the tech

Hey all! I started at the tech school, I am giving an intensive English class that lasts for 2 weeks. It runs from 8am-2pm everyday Monday through Saturday. It seems like a lot but I got really lucky and have a great group of students. They are really advanced and most of them speak very well. I am able to do a lot of conversation activities and less bookwork with them. There are seven students from the age of 18-30 and they all know each other already so it is a very comfortable class. I am really really enjoying teaching it and I hope the courses that begin in August are similar! The tech college gives me more freedom in my classes than Culturlingua did so I can incorporate other activities into my class, we have been working on pronunciation activities, listening to song lyrics in English, debates and sometimes just letting them talk to each other in English and correcting mistakes. It ends on Saturday and I'm a little sad, I wish I had this group for an entire semester, they are really eager to learn.
I bought a ticket home since I don't have to teach at all in August. I am coming home from July 26th-August 23rd. I am very excited to come home and see everyone! I'll miss Mexico a little bit while I'm gone, but all in all it should be a fun trip home. Sorry this post is so short, but I'll be seeing most of you next week! :)

Happy belated 4th!!

Happy belated fourth to everyone!! Things have been pretty quiet here, Jay moved to Periban to teach the summer course there and Neal went to Cotija to teach at that location since there aren’t any students signed up here in Los Reyes for the summer. I guess summer courses aren’t very popular here because my course at the tech currently has four students and we need at least 8 to make the course worth it. I was supposed to start teaching on Monday the 6th but now I have this week off again. The coordinator wants to wait to see if more students will sign up. I was a little irritated with him because he had made it sound like the summer job was a sure thing so I left Culturlingua and now he’s telling me we may not have the students for me to teach. I’m a little restless with nothing to do all day and no money to really travel anywhere.
For the fourth we had planned to rent a cabaña on a lake about 2 hours from here. Jay and Neal flaked out so I was the only gringo with three of my Mexican friends celebrating Independence Day!! It was really fun, we had a big cabin close to the lake and brought food and of course other supplements. I made fruit pizza since Aunt Meg always makes it. It was a struggle and a half to make it though!! For starters I don’t have an oven at this place, so I took the dough to my friend Karla’s to try to cook it. They never use their oven, I guess cooking things in the oven isn’t popular here; most Mexicans use it for storage space. Her oven didn’t want to light (everything is gas here) so later that night we went to a bakery to see if they would let us cook it there. It was an old traditional place run by a small family and they still use the old school stone oven. It was really neat to see how it is done; it is kind of like a small cave with the bottom all stone and they light a fire inside of it and keep the coals going all day. They put two buckets of water in there as well to keep it humid so the bread doesn’t dry out. The man had fruit filled empanadas, (flaky crust with jelly filling in them- they sometimes put meat in them too), different rolls and loaves of bread. He gave us a lot of things to sample and wouldn’t take money from us for all his help. We bought some loaves of bread from him instead. It still takes me aback sometimes here to see all of the generosity and willingness to help complete strangers. Everyone here is considered a friend and they really would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. They love to help people and I wish there was a little more of this culture at home. The fruit pizza turned out well, I had wanted to make the American flag to be festive but blueberries are impossible to find here right now, I used grapes and told everyone they had to imagine that it was blue for the stars.
It was really cold up in Zirauhen so we didn’t go swimming at all but it was nice to be up at a lake for the fourth. I’m always at the cottage and I know everyone else was there this weekend so it was a little sad to be here. I love celebrating the fourth at home and I was a little homesick but we bought fireworks, which are also very hard to find and very illegal here. Sinai found some little whistlers and fountains from a friend of his. Karla, Sinai and Jaime really made the weekend special. We hung out by the lake for Sunday morning too and then came back here.
I am hoping to come home for most of August as I don’t have to work so I will have about three weeks to spend at home. I was told that my class decided to do a five year reunion on the 22nd of August. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I graduated from Lourdes. Should be interesting to see where everyone’s at.
More to come later when I start classes and have something else to write about!

long overdue update

SO I have been seriously slacking on the updating and I apologize! I found a house to rent; its a four bedroom house and I will be renting it with three students who go to the tech. Get this- I will be paying 500 pesos a month for rent which is approximately $45. It's close to everything, I can walk to the plaza and the colectivos (little vans) pass right in front of the house to go to the tech. I informed Culturlingua I was not staying and received a rather cold response in return which is funny considering I am one of only two teachers actually finishing their contract. I move next weekend and start teaching an intensive English course the the tech college on July 6th.
With this job as well, I should be able to come back to Wisconsin to visit in August for a few weeks. I'm very excited!! I've been a little homesick lately so it'll be good to come spend some time at home. I'm also looking forward to teaching adults. I enjoy it much more than kids. I love kids but they are a pain to teach sometimes!! God bless you Aunt Sherry!!!
I havent done much traveling around lately, I'm trying to save up some money and it's difficult with the pay at Culturlingua but I have to buy some stuff for the house I'm moving into. Nothing else too interesting happening here, we are wrapping up the semester on Friday. I am going to miss my students but hopefully I'll see them around town. I'm hoping to do a little traveling next week while we are on vacation but we will see how the funds are doing!
I'll try to update sooner this time!

