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1 Journal
Entry-Sunday, June 22, by Cindy Lewis
Lions and Tigers and Bears..OH MY!??
No, it was pigs, and goats, and the little red hen that
you might have seen draped across the bushes painted onto T-shirts drying
in the sun last Wednesday in front of Old Main. The EDRD 4301 and EDPD 4378/5378 students
worked in teams to paint 120 T-shirts to be used as costumes in Mexico to retell the stories of The Three
Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Little Red Hen, and The
Gingerbread Man. In a combined effort the students who are
not traveling to Mexico
and the students who are participating in the Go Global trip, joined their
creative talents to provide the painting details on the shirts. The bushes in front of Old Main did a
fine job of air drying the T-shirt costumes for us. Although we are leaving our classmates
for nine days after preparing activities and gathering supplies, we feel
very supported by the rest of the students and are looking forward to
sharing experiences that we and they are having while we are apart.
Sunday morning at 5:30 the 12 students, some from each
of the two courses, met at the airport to begin the trip to Mexico. Everyone was on time except for me—their
instructor! Unfortunately Canyon had
a very strange torrential downpour and hailstorm which lasted from about
4:30-5:30. It delayed my arrival to
the airport, but I learned later that we got two inches out the storm, so I
guess it was worth it in the end.
The students from 4301 are Darla, Dawn, Janel, Lindsey,
Rachel, and Sarah. The students from
4378 are Janel (who’s in both classes), Megan, Nataly, Tara,
Tarah, and Tony. Although Tony might
like to claim that he’s the only guy on the trip, he is joined by two other
males, Buddy Fox, and my husband, Brian Lewis. The 15 of us made our way safely and on
time to Houston. As we were leaving Houston to begin our international
flight, there was such a funny moment, thanks to Buddy Fox. The very pretty lady checking his
passport was Hispanic and had a strong Spanish accent. She asked Buddy, “Are you a
Torres?”. Buddy quickly and
confidently answered, “No, I’m a Fox!”
Imagine his surprise and embarrassment when she repeated the
question and he realized that he had misunderstood her question. What she really asked was, “Are you a
tourist?” We have all been calling
him Sr. Torres ever since!
We actually arrived in Leon early, which is very rare
in air travel nowadays, not just internationally, but anywhere. Although we were concerned about
justifying our school supplies, and other odd items (not to mention the 120
painted T-shirts), we breezed through the customs checkpoint with very few
inspections or suspicions. Our van
transportation was there and waiting for us. The two hour drive from the airport to
San Miguel de Allende was filled with comments about the countryside;
goats, donkeys, and horses on the sides of the road; and the variety of
houses and stores we passed by.
Janel and Jessica will take it from here to share their
first impressions with you.
Sunday, June 22, 2008 by Jessica &
Janel
Our
arrival to San Miguel de Allende was an awesome experience, the sight of
all the vibrant colors are quite fitting here in Mexico
but in the United States
they might be considered unusual.
The colors are bright colors of orange, lime green, yellow, magenta,
blue, peach, red and purple. Imagine
the streets, they are all narrow and cobble stones. The roads are very uneven and bumpy and
traffic is very busy. We immediately
noticed that there are no stop signs, yield signs, or stop lights. The city is very fast paced. We noticed a lot of elderly using canes,
who were having trouble walking because of the uneven ground; many were
just sitting in shaded areas. Out of
respect for them, we would step off the very narrow sidewalks to give them
the pathway. The homes are two
story buildings with lofts and balconies with vines draped over the
railing. The flat roofs are lined with greenery and potted flowers; they
are all connected like town houses.
Most of the flat roofs have patio areas with gorgeous murals painted
on the walls. The first floors of
most of these buildings are storefronts and the second floors are
homes. As we arrived at the motel we
were greeted by parrots in huge metal bird cages whistling at us. The sound of this was quite calming, but
very interesting; we immediately walked over to take pictures.
