On the way to the beach, La Mancha, two weekends ago, June 29, my guides--four fellow English teachers at the Centro de Idiomas--and I stopped at a restaurant in Rinconada for brunch.

In the photo above, Gregorio, José Miguel, Luís, and I are posing while Janeth takes the picture. Just behind our table, women are working over a large comal to make fresh garnachas--which we ate with gusto.

Then we piled back into Gregorio's VW and headed for the beach. The ocean water felt cool when we first inched into it, but it soon began to feel just right. The sky was overcast for the most part, so it wasn't too hot--but I found out that night that it didn't prevent me from getting a bad sunburn. (Yes, I did put on sunscreen, but I should have reapplied it periodically.)

After three hours or so, we gathered up our stuff and headed toward La Antigua for something to eat and to visit the first chapel built in America. Here we are in a riverside restaurant where a tropical band was playing when we first arrived.

Then we went to see the first chapel in America, built by Spaniards in 1523. It is a small building, still in use, well maintained. To test the acoustics, José Miguel sang some Gregorian chant, remembered from his childhood, that filled the whole chapel.

Read about La Antigua on this blog (scroll down about one-fourth of the way) to learn more about this chapel and see better photos than mine here.

Friday night, Oct. 5. Temperature: 18 degrees Celsius/ 64 degrees Fahrenheit

I hear rain falling on the roof, a lovely sound.

I got home late, close to 9 p.m. tonight. The blogging class I’m teaching to maestras y maestros at the Centro de Idiomas from 5 to 7 on Friday evenings ended early when the internet went down. We decided to take a break and see if internet access would be restored. (The coordinator, Miguel Angel Murrieta, has thoughtfully arranged for us to have coffee and cookies during our breaks.) And sure enough, the internet came back up briefly, giving us false hope, and then went down again. So we called it a day.

After that, I took a taxi from the school to the Chedraui supermercado closest to my apartment. When I emerged from the store about an hour later, the sidewalks and streets were wet. I don’t know if it had rained or if it was due to persistent chipi-chipi, the gentle drizzle that falls here, more a sprinkle or a mist than actual rain. I tried to catch another taxi home, not because I objected to walking but because I was heavy laden with groceries—my payday splurge—and my satchel of books that I carry to and from school each day.

But could I hail a taxi? No. In this city that has somewhere between 3,000 and 3,500 of them—countless of which passed me by as I trudged home—I couldn’t get a taxi because they were all taken by others. Only when I turned down my street, Guerrero, did two taxis appear with backseats empty. But it was too late by then. Ah, well. “All part of life’s rich pageantry,” as Inspector Clouseau would say.
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At noon today, there was a meeting of faculty and staff on the topics calidad and mejorar continuo—quality and continuous improvement. (Déjà vu all over again. CNM is using a similar quality perspective for its accreditation process.) I dropped into the meeting late and left early because I was preparing for my blogging class, but while I was there, I took these pictures.



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I was sick with a cold for three days this past week. I taught my classes, but on Tuesday and Wednesday, I left immediately afterward. I slept a lot, and today I feel cured.

Margarita—and other Mexicans—call this the season of contagion, la estación de contagio. The phrase has an ominous but somewhat romantic tone, bringing echoes of the winter of my discontent and one hundred years of solitude and love in the time of cholera.

Here in Xalapa, Margarita explained, September brings cooler weather—although the change has been barely perceptible to me so far—and sickness. And it's true: I counted five out of 16 students in my first class who were coughing and sneezing and blowing their noses along with me on Wednesday.
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Yesterday afternoon around 1:30 as I left the Centro de Idiomas for home, I saw a man sleeping on the street, stretched out full length close to the curb and adjacent to a portable stand where produce, herbs, and tortillas are sold. I assume he was one of the people who worked at the stand. I was amazed by the sight of him. I had to wonder(1) how could he sleep on the hard surface of the street? He didn’t seem drunk; his repose seemed deliberate, and the people sitting next to the stand seemed unperturbed by his presence or his slumber. (2) How did he dare fall asleep on the street knowing that pedestrians—let alone sleepers—are the targets of many taxistas and other drivers who seem hell-bent on scourging the streets of them? And (3) how could he rest while people walked past, beside, and around him?

I am always grateful to people like him whose behavior or appearance is so very different, in a harmless way, from what is normal, accepted, customary. I appreciate that they jerk me out of life's "terrible dailiness," and I admire their bravery, or bravado. I fondly remember the first time I saw a young punk-rocker sporting a pink 6-inch spiked mohawk and the time I saw an overweight middle-aged balding man waiting outside the Albuquerque Airport who was wearing Little Bo Peep garb, minus the bonnet and staff, lifting a hammy leg in white tights to rest his foot on a bench while he puffed on a cigar.

