Chapter 3: Teacher Patreek
This is really the beginning: I set down the remainder of my belongings, looking at what I had: two boxes of clothes, one box of teaching supplies mostly untouched, one box of games and sports equipment and some dishes and my Nintendo 64 and its odds and ends, one tube with some posters, a cowboy hat (not mine, technically), and a backpack that contained a laptop which recently had stopped working, a digital camera that did (but now doesn’t) a Discman that works but not well, a case with 64 CDs, only 2 originals. I had also “obtained” and brought: two sleeping pads, one chest of drawers, one night stand, one wooden folding chair and two towels, all taken from the hacienda, all handmade with the exception of the sleeping pads. The bed frame that awaited the sleeping pads was also handmade. How did I bring this much stuff with me to Mexico? I don’t really remember.
I do remember sitting there listening to the music that emanated out the room across from the bedroom I was in. There was a guitar being played and apparently all the workers there singing. The tune of the songs they sang were familiar but the words were in a language I knew not to be Spanish.
I pushed the dresser into the corner and threw the bed pads on the frame. A few blankets that were already in the room were then thrown on top. I sat on the bed and looked at the mostly empty room with its paint chipping, dirty tile floor, and Kike’s possessions: his bed, black and white TV, some books, a boombox CD player, a broom and a broken metal dustpan, and some plastic cups which I knew weren’t his. I sat there, took a breath, and thought about crying. I think I knew what that moment meant; I could almost see the future, or whatever. That’s only a half truth because I suppose that if I really had known the future at that point I would have cried a lot more.
The black steel door flew open and Kike rolled in, threw his hands in the air and yelled like a baritone rooster, “ooohr ohr oohhr ohr ohhhr!”
Kike is like this: 19 years old, second in a family of five, the only one who lives away from home. He is very short, maybe five feet, maybe not, which doesn’t really matter because anyone in a wheelchair is going to be short anyway. Relatively. At least to my almost 6 foot 2, skinny, frame. Kike is a full-blooded Mazahua Indian, which says nothing about him personally, only that he is dark skinned, has a wide nose, speaks a little Mazahua but not too much because evidently it’s not cool to speak dying languages these days, and lives in the mountainous region of central Mexico. And at this moment in time, he’s my only friend.
As the story goes, he grew up in Santiago Casandeje, a small pueblo about an hour away from where I threw my stuff down and we began to be roommates. He went to elementary school, playing soccer and basketball, fighting with his brothers, and so on. His favorite story of his childhood is how there was a disfigured kid who everyone hated in his first grade class. Kike says he didn’t know why but he wanted to be this kid’s friend. He says that at the time he didn’t know why; he knows now.
“What up, Homie?” he yelled in English, forcing my surprised face to look at him, allowing him to see that I was crying.
“Where did you learn that?” I ask in Spanish, which, at the time, probably sounded more like “where you learn this?”
“From the movie ‘Sangre por Sangre,’” he says. “You are crying for me!” More of a funny statement than a question.
“No, I…” I couldn’t even begin to come up with words to even make an excuse. “I don’t know.”
“No problem. Come on.” He turned and rolled out the door. I followed him out onto the walkway and around the corner to where the classroom was. I use the word “classroom” but really names like “ceramics shop” and “stained glass shop” and “storeroom” and “office” are just names for what the room is being used for at that exact moment. Here, all rooms and materials are used for whatever current purpose is desired. The bathroom is really the only room that was built to be what it actually still is, and most likely will continue to be. I have seen the ceramics room moved to three different places. I follow him into the classroom and there is my class. English class. Kike, ten girls, me. I am not exactly sure what is going on, but all I know is that I am in no way prepared to give class, nor really ready to try out my struggling Spanish without anyone to help me.
This is January. You won’t believe me, but it’s freezing cold. It must be like 5 or 6 Celsius, but with no indoor heat anywhere, I have my jacket on, as well as gloves and a wool hat.
