More Mexican Adventures

It has been a little while since I got anything up here. Since I wrote last there have been a few interesting adventures...

-Camping in Rayones... 20 or so of us from school headed for a 2 hour drive last Friday to spend the night at a campsite. It was great to get out of the city and just relax. We went to the area because it was supposed to have a good river to go tubing in (i.e ride a tube down the current). This was quite an exciting prospect because there is no fresh water in Monterrey and for lots of us (coming from Ontario and other places), we love the water. The river that we were going to is only actually a river at certain points of the year (if there has been a lot of rain). So, there was water.. but not as much as we were expecting. However, the site we stayed at had a pool that the owners filled up for us, so we spent most of Saturday lounging around the pool on the tubes people had brought for the river. I managed to borrow all the great necessary for camping.. but since it seems like a thing that people do here fairly often, so I may look into investing in a tent and that sort of stuff.



-A Rodeo! On Sunday afternoon some of us ventured out to a rodeo. Unfortunately, we had the start time a little wrong (we thought it started at 4, but it actually started at 6), so we ended up seeing really only the warm-up. Jen (a Toronto girl who went to Branksome and teaches 3rd) and I had to head back home to get ready for our Sunday pot-luck. To be honest, I had really had enough of the rodeo. Seeing men on horses trying to take out little cows by tripping them wasn't exactly my ideal entertainment. Definitely a cultural experience.

-I ventured out on day by myself to go to the grocery store. I thought i should start to become a little more independent and try to use some of my very rough spanish. Though I survived, and made it home with pretty much everything I had hoped to by, I definitely realized that being in this country without speaking the language can be a very difficult and frustrating experience. Not being able to express yourself or ask questions certainly limits the extent to which you can actively participate in the society around us. Spanish lessons have started and I am trying to have some sort of Spanish conversation every day (speaking to the custodian who cleans my room, asking for something at a store...), but my Spanish skills are not coming along as quickly as I would like. I think I need to commit to spending some more time learning on my own.

-We had our school Open House this week. This is when the parents come in to hear you give a presentation about the year ahead. Being in Mexico, the parents were of course dressed up for the occassion, and we had been encouraged to do the same.. Some people went out and got pedicures and haircuts and that sort of thing. I straightened my hair and put on a little make-up and thought that was enough effort. I had put together a powerpoint presentation with pictures of my kids from the first few days of school, and I think the parents enjoyed that. The whole thing went really well and it definitely wasn't worth being nervous for.

Its almost the weekend again, which is exciting. I will definitely need to catch up on a little sleep, probably do some work for school and fit in some fun stuff in between. I know we've got plans to hike at Chipinque again, and possibly someone's surprise birthday party tomorrow night.

Apparently my sister just found out she was picked for a camp directing job, so I am hoping that means she can make it down here before that starts. It would be nice to have some elements from home down here again.

I'm sure there are more stories I'm forgetting, but this is as much as I can put together now. School has been tiring me out. :)

Mexican Soccer!

The hike at Chipinque on Saturday morning was great. There were 10 girls who came, and though the majority was from my school, there were several others from two different English schools in the city. We hiked for probably an hour and a half or so, and then went down to El Centrito (the little downtown near where I live) for juice. By this time it was almost 1pm, so a few of us headed to “Super Salads” for lunch. Now that I am mostly over my fear of eating lettuce in restaurants, I was able to get the perfect lunch. You can get a combo of two of soup, salad and sandwich and you get to pick out of a whole range of different types of salads. If you cant find a particular salad that you want, you can even assemble your own.

Saturday evening I went to the Monterrey Tigres soccer game with 15 others. That was definitely an experience. The stadium seats around 50,000 people and almost everyone was wearing a Tigres jersey of some sort. Monterrey is apparently very good at supporting its soccer teams. Of the 50,000 seats, just over 20,000 belong to season ticket holders. There is one section of the stadium that belongs to the Booster Club, and the people who sit in this section are dedicated fans. They jump up and down and sing through the entire game, waving blue and yellow flags. The halftime show consisted of scantily-clad women playing soccer with an exercise ball. It was interesting, to say the least.

Classroom and Apartment Photos!

This a photo of my bedroom (the beautiful bedspread came from Jessie in India) and the other photo shows the view as you walk out my front door. See the mountains above the house across the sheet? That is where Chipinque park is.

Here are three shots of my classroom before the kids arrived.. I apologize for the blurriness. I'm not sure what happened there.

Canyon Photos

Here are the photos to prove that I actually did climb and rappell! It was slightly scary... but definitely worth it!

I’ve survived! We had our first few days of classes this week, and I am still here to speak of it. Things actually went really well. On Tuesday, our students came in with their parents to meet their teacher and drop off their materials. They were divided into groups by half hour; it was a great way to meet a few at a time and to eliminate some of the chaos of the first day of classes.

