Recent photos

Paloma and Angela, eating chetos

Chris, studiously drawing a flamingo

The charming Jesus Alberto on puppet-making day

Erin in Jalpa, playing "Palabra Escondida" ("Hidden Word")...
little do they know it's just a quiz with a fun name

Cafe Tacuba!

Waiting for the bus from La Palma during a beautiful sunset

Penpals and Prizes and Pogs, OH MY!

We got a lot accomplished this week. We filmed a very cute video in the La Palma morning class, which you can view here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp3ukqFEI6o. 

The kids were really excited to see themselves on camera and are looking forward to starting work on our Christmas play. We also sent letters to our penpals, my mom's kindergarten class! We wrote exclusively in English, and I'm really proud of the students for taking such care with their letters. They had to give their name and age, describe themselves, talk about what they like to do, and say what they want to be when they grow up. My favourite is the devilishly cute Arturo: "Hello. I am Arturo. I am in grade four. I am handsome. Goodbye." 

The secundaria projects are really coming along, although our group of little environmentalists needs to learn to focus their energy a bit better. They've got a lot of ideas - some of which are coherent and some of which are, well, less coherent. I'm looking forward to working more with them on Tuesday; there are a lot of bright students working on the project and I think if they develop a clearer sense of direction they could produce something pretty powerful. It was also a good week for music - we practiced our songs without background vocals for the first time and I think it really boosted their confidence.

The afternoon class has made some really great collages in the style of Eric Carle (of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" fame) with Erin. She's been teaching colours and animals in English, so the kids got some computer time this week to type up a little nametag for their collage. I was working the computer lab yesterday and I have to admit that I might rather listen to Justin Beiber all day than work the computer lab. Especially on a full moon. The kids were a little wild yesterday, and our dinosaur-like computers are frustrating enough as it is. Erin must be a goddess for what she manages to get done in there - by the end of class, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and spacing had gone out the window, along with my sanity.

That being said, there were some great moments. I showed tough-guy Pablo how to use the arrow buttons and he excitedly showed the kid next to him, nodded sagely, and said, "Pretty cool, hey?" Little Miguel Angel made his collage of a deer. I asked him to give it a name, and he just looked at me the way my cat does when I try to get her to play. Like, "Seriously?" Then he wrote, "My name is Deer. I am a brown deer." Creativity is soooo beneath Miguel Angel. I also feel like I've made some ins with the boys, due mainly to my impressive hat trick in Tuesday's street soccer match and my accidental but effective tackle of the other team's star midfielder, Rodrigo. 

In Jalpa, the first of our students earned their prizes for attending the last five out of five classes. It was just TOO MUCH FREAKING EXCITEMENT to handle - the knowledge that there was a basket of pogs, stickers, glittery pens, and headbands just out of reach led to some pretty energetic students. With prizes, the possibility of earning their "good behaviour party" next week, and the Christmas party coming up on top of that, things were a bit chaotic. However, in general, a lot of students have really turned it around in Jalpa. It's been especially nice to see the girls work exceptionally hard at something other than gossip, and hearing tiny Alejandro correctly pronounce "mouse" is one of the cutest things ever.

I also went to a fantastic Cafe Tacuba concert on Wednesday! And I'll be teaching another yoga class tomorrow. Next week we'll also have the talented Brendan all the way from Canada to accompany us on guitar and help out in a game of "musical genre geography". Looking forward to another productive week and gathering steam for the Christmas concert....

As always, thanks for reading. Check out the new photos. 

-Natalia

Fotos recientes

Camping in the Sierra Santa Rosa

El llano? Los llanos? We'll never know.

