Life's little lessons

Jon: Have you ever stopped to watch something tiny yet amazing in nature?  Saturday, while we were sitting on our little rooftop alcove, we were eating our Jon and Michelle special tuna and avocado sandwiches, and we noticed the little ants scurrying like mad to try and gather all our crumbs.  It was really amazing, no matter how big the crumb, they'd be trying to pick it up.  It's impressive just how much one little ant can carry.  However, if ants were as big as us, they would be wimps.  But apparently they can lift huge amounts of weight, for their current size.  

It's been a busy week full of more teaching, we're down to the last week of the course, which is exciting.  The prospect of either getting a job or having more time to explore Mexico, either way, we're happy :).  Last Saturday night, we had the pleasure of watching an Opera which was put on by the church obviously.  It was free and one of the fun things was that throughout the show people got up to leave, and we'd move ahead a few rows at a time, so that by the end of the night, we were almost in the front row.  I've never been to an Opera/ballet before, and I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it and, bonus, I didn't have my eardrums punctured by an ear-splitting, glass shattering solo from the lead lady singer.

Today, we went to our favorite taco joint and got a handful of tacos and headed off to the Plaza de Armas.  It's a central part of the historic downtown, and its got a lot of very cool buildings there, including the government palace.  We went inside and found an enormous graphic mural by a famous mexican artist.  It was painted during the late 1930's and speaking out against the totalitarian movements happening in Europe (eg Nazi's, Soviets, Fascists etc).  In any case, it is a rather impressive, though very graphic, mural.

So, here is a few more photos from Guadalajara (last 7 photos in the album), we hope that next weekend we will be able to go to Tonala, a small town that has been somewhat preserved from the tourist hordes, and enjoy a relaxing day haggling at a market or two.  

As a side note, I think it would be hilarious if cars in Mexico didn't have horns.  I can't imagine what they would do.  It's as though they believe that the longer you hold down the horn, the more effective it will be at clearning a traffic jam which has nowhere to go.  I suppose it would be funnier if you could be here, but in any case, I picture them frantically pounding their steering wheels, veins popping out of their forehead, because withouth the horn, there is no outlet for them to express their frustration, and if it's at all possible for drivers to get worse here, I think drivers would actually be worse without horns.  as for pedestrians, you need eyes in the back of your head when crossing the street because cars or buses will actually speed up if they see you crossing the street.  One of the funniest things for us is the little crosswalk signal.  It is of a man sprinting!  Not the boring stationary white man that we have, nope, this guy is actually animated and sprinting for all he's worth!  I guess that's how we are supposed to cross the street here :).

Michelle: Isn't that so true. It's the little things in life that make all the difference. We probably watched those ants for half an hour, bemused at how much effort they would put in for a crumb- the bigger the better in their eyes. There was one crumb in particular that they weren't going to give up on.  It was a chocolate cake, yummy and sweet, 3 big strong ants dragged it most of the way, until about 6 inches from the hole there was a very steep incline and all of a sudden hoards of ants came to help drag it up the hill! There had to be at least 14 ants come to the rescue and with a lot of pushing and pulling they succeeded. It was such a lesson of team work and unity. In the animal kingdom, this is very common, in the human race this is far from reality.  Everyone has their own agenda, their own concerns and their own selfish reasonings. It's really too bad.

Is this why I want to be a teacher? To at least bridge a gap of helping another? I'm not really sure but it's definitely a good feeling to know that your day has some purpose to it. You probably haven't had a life changing effect but at least you've done something good. The kids here are so polite, they ask "may I come in?" when asking questions it's always polite, always with respect and they thank you after each class. Of course this is mostly because they are at a learning center, there to specifically learn English, it's different than normal school because there are often different motivations to be there and learn. However they are still your typical teenagers in that they all have cell phones, all have ipods and listen to music and being that they are paying customers the school is very relaxed about rules about having them / using them in class and coming in late. For us that is one of the most frustrating elements of IMAC (the learning center) is kids dribbling in all through the lesson, it is difficult to prepare your lesson plan when you will constantly have fluctuating numbers and consistently have to stop your lesson for a new person. We've been told not to stop and explain what's happening but instead to have a classmate fill them in. It is still disruptive and can affect the class focus. 

