Teaching is going so much better! I have gotten used to ME as the teacher, and that helps alot. My classes have been going so good, and the kids are still as cute and as adorable as ever. They will get so excited about things, or about the activity we are doing, but can't find the words in English to express themselves, so they just ramble on with lots of hand motions and very animated facial expressions, it's so funny. :) The pictures below are some of the ILP school that I teach at from 4-6, and of some of the kids I teach there.




Above is our opening room! This is where all of the kids gather, and we get to sing fun songs (in english of course haha) and play games with the kids while we wait for everyone to come. Below is Pablo and I, he is one of my favorites from ILP! He is SO quiet, but such a sweetheart. :)



Above is one of the student's shirts they wore to school! Daniel's. I thought it was so awesome, I had to get a picture. Below is one of the activities I did with my class! We made paper plate masks, this is Ingrid and Ivanna with theirs. Has anyone seen 'Dora the Explorer'?? Can you see the resemblence with Ivanna, the one holding the lion? Wow.


Above is Jesus and a couple of the other kids after we finished our butterfly craft! They traced their hands for the wings. I love Jesus's face in this one!! You can tell how happy he is to be making a cute pink butterfly... don't worry the girls LOVED it! :) Below are some of my kids at Discovery, the other school I teach at. They have been doing so good with the book we are reading, so we got to play a fun game on Friday! Life-size Tic Tac Toe.


Found this little guy in the bathroom at the ILP school. Ughhh.


RAIN, RAIN, RAIN!!

I think we are coming into the rainy season here, it has been raining more and more frequently! And rain here is NOT the same thing as it is back in Utah... not even close! I have never experienced a rain storm like the ones here, they are amazing! It's 90 degrees, and POURING RAIN. Like the kind of rain that you are completely drenched being outside for 3 minutes. My favorite kind of weather! Love it. Here is me and one of the other teachers playing in the rain. :)


One bad side to the rain... with all of the water, some of it always manages to go where it SHOULDN'T be! The apartment that is attached to the ILP school that my head teacher and her husband live in has a few leaks...


YES... that is water coming out of the WALL!! it was coming out of the light switch and the internet cable hole... that can't be safe!! We held this pitcher there for about 40 minutes, that is until someone came up with a genius idea! see next picture :)


There are NO drainage systems here either, water just goes all over the roads. This is a street near our school the NEXT day after the storm.


There are dogs EVERYWHERE here! Everywhere. Every street corner, near every park bench, near every garbage dumpster in the roads. I wonder if some of them have ever even had a home. Probably not. The second picture? Yes, they are on a roof! Don't ask me how they got up there or how in the world they are going to get down... who knows. But I like them up there, that way they can't chase me. :)


THE CITY / EL CENTRO

These are some pictures from around the city and in the center. There is so much to see here in Tehuacan, I love it! I am starting to feel at home in this city, and believe it or not Mom, Jake and Dad, I have learned to navigate myself quite well!! I have only gotten lost once. :) They told us it was a small city, but it is easily as big or bigger than Ogden. And we get to walk EVERYWHERE! Good thing, because I eat so much here! My host family gives me thee best food.


A mexican horse trailer. :) Below are some police men, these guys are everywhere. And they always have those HUGE guns too, it's kinda scary.


Let me explain this picture. :) EVERY morning, I am woken up at 7am sharply by an annoying truck that drives up and down the streets in my neighborhood selling gas. (for your house) It plays the same loud song every morning followed by the same blaring advertisement! I have grown to like it though. :) When I saw this sign, it made me laugh SO hard! I want to put one up right by my house, so the music trucks won't come down our road.


Grafitti is EVERYWHERE here! I love it, some of it is so pretty. This one is my favorite though, it is right outside of the school. It says - "Te amo Yessic" Translation: I love Yessic (how they say Jessica) They love me here in Mexico! bahahah just kidding. It has been there for ages, pretty sure they're NOT referring to me. But still. :)

Mi Familia!

MY HOST FAMILY



Meet EMILIO!! This is my little brother :) He is six. SO much fun! Above is him playing Spiderman, and below is him before school in his cute uniform for Discovery.


And this is VALENTINA! She is 2 months old :) She is such a good baby, she is always so happy and so fun to be around! She is so beautiful.


Mi Casa :) This is my bedroom, and bathroom.