This week has been a crazy week, the newer teacher, Mike from Australia took off on Monday to go back home. It was sudden and unexpected and then to top it off the other older teacher who arrived last month got fired. So it’s back down to Jay and me! A new teacher is coming in tomorrow to start filling in Mike’s classes and we have another substitute to take over the older teacher’s classes until summer. I have no idea how Culturlingua stays afloat with this many changes, it’s really bad for business and it doesn’t seem like it is a new thing here.
I interviewed at the technical college right here in Los Reyes and got the job. The only problem is Culturlingua, as Cecilia put it “doesn’t share their teachers.” I was also informed that if we take private classes on, we get fired. The technical college offers more money and also will allow me to take private classes on so I would really like to get out from under Culturlingua and take this job offer but apartments down here are scarce, as is cheap furniture. I am on the hunt but here, in small towns they don’t advertise in newspapers or online. It is all about who you know down here in Mexico, not what you know. Thank goodness my parents taught me social connection skills early! I have all my friends on the hunt and hopefully something will come up. I would really like to teach university level, not only because it is more formal and looks better on the resume, it would also allow me to make more friends my age.
I have been hanging out a lot with one of my students and her friends and today, one of the guys I met when I first arrived here in Los Reyes and Karla (my student) came over to do some Mexican cooking. We made Caldo de Camarón which is a shrimp soup with lots of vegetables and chilies. It was fun to hang out for the afternoon and cook and chat in Spanish. I am amazed at how much my Spanish has improved and even get complimented by the locals here on how good it is. I still stumble and screw up my grammar but I am far less uneasy and embarrassed about making mistakes and everyone is pretty good at correcting me or helping out if I don’t know a word. I am still amazed at how friendly and open everyone is here and how affectionate they are as a culture. I get greeted by many of the store owners and neighbors now on my walk to school and I’m fairly certain most people in town know me at least by sight. It will definitely be a shock to go back home and readjust, but who knows when that will be! Haha!
It’s kind of scary at the moment to not have a plan and have no idea what I’ll be doing this summer or in the fall but at some point the wind will either pick up or change and I’ll go where it goes!
Anyway, more to come when things settle down and sort out here! Miss you all back home!

Back to school

Well, we finally started up classes again. Classes were supposed to start last week but no students showed up and the governor of Michoacan had said we should have another week of vacations. Culturlingua still made us go in for 3 hours a day, "just in case the students came in for homework". We did that Monday-Wednesday last week and then had a long weekend again because surprise surprise... nobody came in. We started officially again on Monday- a lot of schools have not started yet and we are still missing a lot of students. The government is trying to play down the flu now and the media has been hush hush here so I am not even certain if there are any confirmed cases in the area. People aren't really wearing the masks anymore and I think the hype has died down.
I am actually excited classes have started up again, it was very very boring around here with nothing to do day after day for an entire month! We have about a month left of classes; time sure flies!
The rainy season has begun, it has been raining almost every day here in the afternoons or at night. It's been nice since it cools off the afternoon heat. We have also been getting some excellent thunderstorms and lightning shows. They say it will rain until about September with July being the worst. So far no complaints from me, the most it has rained is for about 2 hours in the afternoon.
Anyway, nothing else for now- still healthy!

keeping occupied

We have been keeping ourselves occupied throughout this past weekend and for the beginning of this week while we are still off school. Eloisa (the secretary here) called yesterday to tell us we aren't going back until tomorrow so we have another day off. For Sandy, Mike and I, it is a day of recuperation. On Sunday we went to the Chorros de Varal which are the natural waterfalls about a half hour from here. We set off around noon in a taxi and got dropped off at the top of this cliff. There were 786 steps (yes, I counted them...) down to the bottom. The steps wound down and around this cliff and some of the views on the way down were amazing. We finally reached the bottom to be confronted by this suspension bridge high up over the river to cross. The suspension bridge was very Mexican- wooden boards- some not fully attached on one end or another, others just missing altogether. Needless to say, every movie or cartoon I have ever watched with a wooden suspension bridge over a cliff or river was running through my head as we crossed! We had to climb down some rocks to get to the river and then hike through boulders and more rocks to get over to see the waterfalls. The waterfalls were breathtaking- some were coming out of what seemed like a small hole in the cliff and pouring water in huge amounts down to the bottom (the guide book says the waterfalls were about 120ft. high), other parts of the waterfalls were gentle rain-like that sent mist all the way across the river. We crossed the river to get around to the same side as the waterfall which didn't seem customary- we only saw 3 other people who climbed up the cliff and went around instead of crossing the river. It was difficult to cross, some parts of the river came up to your chest but we helped each other across and it was well worth it. We spent most of the afternoon suntanning on the big boulders and swimming in the pools underneath the waterfalls. The climb back up was no joke- it was like being on a stair stepper for an hour! We were very sore on Monday!!