It has been yet another busy week but we made a point of having a homework-free day last Saturday and as Jon mentioned we went out and explored a little. The opera was our Valentine's outing and it was very well done. Something like that would cost a packet to go to back home. It was probably very religious but we couldn't really tell coz it was all in Spanish so we didn't know any different, the only indication was the cross on the screen above the dancers. It was great to see another aspect of the city, we've been so busy that we feel like we only know and have seen a half mile radius and nothing else. In a city of 6 milion that's not a lot of ground to cover. Come next weekend when we no longer have the constant stream of homework it will be a relief to get out and enjoy without the impending thought that we really should get home to work on our essay or lesson plans or whatever. As excited as we are to graduate I'm quite worried about the final exam, it's all about all the grammar rules that I know how to use in speech but have no idea how to explain them. And afterwards I think we'll actually miss the opportunity to learn so much.

I've got a cold now, probably from overworking my brain and lack of sleep. I'm trying to rest up and have the get-well fairies come and visit. I need to be rearing to go for Monday to stay on top of the game- I can't falter now, not when the end is so close. Had I not had to leave the room for the cleaner to come I probably wouldn't have seen the light of day, but now that i'm out here i'm really glad I came out. The sun is glorious and no doubt boosting my vitamin D intake and that should propel me to get better. Finally the sun comes out in Mexico!! And oh what bliss when it does shine mmmmmmm! Oh and to top it off, I just saw a beautiful little hummingbird come and settle on the flowers- see, the little things in life are so important!!!

Life in Guadalajara

Jon:  now that we've been here for a couple weeks, we've been reflecting a little on how life here compares to life in Canada.   I can't really say its better or worse, only different :).  There are things we miss about home, there are other things I can easily do without.  Here's a few photos from around Guadalajara.

The water:  In Canada, I didn't like drinking water out of the tap.  So many chemicals are added during the process that there is little chance of anything living in the water.  You could reasonably safely stick your head under the tap and glug away to your heart's content, you'll just keep your liver and kidneys busy cleaning out the delicious chlorine flavored water.  In Mexico, if you were to do that, you're likely to spend the next week flushing out your colon in a rather hurried fashion.  In many places in Mexico, they like to go green with the water, let it be, bacteria have feelings too y'know.  In Canada, we're able to sing away in the shower for probably a good 2 or 3 songs if not more, basking in the wonderful warmth.  In Mexico, by the time you hit the second verse, you're likely to be screaming like an 80's rock star its so cold.  A lot of the taps don't put out hot water, they keep it for the shower.  I don't know why they don't heat their water with sunshine y'know.

The weather: January in Canada.  One of the more pleasant months, where everything is beautiful and white and frozen solid.  One of the best parts about winter is when you have the freeze-thaw-freeze effect and all that lovely snow is turned into a skating rink for all to have fun while driving.  Not only that, I personally love putting on 37 layers of clothing to go out, I enjoy feeling like a giant marshmallow, and if you slip, you've got lots of padding.  OK, OK, so I lived in Victoria, and they get flowers in January some years, still ... but in Canada, we do have a sophisticated weather prediction system, and its probably right more than half the time.
In Mexico, if you say its going to be sunny today, you've got a chance at being right.  But thats about as accurate as it gets.  Introduce clouds into the picture and the prediction changes hourly.  But, its a pretty good bet it isn't going to snow :).