Iglesia in Leon

International Hot Air Balloon Festival in Leon

The lovely Estefania

Teeny-tiny revolutionaries

Dancers at the school in Rancho Viejo

Fifth-grader Cielo de la Paz, una mujer de la revolucion

Viva la Revolución! Tiny Pancho Villas and other wonders of patriotism in Mexico

    Today, November 20th, celebrates the 102nd anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. Celebrations are big - there are parades and every schoolchild is involved. Upon the request of our students (and out of curiosity as well), Erin and I headed out to La Palma early today to check out the festivities and see our kids in the parade. We arrived to deserted streets only to be informed that the kids had already gone past! We rushed down the road to Rancho Viejo, following the many little footprints in the dust. I felt like Mantracker. Finally we located the school just before the parade returned, and saw lots of our students dressed up as little revolutionaries. There were traditional dances (SO CUTE) and some sort of re-enactment which involved a lot of giggling girls picking up would-be wounded soldiers and carrying them off the field of battle. The boys were dropped none too gently and each one looked more terrified than the last at the gaggle of long skirts and braids rushing towards them. The program was really sweet, and it was cool to see our students performing.

     It's been a busy couple of weeks as usual in La Palma and in Jalpa. We've been working on our Adobe projects with the secundaria students, and despite their perpetual embarrassment and incredible eye-rolling stamina, they are coming along. We had one group editing their photos today, and another taking theirs with costumes and props. It's great how different the two projects are - I won't spoil the surprise by revealing too much but I think they'll be very interesting. We also had a guest lecture from the multi-talented Dan (he can play keyboard! AND he can lecture on ethical consumption!), which I think was really useful for the group working on environmental issues. 

     In primaria, we've been working on understanding a Zapotec myth called, "How the rainbow was born". It's been a steep learning curve for me in terms of what I expected of the kids and what they've actually learned, but I think we're starting to get somewhere with it. Today I got them to writ in role as a character and I got some very cute responses. On Thursday we will be filming them speaking their parts, showing off their puppets, and sending the video to our Canadian penpals - my mom's kindergarten class. 

     I've posted some photos from the last couple weeks. Check them out, and thanks for reading, as usual.

Reggaeton and Respect

     This week we had an interesting mix of themes. In Jalpa, Erin ran some awesome role-playing activities with the kids based around the concept of respect for the class and for one another. It was fun to watch the kids channel their (extremely high levels of) energy into acting out scenarios such as what to do when your donkey eats your neighbour's plants, or how to nicely tell your friend that he shouldn't be climbing on the roof of the school. Believe it or not, that scenario has been very frequently encountered. I also brought my guitar and played a few songs for them. Jalpa has rarely been so quiet! And I've never seen anyone so thoroughly fascinated by a capo. When I showed them how it changed the key of the guitar, it was as if I'd performed magic before their eyes. Hopefully I'll be able to learn a few simple Spanish songs so we can have sing-a-longs.

     In La Palma, my morning primary class has started work on our "Latin American Myths" unit. Over the next few weeks, we'll be reading legends, learning where different stories come from, performing a puppet show based on the Zapotec legend, "How the Rainbow Was Born", and ultimately writing and illustrating our own myths. While I'm grateful that my class is so quiet and well-behaved that we can accomplish this much, I'm interested to see if acting will bring them out of their shells a little bit more or if they'll be too shy to enjoy it. As we've noticed some cliques in the class, I'll be borrowing some ideas from Erin and running role-play activities around themes of respect and inclusion next week. It should be good practice for presenting a puppet show! And if they like performing, we'll look at writing a play for the Christmas concert.

     On Tuesday and Thursday, we learned about different characters in the myth and started to make our puppets. I gave the kids lots of supplies, and the googly eyes proved to be a big hit. So far their puppets look amazing! They've all turned out very differently and I think making the set will be a lot of fun too.

