Mexico - Summer 2005
I first went as a volunteer in the summer of 2005 (for 5 weeks) and spent a lot of time teaching English to adorable children and charming adults in Jalalpa and El Presidentes Urban Transformation Centres. My experiences there were wonderful and life changing as well as spending time in the mountains with the students there.
Day 1 of teaching was very chaotic - good job no-one from Ofsted was watching me!! It’s a lot harder than you think to teach English when your Spanish isn't anywhere near excellent and their English is non-existent... we had a lot of fun though and I think we all learnt something...! Thankfully each class has an appointed captain (Los Capitanes) who are older children and who do a very good of correcting my Spanish grammar and interpreting it to the children.
I taught 4 classes in the morning at Jalalpa(pre-school age; 1 and 2 (equivalent of Year R and Year 1); 3 and 4 (equiv. of Year 2 and 3) and then the monstrous and most challenging class of about 40 children ranging from 5, 6 and secondary (children from equiv. of Year 4 up to Year 11...!).
In the afternoon we taught in El Presidentes, an older teenage and adult class which was really hard. We had been told that most of them knew next to no English, which didn’t turn out to be true exactly... it was hard to work out what they had already done and what needed teaching, so it wasn’t the best lesson to say the least, but it was a start.
Today one of the kids lost his Armonia cap (and he needed to buy a new one because we were out for the day and it’s the easiest way to identify kids in a crowd!)... there is a high emphasis on earning things and not just being given handouts which I think is why they didn't just give him one, but also high emphasis on community which is why they passed a hat round (someone else’s!!) and did a collection to buy him a new hat. Loads of the kids chipped in and there was enough for his new hat. So sweet so see them all being so kind and responsible.
The theme park in Mexico City gives Armonia tickets (I think they had 600 tickets!!) and Jalalpa community centre was given enough for everyone to go once and some to go twice. The whole centre goes tomorrow, and today we took the best behaved children and those who are working as so they got an extra treat. Eidi also wanted to invite some children who live in the squats in the poorest area of Mexico so we called in on the way to the centre this morning for a home visit to invite them. It was mind-boggling to see the conditions these people live in... corrugated iron and wooden pallets nailed together and built into the side of the ravine, steps made from sand bags, etc. They were unable to come today as it was short notice but may be able to come tomorrow. Eidi mentioned this to the kids at the centre and explained that she may need some of their tickets to offer the poorer kids and several of the kids who went to the theme park today offered their tickets if needed to the poorer kids. The poor helping the even poorer... how humbling.
29/7Both days at Six Flags (theme park) were fantastic, the kids were having the times of their lives and it was amazing to see. Day 2 (the 28th) it took us nearly 3 hours to get home by coach (half hour journey) because of hideous traffic... but although that was exhausting it did mean that we were able to have extended chats with the mums and kids... well Hannah could! My Spanish is being stretched, but its a lot of fun trying to communicate... 2 little girls were asking me the same question hundreds of times over, not realising that if they said it louder, I still couldn't understand.... (Basil Fawlty style) eventually one of the mums repeated it slower and with more clarity and I got it... and after all that my answer could only be “No”, as it was about a ride I hadn't been on at the theme park....very funny, but it is possible to communicate in some way or another, although it can be annoying!
31/7 (Sunday)2 services again today with one at Santa Cruz and one at Jalalpa. Both long and highly enjoyable again, I'm getting to know the songs which is good... did I tell you about Sapa Verde?? In Spanish ‘Sapa Verde’ means ‘green toad’. It also sounds (to the Mexicans) very similar to happy birthday... so to celebrate birthdays etc., instead of singing happy birthday they sing ‘sapa verde es tu’ (i.e. you are a green toad...!!) it causes a lot of amusement and so far they have sung it during every service we've been to! There is also a Christian kids song all about a sapa verde who has a friend who's name is Jesus... which has always followed swiftly on the heels of the ‘sapa verde es tu’ song...maybe I’ll teach it to some of you...!
Can't remember if I've told you much about Jalalpa? The district is built on one of 5 ravines in Mexico City. 2 of the ravines are the very richest parts of Mexico City and 3 are the very poorest. The rich side have put up a barrier of hundreds and thousands of trees to prevent them having to see the poor side which pretty much sums up the problems of the poor in Mexico (and the rest of the world, I guess) - the rich just don't want to know. Jalalpa was built in the 40s I think, and then the government excavated all of the sand/soil from the area and caused hundreds and thousands of dwellings to completely collapse and Jalalpa to become the rubbish dump of the city (literally). There is still open sewerage running though the ravine, and the shacks that people live in are small, unstable, falling down and there are just so many of them. As you look at the side of the mountains, you just cannot count how many shacks there are, it is a sad but breath-taking sight, I'm convinced any photos will not be able to truly capture it as it is so vast. Its just so sad to see a place so neglected, one of the mums who is an employee at Jalalpa remembers when she was a child the ravine was full of trees, plants, vegetables, fruit, etc.