Oh and then there's the bus system.  In Canada, the buses are pretty boring, you get the occasional homeless wierdo, the mom with 3 screaming kids, and even the occasional irate passenger because *gasp* the bus was 5 minutes late!  But you know the bus is coming, he will stop to pick you up, and he probably won't speed up to try and run that old lady down.  If you've read any of the previous blog posts, you'll have an idea of what buses are like in Mexico.  Time is totally irrelevant to them.  On the other hand, you're pretty safe riding on the biggest vehicle on the road because other than another bus, anything the driver T-bones while running a red light is going to be on the losing end of the collision.  You can have the thrill of two bus drivers drag racing each other the wrong way down a one way street, seeing who can pick up the most passengers!  Cheer your driver on!!!  But hey, for 6 pesos (50 cents) you can have one heck of a thrilling afternoon!!

Michelle: I'm back folks! It's a little hefty all this school work, it's so foreign to me having not been to school in what seems like forever. We're really loving the course, but we'll be looking forward to some sleep once we're done. Teaching everyday and preparing our own materials and lesson plans is very time consuming, add to that essays, assignments, teaching observations and minimum 7 hours in regular class... However all the hard work is paying off, not wanting to jump the gun yet as we are only half way through but we are doing very well so far. Just a few more hoops of fire to jump through and we've made it! So, in keeping with the theme, here are my comparisons.

Shopping: I'm not sure if Mexicans know about the personal space bubble that we each have surrounding us. At least not when you go into a store anyway. In Canada, you may have the rather bored cashier glance up from filing her nails or reading her gossip magazine and unwillingly acknowledge your presence, if you want help, forget it. For minimum wage you're probably not worth the effort. In Mexico, it's not uncommon to have someone so eager to help that they follow your every step, watching like a hawk every move you make. Let's just say it's a little unsettling when your bubble is constantly being pierced by a complete stranger that takes it upon themselves to be your shadow and stare at you very untrusting as you pick up a pencil to admire. It doesn't seem to matter if you walk with the 6 cent pencil in a postion right out in front that clearly shows you have no intention of putting it in your pocket. Then you turn to speak to your husband and wham right into your not so friendly shadow. Wow for minimum wage ($10 a day) that seems like far too much effort in my eyes.

Walking down the street: Generally speaking in Canada/ Australia you can enjoy being completely unsociable and isolated in your little world, happily walk around with a glazed expression of boredom and nobody will try to interfere because they too are walking with their own vacant expression. But minding your own business is not allowed here, you become a walking gawk session. Men openly undress you, regardless if you are attached to a man or not. People pushing perfectly ok children in wheelchairs ask you for money, every door you pass has someone trying to wave you into the store, hands are held out at every opportunity from beggars, someone will try to sell you nail clippers showing a picture of horrid looking toes that wouldn't make you want to touch the clippers with a ten foot pole!

Political Correctness: Back home, we have the joy of restraint and thinking before we speak so as not to offend. Take out anything that is logical and replace it with rules, but when enforcing rules anything that might actually do some good is over stepping the line. We have rules on saying Merry Christmas, rules about the content of children's books, rules on nationality, rules about weight, rules for discipline, rules for acceptance of unacceptable things.... the list goes on. It's a breath of fresh air that they can say it as it is. Here in school, teachers and students can freely discuss the weight issues of someone in the text book, they learn how to say that they are fat and need to lose weight. Getting a students personal cell phone is advised so as to organise a one on one teaching lesson, real names can be used, you can be fired for showing up at work drunk, you can be "discriminated against" in a job because of your age/ sex/ nationality/background/ pregnant etc and unacceptable things are still classified as unacceptable and there are consequences.