THE CHILDREN


Here are some of the kids I teach at one of the schools, Discovery. They really are so cute and so much fun, I love them. Above is Ximena and Emilio (my little brother), and below is my home room class. Pablo, Javier, Andrea, Regina, Andrea, Fernanda, Tufic y Rodrigo.

Above is Rodrigo and I, he is one of my favorite kids! He always runs up to me and hugs me around the waist, such a sweetheart. Below is another teacher Megan and I, and Rogrigo and Andrea.

Saturday in Tehuacan


One of the ladies that works for ILP, Julietta, showed us around Tehuacan last weekend! We went to some kind of natural springs, there were 5 pools in all, and 3 water slides! It was so much fun, we even put together a synchronized swimming routine with some of the other teachers haha. When we were all worn out from swimming we relaxed on the grass and enjoyed the warm Mexican sun. :) The above picture is us in the back of a truck driving to the pools. We fit 11 of us in the back of a pickup truck! Legal? I don't know. Fun? YES!!




I took this picture for ALIZAE. :) This was just on one of the walls at the pool. Random! But I love it. Glad to know they found Nemo here in Mexico too.



The picture above is at the movies, we got to go see Iron Man 2... in ENGLISH!! I loved it, mostly because it was all in english. :) It had spanish subtitles though. It was a pretty good movie though! I loved how our row would laugh at least 10 seconds before the rest of the theatre at the funny parts because the spanish subtitles hadn't shown up yet. :) Picture below... this is an actual store! It reminded me of you, Jake. haha just kidding! But I really contemplated on if I should tell them that their store is named after a wide-spread foot fungus in the U.S.... I should have told them. That would have resolved their concern on why the crazy americans kept laughing and taking pictures of their store.

This is the aftermath... ouch. Should've worn sunscreen! haha


Quinceañera Party!

My family took me to a quinceañera party, it´s a fifteenth birthday party. They are huge here in Mexico, when the girls turn 15 they have a HUGE fiesta, it´s like their 'coming out' party. I had no idea what to expect, but it was so much fun. There was alot of food, alot of dancing, and then some more dancing! I even learned a few traditional mexican dances. :)


These are my Mexican parents!! They are such amazing people, I want to be like them in a lot of ways some day. They are so giving and so loving! Sandra y Cristian.


Someone put this hat on me during one of the dances, so I had to get a picture. :) In the picture below you can see how many people were there, SO so many! It was bigger than even any wedding I have been to.

¡México!

Mexico!! I am finally here. And I love it. Here's a little bit about what has happened so far!

Arriving

Our flight came in on April 26th, to the Mexico City International Airport!! I am finally in Mexico! :) We had to just wait at the airport for about 4 hours to meet up with another group of teachers. At the airport everyone moved everything they would need for our week long vacation into a backpack, and we were ready to go! Ruben, Beto, Alfredo y Teo all helped us haul our luggage away (we got quite a few looks due to the massive amounts of luggage we were transporting haha). We then put all of our big luggage in one van, and we all piled into another, a 16-passenger white van - our home for the next 7 days.

This is where we waited at the airport for FOUR hours!! I got to know these girls very well.... :)

LAS CHIAPAS

Our vacation was amazing! I have never seen so many wonderful places and talked to so many wonderful people in such a short amount of time. The first day we went to La Venta , we went to a neat museum and saw some cool things.

The second day we stopped in Veracruz, which is on the east coast of southern Mexico, bordering the Gulf of Mexico! So pretty. We stopped for lunch at a street taco stand, my first taste of real mexican food! They were really good, a bit on the spicy side, but really good! I'm going to have to get used to this spicy-ness. :) After lunch Ruben (our awesome bus driver/tour guide) took us to this little private beach, it was really just some guy's back yard! He charged us 10 pesos each, and off to the beach we went! The water felt so good, especially after riding in a squished bus with 15 other people in 98 degree weather all day!





That is a REAL coconut!! Straight from the tree, I watched him pick it myself. I had never tasted one before, and it wasn't at all what I expected. Good though! I enjoyed it.