Yesterday, after leaving only a day to recuperate from the waterfalls we decided to go to Paricutin, the world's youngest volcano. We got up early and headed out as everything we read said it was to be an all day adventure. We arrived at 9am in Angahuan which is the small town near the volcano. This is where you are able to hire a guide and horses to get to the volcano. A little history- Paricutin erupted out of a cornfield in 1943. It is the first time geologists have been able to study a volcano from its birth to eruption. The volcano grew and erupted until 1952, burying towns nearby in volcanic rock and lava. Nobody was killed in the eruptions as it was slow moving lava and over the 9 years of eruptions the cone grew to stand about 1400 feet above the cornfield it erupted out of. It is located about 10,000 feet above sea level.
We took the horses around the miles of volcanic rock, the trip to the base of the volcano from Angahuan was about 2- 2 1/2 hours on horseback. The guides are all natives and interestingly enough, many have very rusty Spanish skills. The native people in this area are indigenous people called the Purhepecha and they all still speak to each other in their native language. It is a village out of old times- cobblestone streets, handmade native clothing and interesting arts and crafts. Our guide was probably only 12 years old and came with us on horseback to the volcano. We reached the base around noon and began the grueling climb up to the crater. The side of the volcano consists of ashes and rocks that make it extremely difficult to climb. Every step you took, you slid down half as far. It is an impressive site to stand at the base of the volcano but far more impressive from the top! We made it up after many breaks and were able to walk around the entire crater. From the top of the volcano you could see the miles and miles of black rock left from the lava. The inside of the crater was impressive as well and around the crater there were little pockets that still eject steam. As far as I understand, this volcano will never erupt again. If there is more activity from this area it would come from another spot. Climbing down the volcano was the most fun- it took maybe 10 minutes to get to the bottom. They have a path that is just ash and you can slide down most of the way. You sink to your calves and it's almost like walking on air or on a pogo stick. I can't really describe the walk down but it was great fun!
We got back on the horses and started back but detoured to go see the church of San Juan Parangaricutiro which was half buried in the lava. The church was built in the 1800s and was quite large at one point. Most of it was destroyed by the volcano but it is considered a holy spot by Mexicans because the altar with the crucifix was absolutely untouched. We were able to climb around on the rocks left by the lava and explore what was left of the church. The entire first floor was filled with boulders and most of the walls were wiped out. The main steeple with an archway was still intact and you were also able to squeeze through some of the rocks to get into a small room that would have been either the basement or first floor. You could hike across what would have been the gathering space of the church to reach the altar and it really was amazing that it wasn't touched. Many of the rocks stood higher than the altar and spilled over near the altar but the crucifix was untouched both by the heat and the devastation.
We are all extremely sore today (sunburn just adds to the aching muscles!) but it was well worth it to see what is categorized as one of the natural wonders of the world.
Tomorrow we are supposed to start up school again, I am not sure how many students will show up for class for just 2 days before the weekend but I am kind of looking forward to going back to work. It has been a little boring sitting around with no place to go and nothing to do!

Piggy flu part 2

Just another update- no swine flu in these parts that I know of yet. The government went one step further and closed all nonessential businesses and places people can congregate (including restaurants, bars, clubs, gyms etc). They say it will for sure go until Tuesday the 6th which is supposed to be the end of our long holiday vacation but they say everything may remain closed depending on the spread of the swine flu (we may have another extended vacation!). The Mexican government is not as quick at disclosing where the swine flu has spread as the USA is so I'm not even entirely sure it is still contained to Mexico City. Masks are impossible to find here- no pharmacies have them. Mom sent an email yesterday saying she was going to send some antiviral drugs and masks down to me, hopefully they will get here in a timely manner. Who knows, maybe this will be somewhat under control in a few weeks and I won't need any of it! We are trying to keep ourselves entertained and occupied but it is difficult without going anywhere. We are thinking of heading out to the natural waterfalls about a half hour away and maybe going to the world's youngest volcano, which is about 2 hours away sometime this weekend. We figure both are open areas where we won't get exposed to anything.
Anyways- still healthy for now, I will keep everyone updated on the progress but for now just trying to keep from going stir crazy in a shut down city!