I had actually arrived here because I wanted some job teaching English that would allow me to learn Spanish. A Mexican man and his American wife invited me to live at their little mission. This is January, but this is my fifth month. It goes quickly like this: I had been told that my mom and sister were going on a mission trip with my church to some place in Mexico and that they were leaving in the summer and were fundraising, but one day that summer they came up to me and informed me that two weeks before the trip was going to be taken, one of the leaders couldn’t go and there was a space open and that they needed, and wanted, another “adult male” to go along, and since I, being good friends with most of the then high schoolers, was voted to be put in her place without having to raise the money or anything. So I said yes. We ended up in a three-hundred-year-old hacienda in the west part of the State of Mexico where we did a few work projects and ate some real Mexican food and had some fun. When the week was over, the owner, a nice friendly guy of like 55 years or so told me that he wanted me to come back to be the English teacher at the school he was starting. He said that at what used to be the old general store for that hacienda, which he had purchased just a year before, he was going to start a project that paid local people to come and work half day, study half day. I laughed and said “yeah, I’ll think about it,” intending to not think about it. But two more years of college went by and I graduated and realized I really didn’t want to go get a job and work for the rest of my life to live comfortably and would rather go have a wacky, less comfortable adventure so I wrote them and asked if the offer was still open to which of course they responded yes and that following fall I went. Just like that. No, no other real purpose.
I originally got there in September, and spent a good three or four weeks trying to find something I could help out with. It was difficult because I found the whole mission completely unorganized and I pretty much spent most of my time either working on computer projects that would never amount to anything and never be used by anyone, or hanging out with any groups that came to the hacienda. That is how they make their money: it is like a retreat center, where groups come and stay and the money is used to pay the workers so they don’t have to go to Mexico City or Chicago to find work. About four groups a year are Americans, and thus I stuck to them whenever they were around. I then went home in December and thought about staying there for good.
A couple days before I left for home, I actually went to the school for the first time, in the old general store called “Las Rosas,” about a 20 minute walk from the hacienda. That was where I was originally going to teach English, but the school was still stumbling around in bureaucratic problems and I hadn’t yet made it there. They promised that by the time I returned, there would be a school and they would have hired like 15 people to paint ceramics or make stained glass windows or little glass trinkets and go to school. Kike was living there at the time by himself, and Miriam suggested that I go live there with him and be the teacher and whatever. I hung out with Kike some and it seemed like a much better idea than being frustrated with nothing to do in the hacienda and also a better idea that a real job in the states.
The “mission” consisted of one large ex-hacienda, like a flat-topped castle, that they used as a getaway spot for groups of people wanting a different sort of cultural experience, “Las Rosas” which is the old general store that was associated with the hacienda back in the day, and a few pieces of property here and there. There was a cathedral next to the hacienda, but was not part of the mission. That was public property. Their idea was to pay local people to work at the hacienda when groups came to use it, giving them jobs so they would not have to search in Mexico City or the US. At Las Rosas, the old general store that was now being used as ceramics and stained glass workshops, lived Kike all by himself, and they decided it would be good for all if I was to live there. Actually I just went because I wanted a wacky adventure. Wish granted.
So I arrived once again in January, “obtained” some furniture from the hacienda and in one van load had everything up there to start my new job as English teacher.
“Paktreek” he said “can we start class?”
“Uh, uh, uh, I am not very ready” I stammer as they all stare at me smiling. “You permit me, um, go my notebook and book” as I turn and back out the door. I turn and as I scurry down the walkway to the room, I hear catcall whistles behind me. “Oh gosh,” I thought, “please don’t let that happen again when I get back. I’m already as nervous as I need to be.” I go to the room and grab my mostly blank notebook in which I have written “English, Class 1” on it, a line under it, and nothing else. I snag the homeschool English 2 book they gave me and hustle back to the room where they are chatting among themselves.
“OK, ok, ok” I am stammering. I can’t help it. “Um, what were you, um, where are you in the book?”
“What class are we starting with?” the girl closest to me asks.
“What? What class?” I want to say “what do you mean” but instead I just stare blankly with my mouth moving pretending to try to come up with some sound.
“What classes are you going to teach today?” I understand most of that.
“Umm, English. Yes? Am I the English teacher?”
“You are the teacher.”
“What?”
“Umm, English. Yes? Am I the English teacher?”
“You are the teacher.”
“What?”
“You are the teacher. I would like to learn English, math, and computers.” Others concur.
