Noises in Mexico

I never imagined that a Mexican small city could be so noisy. We have a constant parade of talking and ringing trucks during the day and during the night it´s the dog choir....with solos! When I arrived the first night and the other teacher here told me I would be having one of the room as the rear of the house and I would just have to get used to the dog barking, I thought it would be no problem. He told me the front side was very noisy too due to traffic. Having lived in downtown Toronto I didn´t think the street noises would be an issue.

But in Mexico street noises are all part of marketing! This is just a small place ....only about 65, 000 at the most, but it is the noisest place I have every lived in. It seems like every official vehicle and some not so official has a special sound, horn, music or just a steady stream of talking from a rooftop speaker. Even the garbage pickup is a sound experience. First, you hear what sounds like a broken kazoo horn, then as the truck approaches the speaker voice says ´Basura´in long deep drawn out tones. The men themselves are very friendly and helpful, one even speaks very good English. It was very surprising to be running out with the garbage early one morning and hear, ´Hi, how are you?´

We have a daily litany of service vehicles all with attached speakers spouting the name of the service or often just a distinctive musical song. One gas company truck just says 'el gaaaas' in a long drawn out voice followed by a distinctive 5 note melody, but another plays Christmas songs, usually 'Santa Claus is coming to town' or some other non-religious carol.

There are also regular cars going by representing the local media. These spout the daily headlines and sometimes hand out freebie copies of their newspaper. The other day there was a truck on the corner filled with potatoes and they used a recorded speaker to announce themselves. Lately I've seen something new around town. A vehicle with a television with screen on all four sides. This TV is perched atop the car and advertises home renovations and furniture. I'm still trying to capture a photo of that one!

Mi Casa

I´ve had a few requests for more info about the city of Los Reyes and where I´m living. Here´s a picture of our place on Calle Orquidea . It´s a very typical looking house for the area and this day looked better than average as it had just finished raining and there are some very tipico hombres passing.

The house is only about a 7 min walk to the school and is close-by lots of local shops selling all manner of things: tortillas, fruit, chicken, a beauty wholesaler called Gato Negro, plus there is an abbarotes , a local convenience store on every corner. Tomorrow they are even opening a pharmacia right across the street. We already have a hospital and 2 other pharmacies within 2 blocks plus the ambulance station and the firemen side x side on the corner behind the hospital.

Our house has 4 or 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms but is very dark. Making it nice and cool in the hot humid months but decidedly cool in the morning now as all the windows are the typical jalousie-type with screens and slats of glass. Since there are 4 teachers in the house the 1st one to arrive got the choice. Brandon, the only man, has this beautiful large room with tons of built in cupboards as well as a bathroom the size of my bedroom with a huge jacuzzi tub! We are all envious of course. The only negative is that room is at the front and we are on a rather busy street. (car driver seem to blare music at the loudest possible volume and those same drivers don´t seem to bother with air conditioning which would keep the sound to themselves. ) Plus he does get the full blast of sun till about 1 pm.

My room is the smallest but I do have my own bathroom and the room next to it which is empty has a door to the back patio where the Kitten spends most of his afternoons....especially now as it has a plastic corrugated roof and gets nice and warm. Temperatures in November are much more moderate...around 22-22 and much much less humid.

Here are some photos. Most of the furniture in the casa is very dark so I, being the 2nd to arrive, snapped up the bright blue shelf. I´ve also added the poster from the Zacan Festival to the window wall.

Zacan or Festivals Mexican-style

                      I had heard a lot about the  Zacan Concurso Artistico de la Raza Purhechepa.
The weekend before I had been in a small puebla (village) called Pamatacuaro and there were signs everywhere for entries in it. I even managed to score this awesome poster that I now have on the wall of my room. I did offer to pay for it, but when I told the women in my broken Spanish that it was to mail back to Canada (eventually) she gave it to me. Several people in Los Reyes we know were going plus some artisans we have met were going to be set up there.
The festival title translated as a celebration of the Purhechepan lifestyle so it sounded great to me....and to about the 8,000 others there last Sunday as well. There was a massive traffic jam as vendors displayed up and down the main street.