We went to dinner at Cantina de los Milagros. It was excellent; first we got to try a
few different drinks. One of the
drinks was a hibiscus juice; it is made from boiling hibiscus flowers,
mixing it with a little bit of sugar, then serving it over ice. It tasted a lot like weak Kool-Aid. Another drink was horchata, which is rice
water mixed with sweetened condensed milk. We also had lemonade. For appetizers we had three different
quesos. One was mixed with chorizo
sausage, another was mixed with chilies, and the last was mixed with
prickly pear cactus. The cactus was
skinned and then grilled, and it was so good! For the main course we had fajita style
steak and chicken mixed with onions and peppers; shredded spiced pork;
and a chicken dish, all served with
corn tortillas. We also had beans,
rice, and Janel´s favorite, chicharrones, which is fried, then boiled pig’s
skin. For dessert we had flan.
After dinner we went to the internet café to do some homework
and send e-mails to friends and family.
The internet café is the first floor of Cindy, Brian, and Buddy´s
apartment. There are 8 computers in
a room, the doors stay wide open all day.
It is very cheap, only 10 pesos for one hour which equals one
dollar! After we were done in the
internet café we went back to our room, opened our windows, listened to the
crickets, wrote our journal entries, and fell fast asleep…
Journal Entry for Monday, June 23 (by Dawn Willis)
Today was our first day to begin our trip
activities in San Miguel de Allende.
Sarah and I began our morning at 7:00 am by going around town
looking around for about forty five minutes. During our walk:
1) We noticed a dog on a rooftop
2)
We
observed a gentleman that was blind, but if you had not noticed this by
looking at his features, you would have never known since he walked the
rocky block like it was second nature.
He never bumped or stumbled on any of the rocks that stand up on the
walk, and he walks without a cane or help.
We left the hotel at 9:00 am and arrived at
the orphanage at 9:20 or so to begin our day with the girls. This was an amazing and busy morning that
consisted of:
1) The orphanage now has 44 tenants instead of 36
2)
The youngest
being a 2 month old ¨boy¨ whom the Madres got to name when receiving him
after his mother tried to sell him for $4000.00, and we are told she will
not be permitted to have him back.
3)
The
girls began a little shy, but as the morning continued and we made hats for
the plays, dream pillowcases, and played the hokey pokey, they warmed up
great to all of us.
Although it was hard to leave, the experience
was one none of us will forget.
We completed our day by having a guided tour
of San Miguel de Allende (partially in the rain), in which we saw many
beautiful churches and learned about the history of the city.
Journal Entry for Tuesday, June 24 by Tony Arellano
Hola from San Miguel!
We are having a great time. Since we arrived we have
been really busy with projects for the orphanage and taking in the
beautiful view San Miguel has to offer. We began the day eating a well
prepared breakfast at the hotel. Then we all loaded up into taxis and made
our way to the Santa Julia Orphanage to work with the girls. I feel today
was a better day than yesterday because the girls were not as intimidated
by all of us arriving at the same time. The girls were very happy to see us
and some even had already picked their favorite person to work with. I was
especially happy to see that several of the girls chose me to work with
them. We practiced on two new dramas featuring the books of The Three
Little Pigs and The Gingerbread Man. We had a great time
helping the girls learn their parts in English. They did a great job
considering the time we had. After we finished with the dramas, we
dispersed the gifts of Beanie Babies to the girls. They loved them. They
also received their pillow cases with the drawings they had done the day
before which were ironed on to them. They really loved that. They showed us
their living quarters and showed off their pillows and blankets. It was a
shame we had to leave. Several of the girls wanted us to return and I
assured them some day some of us will return.
We returned to the hotel and we went to go eat lunch, so
several of us went to the plaza and we chose a café on the corner with a
view of everything. We had a light lunch because we decided to have ice
cream as a dessert. For dessert, we ventured off to an ice cream parlor and
had authentic Mexican homemade ice cream. It was great.
After lunch, we had a guest speaker who lives in San
Miguel speak about the many issues the women of Mexico have. She also had a
friend of hers come and talk to us about Mexico and how big of taboo it
is to have children out of wedlock. The speaker was very open with us and
answered the many questions we asked her. Talk about some cultural shock.
