Less than that actually. I can't believe it! This whole summer has flown by. It's a bitter sweet feeling though... I am so excited to get back home to my family and friends and the new adventures that await me there, but I will be so SO sad to leave my life here! I have grown so close to my wonderful host family, to the kids in my classes, and just to the Mexican culture as a whole. I'm going to miss Tehuacan!
"Teacha Yay-sika!"
That's what most of the kids call me, Teacher Yay-sika. I love coming to school or walking into the classroom and hearing them yell my name, I just love it! It makes me so happy. :) Add that to the growing list of things that I'm really going to miss.
Here's a few pictures of some of my favorite students! They are all so adorable, I had a hard time choosing which pictures to put up here. The first ones are of students that I teach at a school called Discovery in the mornings, and the last few are of students from the second school that I teach at, in the afternoons.
Meet JULIAN. He's in the kinder class, and is so so cute. He has such a personality, but in class he can be such a terror! He'd definitely one of the kids that I absolutely love outside of class, but during class... I wish he would take a NyQuil. JOKING! joking. Nothing that extreme, however I would appreciate it if he wouldn't insist on jumping on the tables, and running from corner to corner, and laughing and singing into the fan. :) Oh Julian.
Above is my KINDER class, the most challenging yet the cutest class I have! The youngest, Renata, (far left) is only 3 years old, and the oldest is just 5. They are all brand new to the program, so they don't speak any English at all! Come to think of it they don't completely speak Spanish yet either. During classes they just mumble barely audible phrases in English, repeating what I model for them. It's really a challenge to get them to not use Spanish during classes, because they really want to participate in the lesson and express themselves, but Spanish is the only way they know how to! They're getting better though. :)
Above is Emiliano, also one of my favorites. Pretty sure I've said that about all of them so far.... hahah I guess they're ALL my favorites. :) He puts on such a tough guy look for the other kids, but really he's such a sweetheart and is so giving! He shared his grapes with me once at lunch time, now that's what I call love. :) Below is Jaki and Chucho, I think they are pretty new to the program too, and don't speak English very well. They are always so so quiet in class, I think the other kids really intimidate them. BUT, I found out if you speak to them in Spanish, they open right up to you! Jaki and I had a great convo one day after school while waiting for the parents about her lunch, her doll at home, and about how if you climb to the top of the slide, you can fall. Thanks for keeping me safe Jaki. :)
Another of my classes, this is Carlos, Elisa, Natalia, Sofia, and I! Their class has a great mix, because they speak well enough to have a fun conversation, but they're still young enough to have fun with the simple activities, I love their class!
ILP! These are pictures of my students at ILP, the school I teach at at nights. Above is Benjamin! He is the bishop of our wards son, and is such a character. His accent makes anything he says 10x funnier, and it's already funny to begin with, so I am ALWAYS laughing with that boy, so funny. He asked one of the other teachers one day if she had a Book of Mormon in English, and was so excited when she said yes! He asked if we could read a few verses in English after class, he was so happy. I want to send him a BOM in English when I get home. Below is one of my ILP classes with their elastic sling-shots we made during class one day.
VACATION!!
We got a four day weekend a couple of weekends ago, because the kids were out of school on Thursday and Friday! So we decided to take full advantage of the opportunity and go on vacation. First stop: Oaxaca, then on the LA PLAYA! :)
Oaxaca
We left the school at around 5 am, and arrived in Oaxaca around lunch time! Such a beautiful city, and they had awesome markets, the best I've seen yet! We got to do a lot of shopping, and I have all but perfected my bargaining skills, I am GOOD! I have found if you speak spanish to the vendors, or at least try, they don't try to rip you off as much! I bought a hammick there for 600 pesos less than the original price he told me, I am pretty pround of my new found bargaining skills. Mom, you would have been so proud! Just so you know, my mom is a PRO bargainer, and I have learned everything I know from her. :)
Below... is how they do meat here in Mexico! No refrigeration, no sanitation, just huge slabs of frest meat that was probably still moo-ing (or oinking) less than 5 hours before. This was actually one of the cleanest meat shops I've seen, it didn't even have very many flies or knats or.... who knows what else. But hey, it's FRESH!
I got a hair wrap!! Some older hippy-looking man with a very poignant odor did them for us for only 20 pesos each. Possibly the best twenty pesos, I've ever spent in Oaxaca... then again, how many times have I ever spent 2o pesos in Oaxaca?? :) Yes, definitely the best. After we got hair wraps we decided it was time to go meet up with the rest of the people in our group, so we started heading back. After about 15 minutes or so of walking, we came to the realization that NONE of our surroundings looked even slightly familiar! Okay... think. We started out by the big church in the center, that's where we are meeting the rest of our group. Look for the big church. So we spotted one, walked there... and it's the WRONG chuch. Another big church, but NOT the church we started at! We repeated this process several times, each time wondering how many other big churches there could possibly be in one city. So we continued walking the streets, hoping to some how run into the right church. Meanwhile, it was getting dark, there were more and more creepy guys lining the streets which = more and more creepy catcalls, and it had started to RAIN. And I mean RAIN.... it was a downpour! So we were wet, confused, lost and a little scared… roaming the streets of an unfamiliar city at night. That’s when we decided to get a taxi! It took us about a ten minute drive to get there, I don’t know how we managed to get that far away! Good thing we decided to get a taxi. The next picture is me documenting my creative alternative for my lack of umbrella, I thought it was genius! Everyone else just thought it looked ridiculous, their looks and awkward glances at me sure made me laugh though! :)
Monte Alban
Monte Alban was an ancient ruins site, it was so neat to walk through and to learn more about! Some of the locals here in Tehuacan suggested we go there, and I'm glad we did. It's so humbling to walk through places like this, I wish I could rewind time and be able to see what things were like there when it was in it's prime. There is so much history here, I'm so lucky to be able to see so much.