“Oh good God,” I think as it hits me (not a frivolous use of the Lord’s name in vain, but an honest prayer of help). It’s not a huge life changing realization: it comes quickly and passes, but certainly scares me more than I was before. This is Little House on the Prairie, this is “The Classroom,” and I am “The Teacher.” Not being one to show much fear, I simply smile and blink. “I did not know” I answer. “Other class you want to learn?” They inform me that they have both Spanish and History already, but that those are homeschool courses learned out of studying their books together, and subjects that I will have a hard time supplementing with my own knowledge. They say they used to have a mandatory micro-management class on Saturday mornings, but they didn’t like coming on Saturdays and it was cancelled. We somehow work out that we will have English three times a week, three separate math classes each twice a week, and a computer class if we find a way to get a hold of some computers, which supposedly actually exist and are floating about someplace, so I am told. I have no expectations for computer class.
I think I grasp most of this, and it turns out I did. At least enough to continue.
“Can we start by you telling me your names?” it comes out straight and true. I hope.
“Angelica.”
I am writing this all down.
“Adalaida.”
“Angeles.”
“Adalid.”
Oh please let this be a joke. This is already hard as can be.
“Hilda.”
Finally, a name I can remember. Ok, note to self, Hilda is the short Mexican girl. Nice.
“Silvia.”
“Angeles.”
“Again?” I ask.
“Yes, there are two.”
Oh my gosh.
“Leticia.” Leticia is a Mexican name? I thought it was an African American name. I have my full concentration on how I possibly spell that, and if it is unusual for a Mexican to have a African American name. I’m hardly even looking at them except to smile and nod. It is African American, isn’t it?
“Consuelo.” Who they immediately call “Chelo,” confusing me all the further. Sweet.
“Lolita.” That’s a keeper. The only one I will have no problem remembering. She has a funny smile, easy to remember. And the only one I will possibly remember for the next month. Lo-LI-taaa.
I tell them to open their books to page blah de blah, some exercise that I stare at for a minute, “changing active voice into passive voice.”
“Umm, can you do?” The activity. That is what I want to say: “Can you do this activity? Can you understand what is going on and complete the sentences.” Nice first try though. I turn to put an example on the whiteboard behind me. Immediately I get whistles. I blush bright red and turn to look at them, whereupon they simply laugh. “Laugh it up. Have your fun. Pick on me when I can’t comeback with any witty retort” I think. This look back was, of course, the key that opened a huge door of more to come, and I realized it much too late. Focus would become quickly moved away from English to trying to make my face as red as possible.
“We are going to try the exercises on page. Please. Here is example.” And I write on the board “Johnny ate the cake.” “What is that in voice passive?” Blank stares. “Ok. This is…um… that one person does something… but we want to say something is done… by… something.” Blank stares. Did that not make perfect sense? I am starting to get the impression that this is not that they have not arrived at this point in the book, but that the book has not been used at all, ever, and this is more than just my inability to explain. Huh. “Do we know numbers?” Some heads nod. Well, let’s start there.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU,” I say loudly and slowly, in English. Blank stares. Nice. “How old are you,” I repeat, in Spanish. “But you tell me in English.” They all look about 18. I am 22. Whatever. “Lolita?” Told you I would remember her name.
“Twenty.” English, good. I guess she could be 20.
“Consuelo?” Her sister. Easy enough as her name sits next to Lolita’s on my list.
“Twenty One.” There is no possible way that she is older than Lolita, but I should be concentrating on English.
“Good. Yes. Umm, you, Hilda.” I am avoiding the A’s and the African American Mexican.
“Twenty Two.” No possible way.
“Very good. Ummm, yes, Kike.” Nice bailout, as I search the rest of the names desperately trying to come up with a match.
“How do you say ‘19’?” Spanish.
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen.”
“Good. Umm, the rest of you?”
“Twenty Two.” Could be.
“Twenty.”
“Twenty Seven.” Bwah? She looks older than me, but not 27.
“Sixteen.”
And finally the last girl, the second Angeles I remember but not in time. She looks like 20 or 21.
“Fifteen.”
“What?”
“Fifteen?”