During this time, we were blessed with a little thing called rain. (I don´t
know if you guys in the panhandle remember what that is.) In all, she gave
us some really interesting information on the challenges and issues
involved in a growing problem of teenage pregnancy.
After the seminar, we were encourage to venture into the
town to explore a little of San Miguel. We split up into small groups and
went our different ways. We returned to the hotel and we went to go eat
dinner. Several of us went to a restaurant on the plaza. This place had
some really good quesadillas I have ever had. I know everyone with me
agreed. For dessert, we ventured off again to the same ice cream parlor and
had authentic Mexican homemade ice cream for the second time today. It was
great.
Everyone I was with seemed tired so we all agreed it was
time to retire to the hotel. We wished each other a good night. I slept
like a baby. The only time I woke up was when the rain started to really
come down. I can´t wait to see what we have in store for the rest of the
week.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
When in Mexico……expect
changes!!! (by Darla Meraz & Rachel Goss)
Today we went back to the
school in San Miguel Viejo. The children performed traditional dances that
they are preparing for the 6th graduation July 1. The first dance was performed by the 3rd
and 4th graders and it told a story of a wild boar. The girls were
in one line separate from the boys and they were swinging their skirts back
and forth. The boys were in a circle and they had spears and swords they
were swinging side to side. As the dance continued one boy, representing
the boar, weaved in and out between the girls and the boys pursued him. The
boys, representing hunters, killed the boar and pretended to be tied him to
a pole and carried him away to be cooked. Another dance had three children
2 boys and one girl. The little girl was running in a circle to get fresh
water. Her running in circles represents her long journey for fresh water.
When she gets the water an abusive man knocks it out of her hands. A second
man comes and shows he can be nice and actually brings her more fresh
water. The last dance represents a man and women in the forest and the man
is pursuing her. She refuses his advances and he finally kisses her in
public shaming her so she has to marry him.
The first part of the day, we
worked with students in 1st -4th grades. We split them
into 3 groups. We were rotated around with the same group through the
activities. One center was making masks for the shirts that had been
decorated with the characters for the plays. Another center was coloring
coffee filters with markers and then spraying them with water so the colors
run together (like tie dye) to make butterflies. We used clothes pins as
the body and pipe cleaners for the antennae. The last center was a game
center. It had jump ropes, jacks, and several board games.
The
cultural activity was Pre-Hispanic dancing. Alina and her two children, a
boy age 11 and a girl age 12 are part of a community of dancers that are
preserving the Aztec culture. Their costumes were gorgeous. The women’s
costumes were bright and colorful with Aztec embroidery work on it. The
boy’s costume looked like a traditional Aztec warrior. It had a gold
collar, and sash. All the dancers wore colorful feathered headdresses,
sandals, and ankle bracelets decorated with hueso de fraille (to make
noise). She shared the history of the Aztec people. An important part of
the ceremony was burning incense recognizing the 4 elements: earth, wind,
fire and water. We were given
maracas and leather bracelet with a hueso de fraille that rattled together.
We participated in the dances, trying to follow Alina and her son do
complicated steps and shaking the instruments. It was so hard! Our legs
were hurting! We could not keep up with them.
Megan and Lindsey
Today was an incredible day… we spent the morning at
Benito Juarez, the school in San Miguel Viejo. There are three teachers and six grades
there, with 1st and 2nd grade in one classroom, 3rd
and 4th in another, and 5th and 6th in
another. Two of the teachers—Salvador and
Patricia—have worked at the school for more than twenty years. Each student had seven required
textbooks. We were really surprised
at how advanced the content was in their classes—in 3rd and 4th
grade, they are already studying the Mexican Constitution. In 5th and 6th
grade, the students were learning international children’s rights according
to the United Nations. And in 3rd
and 4th grade, they were even making clay models of the human
reproductive systems—really, really, detailed models of the reproductive
system.