First Days at School

Jon:  It was raining like mad for at least 5 days straight!!  What's going on?!?   We are in Mexico, it isn't even the rainy season, and this???  So to make me feel better, I got around to sorting out the 103 photos Michelle took of our last sunset in PV, since we haven't seen a really nice one here yet. 
Last Sunset in PV

Anyway, we've now been at school for a couple of days.  It's funny going back to school, the course is not a mickey mouse course in any way, it is proving to be a busy, intensive, course, but we will learn a lot, and make great memories along the way.  There are 9 people in our class, 3 are native Mexicans, 4 are Americans, 1 Canadian (I wonder who) and 1 Aussie (hummmm).  Our instructor is named Rudolfo, and he is very funny :).  One of the things we learned about recently was the sound "Schwa" that we have in the English Language.  Schwa is not actually the sound, but the arbitrary name given to a sound that we have in the English language.  So there's your English lesson for the week.

Thursday I taught my first conversation class ... piece of cake!  Had a lot of fun.  Teaching can be quite rewarding when you have good students.  Some people are stressed out about standing up in front of a class, and, I say isn't that what you signed up to do?  We finally posted some pictures of our room, its quite roomy actually, we're living in style :).  Our little home here for the next 3 weeks or so.  To the left is a picture of the entrance to our bathroom :).  Technically we are in a "rooftop" room, but there isn't much to see from our rooftop other than concrete walls.

Friday both Michelle and I taught our first grammar classes.  Michelle did pretty awful actually, she only got 98%.   Ok actually, we both loved it!  It was awesome, a lot of fun, and the kids were very good.  Still teenagers, but very respectful.  I can see that if it continues like this, we will really enjoy ourselves.  We'll post a few pictures of our school as well in our latest little collection.  Hopefully this weekend we will get a chance to do some photo taking.  There is some very nice architecture here in the city.  It's a very cool city actually.  We can find everything we need here, and its very safe.  There's a very good police presence here, we seen them often on bikes and in vehicles.  Speaking of police. we saw a city bus almost t-bone a police truck!!  All the traffic was stopped to allow the ambulance and police truck through, and a bus was trying to run a yellow light and came to a screeching halt inches away from this truck!!!  That would have been messy, the truck would have been totalled!  Looking forward to the weekend though it will be a very busy one :).  Lots of homework.  But having a great time regardless!

Photos of our Posada and where we go to school!

Last night it seemed like we weren't supposed to fall asleep or something.  Sirens, alarms, honking like mad for some reason.  And some little moped buzzing around the block, sounding like a lawnmower on helium.  Then, there was what seemed to be a contest of people seeing who can ring the bell the most times in a minute (to be let into the hotel), I'm guessing the night manager is deaf.  So while lying in bed trying to fall asleep, I was doing some very deep reflection on some of the more pertinent matters in life ... do avocados grow on trees or bushes?  I've never bothered to learn that, I'm just happy to buy them from the supermarket.  I decided that since I didn't know, in my own little world, avocados were going to grow on avocado bushes.  As it turns out, according to Wikipedia (avocados) I'm wrong and avocados grow on trees.  I much prefer the idea of avocado bushes, but I guess I can't have everything I want.  I found it rather amusing to learn where the name avocado originated.  You can find it in that Wikipedia link :).  Michelle is frantically trying to finish an essay, so she won't be posting today, but I'm sure we'll have her back for the next time :).  Let's cheer her on ;).

First Days in Guadalajara!

Jon: Well, we made it here!  We took a first class bus on Saturday to get to Guadalajara.  Actually, we rode the city bus in PV to get to the central bus station.  As we mentioned before, that can be an adventure in itself :)  The bus drivers barely have you on board before racing off, making change for you while weaving in and out of traffic!  But its more interesting than taking a taxi, and possibly safer because the bus is bigger.  Getting off the city bus is more of the same.  You essentially jump off because the bus driver barely stops for long enough!  But riding a first class bus, one thing they advertise is "control de velocidad" or controlled speed.  Funny they need to advertise that!  The bus trip through the mountains was interesting, its neat to see the change in climate as we move inland.  Very comfy ride through a relatively windy mountain road.

