February

The last few weeks have found us teaching our shopping conversation; a variety of phrases from "How can I help you?" to "I'll take it." We do at least one period of a fun review (usually in the form of a game) for each conversation. For this one we decided the best way to engage the students would be to set up an actually store in class. $600 pesos, generously donated by Norman and Toby Campbell, bought us pens, pencils, erasers and candy for grades 3 through 6. We gave them fake money and they had to make the transaction completely in English to receive their goods. They were thrilled to get to keep the supplies! For this week we developed a jeopardy-style game to review all of the English they've learned so far. It's a bit, as they have no idea what jeopardy is or how it works, complicated to get the directions across, but once they get it they really get involved. It's funny how putting a competitive spin on the material makes it so much more appealing :).
In mid-February we took a weeks vacation to do a tour of central Mexico with Richie (Sarah's boyfriend). We hit Morelia, Michoacan; Queretaro, Queretaro; and Guanajuato, Guanajuato. They are all beautiful colonial cities. Walking downtown in their historical centers is more reminisce of Europe than other parts of Mexico with all the brick and beautiful architecture. In Morelia, the boys went to a Mexican rodeo. They saw two teams, local and out of town, compete to lasso, hog-tie, mount and re-lasso a dozen bulls. The show was much more about the lassoing than the riding, to show, none of the riders were bucked, they all rode it out (often just sitting on a standing bull) until it was re-lassoed by the team. Guanajuato was our favorite; it's a hip college town packed with people our age, an element missing in Zihuatanejo. We took a tour of the city which included going to the "mummy" museum, actually just well preserved bodies (see Richie´s picture). Several are bodies the government took from the graveyard when the families couldn't pay their required rent. There are some special qualities in the air and soil that naturally preserve the corpses, so there are mummies hundreds of years old with their skin, hair and clothing still intact. The end of the tour brought us to a massive stone statue overlooking the brightly colored town.

We traveled between city by bus, economical and way more comfortable than most airplanes. We stayed in hostels, which we really enjoyed because it is so easy to meet so many interesting people. Despite all feeling a little under the weather, we still really enjoyed ourselves.

We just have three weeks until the school´s spring break and only two weeks in Mexico after the break. So quickly the last three and a half months went!

Pretty Much All of January

While recovering from sicknesses caught on the bus ride home, Sarah and I came up with curriculum for the new year. We now have the weeks planned out with general subjects until the end of our stay. The weekend before each week we figure out the logistics; what review to do, how to introduce the subject, what games to play and how to say everything we want to teach in Spanish. We are having to supplement our conversation class with more basics because we have realized you need quite a background to have even the most basic of conversations. Sarah made a pretty professional (complete with lamination) alphabet poster with words for pronunciation with pictures and I downloaded an alphabet song that is great for the third graders, but not so much for the sixth graders. We´ve also introduced Spanish-English dictionaries and plan to distribute classroom sets from the donated dictionaries we have.
This month has been the month of volunteers. Jennifer and Anthony, from around Chicago, arrived in mid-January and another group of a dozen volunteers came from Denver to work for a week. The group from Denver split up into several groups and accomplished a variety of projects. They repaired one of the outside classes that was practically falling down, completely rebuilt a section of perimeter fence and made arts and crafts with the children. On a couple of days I got out of school early and was able to help with the fence. It felt good to do a little physical work for a change.
Jennifer and Anthony arrived very similar to Sarah and I; willing to help with anything, but with little idea of what there was to do. After coming up to school and helping us in English class, their plans were to take over 1st and 2nd grade and start an English class for the teachers. They were able to do one class of each before Jennifer was forced to return to the States because she couldn´t regain her deteriorated health. They are both very serious about volunteering and Jen wanted to make and send us curriculum from home, but we insisted she didn´t have to. She decided to for the teacher´s class though. Anthony stays until the beginning of March and will continue helping us in all our classes and teach the teachers. He hasn´t had any Spanish education though, so I told him I´d help in the teacher´s class. I didn´t know what I was getting myself in to; we both realized today we have much to learn about our own language.
It´s a very loosely formed class. Anthony brought some subject material and worksheets, but besides that the teachers just ask questions and we provide answers and pronunciations. It was going okay (just some of the regular communication problems) until the director asked for the rules of conjugation for past tense verbs. In Spanish, each pronoun (I, you, he/she, we, they) has its own ending, different for each tense. On the spot, in front of the class, neither Anthony nor I could name a rule as we milled over verbs in the past tense. I ate, I spoke, I had, I was; these are all just completely different words than their infinitives. How can you teach a rule for those? Luckily, the other group of volunteers entered the class to say goodbye and were able to straighten us out. Ann, one of the group leaders who works for the U.N., told us that in English, like many languages, the most common verbs are irregular. So all the verbs that had come to our minds were the most common and all irregular. The rule is of course, add ¨ed¨. The subject was much easier to explain when I knew what I was talking about (except that I forgot the word for common in Spanish).