Along with the classrooms there’s a stocked kitchen and
a storage room, provided by an organization called Feed the Hungry. All meals are cooked by one woman, an
alumni of the school, and are free of charge to all of the children. There’s also a playground built from
donations from Rotary Clubs in San Diego, California, and San Miguel, Mexico.
Outside the classrooms, there are two patios painted with hopscotch,
numbers, a compass, the months, the parts of the body, and the letters of
the alphabet, along with other educational games.
There’s no heat or air-conditioning in the school
buildings, but have been rewarded for their cleanliness. The bathrooms were interesting—the
mothers are responsible for cleaning the bathrooms and washing the
hand-towels. The toilets don’t fill
up on their own, so before you use the restroom, you start a bucket filling
up with water. When you finish using
the restroom, you pour the bucket into the toilet to flush it. At one point, standing outside the
restroom, there was a 5th grade girl waiting her turn outside to
use the girl’s side, but while she was waiting, she taunted the boy on the
other side that she could hear him peeing.
He was pretty embarrassed and was hollering back, “Stop listening!
Don’t listen to me!” And as he ran
back to classroom, she was sure to keep yelling after him that she heard
him.
As far as supplies in the classroom, the children use
glue poured into water bottle caps, and they use their fingers to smear it
instead of brushes… it definitely was a resourceful way to use supplies, to
keep kids from wasting too much. It
keeps in check the rule: a dot is a lot.
The kids also used sticks and rocks to create dioramas of their
homes—they didn’t go to the store to buy supplies for school projects. Something else surprising to us was that
one of the classrooms had a smart board, but the teachers don’t have the
resources or the training to make the most of having it in their
classrooms.
The school provides fresh water for the children and the
teachers by a water purification process.
There’s a water fountain on the playground for students to use both
at lunch and during class.
When lunch rolled around, the playground was wild. All of the children have lunch at the
same time, so we were overwhelmed with them all at once. They had typical equipment like swings
and teeter totters, but they also had this crazy swing that would never
pass U.S.
legal safety regulations… but when the kids get hurt, they get up, dust
themselves off, and keep playing.
There’s no tattling and no lawsuits involved. But before they went back into the
classroom, all of the students were lined in rows, military style, and had
to chant and clap. This helped the
students to re-focus before entering the classroom again.
After lunch, we went with the 3rd and 4th
graders on a tour of their neighborhood.
The area was originally settled by the Aztecs, and was actually the
first San Miguel. The Aztec blood
certainly comes through in many of the children. The people were living similar agrarian
lifestyles as they would have four hundred years ago—there are animals in
the front yard and possibly even the houses. When we say animals, we mean cows,
horses, sheep, pigs, dogs, chickens, and every other animal on Ronald
McDonald’s farm. Even though the
houses may not have been up to American standards, the students come
well-groomed and clean to school every day.
We saw a church that was built upon the arrival of the
first Spaniards in the 1500s… the church is still in use by the community
today, and will also serve as the site for the 6th grade
graduation in a few weeks. The 6th
grade is typically the end of the road as far as education is concerned for
most of the students.
We left the school around one in the afternoon, and our
cultural activity for the day was learning to salsa dance with kids at a
local community center. It was
basically like an after-school program or the Mavericks club. The kids really seemed to enjoy it.
After today, it’s easier for us to understand why
transitioning from Mexican schools to American schools can be difficult for
first-generation immigrant children.
There’s definitely a lot of differences as far as the structure of
the school and the curriculum that is being taught. That isn’t to say that immigrant students
are behind, because in many ways some are ahead of our own children.
Friday, June 27, 2004
Ahhhhhh!! (Tara Calcote
and Sarah Medley)
1st
things 1st, today was supposed to be the grand ribbon cutting of
the new concrete interactive play area, but it turned out to be something
totally different!
We had
no idea what to expect this morning as all of our previous days have not
totaled up to what we expected. We arrived at the school to see that all
the students were wearing their uniforms with white pants (yes, white!)