Awkward pause. I open my mouth and shut it again. More pause. “Tell me in Spanish.”
“15.”
“Are you sure?” Blank stares and polite smiles. Right. I only believe it in the slightest because I figure if she wanted to impress me or lie, she would give herself more years than she has, not less.
“You know what? We are going to play a game. OK?” Smiles. Horray. I run to my room and grab a deck of cards. Screw this. We’re playing “spoons” until the bell rings.
My favorite joke when I was teaching English in Taiwan with my buddy Ethan was this: when telling each other about a class that hadn’t gone well and we were about to bail and just play some stupid game, we would say to each other, as if we were talking to our class, “listen up. I am going down to 7-Eleven for a smoke. You, um, Johnny or Hoo-Cho-Crum or whatever your name is, you guard the door. If the principal comes, tell him I am in the bathroom and look like you are busy with English.” Of course neither of us smoked, but when we were especially tired and wanted to tell the joke, we would just pretend like we were smoking a cigarette, taking a deep inhale and exhale, finger and thumb holding the imaginary cigarette. Most of our jokes were pretending like we were being extremely culturally insensitive, or extremely “American” like our Australian buddy Paul liked to say. That was his favorite joke, I think. We, of course, are not quite the jackasses like I might portray us as. The worst thing we probably have said or done is that Ethan says he votes only for men, because he is sure there are women who only vote for women and he wants to even that out. I say that I like to only vote for the people who I think will win, kind of like filling out my college basketball Final Four bracket, trying to predict the winners. Our friend Liz says that makes us horrible people. No one else has called me a horrible person except for her.
Just to let you know, for the sake of my good name, I will faithfully fill out Final Four brackets for the next three years even though I will watch zero games. I will do exactly as well during those three years, having known nothing, as I had done the previous ten years. Just pick upsets here and there!
I pretend to smoke my cigarette, grab my cards and get back and motion for everyone to gather around one table. I have realized the brilliance of non verbal communication. A lot can be accomplished with hands and facial expressions. These should be greater revelations, as each one makes my life a trillion times easier. But they aren’t. They come too quick to be thought about and just happen and I hope I am not taking them for granted but I figure I probably am.
So we all circle around the table.
“OK, is what we do, we are going, ok, sit. OK, I am going to give everyone one…these…”
“Cards.”
“Right. Cards. Four. Every person four. Understand? OK, only 8 people. Only small cards. Only eight people, four cards. Now. Do you have pencils? Give me pencils.” They break out the pencils and I put seven pencils on the table. “So. Eight people have four cards. So I will start, I will take one card and give one card to you. You say yes or you say no and you give one card to her.” I sound like a child and I know it. I am actually using “so” in English. “We are going…just to play.” I say “just” in English too. I have no word to replace it. Actually I take off the “t” from the end, saying “jus” and hoping it sounds something like what I hope its Spanish equivalent is. So I go. I just start picking up cards and handing them to the “A” girl sitting next to me, who is smiling at me, looking at my face every time I turn her way. It is making me incredibly uncomfortable. I swear that if she has “Te Amo” written on her eyelids I am out of here. She is not doing anything, so I motion for her to pass her cards, which she does. I just keep going as everyone watches me, passing cards to the girl on my left but obviously not knowing why. I am looking at Kike hoping he is figuring it out. He is not. OK, so I get four jacks and show them to everyone, and pick up a pencil. I motion for them to pick one up, which they do nicely, leaving one person out. She looks at me like “what?” and I smile and say “you lose. Change with you” pointing at another girl.
There is a tremendous “aaahhh” as a collective understanding occurs and suddenly I feel a lot better. They chatter among themselves as those who didn’t give the “aaahhh” shout out the first time now give it. Sweet. Sweet. Yes. I smile and nod like four or five times and deal the cards again. Four out to each, and here we go again. Pass left pass left girl still looking at me and not her cards but at least the others are suddenly really into it and catching on really fast. I got the four again first, and grab a pencil to have five of them grab pencils leaving on the table one pencil and two of them staring. The others chatter and they both dive for the pencil. One is out and another in, and everyone has grasped the idea. We are not in any way learning English but I figure they are getting used to me and that is probably good enough to keep going like this. Around the cards go and the pencils are out and someone loses and a new person is in, and everyone is now not only understanding but intensely interested in winning.
