The Wormlips Scrapbook

In México, some night watchmen make their rounds in the daytime. You can hear others at 2:00 am, sounding their presence every few seconds with a deep, flutey whistle. It’s mournful, like a faraway steam engine approaching and fading away. As I understand it, the function of the noise-making is to make sure they get paid: without noise there’s no proof that they were watching at night.

I’ve been here long enough that most of the time I no longer feel I’m in a foreign place. When I walk down the street, I’m just walking down a street, albeit one with gaping holes and homicidal drivers inches away. Lining the roads are scores of closet-sized tiendas with people talking in the doorways. I recognize isolated words — enfrente, but I don’t catch in front of what; pequeño, but I don’t know which small thing they’re talking about.

It’s the day before Valentine’s Day. Walking downtown is tricky, negotiating around the vendors hidden among clouds of balloons, and threading through the clinging lovers holding balloons of their own. People are big into bootlegged stuff here: hand-copied DVDs and CDs for a dollar or two: cheap enough that I took a chance on a few unknown Mexican music recordings tonight. I just listened. It’s good to know I wasted only a pittance.

I learned a wonderful thing the other day: if I can’t get a job teaching (if, in fact, I decide I even want to teach), I could become a prostitute in Mexico City. There’s an entire section of the red-light district designated just for the older set. And here I thought my career possibilities as a streetwalker (puta, puchacha or mujer de calle) were only in the past. You should also know that puto and puchaco are transvestite prostitutes.

Tonight I went with Kim to Santa Maria, the ice cream place that makes a score of flavors fresh every day. I had chamoya — mango and chili — on a sugar cone. As we sat there slurping, next to us a guy played a piano: mostly Beatles standards. Then he transitioned to a quiet version of Für Elise (played much better by my daughter) as another guy recited romantic poetry. Obese children frolicked with effort on a McDonald’s-like inflated structure. It was almost like home. At one point I looked across the room and started to read a sign. It startled me. I commented to Kim, “That’s weird. That sign’s in Spanish!”

I still like it when my students get my attention by calling, “Teacher?” I don’t know why I like it. It’s got a slightly more respectful ring than Ho-bag.

I have my conversation class working on a final project that I’m really excited about. I think they are too. Each student will report on a specific aspect of life in Mexico, and I’ll produce it into a video. One person is doing insects, another obesity. One girl wants to do something about fighting-cocks. That seemed a fine idea, until I had to correct her pronunciation. “Cawque,” she said melodically. “Cock,” I said. “Cock.” Then I had to stand in front of the class and correct them one by one: “Cock. Good. Cock? Cock. Cock. Okay, now together: Cock. COCK!” It’s humiliating.

Most of my time here is either in or preparing for the classroom. As is my wont, all my plans go out the window as soon as I embark. When I go on a roadtrip, I map a route and then change it with minutes, as I find a road that looks more interesting. My lesson plans — intensely considered, laboriously prepared — endure intact for five minutes at most, before I abandon them and veer into uncharted territory: sometimes at the peril of my students. I suck at schedules, plans, timelines, instructions. Too many possibilities call me in other directions.

I can’t say I had a great week of teaching. My poor little ones — nine- and ten-year-olds — were subjected to what I considered brutal testing. It was hard to stand by and watch, and all I could do to keep from yanking the power cord from the audio console and shouting, “STOP! Can’t you just leave them alone!” After an hour of this torture, they came to my class. By that time even the tame ones were wild and I had no idea how to reattach them to the planet. In fact, I didn’t blame them. It was an hour of chaos until I could let them go, at which moment they became human again. The littlest — who also is completely out of her element at this level — reached her face up to mine for a Mexican cheek kiss. She has my heart.

I invited Kim to come to my class today because I wanted to do a native-speaker exercise or two with my conversation-class students. They’re pretty low level in English — maybe about where I am in Spanish — but they’re my most advanced group. It’s a four-hour class, which takes tons of prep, but what’s great is that it’s the only class in which I make up my own curriculum. I really hate the two books I have to work with for the other classes. They’re everything I’ve hated about language learning.

