Teachers: Saints walking among us.

So my first day of work was...how to put this nicely...a mess.  Oh my gosh, I always believed that teachers were extremely underpaid and now I very firmly believe it!  If I could find another job here, I'd do it.  Those little kids wore me out!  And who's idea was it to teach English to three year olds!?  Those kids can barely speak Spanish let alone English.  They just spent an hour staring at me.  My next class was the older preschool kids, the 5 year olds.  They were pretty good.  There was about 18 of them I think and they would at least repeat after me when I said things in English.  I brought out the Buddy puppet though and they just looked at it like really lady, we're a little too old for this thing.  And the three year olds just stared at it the same way they stared at me.  So Buddy the Bear was a flop.  The first graders weren't too bad because there were only 10 of them.  They didn't really want to listen to anything I had to say though and I spent about half the class trying to get them to stay in their seats.  Then there was a lot of excitement because two girls went to the bathroom and came back shouting excitedly about a paloma, or dove, and then all of a sudden everyone had to go to the bathroom.  I didn't fall for that though.  I don't know what was so exciting about a dove but there was no getting their attention back after that.  The real test of my day, that I failed, was the second graders.  Oh my goodness.  These kids were the reason why when I got home and Octavio asked me how my first day went all I could think to say was "please don't make me go back there!"  There was 23 of them and they all wanted to ask me a different question.  My favorite was "How's Australia?"  I had just explained that I was from the United States and this kid apparently thought that meant I'd been to Australia too.  He was all disappointed when I told him I'd actually never been to Australia so I didn't know.  This class was a disaster.  A complete and total disaster.  There's no other way to describe it than that, it was awful.  They were all over the place and talking to everyone and throwing things at each other and rolling on the floor.  A mess.  There was no way I was going to gain control of that classroom.  I was doomed from the start.  So now I'm going back to the drawing boards and going to revise my lesson plans in a hope to first, get their attention, and then hopefully keep it.

Luckily today was the day we had to pay rent and water and the phone bill and all that good stuff so it was a reminder of why I need a job.  Otherwise, I might have been tempted to play sick tomorrow.

In other news, Octavio & I went to Tres Valles, his home town this weekend.  Here are some pictures.

Welcome to Tres Valles!  The city hall all lit up at night and decorated in preparation for Independence Day this month.

Brunch on Saturday morning.

Octavio's sister giving his baby niece a bath.

His quiet little niece.  She had to be bribed with juice to give me a kiss.

After the baby's bath.  Octavio's little brother and niece were watching from the sidelines.

Octavio's aunt with his new niece.

Octavio's grandma.

His aunt taking a break from the heat in front of the fan. 95 degrees with humidity feels a lot hotter when there's no air conditioning to escape in!

Homero, Octavio's aunts parrot.  He whistles at all the cute girls.

Chailo, the cute little hoppy puppy I got to play with at his aunts house.

I was in kitty heaven.

Watching a movie/taking little naps in the afternoon.  Well, I was taking little naps anyway.

Octavio's aunt & I.  And his little old man hat.

Octavio's adorable chatty-cathy niece peeking at Lola (our kitty!) in her carrier.  I think my Spanish got 10 times better just answering her questions.  She is too cute.

Octavio & his mini-me.  Better known as his little brother, Jose Maria.

Octavio's niece, Irani, and I.  She got good at rephrasing questions when she could tell I had no clue what she was saying to me.

Octavio sleeping on the 4 hour bus ride back home. 

Mountains- we've made it back to Xalapa and cooler weather!

cuddling with my graduation present from Octavio, Lola.

Lola found her own bed.

But quickly found a better bed on Octavio's pillow.

The start of Octavio's pineapple upside down cake that I get to enjoy tomorrow!

ready to bake with his teammate Rosy.  Can't wait to eat it after another long day of school tomorrow!

Incense & Cotton Candy.

Well let's see...what's new...I still don't have a job so I'm still very bored during the day while Octavio's off learning how to cook and speak a whole new dialect of English.  I do however...drumroll please...have an interview tomorrow morning.  So hopefully that goes well!  And hopefully they aren't put off by the fact that I don't have my visa & they'd have to write a letter to immigration & some stuff for me to get it.  A lot of hard work, I know.  We've been doing a lot of wandering around in our free time.  It's actually a very enjoyable way to pass the time because this is Mexico and you never quite know what you're going to run into on any given day.  Last Thursday we came across about 75 older people dancing salsa in a park.  Apparently they do it every Thursday so maybe next time I'll remember to bring my camera and get some pictures.  On Saturday we decided we'd explore this cute little alleyway with a bunch of bars in it (like the Irish Pub) and on our way we ran into these lovely people performing some kind of ancient ritual/ceremony. 

I loved these little kids.  They just walked right through the ritual/ceremony thing and plopped down in front.

This guy, however, was by far my favorite.  The cotton candy vendor.  He saw a crowd forming and jumped at the chance to sell his cotton candy to the onlookers.  He just weaved his way through the crowd & in front of everyone not minding at all what was going on.  I loved the juxtaposition of him hawking his cotton candy & the ritual going on behind him, both paying no mind to the other.

This picture sadly is blurry.  I have about 5 other blurry pictures of this little girl too because she was quite possibly the cutest thing ever and my camera would just not cooperate with me despite my best efforts.

Later we found a cute little bar with a patio and drank some beers and people watched.  I tried to order a chelada, just beer and lots of lime, but the waitress misunderstood me and brought me a michelada, beer with tomato juice and spices.  It was an unfortunate mistake to make.  After that I stuck to just plain old beer, no mistaking that for something else!  gross...

We outran another storm, a common theme to our life in Xalapa...

And Octavio baked his first cake in his pastry class!  He got to bring half of it home with him.  I could get used to this.

Please take note of the creepy clown head decoration.

Also, Octavio's teacher taught him a new English word.  New to not only Octavio, but the world.  To arrange.  I guess I should clarify, the word is not new, just the use of it.  His class had to make sentences using the word to arrange and one of his classmates sentences was, "I arrange my radio."  Apparently, you can also use the word "to arrange" in place of the word "to fix."  According to Octavio's English teacher they are synonyms.  Octavio, knowing this time that that was not the correct usage, raised his hand and said something to the teacher but his teacher was sure that it was also proper to use it in this context.  Octavio just gave up and accepted the answer.  Not before coming home and telling me all about it though!  His homework for tomorrow is to come up with a list of 10 career choices in English.  Shouldn't be hard he said then started listing off jobs, "doctors, teachers, hookers..."  What a jokester.