The town (puebla) of Zacan has been putting this on for 38 years. It is a 3 day event but I only went on the Sunday. Saturday was the setup day with preliminary judging and Sunday was the big day with final judging and lots of music and dance performances. There was an amazing array of traditional foods, crafts and music. Most of the indigenous crafts were set up on the lawn in front of the big cathedral. Each person was displaying their specialty. There was an abundance of honey, displayed with the actual combs, wooden ware, beautiful hand-loomed rebozos and the hot item of the year, souvenir cows in all different colours and sizes. Actually most people that purchased the cows seemed to come from the small towns in the area. It was fascinating to see how women's clothing varied so much from town to town. Some wear a very simple skirt/apron/huiple combination, while others have a fancy almost sheer blouse with puffed sleeves. Not very figure-flattered to my taste, but that's just in my eyes.

The town of Zacan is renowned for its music and singers. I stumbled upon a concert by Dueto Zacan in the beautiful small chapel off the plaza. The duet is 2 men who play guitars and sing traditional songs. They have travelled and performed throughout Latin America, Spain and the U.S. There were also many small performances of local bands throughout the day.

I'm going to post several pictures from the festival....but uploading is very small here so this may take a few days

My classes or the good, the bad and the just spoiled

I haven't written much so far about my teaching experiences in Mexico because even though I am in a fairly small city of about 50,000 I don't think they are so different from other kids in this country. My students range in age from 8 to late 20's and a good majority of them are sent by their parents and would obviously rather be elsewhere after school.

This is probably no different than in many other countries but Mexican culture does not seem to put such a high priority on English language education especially for girls. Many of my teen students are smart enough to be moving on to higher education and a good career, but the motivation seems to be lacking in many of them. Several tell me that they want to be decorators or work in the beauty industry. When asked why they learn English they tell me that their parents expect it will be useful for them in the future.

The younger kids are fun and quick , but generally not well disciplined so much of class time is spent just keeping everyone busy and under control. My youngest class is composed of 2 very active boys, one very sweet quiet girl, one other strong-willed girl who tries to speak Spanish most of the time and another boy who is usually late and is a daydreamer to boot. They are generally good learners but it is a challenge to keep them focused. Recently I've discovered that they all love to write things on the board and to make extra craft items so I've been working this into the lessons. They loved the table setting lesson and this week for their 'cut, mix, add' lesson we will make peanut butter and banana sandwiches. 'Yum-yum' to quote one of the more advanced students in the class pictured here. They are all in Colors 3: Karla, Luis, Alan, Jorge and Leonardo

Tianguis or Farmer's Market

Even thought this is a fairly small city there are 2 tianguis markets. These are local markets where almost anything can be sold. The word tianguis is from the Nahuatl language and was originally used just for markets of indigenous farmers and craftspeople. In Los Reyes the Wednesday market is the food one and the Thursday one is mostly clothing, new and used, household supplies, cosmetics, jewellery, dvds, kids toys, in other words anything not food. One day there were even 3 spaniel puppies for sale!

I try to get to the Wednesday morning market by 8; even at that time many things are picked over or gone. I have only seen peas once and there were just a few remnants. The market is a great place to buy seasonal food from the area, but caveat emptor. Such things as apples and peaches are not always local. In fact in August and early September those were from California. Local Mexican apples are now ready and they taste great...just like those apples I used to eat from my relatives backyard tree. They are no special type, just a great somewhat small juicy eating apple. They are probably fine for cooking too as they are somewhat tart.

