt me. I'm up in the hills above the city, a very long distance from the city center. There is a market close by, with most of the things I need, but I am severely missing the short walks to coffee shops, vegetarian restaurants and parks that luxuriated my Seattle life.

Yesterday I bought a fresh-made guitar from an old man who had finished building it in the adjoining shop last week. It should be nice to have it around for the every evening thunderstorms. It has been funny (dumb) to be replacing so many of the things I left behind in my ultra-haste to leave Seattle... as a late-hire, I left my home and friends in Seattle, in what some would rightly call a frenzy, to arrive in Minnesota to travel to Illinois to celebrate a beautiful wedding to then arrive in Mexico and start work the next day. I had two days of workshops and two days to set up my classroom before the first day of school. But after that first day, I feel like I have been at this school forever, and have been a teacher for always.

More from me soon about students, mariachis, cultural blunders and other adventures...

this is it!

i am back in ostrava with my friend laura to hang out with her my last few days in europe. tomorrow i am taking the train to prague for my 6am flight tuesday morning... i cant believe how quickly these three months have gone and how fortunate i am for all these incredible experiences. as of this week my cell phone will be re-activated so you can be expecting to hear from me very very soon.

xoxo