Manzanillo Visit

On the 24th we started walking from our apartement to the bus station at 10:30 am and made it to the Langbauer´s condominium in less than 13 hours. We had them a little worried because we waited for two hours for an urban bus that never came (we ended up having to go out of way a little to catch a more frequent running bus to their location). Besides that part, the long distance bus was far superior than any Alaska airline plane in comfortability, I just wish the spectacular view of the Michoacan coast didn´t have to compete with bad American movies.
We had a great time in Manzanillo, being treated to some luxeries we don´t usually get. Hot showers, a swimming pool, french toast for breakfast and nice restuarants at night; to name a few. Mainly, it was wonderful to be with friends and family (Sarah´s brother) for Christmas and refreshing to catch up and see some familiar faces. But also, we got to explore Manzanillo´s newly updated ´historical´ center where we discovered a type of gorditas, a sweet tortilla-like soft cookie about the size of four or five half dollars stacked on top of each other. One of the days The Langbauers brought us on a guided tour of Colima. We saw bananna, coco, agave, pineapple and many other plantations; the colonial age capital and surrounding towns

(picture of colonial church in Colima), Colimense ruins (see pics) and a good view of an active volcano. The last part of the tour was lunch at a busy tapas bar where we ordered drinks and were served everything from tacos to boiled pig flesh. All in all, a great tour.

Our ride back to Zihaut was slightly more eventful with a huge traffic jam in the mountains. A semi truck had slid across both narrow lanes on the steep curvy roads the midnight before. But we were very fortunate and got out quickly. In the two hours of confusion and waiting I met a man from Oregon looking for seasonal work here, a backpacker from Mexico city and a surfer from Israel. Sarah and I both decided the journey was a lot of fun and needs a sequel.

Christmas Vacation

We are now on Christmas vacations and definately enjoying the free time. Teaching is hard work! On the last day of school (Wednesday) we were invited to the 4th grade fiesta. We played in a basketball tournament, danced and ate with the kids. The basketball games were more reminisce of football with the amount they charged down the court holding the ball or practically wrestled it out of their opponents hands. We were very impressed by their dancing skills though. I´m pretty sure 4th grade boys from Sitka wouldn´t be asking girls to dance. Santa came and gave the kids gifts, which caused a lot of excitement and Perla and Saul (the 4th grade teachers) were even thoughtful enought to get us little santa boxes filled with sweets. It was a very nice celebration that they put on for the children.
The weekend before we caught the end of another surf competition at Playa Linda and went to a local rock concert. The three bands we saw played mostly American music with pieces from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ramones, Three Doors Down and Metallica. A good show. We were both suprised at Zihua´s large American punk rock following.
Thursday we decided to try the next beach down from Playa Linda (our favorite). Playa Quieta was pretty much empty when we arrived in the late morning, but there were hundreds of empty beach chairs. I convinced Sarah that no one would care if we lounged in a couple for a few hours, but when I walked down the beach she was ousted by Club Med´s security guards. Oh well, it is a pretty beach anyway.
The next day we rented kayaks from a friend on La Ropa beach and kayaked out the bay to a point past the lighthouse. Kayaking is much more comfortable here because when you get splashed, it´s actually a relief. We saw a turtle, lots of birds and fish and a floating coconut that actually wasn´t a seal head.
Also this weekend Christine took us to Barra de Potosit again. It is such a laid back place; all the restuarants have hamacks for each table. We had fresh coconuts, fish quesedillas and amazing fried bannanas. (see pic)
Tomorrow we take the bus to Manzanillo to visit some friends who are vacationing there. The actually time of the trip seems to be widely disputed between our contacts; somewhere between six and ten hours. I guess we´ll see for ourselves. We are going to stay there until after New Years and return before the start of school, which is the 7th of January.
Feliz Navidad,
Ben and Sarah