Anyway, Kim and I pretended to have a disagreement. First we did it politely, to try to demonstrate the American English tendency toward softening requests and disagreements. Did you know that English uses something like ten or fifty times as many hedging words than any other language? Then we tried a similar dialog, but rudely. That was quite fun. The students were amused as we got into our angry roles.

I graded my first tests ever today. I didn’t like it. I wanted to sneak in extra points for the poor students who weren’t given enough time to understand the instructions. They deserved it for having survived. Don’t tell anyone, but I gave two students an extra point-and-a-half (out of 65): enough to make me feel a little better. It’s amazing how subjective grading is even on a pretty standardized test. I asked Magdalena to work with me on the first couple sections, just to see what she considered wrong or right. Very fuzzy line.

Okay, well, I guess it’s time to show you some pictures now. Oh, but first: I have a new favorite canción Méxicana. It’s one for children. It’s called Naranja Dulce.

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I want to marry his voice. But I’m not going to eat chicharrón, no matter how nicely he sings about it. I don’t like fried pig skins. I am, however, going to ask my students next week each to bring me their favorite Mexican song so I can have an audio souvenir.

Oh, one more thing before I show you pictures from the past bunch of days: As we were walking through el centro de Pachuca, we came across this group of school kids:

I don’t have much else to show you because all I ever do is work. But here are a few pix, and tomorrow we’re going to Puebla where there may be interesting sights. Buenas noches, mis amigos. (Remember you can see the photos full-sized if you click the little four-arrow thing in the lower-right corner.)

Here’s my new favorite song.

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Here’s an ad that keeps showing up in the sidebar of my Google search page, whose results are now in Spanish, against my wishes.

After class today we puttered around school for a while, getting a very late start to Monte Albán — so late that we had only an hour up there before having to catch the last shuttle down for the day. I wasn’t happy about that. Those ancient places are magical and haunting, and careening through them sucks the big one.

The ancient Zapotecs leveled off this hilltop (elevation 6400 feet) to build their capital, beginning around 500 BC. Monte Albán means “White Mountain.” Today it was brown, but maybe it pales sometimes.

I don’t feel like talking any more. I’ll just show you a few carefully culled pictures. That’s the Sierra Madre in the background.

My ex-husband just sent an e-mail to tell me that Jean Ritchie, one of my all-time idols, has had a serious stroke. She must be in her eighties by now.

For those of you who don’t know Jean Ritchie: she’s one of the earliest Appalachian singer-songwriters to emerge from the hollers into the eyes and ears of the rest of the world during the folk revival. Her music is political, courageous and moving: ballads about black lung and mining disasters and the lives of her people.

I’ve admired her since my other ex-husband introduced me to her in the mid-seventies. Ten years later I had the opportunity to spend a day with her at her house in Port Washington, NY, where I interviewed her for my radio series about childhood. She fed me lunch from her garden. She was poetic and funny.

In one of these programs (In the Secret Garden), she describes her Kentucky home where the ridges in the distance “fall away like petals in a rose.” She recalls her mother looking out over the view and, in every season, sighing, “Lawd, chil’ren. This is the prettiest time.”

Years later I wanted to interview her again for the documentary I was producing about the John Henry legend. On the phone I told her about my project.

“It’s about the John Henry legend and the Appalachian culture that gave rise to it.”

“Gay rights? What on earth does John Henry have to do with gay rights?”

It took me a beat to figure out the miscommunication, and when I did I found it amusing. She didn’t. We decided to give the interview a miss this go ’round.

Here is another of my programs about childhood — Nighttime — in which Jean talks about not wanting to go to bed at night, and sings part of a children’s song:

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By the way, I highly recommend her book about her childhood in Kentucky: Jean Ritchie’s Singing Family of the Cumberlands. (Maurice Sendak illustrated it.) She’s a wonderful storyteller.

I hope she isn’t suffering now. I’m very sad.