Wednesday morning I had the whole group: 20 little Mexicans (11 girls and 9 boys). They are so cute. But chatty! Everyone had been trying to prepare us for this aspect of their culture. It wasn’t so much their chattiness that I noticed but the fact that they chat in Spanish. This, of course, at an English school is a no-no. So that is something we are going to need to work on.

Wednesday was mainly a day of getting oriented, playing some games and coming up with our class rules. On Thursday and Friday I started to get into some of the actual teaching, but still mixed with some of those get-to-know you activities. This coming week, we’ll be right into the curriculum. The school has a pretty intense curriculum, with a lot of material to cover, so we’ve got to get right down to it.

Friday night we had “Canyon Night”. It has apparently become a tradition at the school to spend the first Friday evening out at the Huasteca Canyon and introduce the new people to climbing and rappelling. I had a chance to try both (see the pictures). I’ve been climbing once or twice before in an indoor gym but this was totally different. It isn’t obvious at all where to try and put your hands or feet. Rappelling (when you have control of the rope going down) was pretty cool. But the beginning, where you have to walk yourself backwards to the edge and start lowering yourself, until you are basically perpendicular to wall was a little nerve-racking. After that it was fun. I can’t say that climbing is going to be my newest hobby – but I’m glad I’ve done it once. We stayed in the area until 11 or so; people made a campfire and had brought camping stoves so we could BBQ some dinner.

This week I also played Ultimate Frisbee with a group that meets at my school on Monday nights. I’ve played casually a few times before, but I definitely some practice. I’m happy running up and down the field and maybe catching the disc a few times, so I think I’ll go back. I’m working on recruiting some other inexperienced people as well.

This morning I’m off to go hiking at Chipinque with some people from school. You just have to take advantage of the surroundings down here. It still amazes me every morning when I walk out the front door and see mountains.

I have now got internet at my house! So I am going to figure out how Skype works (it lets you talk to people for free over the internet) and hopefully be in better communication that way.

I would love to hear from you!

New Photos

Here are some photos of some of the things I've been referring to.

The picture with the pool and all the people is from the Pool Party we had on Friday night. The picture with me holding a beer (Surprised? Me too!) is me and Laurie (my roommate at the same party).

The group photo of 4 girls and a guy is the Panuco Family (all the new staff who live in our building). The photo of the man singing and playing guitar is from the PTA diner where a Mariachi band came and performed for us.

The photo of the mountains shows the famous Monterrey Sadle - and this is visible from most spots in the city.




The group photo of 4 girls and a guy is the Panuco Family (all the new staff who live in our building). The photo of the man singing and playing guitar is from the PTA diner where a Mariachi band came and performed for us.

The photo of the mountains shows the famous Monterrey Sadle - and this is visible from most spots in the city.

Another week, another fiesta...

It has been another busy week in Monterrey. Since I last updated this, we have had a full week of Orientation, a group dinner at our place, a salsa (the food not the dance) party, a big group dinner at Fiesta Tacos, and our week culminated in a pool party at the home of the Superintendent. Between all those social events (and more) we spent hours at school in meetings and ducking out to our classrooms whenever possible to try and put things in to order.

Beginning Tuesday of this past week, we had all the teaching staff of the school present for Orientation. Before that it had just been us newbies. It has been nice to have many more people around, and I can’t stop saying how supportive everyone has been. From helping us arrange for a cleaning lady to getting us info on internet and cable tv to just stopping in the hall to check how things are going (at school and personally) – it was been amazing.

I am beginning to feel more and more confident about the whole teaching aspect. This school definitely expects a lot of us – but they also seem to have all the supports in place to help us be successful. I will be teaching Second Grade with 7 other people. We also have a literacy coach for K-2 and each grade has a Resource teacher. We have people who do our photocopying and deliver any technology materials we need in our class. I could get used to this. ☺

Today (Saturday) I had a little bit of a sleep in after a late night at the pool party (followed by an after-party at a house known as ‘The Birdcage’). I them heading off to school (just around the corner) and spent a few hours at school fiddling with things in my classroom and reading some of the many books and packages I have been given this week. There were lots of people in school today, so it wasn’t all work. In the late afternoon Laurie (my roommate) and Libby (our across the hall neighbour) headed to the Sorianna (a food store) to pick up some groceries and cleaning supplies (our cleaning lady comes for the first tie on Tuesday!). One thing I am quickly learning one thing about being in a country that speaks a different language – things take a long time. It isn’t as simple as popping into the grocery store to pick up a few things. It takes a long time to find things when you can’t read all the signs. This afternoon I tried to prepare a rice salad (the same one from my Mexican fiesta). It should have been quite simple, but of course the instructions on the box were all in Spanish. Dictionary in hand, I figured it out.