They usually wear navy sweaters over white button down shirts with jeans,
but today was a special day. The girls were all busy sweeping, picking up
rocks, mopping the classrooms, and washing the chairs; while the boys were
bringing out desks from their classrooms and shoveling up the rocks the
girls had gathered. This was the preparation for the arrival of their
special guests (dignitaries, contributors, and maybe even the Governor of
Gto. maybe not). We were immediately handed brooms and got to work. We
quickly noticed that no one was complaining about the work that had to be
done. We thought to ourselves “this would never happen in the states”. They
dressed the dignitary table with fresh flowers they had hand picked and
long brilliant blue ribbons were laid across the front of the table. The
teachers even made it a point to get a sound system to help project their
voices. Senor Salvador really enjoyed using the microphone and mic checking
the system. Once the ceremony began he introduced EVERYONE, and not that
that was a bad thing, but it was very elaborate. When the introduction was
done we watched the ribbon cutting and the children demonstrated the games
they can play on the newly painted concrete.
The games include:
-The children gather around a colorful circle in the middle
of the concrete. They are asked to scatter as fast as they can to find a
red dot to stand on. These are painted on all the intersections of the
concrete slabs. When they found their spot, they were asked to count to ten
and do several different small exercises such as arm circles, stretches
ect. They repeated running to different dots several times doing different
exercises each time.
-They had compass directions painted around the colored
circle so they could learn their directionality.
-There were hopscotch games for counting, and the
alphabet was painted around the outside of one of the slabs. There were
uppercase and lowercase letters and the vowels were painted in red.
-Another game began with a line of girls and a line of
boys. The teacher would shout out either a number or a math problem and the
boys and girls would race to the correct number.
-The last game they demonstrated was meant for the
children to learn to tune into the teachers voice and learn to listen and
take directions immediately. They walked around a zig-zag shape while
walking either on their toes, on their heels, and like a duck (yes, it was
adorable!)
The
close of the ceremony included a hotdog lunch. They grilled them especially
for us (they usually boil them).ewwwwww. After eating, we were asked to
perform one of our dramas with absolutely no advanced notice, or practice.
Woo Hoo! We performed the Gingerbread Man with Mrs. Lewis acting as our
narrator. It was so funny how the Gingerbread Man ran (very fast may we
add) around the concrete while all 20 animals ran after him.
Our
goodbyes were bittersweet like a Valverthammer. Some of the girls brought
over the flowers they had decorated the tables with and let us take them
home with us. We piled in our taxis not knowing what was in store for us
for the ride home. WOW! Our driver enjoys racing the other drivers to the
hotel. There are NO stop signs, stop lights, or even a yield sign…. Need I
say more! We won though!
Saturday, June 28
After breakfast
and our small delay we all finally loaded up and started heading to
Guanajuato. However, there were two stops we were going to make before
arriving at our hotel in Guanajuato. The first stop we made was at the
church Atotonilco and it was very beautiful but small inside. There were
paintings painted on the celing wall, images of Jesus tiered from carring
the cross, the virgin Mary, etc. After you walked out of the church there
was a women about mid 30’s or 40’s begging for money and there was nothing
wrong with her. But that’s funny how we also have that in the U.S.
The gift shop you can go to beside the church was great because you find
great gifts for your family, friends, or anyone you want to get a gift for.
While we were there looking around we saw that there were a lot of boys and
girls all dressed up. The girls in pink dresses and the boys in pink shirts
and black pants with a black tie, I thought that it was a wedding or a
Quincianera. It was actually a graduation and the kids looked like 8th
graders. Since everyone was wondering what was going on I finally asked a
girl that was next to us.
