Indulgences

As my life begins to mold to some sort of routine once again, I have taken great pleasure in some of my favorite indulgences. I am thinking of three, specifically: coffee, chocolate and books.

When I started typing this post, I found myself typing “Simple Pleasures” as the title; however, after some reflection, I realized that these three things are not quite simple, as in they are all somewhat expensive habits and not easily accessible to the majority. Especially books. Very few Mexicans read.

But I do. So one thing that I will not compromise when it comes to packing my suitcase in June is literature. I have probably compiled around 20 pounds of books while here in Mexico. Last Sunday, Laura and I went to a talk on the drug war at the community center for an American expat group in Cuernavaca. Afterwards, we went to the adjoining library, where they also sell used books for about one dollar. I bought seven.

I’ve been eating very healthy these past two weeks, lots of salads and fresh fruit, but two things, in addition to books, that I will never compromise or give up in my diet are coffee and chocolate. And I’m okay with that.

This morning I woke up at 7 to volunteer at the breakfast program, so I did not have time to make coffee. When I arrived home at noon to collect my things and head to work, I bought a coffee on-the-go before getting on my 35-minute bus. As I sat sipping my café americano and reading my book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (ashamedly I have never read it), I felt happy, despite being on a cramped, stuffy bus, with the sun piercing through the window next to my singeing face (Think Sid and the magnifying glass in Toy Story 1).

Thirty-five minutes later, I got off the bus and began my ten minute walk, through a very impoverished neighborhood, to the University. I’m pretty sure there’s no running water in this neighborhood. The dirt road that I walk on is bordered on the left by a large field, where donkeys are often munching, and on the right by the small, rundown community of gray cinderblock homes. Walking through, I usually catch whiffs of burning coal or human waste, which I believe is deposited on the side of the road or around the field. Kids are usually running around barefoot, pushing and racing each other on rusty tricycles. Routinely I pass young pregnant women who I estimate could be no older than me. Coincidentally, I discovered today that one of the women involved with the breakfast program in Cuernavaca lives here.

One of the little houses I walk past in this neighborhood acts as a tienda during the day, selling miscellaneous candies, soft drinks, ice cream bars, and chips. I stopped today to indulge in a chocolate bar. Not wanting Nestle or the oh-so-common Mexican selection of weird chili-flavored sweets, I asked what kinds of Hershey chocolates they had. The woman shuffled back to the ice-cream freezer, and after rustling and digging for a few moments, she came back with four types of chocolate bars. I felt for a moment as if I were a character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, getting the special treatment. So many choices! In the end, I chose a small Hershey’s cookies’n’crème bar and a little chocolate truffle. And that was the highlight of my afternoon. Call me a nerd, call me boring, but that little moment (combined with the affects of just having read some Maya Angelou and the coffee beginning to run through my veins) made me feel on top of the world.

And that is all I wanted to share. Moral of the story: I love coffee, chocolate, and good books.

(A chocolate bar my mom brought me at my apartment last spring when I was dying of a high fever. It healed me.):

I'm baaack

It’s been a crazy month… or two.

Since I arrived home to Cuernavaca from my backpacking trip, I have hosted visitors (Aunt Betsy, brother Leo, cousin Geordy), changed apartments, begun salsa classes, lost my resident card, killed two (and disposed of one already-dead) giant spiders, adopted a pet gecko (not really but there’s one that hangs around on the walls of my apartment) and started up classes again. All of these topics deserve further elaboration, but since I just finished a night of lesson planning, I will dedicate this post to what is fresh on my mind, teaching.

This is Señor Gecko, who I plan on keeping around, since apparently they eat spiders and scorpions, thus protecting me from the latter two:



Most of my students from last semester have returned, along with a couple new faces. After a first few confusing, Mexican, disorganized days back, we seem to be back into the routine.

Every month thus far I have chosen one overarching cultural topic to focus on, which frames the classrooms work: conversations, articles and writing assignments. This month, January, I have chosen to focus on the education system in the U.S. It has been a fascinating unit for me; in the research I have done to prepare for classes I have learned a ton myself. Mostly I have realized how lucky and blessed I was to be able to attend the quality schools I did. There are far too many American kids whose educational experiences are jokes.

Some of the activities I have done with my classes in this unit include:

1. A power point presentation I put together on the history of education in the states (which really hinges a lot on inequality in education and reforms, ie/ Brown vs. Board, Title IX, desegregation, resegregation, etc.)

2. Songs. I played these two as part of the first introductory lesson on the education system. I had them listen to each song twice and write down every word they heard that is school-related that was part of the lyrics. Then they had to guess which level of schooling the song spoke about based on the vocabulary of the song (high school, kindergarten, college, etc.).

The White Stripes, "We're Gonna Be Friends"


John Mayer, "No Such Thing"


And this one as part of the second lesson, which focused on the inequality and segregated nature of education (WARNING there are like 3 bad words in this song). For this song, I printed out the lyrics and left blanks sporadically throughout the song so they had to listen for the missing words and fill in the blanks.

Blue Scholars, "Commencement Day"


3. Articles. These also turned out to be about segregation, specifically the recent phenomenon of “resegregation,” which refers to studies that show that schools have been steadily separating by race once again, since 1988. Here is one of the articles, from CNN.

And a photo of my attempt to teach the concept of segregation to my visual learners:



4. Show N Tell. In my Tuesday class we had Show N Tell, just for fun, because it was one of the only terms from the songs that they weren’t familiar with. This is one of my students, Gustavo, who brought in his daughter as his item:



5. And this week I will be showing the movie Freedom Writers to all my classes, as a representation of public education in the U.S. I just finished pre-screening the movie, and I actually cried a few times (it’s a happy movie though). I highly recommend it. The day after I saw it for the first time (second semester, freshman year at SJU), I ran to the education department and declared an education minor, which lasted only one semester. Needless to say, it is a very empowering and powerful movie.

Well there you have it, an update of my education escapades.

Hope you all are well!

Peace love and geckos,
Molly