The Pre-school Surf

We started our day today paddling out to the Playa Linda Point reef break before dawn. It was our first time in ¨real¨ waves, instead of surfing mostly whitewater. Even if we still aren´t very good at surfing yet (this was our third lesson), it was great to watch the sun creep over the palm-lined beach from the vantage point of the warm blue water.
Out of the water at around 9:30 after more than two hours of surfing, we rinsed and changed in the parking lot and drove to school.
This week in our English conversation class we´re reviewing our introduction conversation with a game. Games in the classroom are a very rare occurance for the children, so the 3rd and 4th graders were all quite ecstatic. Even after we took the time to explain that we couldn´t play games if the class got rowdy, we still had the whole group jump to their feet to present the answer instead of the person writing raise their hand like we had asked. We´ll see how the 5th graders take to it tommorow.
Some domestic news: we put up wall hangings yesterday (square swatches of different patterened cloth that matches our apartment). They make the apartment seem less empty than white-washed cement walls on most sides. I bought a classical guitar from a man named Pepe. it should be nice to have some chords floating around in the warm nights after dinner. Also, we have further delved into Mexican cooking by making our own refried beans (with onions and garlic) instead of buying them in a can and by trying our hand at Agua de Jamaica (an iced tea made from dried hibiscus flowers), a very common refreshment at restaurants here. We may have to try our hand at Mexican dishes other than tea and tacos later.
This last weekend we had the oppurtunity to attend the 2007 Catcha La Ola Surfer Reunion Competition. That is, we sat on the beach (the same place we surfed this morning) and watched the 40 and older category compete. I must admit, for old men (some of who looked more like 60), there were quite a few who could really rip up the waves.
El Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe (the day of our Lady Guadalupe) started last night at 12 and ends tonight at the same time. What we have noticed so far are parades, (increasing in frequency, but seemingly at random times with small or non-existant audiences) and fireworks. We haven´t actually seen fireworks, but we are often shaken at the table frequently by explosions that seem more like larger seal bombs than domestic fireworks. I´ve read that the main festival takes place in the north of Mexico City, but I´ve also heard there is a big parade here as well, but I don´t know how long we will stay up tonight because we have to walk the hill to school tommorow morning.
If you haven´t been able to comment because of a lack of a Google account, you should be able to now. I found the setting (which I thought I had already changed), to allow all comments.
Thanks for tuning in,
Ben and Sarah

December 4th

Today was the first day of our independant teaching. (Until now we have been assisting Christine in her classes, which was a great way to start off, but we wanted to do more.) We all felt that the kids would benefit from having an additional hour of English each week, so Ben and I are designing a conversation class to supplement Christine´s general English class. Our first conversation is ¨Introductions¨. Today we worked with the third graders and it went well considering it was our first day. We gave our first class of third graders a writing task that was way too hard, so the second class received the benefits our mistake in a toned-down lesson. It´s kind of an experiment for us (maybe guess and check is more descriptive, experiment sounds a little refined), not having taught much in a classroom before, nevermind in a different language, but we´re learning. Luckily for us, Christine is very generous with her teaching knowledge.

This evening we experienced our first storm; thunder, lightening and rain. Very exciting, but over in a little more than an hour. Ben took a picture of the street from our balcony, the discoloration in the sky is from the lightening. With this rain hopefully the flowers and green will stay a little longer!

This week in English class Sarah and I gave a presentation about Alaska. We taught some Alaskan animal vocabulary and showed Dan Evan´s photo book to give them an idea of Sitka. Also this week the kids are making cards for the school´s donors. They are writing half of it in Spanish and half in English. The first graders take the whole hour to copy the message, but turn out cards with impeccably high cuteness levels.
This evening we visited the dormitories and distributed the clothing we brought up. Being from Sitka the amount of cold weather clothing was a little more than needed in this climate, but the children were thrilled to get new clothes. They were also really excited to see us up there, so we´re hoping to go up at least once a week to play with the kids and help out. Usually there is only one woman up at the dorms at night with the fifteen children there, and as if that couldn´t wear out a normal person, she teaches a class of thirty kids during the day. She´s an amazing woman and it seems the children really like her.
This last weekend we painted all the large areas with the help of the renter. Sarah and I are still painting a little every night and besides the floor collecting paint drips, the place is really looking better.