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.)

Now let’s go back in time so I can catch up on this here thang.

I’ve just been working all the time, and going to Spanish class up until that day I got drenched and the teacher didn’t show up. My advisor has come to town, as I mentioned, and that greatly increases my workload. In addition to the time-consuming lesson-planning and research, I have to write evaluations and reports about things I’m learning and my theories about pedagogy, and I have to start building a library of language errors.

So I’ve had little opportunity to explore this city. Its downtown area is lively, and there are bands of musicians standing in their glorious regalia with guitars and horns and stuff, hoping for a passerby to come hire them for a party. They cost around 2500 pesos (around $200) or I’d hire them myself. I can’t say that their playing is particularly good, but it has spirit and I’m growing to love it. There are serenaders who wander through restaurants, break dancers in the zócalo, and guys with accordions in empty doorways.

Economic times are hard, and you can see it everywhere from worried faces to closed stores. México’s drug wars have infiltrated this town due to its promixity to La Ciudad de México. Interestingly, the highest crime areas here are high on the hills: what would be prime real estate were we in the US.

I like my students. The group of younguns is a challenge, but they’re cute. The teenaged boys are… well, teenaged boys. In both of those classes I have to follow a set curriculum, and enhance it only as time allows, which is frustrating. My conversation class — four hours long! — is the one I enjoy most. Though they speak little English, they are solid enough that I can get them to play with language. At our last class I designed a project for our remaining weeks. I’m really excited about it. We’re going to make a movie about México. Each student is working on one facet: animals, soccer, folklore, insects, obesity, music and interesting places. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. It’s gonna be a ton of work for me, however, in producing the video. I’ll have them write a script and will record their narration.

I still like being called “Teacher.” One student, Juan, invited me to visit his village a little ways from here, which I hope to do.

Sorry I’m boring. Let’s just get to the pictures.

I hate poodles. I’ve never liked them. I know that’s doggist of me, but it’s true. And now I dislike them more than ever. Here’s why:

I know from having spent time in places without much infrastructure that you always look down when you’re walking. Otherwise you’re liable to fall into a hole or trip over a dead rat or the like. But a few days ago as I made my way downtown carrying a heavy bag, something on high caught my eye. It was a poodle. If it had lived in a Parisian flat it would have been white and dressed in pink. This one was a yellow-grey and chained on the roof so it wouldn’t fall off. It walked to the edge. It looked at me. It turned so its butt pointed at me and then hunched its back. A fruit bat has shat on my head, and a pigeon, but I draw the line at poodles. I jumped out of the way of the imminent projectiles, in the process rolling my ankle on an unseen terrestrial hazard. I felt two little pops and I said a bad word for each. (“Oh darn,” I think it was.) I decided it would be best if I kept walking, so I limped another block and twisted my other ankle. Mad but undaunted, I got to town, feeling the occasional icepick sensation on both sides of my ankle and up my calf.

But now it’s much better. I lucked out. This is no place to have one’s mobility restricted. Stupid dog.

All I ever do is take Spanish classes (I’m getting progressively worse), teach and — with most of my time — prepare to teach. I’m traumatized, because last week my carefully planned lesson fell in ruins about my feet, and I just stood there confused. I was so disoriented by the end that I don’t remember what I assigned for homework. I’m not sure this teaching thing is so good for someone with an untethered brain.

Another thing that keeps me busy is the three blogs I’m now keeping up: this one, a secret one for my master’s where I write things I’d never otherwise remember, and the third for my students here, about which I’ve already told you.

Which reminds me, our advisor arrived in Mexico a few days ago and observed my first class this week, which was unnerving. Right afterwards (at 9:30 pm) we met to discuss her evaluation and my ideas. She kicked off the discussion with something unrelated: “You’re a good writer, but you write too much.”

Now, if I’d wanted a writing advisor I’d have asked another writer. Her assessment of my writing has already infected my enthusiasm to write. I’m already thinking “Is this ‘too much’?” It’s like when my first ex-husband told me 1) that my eyes were too close together and 2) that my singing voice was “strident.” Until that moment those were the two things I’d most prided myself on. Nevermore.