This goes on for like a half-hour. I couldn’t put the breaks on this train if I wanted to. Finally two pencils break as a result of people fighting, so I stand up and say: “ok, ok, ya. Fun fun. Is all. Math class 1 tomorrow. OK?” I get some head nods and Kike’s gives me the thumbs up so I clasp my hands together, smile, and everybody watches me as if I am going to do something. I turn and walk out of the room and they all laugh. Man I am smooth.
I would later find out that the two sisters’, Lolita and Chelo, real full names are Maria Dolores and Maria Consuelo. “Dolores” of course means “pains” or “sorrows,” and “Consuelo” which means “consolation” or “comfort.” I never would find out what it was, but there has to be a story there. There has to be some great story behind that one.
I do remember sitting there listening to the music that emanated out the room across from the bedroom I was in. There was a guitar being played and apparently all the workers there singing. The tune of the songs they sang were familiar but the words were in a language I knew not to be Spanish.
I pushed the dresser into the corner and threw the bed pads on the frame. A few blankets that were already in the room were then thrown on top. I sat on the bed and looked at the mostly empty room with its paint chipping, dirty tile floor, and Kike’s possessions: his bed, black and white TV, some books, a boombox CD player, a broom and a broken metal dustpan, and some plastic cups which I knew weren’t his. I sat there, took a breath, and thought about crying. I think I knew what that moment meant; I could almost see the future, or whatever. That’s only a half truth because I suppose that if I really had known the future at that point I would have cried a lot more.
The black steel door flew open and Kike rolled in, threw his hands in the air and yelled like a baritone rooster, “ooohr ohr oohhr ohr ohhhr!”
Kike is like this: 19 years old, second in a family of five, the only one who lives away from home. He is very short, maybe five feet, maybe not, which doesn’t really matter because anyone in a wheelchair is going to be short anyway. Relatively. At least to my almost 6 foot 2, skinny, frame. Kike is a full-blooded Mazahua Indian, which says nothing about him personally, only that he is dark skinned, has a wide nose, speaks a little Mazahua but not too much because evidently it’s not cool to speak dying languages these days, and lives in the mountainous region of central Mexico. And at this moment in time, he’s my only friend.
As the story goes, he grew up in Santiago Casandeje, a small pueblo about an hour away from where I threw my stuff down and we began to be roommates. He went to elementary school, playing soccer and basketball, fighting with his brothers, and so on. His favorite story of his childhood is how there was a disfigured kid who everyone hated in his first grade class. Kike says he didn’t know why but he wanted to be this kid’s friend. He says that at the time he didn’t know why; he knows now.
“What up, Homie?” he yelled in English, forcing my surprised face to look at him, allowing him to see that I was crying.
“Where did you learn that?” I ask in Spanish, which, at the time, probably sounded more like “where you learn this?”
“From the movie ‘Sangre por Sangre,’” he says. “You are crying for me!” More of a funny statement than a question.
“No, I…” I couldn’t even begin to come up with words to even make an excuse. “I don’t know.”
“No problem. Come on.” He turned and rolled out the door. I followed him out onto the walkway and around the corner to where the classroom was. I use the word “classroom” but really names like “ceramics shop” and “stained glass shop” and “storeroom” and “office” are just names for what the room is being used for at that exact moment. Here, all rooms and materials are used for whatever current purpose is desired. The bathroom is really the only room that was built to be what it actually still is, and most likely will continue to be. I have seen the ceramics room moved to three different places. I follow him into the classroom and there is my class. English class. Kike, ten girls, me. I am not exactly sure what is going on, but all I know is that I am in no way prepared to give class, nor really ready to try out my struggling Spanish without anyone to help me.
This is January. You won’t believe me, but it’s freezing cold. It must be like 5 or 6 Celsius, but with no indoor heat anywhere, I have my jacket on, as well as gloves and a wool hat.