We made it out of the Sorianna (and a few other stores) about 2 hours later, exhausted and starving. We stopped at an pizza place where we were welcomed by an Italian women. On our way out, someone called us over from across the restaurant (she heard us speaking English) and wanted to know if we were interested in teaching some adult English classes. It seems that people here are way more comfortable and willing to speak to strangers than I am used to in Canada. It is very nice.

Spanish lessons will be starting this week, so hopefully things will begin to get a little easier.

We have a long weekend coming up (September 15th) so we are starting to plan a trip. Oe of the PTA mom’s we met is a travel agent, so she is looking at some all-inclusive resorts for us to go to. A 3 day weekend at Puerta Vallerta sounds good to me.

We will be getting internet to our house, hopefully soon, so it will be a lot easier for me to be in touch with everyone. Apparently something good to use is “Skype” which lets you talk for free over the computer. I bought myself a microphone today, so hopefully soon I can try that out. If anyone knows anything about it, let me know!

Thank you for the emails. If I haven’t written back to you yet, I will, I promise!
Xoxo
Ginny

Pictures!

Here are some pictures to give you a little sense of the environment around Monterrey. The city is basically completed surrounded by mountains. In almost every direction you turn, you can see them. It is pretty amazing.

The picture of my mom and I is from Cola de Caballo waterfall. It is about a 45 minute drive south of Monterrey, close to the town of Santiago.

Getting Oriented!

We have officially started New Teacher Orientation and things are looking good. After spending time with my parents in Monterrey and in Santiago and surrounding area, I had a chance to settle into my apartment. I had no idea what to expect and this place is definitely beyond anything I could have imagined.

It is officially a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment. However, it includes a third “small” room which is actually quite large. Right now it has in it a desk and our ironing board; I’m not sure what we will use it for. There is a huge living room/dining room which opens onto a small outdoor patio. There is the kitchen with lots of cupboard space (but no drawers?!) and a laundry room with washer/dryer and laundry sinks as well as a rack on which we can hang clothes to dry. Fro the laundry room you can go out into this small cement area which leads to the “servants” quarters – a decent sized room with another bathroom (not included in the two bathroom count!). Its not fancy – but if anyone wants to come and stay, you can have your own place!

The two bedrooms are both very large and came with double beds, two side tables and a six drawer dresser. I arrived before my roommate Laurie, so I had to decide which room to take. It was a very tough decision, as one room had an ensuite bath while the other had a huge closet with built in shelves. I went for the closet. My room is all set-up but still looks a little bare. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for some interesting stuff to put on the walls.

We are in one of the main floor apartments of a three story building. Each story has only two apartments. Occupying the other main floor apartment are two other elementary teachers (Lindsay, a Canadian and Libby, from Kansas). Of the four remaining apartments, 2 others are filled by teachers from my school.

Last night we had a Welcome Dinner for all the new teachers living in our area. Our apartment is literally a two minute walk from the elementary campus and there seem to be lots of teachers in the area. There were about 20 or so people at the dinner last night and everyone seems pretty great.

This morning all the new teachers (elementary and middle and secondary) had breakfast together and then we broke into our sections for the beginning of Orientation. Everyone (new and old) is so positive about the school and the city and what you can get out of the experience. I got the keys to my classroom and my new laptop (a Mac!) and had a little bit of time this afternoon to putter around in my classroom and start to sort things out.

Tonight we had a dinner hosted by the PTA Hosting Families to introduce us to some of the traditional Mexican dishes. We are all “adopted” by parents of students and the mother’s seem willing to help us out in any way possible (take us shopping, help us find domestic help, give us advice on finding services around the city). Some of the notable foods I tried this evening:
-cactus in some sort of slightly spicy sauce (texture like green pepper, very yummy)
-chicken in mole sauce (a sauce made of 17-ish ingredients including nuts and chocolate – also very good!)
-dessert called “three milk” something (all names in Spanish, of course; this too was very good)

After dinner a Mariachi group came (live music – men with violins and guitars and trumpets who play and sing) marching into the backyard where we were all seated and performed for us. They played some traditional Mexican songs as well as some versions of songs I could recognize. A group of us left the dinner around 9:45 and headed to the Sierra Madre Brewing Company for a drink (una copa de vino blanco – a cup of white wie – for me) before heading home to what we are beginning to call “Melrose Place”. Libby had her camera so I can hopefully get some pictures from her.

Tomorrow night there is another party at a staff member’s house and the weekend is going to comprise of a hike in Chipinque National Park (the mountains I can see from my bedroom!) and a city tour and a trip to a Market before we really get going on Monday!