Maybe I like these people for the same reason I like mimes: they ask us to look at them. And they enterain us.

This past week, I've been a guest presenter in other teachers’ classes at the Centro de Idiomas, talking to the students about New Mexico and the U.S. and giving students a chance to interact with a native English speaker. It’s been fun to talk with students and to hear their questions. In several classes, students have asked about the UFOs sighted around Roswell and whether I believe in UFOs. Students are interested in the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta when I tell them about it, and they have questions about the Trinity Site where the first atomic bomb was exploded (“Is there a big hole there?” “Is it still radioactive?”).

But some students have asked harder questions, like “What do you think about the wall your country is building on the border?” Then there is the fact—no news to them—that the land that is now New Mexico used to belong to México until the U.S.-Mexican War and the sale of a large parcel of land (called the Gadsden Purchase in the U.S., the Venta de la Mesilla here in Mexico) made it U.S. territory. These events were the beginning of the conflicted relations between Mexico and the U.S., and they continue to be conflicted today.
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During one of my classes in which we were talking about intercultural communications—which involves a lot more than simply speaking the language of another country—I asked students to describe the stereotypical American. “Go on,” I said, “I can take it.” And here’s the description I got:

• cold
• rude
• impatient
• thinks s/he’s better than other people.

I took the opportunity to give one possible explanation for people from the U.S. being perceived as impatient—outside of the possibility that many of us are in fact impatient people, used to fast, automatized service—by explaining that in the U.S., we are accustomed to waiting in lines to be served, and the rule is “first come, first served.” Anyone who cuts into the line or pushes to the front is quickly castigated and sent to the rear.

I witnessed a vivid example of this rule in action when I was standing in line to board the plane from ABQ to Dallas on my way here. The lines were long, and as I approached the X-ray machine to have my carry-on luggage scanned, a man hurried up to one of the security people and evidently asked to pass through security ahead of the line because he was about to miss his plane. In a loud voice, the official told the man, “Only if you want to ask each one of these people in line if you can go ahead of them.” Since there were probably 200 of us in line, this would hardly have sped him on his way in time to make his plane. Frankly, I would have let the guy through, but the security official clearly took the “first come, first served” rule seriously.

But in Mexico, the rule is different. I have been at pharmacies and supermarkets where people pushed ahead of me or stood beside (not behind) me and began talking to the clerk even while I was being helped. And the clerk has stopped and responded to that person while I waited. With the “first come, first served” rule ringing in my head, I would have been tempted to inquire, “Who is being impatient in this case—me or the person who demands the help of the clerk while I’m being helped?”

Thank goodness I had been prepared for this situation during the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program Orientation last August, or I might have responded as an “impatient” American: “Excuse me. I was first in line. Please wait your turn.”

Craig Storti’s presentation on “The Art of Crossing Cultures” was the highlight of the orientation for me not only because he was such an engaging speaker but because what he said and demonstrated and had us role-play has been so useful to me ever since—to wit, the cultural rules I’ve grown up with are merely my culture’s rules. Other cultures go by other rules. We grow up believing strongly that our rules are the right way to do things, but in fact they are simply our way of doing things. The rules that people from other cultures act on aren’t necessarily wrong, only different.

In Mexico, the rule is that everyone gets a little help, a little service, at the same time. No one is ignored. Each person’s needs are important, and in fact some people’s needs just might be more important than others at a particular point in time.

That’s why intercultural communication is so complex—because it involves understanding the unspoken rules of the culture which govern people’s behavior.

And lest I leave the wrong impression, in many large stores where there are long lines, Mexican people wait in line without jumping ahead. But when the line is short, the other rule seems to apply.

Imagine you're a teacher on a Fulbright Teacher Exchange, going to another country as a representative of your college and your country. You want to make a good impression, especially on the first day of classes. You want your colleagues and your students at the new school to respect you for the professional that you are. No pressure though.

Okay, now imagine the day from hell. Well, maybe that's a little strong. Imagine a day from purgatory. Even that's a little strong. Imagine an hour of purgatory. I think I’ve exercised your imagination long enough. Here’s what actually happened:

Last night, I prepared for the first day of classes by setting out my clothes, getting the coffeepot ready to go, putting my books and supplies in my bag, and setting my new alarm clock. Yes. I set my new alarm clock for 5:45. I wanted to get there early. And, of course, you can already guess that that alarm clock didn’t go off. No. Instead, I woke up to a deep silence. The light in my bedroom was still subdued, so I thought I had wakened before the alarm went off, but I looked at my watch just to be on the safe side: 7:52 a.m. Eight minutes to 8:00! Eight minutes to get to my first class on time! But I knew that it was impossible. After all, Isabel had told me that the school was 15 minutes on foot from my apartment.