I had actually arrived here because I wanted some job teaching English that would allow me to learn Spanish. A Mexican man and his American wife invited me to live at their little mission. This is January, but this is my fifth month. It goes quickly like this: I had been told that my mom and sister were going on a mission trip with my church to some place in Mexico and that they were leaving in the summer and were fundraising, but one day that summer they came up to me and informed me that two weeks before the trip was going to be taken, one of the leaders couldn’t go and there was a space open and that they needed, and wanted, another “adult male” to go along, and since I, being good friends with most of the then high schoolers, was voted to be put in her place without having to raise the money or anything. So I said yes. We ended up in a three-hundred-year-old hacienda in the west part of the State of Mexico where we did a few work projects and ate some real Mexican food and had some fun. When the week was over, the owner, a nice friendly guy of like 55 years or so told me that he wanted me to come back to be the English teacher at the school he was starting. He said that at what used to be the old general store for that hacienda, which he had purchased just a year before, he was going to start a project that paid local people to come and work half day, study half day. I laughed and said “yeah, I’ll think about it,” intending to not think about it. But two more years of college went by and I graduated and realized I really didn’t want to go get a job and work for the rest of my life to live comfortably and would rather go have a wacky, less comfortable adventure so I wrote them and asked if the offer was still open to which of course they responded yes and that following fall I went. Just like that. No, no other real purpose.
I originally got there in September, and spent a good three or four weeks trying to find something I could help out with. It was difficult because I found the whole mission completely unorganized and I pretty much spent most of my time either working on computer projects that would never amount to anything and never be used by anyone, or hanging out with any groups that came to the hacienda. That is how they make their money: it is like a retreat center, where groups come and stay and the money is used to pay the workers so they don’t have to go to Mexico City or Chicago to find work. About four groups a year are Americans, and thus I stuck to them whenever they were around. I then went home in December and thought about staying there for good.
A couple days before I left for home, I actually went to the school for the first time, in the old general store called “Las Rosas,” about a 20 minute walk from the hacienda. That was where I was originally going to teach English, but the school was still stumbling around in bureaucratic problems and I hadn’t yet made it there. They promised that by the time I returned, there would be a school and they would have hired like 15 people to paint ceramics or make stained glass windows or little glass trinkets and go to school. Kike was living there at the time by himself, and Miriam suggested that I go live there with him and be the teacher and whatever. I hung out with Kike some and it seemed like a much better idea than being frustrated with nothing to do in the hacienda and also a better idea that a real job in the states.
The “mission” consisted of one large ex-hacienda, like a flat-topped castle, that they used as a getaway spot for groups of people wanting a different sort of cultural experience, “Las Rosas” which is the old general store that was associated with the hacienda back in the day, and a few pieces of property here and there. There was a cathedral next to the hacienda, but was not part of the mission. That was public property. Their idea was to pay local people to work at the hacienda when groups came to use it, giving them jobs so they would not have to search in Mexico City or the US. At Las Rosas, the old general store that was now being used as ceramics and stained glass workshops, lived Kike all by himself, and they decided it would be good for all if I was to live there. Actually I just went because I wanted a wacky adventure. Wish granted.
So I arrived once again in January, “obtained” some furniture from the hacienda and in one van load had everything up there to start my new job as English teacher.
“Paktreek” he said “can we start class?”
“Uh, uh, uh, I am not very ready” I stammer as they all stare at me smiling. “You permit me, um, go my notebook and book” as I turn and back out the door. I turn and as I scurry down the walkway to the room, I hear catcall whistles behind me. “Oh gosh,” I thought, “please don’t let that happen again when I get back. I’m already as nervous as I need to be.” I go to the room and grab my mostly blank notebook in which I have written “English, Class 1” on it, a line under it, and nothing else. I snag the homeschool English 2 book they gave me and hustle back to the room where they are chatting among themselves.
“OK, ok, ok” I am stammering. I can’t help it. “Um, what were you, um, where are you in the book?”
“What class are we starting with?” the girl closest to me asks.
“What? What class?” I want to say “what do you mean” but instead I just stare blankly with my mouth moving pretending to try to come up with some sound.
“What classes are you going to teach today?” I understand most of that.
“Umm, English. Yes? Am I the English teacher?”
“You are the teacher.”
“What?”
“Umm, English. Yes? Am I the English teacher?”
“You are the teacher.”
“What?”