The writing part aside, she gave me a backhanded compliment about how I handled the five nine-year-olds in my group: “I’ve observed many teachers and you didn’t do any worse than half of them, all of whom were experienced teachers.” I have to ponder that. I think it’s good. Her pedagogical feedback was, as I expected it would be, astute, and in that realm I need buckets of help.

I can’t even remember what’s happened since I saw you last. I mean, saw you here on this blog.

On Friday, Sarah, Kim and I ate ice cream (Santa Maria brand), which is the best in the universe. They make it in little batches every day. I sample as many sabores as I can before committing myself to one. The city was really busy that night, especially around the big church. The market stalls were packed with crowds so thick I couldn’t see what they were seeking. Finally, when the sea of humanity momentarily parted, I beheld hundreds of naked baby Jesuses, from finger-sized to John-Henry-as-an-infant sized. Even old men were cradling them in their arms.

In a neighboring stall I saw a man with his Jesus laid out on the table. There, the holy creature was being fitted in clothes: a little jacket, teeny metallic sandals and a sparkling crown. Enchanted but mystified, I later asked my Mexican “mother” what was going on. Here’s my version of her story:

Every Catholic household has at least one baby Jesus, used for the crèche at Christmas. Sadly, Jesus is fragile, so many of the vendors are Jesus-repairers, touching up a scratched eyeball or reattaching an arm. The story on the clothes is that when you buy a new Jesus, you must take it to the church to be blessed on February 2, Día de la Candelaría, which marks the end of the Christmas season. And of course Jesus can’t just go to mass butt-naked, so you have to buy him an outfit. He gets stylish clothes befitting a young deity, and then in the church the priest douses him with holy water. Then he (the doll, not the priest) gets wrapped up and put away till crèche time next year. The following February, when he’s two, you have to buy him another new set of clothing, so he’s fit to be blessed again. The third year: the same, but after that, he don’t need no more blessing. For the rest of his porcelain life, all he has is crèche duty and the occasional visit to the Jesus doctor to have his body repaired.

The next day I went on an mini-adventure with Kim. We rode the combi (a little van thing like the colectivo in Guatemala, into which people sardine) to a Walmart-like superstore that had some great clothing items with erroneous English. I bought underwear with inexplicable messages. The place was dotted with towering wedding cakes.

I found yet another sign for YoNenny. For some reason, Lulu-related ones are in short supply, but I’ll keep looking.

On Sunday Magdalena took Sarah, Kim and me on a sightseeing tour. First stop: Huasca de Ocampo, a so-called “Pueblo Mágico” which as I understand it is a ghost town restored by the government. Real del Monte, where I went last week, is another. Both were abandoned mining villages. Oh wait: here’s more info on Wikipedia.

Huasca is frequented mostly by Mexicans, so we three Americans were objects of curiosity, particularly to the children. We stopped at a taco stand where the choices were paralyzing: nopal cactus (I tried nopal rellenos the other day and I could’ve lived without them) and pumpkin flowers (flor de calabaza — I had one of those) and I can’t even begin to tell you what else. See for yourself. That’s Magdalena ordering in the third picture.

The regional foods continue to be excellent, but there are certain things I will not eat: the fried larvae of ants, for example, and the pequeño grubs that live inside an agave-like cactus. I almost ordered it by accident because it seemed innocent: escamoles a la mantequilla. Luckily I found out in time that that means “worms in butter.” And last night I learned that some locals savor wood rats (but never city rats). You can even order them in restaurants.

Here’s life in Huasca. There are musicians and dogs everywhere.

Then Magdalena drove us to an exceptionally overpopulated (but again, nary a gringo) place that was amazing: Prismas Basálticos. Here are lots of pictures.

I have more to show and tell you about that day but I’m exhausted. It’s after 1:00 a.m. And anyway, I’ve heard I write too much.

Later do you want to hear about our next stop: Hacienda Santa María Regla? I’ll show you pictures. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, you can read about a little about it, in words other than my own:

Pedro Romero de Terreros, primer conde de Regla, quien la denominó así, en recuerdo de la virgen que se venera en Chipiona, provincia de Cádiz, España, donde él nació. Fue la primera Hacienda de beneficio de plata que existió en la región.