A World of Scorpions

I hate children, which is too bad because I live in Cuidad de los Nií±os (named after the giant orphanage nearby) within Colonia Boulevares de San Francisco.

One of the things I’ve always known about myself is that I never wanted to teach kids. Oh, sure: they’re fine at times, like when they’re asleep. But like dogs in a pack or Nazis in a mob, they are dangerous when clustered.

Ironically, here on this very blog I wrote nice things about these same children a while back. But they’ve transformed from a nice little set of Jekylls to a Hyde, a Frankenstein, a werewolf, a zombie, and A Thing That Shall Not Be Named.

It came to a head on Tuesday. I had a brilliant lesson plan, full of drawing and role-plays and hands-on stuff about dinosaurs. I’d scoured the city for plastic animals and had printed out really cool color photos from the Web. I was excited. I was well organized. It was going to be perfect.

Only moments after class began I noticed a shift in its personality. Even the two sweet ones got an evil glint in their once-studious little brown eyes. The others were jumping out of their chairs, hitting each other, talking loudly to each other, and of course laughing. The progression from bad to worse was visible: Jack’s beanstalk shooting toward the sky — or maybe in the other direction. None of my diversionary tactics worked. By the end of class — two hours is a long time for anyone under any circumstances — I was irate, embarrassed, frustrated, addled. To be outdone by a cloud of demons whose combined age doesn’t begin to touch mine — that’s humiliating. They even stole my eraser.

Dena: Boy, did I need you! You’ll have to tell me one appealing thing about working with a herd of children.

They’re sweet kids. A lot of the problem is that this class is way over their head: not my doing, but something I’m stuck with. I’d be the same way if I were they.

At any rate, the woman who runs the school seemed quite pleased by this turn of events. It proved, once again, her pedagogical superiority. Those forty years of experience do give her that slight edge. I’d like to see her produce a radio documentary. However, a few days after her gloat-fest she acknowledged that she doesn’t like working with this bunch either.

Here’s a picture I encountered when I was researching stuff for their class. It cheers me up:

Oh, Syd: Thanks for your help with the rock versus mineral thing. I guess I should’ve taken my cue from the name of the museum: Museo de la Minerí­a de Pachuca, not El Museo de Peí±as y Piedras. (Actually, minerí­a is “mining,” but still I should’ve known.) If “mining” comes from “mineral,” what is it called when you’re digging out a rock? What is silver: a mineral? I’ll show you the cuarzo oscuro that I bought; it’s a mineral.

Monster Update: Reina (the Queen) is still at it. I spend as much time as I can away from the house. I’ve lived here five weeks and still she doesn’t bother to remember my name. When she talks about me, she calls me The Gringa which is overtly rude. There are a lot of things I want to call her, but none about her race. It’s so weird: she’ll either be outright aggressive and cold, or she’ll be all faux nicey-nice, but then talk about me to la maestra behind my back. I can’t even imagine what she has to complain about. I’m sure she makes it up, because I’m really quite perfect, except when I use the orange plastic cup instead of the yellow one.

The good thing about her is that I usually can hear her approach. Flapping footsteps across the shiny tile, and quick single knock, and a query: “Puedo pasar?” However, by the time she’s asked me if she can come in, there she is. She’s like my ex-husband. He would turn on the car’s turn signal after he’d begun to turn; I called it his “I-have-turned signal.”

While I’m trying to work she sits at the foot of my bed and chats. As perhaps I’ve mentioned a few thousand times here, I don’t speak much Spanish. When I don’t understand her, she rolls her eyes and throws her hands in the air.

Two weeks to go.

Here, I’ll show you the picture I took of her the other night, just to see if a camera could capture her image. Had it been film, it might not have worked.

Two shocking sights today: Reina beating the crap out of the dog, Karlotta (a huge Rottweiler) who was crying and cringing. And a man whaling on his three-year-old son and calling him a puto. The child was sobbing, as would I if my father accused me of being a cross-dressing male whore. I haven’t seen much of that kind of violence here, fortunately. Mostly I think Mexicans adore small ones.

Two weeks to go.

And I do like Mexico a lot. It’s just that the living situation, the teaching situation, and the town itself aren’t too great. Initially I tried to let all this roll off me. But after sustained exposure, it’s now embedded deeply under my skin and working toward my vitals.

Two weeks … and then onward, to two thousand feet of snow in Vermont. But I’ll be in my barn without people complaining about how much of which water I use.

So I’ll bet you all want to know how much I weigh now. At Farmacia Guadalajara, you can pay two pesos to find out your peso, your altura y your I.M.C. (indice de masa corporal). If your IMC is 19 or less, you’re underweight. If it’s 24.9, you’re normal. If you’re mas de 30, you’ve got a problem with obesidad.

I’m 19.5. I didn’t know that. Nor did I have any idea that I’m 1.72 meters tall. I wonder what that means. Let me check online…

No, the machine is lying. I’m way taller than 5.6430446194225725 feet. Why, that’s 17 hands! I’m thinking that’s about right for someone who weighs in at a little over 9 stones.

And there are other things that are good. I really get along well with my other two groups of students. They’re challenging to work with because they’re at a low intermediate level in English (equivalent to my Spanish, mas or menos) so everything has to be very slow and simple. With more advanced classes you can do more fun and imaginative stuff. But they’re full of character and are respectful, so I couldn’t ask for more. I’m very excited about the progress my conversation class is making on the group project about México. My boss looked chagrined when I started to rave about the students’ ideas and involvement. “This is supposed to be a conversation class,” she reprimanded. Well, they’re talking, and they’re reading and writing and listening. So I’m moving forward.

I have several pictures to show you but I have to get ready for bed. Oh, here: I’ll show you what I almost stepped on at the ruins in Puebla:

I teach a four-hour class tomorrow morning and am then jumping immediately onto a bus to México City where I hope to be able to negotiate the subway system and find my way to my hostel and meet up with my colleagues. Sunday I plan to stay all day at the Museo Nacional de Antropologí­a and after that I’ll watch the Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Herní¡ndez. For years I’ve wanted to go to both. Coming back to Pachuca on Monday.

xoxoxo [besos y abrazos y besos y abrazos y besos y abrazos]

P.S. Bully-stick: Thanks for the digital Valentines. An extra x and o to you.