     Yesterday's music class with the secundaria group was great. They've started to participate a lot more (although we still need to work on integrating the two boys, who sit separately at the back and seem to think their female classmates have cooties). Our class theme yesterday was reggaeton, a popular musical genre in Latin America, and music's influence more generally on its listeners/viewers. Although I made them read a pretty dry academic article, they did a really good job of summarizing and critiquing it. We discussed the difference between "liking" something and "identifying with" something, and they criticized the author's bias against reggaeton. We then watched some music videos (and ate some chips, as I'd promised), listening to the lyrics and talking about what message the videos were sending to their viewers. It was funny to see these teenagers so scandalized by scantily clad women dancing sexily, and I was predictably stoked when one student even referred to the women in the videos as "objects". Go feminism! I also enjoyed watching Pablo, the painfully quiet boy in the class, get pretty damn into it when we listened to Calle 13. Behind his fingerless gloves and heavy metal T-shirts, that boy's got taste.

     We also started to learn a new song for the Christmas concert, John Lennon's "Imagine". We're going to be singing in English this time, and they practiced the pronunciation very diligently. I'm already looking forward to the Christmas event, although I know I'll be even more giddily exhausted than after Day of the Dead. 

     Overall, it was a pretty successful week. I can't believe we're almost halfway through the semester already - I'm going to be incredibly sad to leave my amazing co-workers and my brilliant, hilarious students.

Fotos del evento/Event photos

Erin helping my morning class with their paper mache calaveras.

Ale and Hector, more interested in painting each other than their projects...

The always-calm Erin

Some of the primary students in La Palma

The kids' altar, organized by the dynamic fifth-grader Remedios. In her words, "Not bad for just kids!"

Perla and Carolina, two middle-school students

Reveling in the success of their song...

Best-dressed goes to Alma Luz la Catrina!

At the end of a very long week...

    Hey guys,

  This week was a little bit wild. In addition to teaching our regular classes, we also hosted two Day of the Dead events, one in Jalpa on Wednesday night and the other in La Palma on Thursday. We spent Monday and Tuesday making paper mache skulls with three of our classes, and Wednesday and Thursday painting them. I have never had to do so much laundry. The calaveras turned out pretty well and the kids seemed to enjoy the project, although I would personally be very happy if I never, ever had to mix paste again in my life. Ever. Painting was also a bit of an adventure - while we had lots of generously donated paints from, I assume, some of the many artists in San Miguel, the colours weren't exactly child-friendly. What 8-year-old wants to paint in "Victorian Grey" or "Winter Light"? I had a brief moment of panic over the lack of primary colours, but the kids didn't seem to care at all.

     Our little party in Jalpa turned out really well, with students bringing snacks and some of their parents supplying food. It was great to meet some of the families as we don't know the community in Jalpa very well and in the past, communicating with parents has been challenging. At six fifteen we cleaned up and locked up the classroom, and then realized that our ride hadn't shown up! Jalpa is 15 km from the highway and at least a half-hour drive from San Miguel. There is also no phone service in town, and the last bus leaves at six, so we were stranded until we had the luck of hitching a ride back to the city in the back of a Sapasma pick-up.

     Thursday was an incredibly long day - we taught three classes in La Palma from eleven until five and then organized and cleaned for the Day of the Dead event, which went from six to nine. Despite how hectic everything was, the event was a success (I'd say, at least). Almost all of our students came and many brought their families; some families set up their altars outside the community center, and about twenty or thirty guests from San Miguel also celebrated with us, including tourists, ex-pats, volunteers, and board members. The students in Erin's afternoon primary class organized and built their own group altar, which was incredibly sweet. It was nice to see them taking initiative and working together so well. My middle-schoolers were wonderful, reading brief speeches they had written about the event and performing as a choir for the first time. A lot of effort went into this event - staff, volunteers, students, and parents worked hard to pull it off. I've got to give an extra thank-you to Salomon and Dan for accompanying us and to Cinthia for painting so many faces!

     It was amazing to see how my class celebrated after finishing their speeches and their song - I am so proud of them and I'm already looking forward to the Christmas Concert. Although I'm still exhausted, and last night's party for my boss' birthday was a much-needed break from work! Check out the photos I've posted of the event here, and thanks as always for reading.