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