Gooding County Leader June 12

Gooding County Leader 12-Jun-06

Two weeks complete, two weeks left to experience Puebla.

Monday through Friday I have the same schedule:
7:15am – Leave for the Institute. It takes about 45 minutes to walk to school.
8:00am – Check e-mail, update my blog, etc., finish the tarea (homework) I should have done the night before.
9:00am – Class begins. We work on Spanish grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, verb conjugation, etc.
1:00pm – Head to lunch. We have our choices of two restaurants. Most days I eat at La Zanahoria (The Carrot). It’s a vegetarian restaurant and they serve great food. I haven’t suddenly become a vegetarian; I just like the food better at this restaurant.
2:30pm – Meet in the Zócalo (a central plaza) for conversation class. I spend two hours with my guia (guide) seeing the sights within walking distance, talking about whatever I want, all in Spanish, por supuesto (of course).
6:30pm – Walk home.

Thursday, during my clase de conversación, my guia quoted a 17th century author to me.
Yo no leo para saber mas.
Yo leo para ignorar menos.
I don’t read to know more.
I read to ignore less.

Like many Americans, I have grown up in a society that ignores a lot of things, mostly because some things seem easier to ignore than to fix. When I first decided to come to Puebla, my primary reason was to learn the language. Being able to speak Spanish, on at least a conversational level, will certainly help me in my job as school counselor. I will be better equipped to work with students and families that have limited English skills. Spanish will allow me to do my job more effectively, reaching a greater portion of the Wendell students.

Secondarily, I came to learn the culture. Having a better understanding of Hispanic culture will give me more insight into student behavior and motivation. Again, Spanish will allow me to be more effective as a counselor.

Since being here, I have changed my primary motivation. Of course I want to learn the language, the culture, the traditions, the history. But more primarily, I need to discover what I have been ignoring. If I truly want to reach all students, I cannot ignore any of them.

I understand Anglo history, traditions, and culture. I grew up in the midst of that culture. My background as a white male gives me a unique perspective to help young white males. However, they are only a small percentage of my students. I also need to understand white female students, Hispanic males and females, Christians, Mormons, Catholics, poor students, rich students, etc.

Everyone has a culture and everyone is part of multiple cultures. I obviously cannot intimately know every culture. But, if I can increase my awareness of and sensitivity to other cultures, I increase my ability to help students, families, teachers, principals, community members – I increase my effectiveness as a counselor.

I’m also discovering that I’m not a very adventurous person. I like routine and familiarity. I like to explore, experience new things, but I’m not very brave. Many of the students go out at night, to experience the Puebla nightlife: bars, discothèques, billiard halls, etc. I’m pretty content just being at home with my Poblano family. I’m probably missing things that might be fun, but I don’t think I’m missing anything essential.
As for travel, the weekend was great. We visited Teotihuacan and Chapultepec en Ciudad de México. Although it was a very long day, leaving the house at 7:00am, and getting home about 9:30pm, it was worth the time, and the miles and miles we walked. I feel like I walked 50 miles.

As soon as we got off the bus, the vendors swarmed around us like vultures. Some of the things they were selling were really beautiful, but I wasn’t about to carry around a marble statue all day. Their favorite phrase was, “Amigo, almost free.” I responded with, “Lo siento, me gusta solo cosas muy caro.” If my Spanish is correct, I told them, “I’m sorry, I only like really expensive things.” Only one vendor found the humor in that. A trinket that had just been 10 pesos, he offered to sell me for $1,000. We both laughed.

I got to climb three pyramids, including the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. It was quite an experience to be someplace, walking the same streets, climbing the same stairs, touching the same rocks, as people did thousands of years ago. It also amazed me that men could build such structures so long ago. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world, behind the two largest pyramids in Egypt.

When I was on top of the Pyramid of the Moon, I stopped to look around the whole landscape. I thought to myself, “Almost 2000 years ago, there was a man my age standing right here, looking at basically the same landscape. There wasn’t a city back then, but the mountains and sky and trees and these pyramids, were all about the same.”

Chapultepec is a huge park in the middle of México City, a lot like Central Park in New York. We toured a museum that overlooks the city. Over the history of México, the castle was used as a school, a government building, a palace for the French ruler, and some other things. The museum is amazing, but no photos were allowed inside.

We had a hard time getting to the park because of the traffic. On the way to Teotihaucan, there was hardly any traffic. Everyone was getting ready for México’s fútbol match. On the way to central México City, everyone was on the street celebrating México’s win. It was quite a spectacle: flags everywhere, people hanging out of car windows, waving flags, honking, dancing in the street. I’m glad I got witness it.

Lastly, we went downtown to visit the Zócalo, which is not nearly as beautiful as the Zócalo in Puebla. It was full of people, and I mean full. Thousands were there watching a replay of the soccer game on a huge screen set up in front of the cathedral, selling their wares, eating, dancing, singing, etc.

I’m looking forward to my last two weeks here in Puebla. What new words and phrases will I learn? What new people will I meet? What will I learn about myself that I never knew before?

For photos of my trip, you can visit my blog:
http://pueblabound.blogspot.com

Until next time, Adios from Puebla.