I spent 22 pesos at the market today which is about $1.75 Canadian. My bag was filled with a small broccilli, an enormous green pepper, 7 bananas, 8 Roma tomatoes, about 1/2 pound of tomatillos, a complimentary bunch of cilantro and 4 small pieces of ocean perch which is called mojarra. On my way back to the casa I also stopped by a local aborrates and picked up 2 freshly made large buns for 3 pesos. Buying groceries is incredibily cheap and fun in Mexico.

My local weathercast

The city of Los Reyes is set in a beautiful green valley, known as Valle Esmeralda, with small mountains encircling it on three sides. Only to the south is it less hilly. From our rooftop there are very different viewscapes depending in the time of day and the weather. Early in the morning as you face east it appears to be almost a middle eastern setting. Then in the mid to late afternoon you can actually see the rain clouds approaching. Sometimes before heading off to teach at 3:30 I run up the roof to check on the weather. In this very rainy season the best item of clothing that I brought with me has been those turquoise plastic shoes that I got at Payless!

Finding the IMSS

I did find the government run liquor store. It's called IMSS and was only about 3 blocks north of the main market. Also I now know why people never know the street name. When I went to look for the name which is often on the corner of a building there was nothing I could read. At least I will be able say that from the side of the market where the small fish vendor is you walk Calle Isabel Allende for 3 blocks and turn left and there it is about 4 stores down!

I took this photo at one of the many nights leading up to Independence Day. This was the 2nd night of performances by the Folklorico Company of Michoacan and it was really great. The previous night they appeared to have used, the back up male dancers,but this night there were different dancers. They both looked great and danced impressively especially as the nights here are hot and very humid. One number was danced by all, men and women, in fringed suede jackets! Then the men did a very fast number on their own and then the women re-joined then and then danced again. I was amazed that no one keeled over. The women mostly wear very full skirts and spend a lot of time twirling them, sashaying around the stage and giving come-hither looks to the men. In their place I would too!

Sept. 16 - A good time to start

It's been a month today that I finished working in the corporate world full time. Seems like an auspicious day to start this blog.

I arrived in Los Reyes after an all day journey that started from Sault Ste. Marie at about 5:30 am est & ended at 11 pm cst in Mexico. It was actually very straightford for me until arriving at my destination, however, it was very hard on The Kitten who went from riding with the captain on the first flight to being put down with the baggage under the bus on the last leg. He was crying loudly when the bus arrived and smelled like a sewer. It was surprising that it was OK for him to ride in the cabin on all 3 flights but he was not allowed on the bus!

By the time I calmed the Kitten and got my luggage from the bus the only taxi available was picking up his wife and daughter but agreed to take me to the house that the school rents for teachers. I had checked on the internet and discovered that the house was very close to the bus arrival point and the driver knew this, but he could not find the street. We drove around for about 15 min. and he couldn't find the street. Since the only pay phones available needed a phone card to use them I was having visions of spending the night at a local hotel. The taxi guy finally went a small official looking building and found out that we were on the correct street and only 1 block away. When we found the house the driver rang the bell and I yelled out to the man who came to the door, 'Do you speak English?' He replied he did and I then yelled out, 'Are you a teacher?'

Luckily it was the right house and the right English speaker. I found out later that in Los Reyes cabs work a certain part of town and that all the drivers for our area which is called Jardin had already left with fares. My driver just did not know that part of town......and the town is only about 50, 000 people tops! It turns out that our casa is on a street called Orquidea which is only called that name for 3 or 4 blocks, then it changes to another name.

Actually in Los Reyes no one seems to know street names other than where they live and some main ones. I asked someone where to find the government run liquor store and he told me to just go to the main plaza on the right side and keep on walking. When I inquired about a street name along the way he didn't know one. This is not an isolated event. One of the other teachers asked about a place to get her hair cut and was told there was a good one in the Zapata area (barrio). She asked about the street name and was told it was on the street that Oct. 12th school and a park are on.

I will keep everyone posted on my search for the wine store. I have learned how to ask in Spanish so how hard can it be?