After we left the town of Atotonilco, we headed
to Dolores Hidalgo. The structure of
the town was a lot like San Miguel: narrow roads with lots of buildings
with bright colors. We had two hours
to adventure throughout the town. My
group headed off to the cathedral right across from the Plaza. The cathedral was so tall that I could
not get the entire thing to fit on my camera to take a picture. The inside was beautiful like all the
others. It had very high ceilings
and the walls of the church were covered with white and gold trim. From the front of the church, looking
back, we could see a giant organ up in the balcony. The two sides by the front of the church
were different. One side was wooden
and it had carvings from the floor to the ceiling. The other side gold and it had a door
open to another room. We were not
allowed to enter the room because the sign said it was a sacred room and
that only priests and ministers were allowed to go in. We then left the church and walked around
the plaza.
The
plaza had many shops. Some were
similar to stores in the United States
and others were more traditional to Mexico. There was a man washing cars parked next
to the sidewalk. We did not know why
he was washing the cars, but he was in a hurry and washing as quickly as
possible. We figured he was doing it
for money, but there was no one around to pay him. We also ate hamburgers and French fries
at one of the restaurants that was a hole in the wall. The hamburgers had ham and avocados on
them, so they were not a traditional American hamburger, but they were
still delicious. From the restaurant
we could see that a quincinera was about to start at the cathedral. A quincinera is a big celebration for a
girls fifteenth birthday and most people compare them to a wedding. We went to the ceremony and stood in the
back and watched. The girl sat in
the very front of the church in front of everyone facing the priest. Lots of people were coming in and out of
the church as the ceremony was in progress.
We did not know what was being said, but messages were being told
and songs were sung. It was very
different than anything seen in the United States. As we were leaving, another girl showed
up in a horse drawn carriage that was decorated in pink to match her
dress. She also was having her
quincinera at the same church as the previous girl. Quincineras are a big part of the Mexican
culture and we all saw that today.
We left
Dolores Hidalgo and then went on a very curvy road that went through the
mountains to land in Guanajuato.
Guanajuato’s streets are different than the other cities because
they are aquaducts. The tunnels are
very narrow and dark. It was amazing
that the drivier of the bus was able to guide us through the tunnels to get
us to our hotel. When we were unloading the bus we then had to carry our
things to the hotel because the bus couldn’t park close to the hotel.
Carrying our things to the hotel all you saw was people pointing and
staring. You can tell we were from out of town. When we all got to our
rooms some of us got lucky and others not so much in getting rooms and what
section they were located, but hey it’s Mexico and you just got to take
each day by the horns and make the best of it.
Sunday, June 29—by Buddy Fox
Without a doubt, we started out Sunday morning in one of
the loveliest cities in Mexico,
Guanajuato. Guanajuato is packed and stacked into an area nestled between
hills and valleys. Elio, our tour guide met us in our hotel lobby at 9:00
a.m. and the tour of this beautiful city started then.
As we walked along the narrow sidewalks, Elio explained
that Guanajuato means “place of the frogs” in the local language, but is
often referred to as the city of love. As we continued to walk and observe
with the locals by our sides, he explained that Guanajuato was one of the
first areas in Mexico
to be colonized 420 years ago for its rich silver deposits.
We continued to make our way to the Plaza San Roque
where this square forms a beautiful setting for performances usually during
the Cervantez Festival in October of each year. At the festival,
individuals can attend plays, concerts as well as dance performances.
Out next adventure took us to the underground tunnels of
Guanajuato. Elio explained that Guanajuato was originally built over the Guanajuato River which flowed through tunnels
underneath the city. However, after many years of repeated flooding
(especially 1905), a dam was built and the river was redirected into
underground caverns. The tunnels are now lit and paved with cobblestones
for automobile traffic.
One of the most impressive structures we observed was
the Building of Independence which centered around the armed
conflict between the people of Mexico and Spanish Colonials.
We were able to see where the heads of Allende, Hildago, Jimenez, and
Aldama once hung.
The two remaining places we visited were the home of
Diego Rivera (world famous Mexican painter) and the University of Guanajuato.
The University
of Guanajuato has
over 26,000 students and has schools in nine cities throughout the state of
Guanajuato.
The guided tour ended with a farewell to Elio and we
spent the rest of the day in small groups continuing to tour and shop in this
splendid city of “frogs”.
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