The Wormlips Scrapbook

I’m so far behind on this blog, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to catch up. Since my last entry there have been trips to México City (I still want to put up some video of the amazing Ballet Folklórico), trials and tribulations of life in Pachuca, an evening at the fútbol stadium watching the Mexicans’ beloved Tuzos, exploration of Teotihuacan and a black market mercado outside México City, and of course lots of teaching and hearing the dog being beaten.

As of last night I’ve survived 72 hours in the classroom. (I succeeded in getting my children’s class back from La Maestra.)

I left Pachuca this morning. Here is my luggage, with La Serpiente blocking my escape.

When my taxi didn’t arrive as scheduled, I dragged my stuff a block to the busy street, while Reina yelled at me and rolled her eyes. Apparently she had some better idea, but who knows what. Oddly, when a cab arrived and I said goodbye to her, she started crying. As I wrote to my mother, it was probably because I didn’t grease her palm before departing.

I survived one part of the trip I’ve been dreading: dragging all my stuff from the bus station to the airport terminal to the shuttle area to my hotel. After dumping my stuff I had a free afternoon to explore la ciudad muy grande. First I went to Mercado de Sonora, which is the strangest market I’ve been to, with all kinds of herbs and flowers and bark and candles and magic stuff related to Santa Muerte. I don’t quite understand her yet, but she’s fascinating. She’s sort of a barrio version of La Virgen de Guadalupe: much more sinister. I like her. The Virgin has a soft, gentle smile. Santa Muerte has a skull for a face, and she carries another skull and a scythe. Of course I bought a small statue of her. Her devotees were a bit wary of the only gringa within miles, so I didn’t linger.

I also found my way to El Museo de Arte Popular. I know how to ask directions pretty well, and by now I understand much of the reply, listening for key words: “block,” “straight,” “corner” and “walk a really long way in that direction.” Trouble is, after I walk a really long way in that direction, I find that the direction-giver had no idea what s/he was talking about. I remember my first ex-husband telling me years ago that Mexicans never want to disappoint; if they don’t have an answer, they’ll make one up, just to be helpful. It’s true.

Way-finding aside, my Spanish is worse than ever, but my Spanglish is on the rise. I had a blast today in México City talking to Mexicans who have equivalent amounts of English to my Spanish. Our conversations were colorful collages of never-before-heard linguistic structures.

And lastly, I visited El Palacio de Bellas Artes. I love the city’s public gathering places. They’re full of life and music and old buildings and the smell of Mexican street food.

As I left Bellas Artes I looked way up at the Mexican version of the Sears Tower. When I saw what I saw, I said right out loud, “Aw, hi Dad!” There, in bold glowing letters, was his name: Ears (short for Earlobes). It’s a nickname I gave him — I don’t know why — a million years ago. I suppose it seems silly, but it was like he’d come all the way to Mexico —  land of celebration of the dead — to visit me.

The metro, on the other hand, I didn’t like as well, particularly just after dark when I headed home tonight. It’s confusing enough not to know where you’re going or what the signs mean, but to do it at top speed is especially novel. During rush hours they divide the platform into a men’s and women’s section, allegedly because the men are pushy while the women need a kinder, gentler environment. I was a little surprised to be nearly squished to death by herds of forceful, armpit-height mujeres.

To regress all the way back to last night: I’ll pop one video up here before I leave. It’s of three of my students on our last night together: the painfully shy Illaly (who wanted to drop the class because she couldn’t understand me, but stuck with it), Jaime (talkative and muy amable) and Alexis (whom I aptly dubbed “Motor Mouth”). I was very touched by what Jaime said, and you’ll see why.

And at this same class, I produced a Freudian slip on the white board, which sent me into hysterics, much to the mystification of my students. I was drawing a grid so we could play Basta, in which people race to think of words in a particular category, as you can see. But instead of putting the names outside the matrix, I got confused and wrote the boys in the wrong column. Or did I? I had to stop the class so I could take a picture.

Okay, now I’m caught up on today pretty much. Guess I’ll have to work backwards from here. But for now… I’m out of the clutches of the Evil Forces in Pachuca, and headed for Philadelphia tomorrow and Vermont the next day and who-knows-what after that.

I hate children, which is too bad because I live in Cuidad de los Niños (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 Peñas 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 Hernández. 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.

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:

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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.)