1/8Today was a normal day - teaching at Jalalpa (kids) and El Presidentes (adults and teenagers), fun but tiring as usual. One of the kids brought a black lab puppy into the centre to Eidi today and said she was a gift for Eidi. But as she was saying this Eidi could see that her eyes were really red, and clearly the last thing she wanted to do was give Eidi the dog. Eidi said that she thought the dog loved her (the girl) too much already and it wouldn't be fair to separate them and the girl was sooooooo happy! It is typical of the generosity of these people that her mum had said to her, offer the dog to Eidi, and if she doesn't want it, then you can keep it. It is also typical of these kids that, although this kid really didn't want to offer the dog, she did anyway.
4/8Teaching, teaching, teaching... the only interesting thing to note from today that hasn't already been said, happened during the Adults English class at El Presidentes. The community centre has corrugated iron grooves and they are not the most leak proof. Half way through the lesson the heavens opened and we got deafened from the pouring rain on the roof and dripped on from a great height...we had to abandon the lesson and did some singing instead! Very amusing...Wednesday and Thursday were usual teaching days, finishing off topics and preparing songs for the closing ceremony which unfortunately I will miss, as I will be on my way to Yalalag, I think. My little ones will be performing heads shoulders knees and toes and it would be interesting to see how they got on without prompting as several of them insist on singing eyes and knees and mouse and nose...which is hysterical to me, but then again may go unnoticed by most of the parents who attend....! They'll be ok if one of them, Rodriguo, turns up because he knows it really well and sings like a foghorn...
Wow! That's all I can say about Yalalag! The village has a population of about 2000 and is high in the mountains of Oaxaca state (well I say high... its 4,600 ft or so which is significantly lower than Mexico City, but nevertheless far more beautiful). It is amongst and overlooks the most beautiful mountain range and valley, with winding paths, vultures and buzzards flying around and the most amazing clouds which make the view different by the minute. The journey down was very long... we left at about midnight and arrived at about 4pm, having stopped to buy wheelbarrows and to look at an enormous tree and the hugest cactus you ever saw... (don't ask...!). The road from Oaxacato to Yalalag is steep and winding, and the 60km trip takes 3 hours. We parked the coach a five minute walk away as the road becomes too steep and narrow to go any further, but fortunately Armonia has a truck which we were able to use to transport the luggage the last bit of the way.
There were 2 main aspects of the trip. The first was the work of Armonia with the young people they help in the village. And the second was the construction projects.
The kids... well, as in the city, the kids are a different breed to the ones in the UK. These kids really know what hard work is! The children that Armonia works with live in a house built and owned by the charity. They get up at 5 am to help with the cooking and cleaning of the house and then off to school for 7am. They all come from villages in the mountains and have to travel miles to get to Yalalag. Some walk for 8 hours, then catch a bus for 6 hours to get there. Others have even longer journeys, but with less walking. Some have shorter journeys but with more walking. The children pretty much live in Yalalag all year round. They get 2 holidays a year of 2 weeks each to go home and visit family... some don't even make it back then. This year some children only went home for a day or 2 so they could work on the construction site to earn money to buy books and uniform, etc. These kids really have nothing at all but are such lovely, giving kids. Could go on forever about them but I won't. We ate dinner with them twice and threw them a big party on our last night. The cakes for the party were quite a challenge to make as every ingredient we wanted had to be substituted, but all was well in the end, even if things did taste slightly different! We played pass the parcel which was great;- it was brand new to them, so they had no associations with it being for little kids... it helped them relax a bit with us I think. It was lovely getting to know them a bit. Stan (an 80 year old American) is firm friends with many of them as he's been to Yalalag 3 times now, so they flocked to him, despite him having no Spanish at all, was lovely to see.
The construction was hard work. We were mainly helping to build the second storey of the Armonia House where we stayed, which will become the Girls dormitory. Everything is made out of this W panelling stuff which is wire and nails and polystyrene. It is really good fun to work with, you just use pliers, wire cutters, hooking tools and lots of wire in different forms to join it together. It serves as walls, you cut windows and doors into it and can even be used to make furniture. Once it is welded to the posts, you spray it with cement, and that's it... house built... it was really satisfying as you could really see the difference your work had made. There were lots of shovelling of sand and cement to be done and lots of lifting and carrying.