Laying down the law

     Let's have a bit of background first... I went straight from work on Thursday night to Mexico City, where I stayed for a night before going to Cuernavaca for a concert by Los amigos invisibles (check them out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_elMlX4CAtY). I returned to el D.F. early Saturday morning and spent the next two days and nights at the incredible but exhausting Corona Capital music festival -  90,000 hipsters and counting. On Sunday night, I went straight from the festival grounds to the bus station and spent the night on a bus and several hours on a bench in the Queretaro bus station, finally arriving home in San Miguel at 9 a.m., just in time to catch a couple hours of sleep before work. It was an amazing, stellar weekend but I was (and still am) definitely a little worse for wear, with a killer headache, a cold, and sleep deprivation. So imagine my delight when, at the end of a tough class in Jalpa, our newest students jam the door shut with sticks and lock us in the building! Thanks to the assistance of our mischievous but ultimately sweet student Jovani and our trusty driver Richard, we were finally able to escape with most of our dignity but very little of our patience intact. 

     Jalpa is a tough class... the kids are a little wild, and there is very little in the way of family and community support. It's unfortunate, because we have some difficult but sweet kids who really want to learn, but whose classes are constantly interrupted by more disruptive students. After a hellish class on Wednesday, Erin and I decided today to lay down the law, going over the rules the students created themselves, separating a particularly chatty group of girls with a lot of attitude, and refusing entry to students whose behaviour was violent or exceptionally disruptive. Evidently, they didn't like it. Still, there were bright spots, like the always-tough Manuel, who, after letting off some steam on the soccer field, came to apologize to us for his behaviour before class. There was also the noisy and energetic Adrian, who asked me if we could have English class again soon - it's nice to know that in between driving us crazy, some of these kids really want to be there. 

     Anyways, we're not giving up. Although Richard, a volunteer driver for five years, says that it can't be done, we're going to turn this class around in no time. And I'm going to get a free dinner out of it too when he loses our bet.