Luckily, I had my new cell phone, which I had bought mainly to contact the school in case of illness or some other catastrophe. So I called—or, rather, attempted to call—the Centro de Idiomas. But instead I got a message in Spanish that I wasn’t able to interpret although it was clear that for some reason my call wasn't able to go through.

There was nothing to do but to throw on my clothes, run a brush through my hair, swish my mouth with Scope, grab my bag, and get to school as fast as I could. The walk is all downhill so I was able to go fast. In fact, I arrived at the school and walked into my classroom at 8:08 by the time on my watch (which I keep 2 or 3 minutes fast). Whew!

My students were there, 14 of them, sitting quietly in their seats, as I rushed into the room. I introduced myself as their teacher and apologized for my lateness. I gradually recovered my composure and got down to the business of explaining the contents of the course and how their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills would be evaluated. (At the Centro de Idiomas, students don’t receive a printed syllabus; instead, the instructor goes over the programa with the students orally and answers any questions they have.)

At that moment, a cell phone rang, and I took the opportunity to ask students to always turn off their cell phones in class. But no one moved to turn off the ringing phone. I decided I needed to demonstrate what I was asking them to do, so I pulled my phone out of my pants pocket and held it up for the students to see. R-r-ring! OMG! That ringing phone was mine! I looked at it as if it were a rattling snake. I didn’t know how to turn it off—I just got it, remember—but luckily it stopped after a few more rings.

What could I do but laugh at that point? It was becoming a comedy of errors. The students began to laugh good-naturedly, too.

The situation reminded me of a workshop I attended once in which the presenter showed how she deliberately demonstrated bad classroom behavior at the beginning of the first class of a term—arriving late, chewing gum loudly, eating a roll, drinking coffee, taking a phone call in class, seeming not being prepared—as a roleplay to start a discussion with students on what kinds of behavior should and shouldn’t take place in the classroom. I was also reminded of my seventh-grade teacher Sister Olivia’s grave warning to her students: that some of us would serve as bad examples for the rest.

At that point, a student knocked on the closed classroom door and asked politely for permission to enter. (This is what students do in Mexico, unlike in public schools and universities in the U.S., where they are taught to enter as unobtrusively as possible--although the unobtrusive part sometimes gets overlooked.) I certainly wasn’t in a position to deny his request nor admonish him for being late, even if I’d been inclined to do so. I ended up saying to him and the class that, beginning Monday, we should all do our best to arrive on time. And then we got down to work.

The rest of the day went well. The students in both of my classes were polite and friendly and seemed eager to learn English. I found out that my phone call during class had come from Pery, who was worried about me when I didn’t show up at the school on time. I also found out that the reason I couldn't make a call on my cell phone was lack of air time. When I bought the phone, I thought I was getting 300 minutes of air time free as part of the purchase, but in fact, I received 300 pesos (about 60 minutes) of air time--the first 100 pesos disbursed at the time of the purchase, and 100 pesos made available at the beginning of the next two months.

I ended up staying at the school all afternoon. I talked with Gabi and Rosa Elena from the Self-Access Center, where I will be involved in helping with “conversation clubs” and reviewing some of the learning materials developed there as additional resources for students. I also worked on plans for Monday’s classes and talked with some of the other English teachers who showed up at the faculty computer room. I was getting ready to leave when I heard the sound of heavy rain coming through the open door of the office. I ended up waiting about 30 minutes for the rain to stop so that I could walk home.

When I got back to my apartment at 5:48 that evening, I could hear my new alarm clock ringing as soon as I opened the front door.

I´m sitting in the faculty computer pod at the Centro de Idiomas, the school where I´ll be teaching for the coming year. I´m here for a faculty meeting. The coordinator of the Centro, Maestro Miguel Angel Murrieta Rosendo, whom I met last week for the first time, told me he will introduce me at this meeting.

Pery (Esperanza) Zamora is my mentor here at the school. She took me to her house for lunch (la comida) last week, and I met her husband Serafin and their two daughters. Gabi, their older daughter, had just returned from a month in Toronto, Canada, where she was studying English.

The meal was wonderful--chicken in a cream sauce with corn and chile, red rice cooked perfectly, just the way I like it, nopalitos cooked with tomato, fried platanos, and corn tortilas. (Can you tell I´m an aficionada of the food here
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The faculty meeting turned out to be very similar to the meetings in my department at CNM: a presentation of the many tasks to complete and problems to resolve during the term, and the expression of many opinions and ideas on how best to accomplish them. I enjoyed being an onlooker of this event that looked and sounded so much like the meetings I'm used to, aware that if it had been back at my college, I would have been in the thick of the discussion.