Above you can see almost the entire Oaxaca valley! So pretty. So green! Love it. Below is like a playing field they had at Monte Alban, the sign said something about it's how they would resolve their disputes and things, pretty interesting.
PUERTO ESCONDIDO
La PLAYA!! This is the view we woke up to in the morning outside the window of our big white van. I wish I could wake up to this view EVERY morning! Ruben drove through the night to Puerto Escondido, then we parked here and got a few hours of sleep! At the first ray of sunshine through the windows, we all woke up and jumped out of the bus, we were so excited to finally be there! We explored the beach a little, walked in the sand barefoot, and just enjoyed the fresh ocean air. It probably was such a funny sight, we were all in our PJ's and looking like.... well, like we had just traveled for 2 days without a shower! We met a bunch of guys there who were filming a commercial for Corona (don't worry mom, they were all like 60 :) , they were from California, and apparently Mexico is the perfect place to film beer commercials! It was so funny, he talked himself up for a good 10-15 minutes about how he's been in the film and entertainment industry for 20+ years now, and that he's been in movies with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson. When we asked him what movies and what parts he played, he stuttered a little, then said, "...well, I wasn't actually IN the movie... I'm in transportation. I just drive their stuff around the set." hahah SO funny! It's okay though, he probably didn't even remember us the next day, they were all so drunk! and it wasn't even noon yet... welcome to Mexico. :)
We got to go on a boat tour!! Above are our guides, Luis and Jesus. He said he always wears that mask for good luck, and I think it worked! We saw so many dolphins, swimming RIGHT next to our boat! They were so close, such beautiful creatures. We also saw lots of sea turtles! And apparently its mating season for turtles... that was interesting! Luis even caught one for us, one second he was just talking to us and riding along in the boat, and the next second he was hurling himself into the ocean!! I swear his hands were on that turtle before his body ever even hit the water. Then they brought it aboard and we got to touch it, and take pictures with it, then when he put it back in the water, it stuck around for a bit and we got to swim with it! Thanks for catching us a turtle Luis, you were a great tour guide! ....except the trick you tried to pull of trying to talk us all into going out to dinner with you. It was a nice try though.
Dolphins!! It's kinda hard to see them in this picture (above) but there were SO many! I had a hard time getting it in a picture, they are FAST! But all of the white splashes you see in the picture are dolphins, it was amazing! You might be able to see them better if you click on the pic, to zoom in.
I've learned a lot during my experience here in Mexico, a lot about life, a lot about myself, and a lot about what I want for myself and for my family in the future. I have also learned lots about teaching and how to have a positive effect in the life of a child, and about how important the role of a teacher really is to a kid. I have learned how to adapt to diverse situations, even when the situation is the farthest thing from what I wanted, OR expected. I have learned to never take anything for granted. I've realized how lucky I am to have a closet full of clothes, and a place to call home. I've learned to appreciate the free glass of water at restaurants, and being able to brush my teeth with water from the tap! I've learned to do my best to make the absolute most of any situation, because we never get time back. Once the day is over, it's GONE. Every moment of every day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we've got to make the most of everyday before they pass us by. No regrets. I think this next picture and following words sum up my experience fairly well.
Our second day at the beach, we met some guy who owned a litte restaurant on the beach, and he let us use his hammicks, ALL day! I took like a 3 hour nap in the shade on the beach of the Pacific Ocean, does it get any better than that?? Life is good. It was just a really such a relaxing day, and I have officially fallen in LLLOOOVVEEE with hammicks! Love them.
The picture below is so funny to me! We had some left over fireworks from the 4th of July, and we brought them along on vacation to light them off on the beach! We thought we'd have to be sneaky... but no one cared! The policia walked right by, probably enjoying the show. I love Candace's (in the yellow) face in this picture, with her hands full of fireworks. :)
Ventanilla
This was just a random stop that was on the way back home, it was a type of lagoon, a fresh water river that ran into the ocean. Contrary to the sign in the above picture, we saw ZERO crocodiles! It was really pretty though, and it was a nice break from that lovely bus!
These are the boats we were going to go out on to look for crocs, but they said the tide had been too high and it would be dangerous. Below is all of us watching for crocodiles! Didn't see a single one though.
Mi Familia!!!! and life.
I'd like to take this opportunity to annouce that.... drum roll please... I've finally figured out the Mexican transportation system!! Last week I took a combi to church, by myself, and didn't get lost OR take the wrong one! This is quite the accomplishment for me, something I've been trying to get down since day one. Hahah if only I could have figured it out sooner, I would have saved myself a lot of time walking around the streets of Mexico. :) Also, on my walk home from school last week, I counted a whopping FOURTEEN catcalls and/or whistles! and even an "Hola guapa" to which I replied (under my breath of course) 'adios... CREEPO." Mexico is GREAT for my self-esteem, I am sure going to miss this when I go home. When I get home and walk around on campus or somewhere, I'm going to be like "WHY is no one whistling at me??! Do I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe or something?" Then I'll realize, OH... I'm not in Mexico anymore, I look just like everyone else here. Oh well, that just means I'm going to have to take full advantage of it while it lasts. :)
I love love this picture, even though neither Sandra OR Valentina are looking at the camera. I am SO extremly blessed and lucky to be able to have spent the last 3 months with this wonderful family!! I wish I could put into words how much they mean to me and how truly grateful I am to them! I will remember this summer forever. They have taught me so much, and have been such great examples to me - of love, of family, of sincerity, and of generosity. I am going to miss them SO SO much!
No comments:
Post a Comment