Once we hit Guadalajara, it became apparent, this is a very big city, and very spead out.  We are going to be living in Centro Historico or historical downtown.  Should make for some good pics when we get a chance.  Traffic is crazy here, both in driving ability and volume.  Apparently you buy a drivers license, no test required, only money.  And it shows!  I feel sorry for the ambulance drivers we see, honking and blaring sirens, but with nowhere to go. Too many cars, and people don't want to pull over!  Saturday night we found a chinese buffet, 40 pesos!  All you can eat!  Thats about $3.60 back home :).  So there's some bonuses for living here, but I know we will miss some of the comforts of back home.  If you haven't travelled, you take for granted many thing.  Our taps dribble, but they do produce warm and cold water.  Toilets can't handle toilet paper, so there are garbage bins beside every toilet.  Yuck!  But we have toilets that flush.  You take your life in your hands crossing the street.  Not like polite Victoria BC, where people stop in a civilized fashion.  In any case, we're going to have fun here.  Sunday was a very busy day of running around the city, we found avocados 2 for 5 pesos!  And a bag of oranges for 5 pesos!  Not crummy imported oranges, juicy sweet delicious home grown oranges!  Our friend Tina has been a fantastic guide to the city, she has been here since october, and has taken it upon herself to show us all the best places to buy food here, which we greatly appreciate.  Funny thing, apples are about 28 pesos/kilo, because they are imported from Washington.

The best way to learn a language is to get out and go shopping where people don't speak english!  We spent monday in an ENORMOUS market, San Juan De Dios (St. John of God) looking for a pair of shoes.  Apparently Mexicans have small feet because finding shoes turned out to be a near impossibility.  But it got to the point that I would immediately ask what the biggest size of shoe they had.  I think we passed 400 shoe stalls selling about 4 million pairs of shoes.  This market is huge and crammed!!!.  And no one has size 11 Mexican (13 US).  Finally, we found a store with a huge pink sign pronouncing the name "Soy Mujer!" (I am woman!)  And wouldn't you know it, they had a pair of shoes that fit.  It seems the pointy toe style is all the rage here, and not very good for my huge canoes.  But anyway I found a nice wide pair of shoes after Michelle prompted me to look in one last shoe store.  So there I was, wandering down the streets of Guadalajara, carrying a pink bag that declared "I am Woman!", holding a pink shoebox, with my nice big men's shoes. 

To wrap up, we are settled in our posada, and we have quite a nice big room, with two double beds, a private bathroom, wifi internet, and a desk to do our schoolwork at, and its on the rooftop, though we can't really see much from here.  We start school tomorrow, and I expect it to be crazy and busy, so blogging may fall by the wayside, but we'll do our best :).

Michelle: Guadalajara is quite a pretty city, it has lots of park squares and nice architecture, of course it has it's dirty streets and buildings too but you can't expect too much for such a big city. What makes me laugh is that on one corner you will find anything from 7 - 20 shops for stationery the next corner the theme might be hair care, the next electrical shops, the next shoes, the next wedding dresses! But the hunt for shoes today, going into that crazy market, it was absolutely insane!!  Of course I wasn't even allowed to look at the women's shoes, all those millions of shoes going to waste- what a shame. And believe it or not I'm totally over shoes for the next while, I don't want to see another shoe store for a long time! (Although in reality, I'll probably pass by another 14 just on my way to school tomorrow).

We moved rooms today, away from the stinky toilet, yuck it was rank, so thank goodness for that! We can finally unpack our gear and feel like we have more of a home than a hotel. I think we lucked out nicely in our new joint. We've met some of the other people staying in the hotel, 2 have just graduated from the same course we are about to take and another girl we met tonight is joining us in the morning in our class. In the room we had 6 different nationalities, 6 different accents - American, Canadian, Australian, Irish, English & Mexican. It's great to make some friends and have some in-house support. Everyone we've met that has completed the course keeps wishing us luck, makes us a little nervous- hmm how well do I really know my mother tongue?? I guess I'll soon find out!! Wish us luck.. haha :)

photos from the bus trip