This is the huge bus we are riding in! I had to take a picture so I could remember it. :)


The third day we were in Villahermosa, which is south east of Veracruz. Due to the lack of American breakfast food (fruit/cereal/cold milk/ham&eggs are nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find here! At least in the little city we were in.) we decided to go to the nearby Wal*Mart for breakfast. I found a cold dannon yogurt, and a box of Nutri-grain granola bars and I was good! A little taste of home. :) When we were ready to leave Wal*Mart, the bus wouldn't start... uh-oh. Ruben doesn't speak any English, so none of us were quite sure what was wrong with it. While we waited, we walked a couple of blocks to a nearby school/university and found an internet cafe, so we all paid 5 pesos for an hour on the internet, and caught up on emails from home.




The bus finally started! I guess it was just too hot and needed some time to cool off. So we all piled into the bus, and then we went to see the temple in Villahermosa! Such a pretty temple, really small but beautiful.






It was SO SO hot here. Ya gotta stay cool somehow... right? :)


The fourth day our wonderful bus driver Ruben took us to the city of Palenque, about 1 & 1/2 hours south east of Villahermosa. I think this might have been my favorite stop, it was so amazing!! It is the site of ancient Mayan ruins, temples, pyramids, and beautiful buildings. I wish I could put into words what it was like walking through those pyramids, seeing their inscribings on the wall, seeing the wear on the rocks of where they walked and lived.




After Palenque we went to this little place in the middle of the jungle called Agua Dulces. It was so cool, it was this cute little pool in the middle of nowhere! We explored a little bit below where the pool was, and found some beautiful waterfalls! Mexico is so so beautiful.













Haha I love this next picture. These are some younger boys that came to swim at the same time we were there. This is how the drive in Mexico, and it's legal! and the best part, no that is NOT a truck! It's a car, with the back part cut out.


On the fifth day we went to San Christóbal, a little south of Palenque. This city is known for all of it's beautiful cathedrals, which were SO neat! Also, it was a little cooler here, which was a nice change.











The sixth day we went to a city called Tuxtla, where we went on a boat tour of a famous canyon in Mexico, I forget the name of it. I didn't understand much of what the tour guide was saying, because it was all in Spanish. But I did get that when the Spanish invaded Mexico, many Mexican soldiers and men jumped from the high canyon walls to their death - prefereing to die in the name of their country rather than surrender or be taken captive by the Spanish. It was really pretty, and we even saw a crocodile and a couple monkeys!







After the boat tour, we stopped at the Tuxtla Mexico Temple. So pretty!! This one was pretty small too, and it looked a lot like the Villahermosa temple.







Then we began the 10 hour drive from Tuxtla back to where the school is, in Tehuacan. We arrived at the school at about 4am, and 11 of us all crashed on three mattresses that we found and slid together. Not the comfiest sleeping arrangements, but we were all so happy to not have to sleep on that bus! So our vacation is over, now the real fun begins. :)

HOST FAMILY

I met my host family on Sunday afternoon, they came to pick me up at three and when we got back to their house, they had a whole party waiting for me! They had lots of family and friends over, and we just chatted. Correction: THEY chatted, I listened, catching maybe only 10% of what they were saying. :) They made a really good meal, called Pazole. I loved it! Again, a bit on the spicy side, but nothing I couldn't handle. I think my taste buds are getting used to this!

My host parents names are Sandra and Christian, and they are both 26 years old. They have a son Emilio, who is 6, and a daughter Valentina, who is only 2 months!! They are both SO adorable, I love them already. Their house is really really nice, the exact opposite of what I was expecting when I found out that I was going to be moving to Mexico! I don't know why, but for some reason I was expecting dirt floors, two room homes, no running water... etc. But that is not the case, at least with this family! They are a really nice family, and I have so much fun with the kids. She has me help alot with the baby, like feeding her, giving her baths, etc and I LOVE it! She is so cute. These kids sure make me miss my Alizae though.

TEACHING

I started teaching this last Thursday and Friday, so I am just two days into it. I teach in the afternoon from 1:30-3:30 at a school called Discovery, and I have a group of kids ages 8-9. They are a handful!! Out of control at times, but it'll get better. Then I teach again at 4:00-6:00pm, at ILP. I have 3 rotations, the first is pretty varied in age, they range from 7-11. Then my second two rotations are just little kids! Ages 3-5. SO cute. They don't speak English very well..so that makes things a bit hard but they are stinkin' cute. :)


*** More pictures of the kids at school and of my host family coming soon!! ***