GoGlobal 2008

SUMMER TRAVEL JOURNALS

EDRD 4301 - Mexico - Summer 2008

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 6^th graduation July 1. The first dance was performed by the 3^rd and 4^th 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 1^st -4^th 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 1^st and 2^nd grade in one classroom, 3^rd and 4^th in another, and 5^th and 6^th 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 3^rd and 4^th grade, they are already studying the Mexican Constitution. In 5^th and 6^th grade, the students were learning international children’s rights according to the United Nations. And in 3^rd and 4^th 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 5^th 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 3^rd and 4^th 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 6^th grade graduation in a few weeks. The 6^th 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)

1^st things 1^st, 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 8^th 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”.

2 Pictures of our preparation for Mexico, arrival in Mexico and of our stay in Mexico:

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