“You are the teacher. I would like to learn English, math, and computers.” Others concur.
“Oh good God,” I think as it hits me (not a frivolous use of the Lord’s name in vain, but an honest prayer of help). It’s not a huge life changing realization: it comes quickly and passes, but certainly scares me more than I was before. This is Little House on the Prairie, this is “The Classroom,” and I am “The Teacher.” Not being one to show much fear, I simply smile and blink. “I did not know” I answer. “Other class you want to learn?” They inform me that they have both Spanish and History already, but that those are homeschool courses learned out of studying their books together, and subjects that I will have a hard time supplementing with my own knowledge. They say they used to have a mandatory micro-management class on Saturday mornings, but they didn’t like coming on Saturdays and it was cancelled. We somehow work out that we will have English three times a week, three separate math classes each twice a week, and a computer class if we find a way to get a hold of some computers, which supposedly actually exist and are floating about someplace, so I am told. I have no expectations for computer class.
I think I grasp most of this, and it turns out I did. At least enough to continue.
“Can we start by you telling me your names?” it comes out straight and true. I hope.
“Angelica.”
I am writing this all down.
“Adalaida.”
“Angeles.”
“Adalid.”
Oh please let this be a joke. This is already hard as can be.
“Hilda.”
Finally, a name I can remember. Ok, note to self, Hilda is the short Mexican girl. Nice.
“Silvia.”
“Angeles.”
“Again?” I ask.
“Yes, there are two.”
Oh my gosh.
“Leticia.” Leticia is a Mexican name? I thought it was an African American name. I have my full concentration on how I possibly spell that, and if it is unusual for a Mexican to have a African American name. I’m hardly even looking at them except to smile and nod. It is African American, isn’t it?
“Consuelo.” Who they immediately call “Chelo,” confusing me all the further. Sweet.
“Lolita.” That’s a keeper. The only one I will have no problem remembering. She has a funny smile, easy to remember. And the only one I will possibly remember for the next month. Lo-LI-taaa.
I tell them to open their books to page blah de blah, some exercise that I stare at for a minute, “changing active voice into passive voice.”
“Umm, can you do?” The activity. That is what I want to say: “Can you do this activity? Can you understand what is going on and complete the sentences.” Nice first try though. I turn to put an example on the whiteboard behind me. Immediately I get whistles. I blush bright red and turn to look at them, whereupon they simply laugh. “Laugh it up. Have your fun. Pick on me when I can’t comeback with any witty retort” I think. This look back was, of course, the key that opened a huge door of more to come, and I realized it much too late. Focus would become quickly moved away from English to trying to make my face as red as possible.
“We are going to try the exercises on page. Please. Here is example.” And I write on the board “Johnny ate the cake.” “What is that in voice passive?” Blank stares. “Ok. This is…um… that one person does something… but we want to say something is done… by… something.” Blank stares. Did that not make perfect sense? I am starting to get the impression that this is not that they have not arrived at this point in the book, but that the book has not been used at all, ever, and this is more than just my inability to explain. Huh. “Do we know numbers?” Some heads nod. Well, let’s start there.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU,” I say loudly and slowly, in English. Blank stares. Nice. “How old are you,” I repeat, in Spanish. “But you tell me in English.” They all look about 18. I am 22. Whatever. “Lolita?” Told you I would remember her name.
“Twenty.” English, good. I guess she could be 20.
“Consuelo?” Her sister. Easy enough as her name sits next to Lolita’s on my list.
“Twenty One.” There is no possible way that she is older than Lolita, but I should be concentrating on English.
“Good. Yes. Umm, you, Hilda.” I am avoiding the A’s and the African American Mexican.
“Twenty Two.” No possible way.
“Very good. Ummm, yes, Kike.” Nice bailout, as I search the rest of the names desperately trying to come up with a match.
“How do you say ‘19’?” Spanish.
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen.”
“Good. Umm, the rest of you?”
“Twenty Two.” Could be.
“Twenty.”
“Twenty Seven.” Bwah? She looks older than me, but not 27.
“Sixteen.”
And finally the last girl, the second Angeles I remember but not in time. She looks like 20 or 21.
“Fifteen.”
“What?”
“Fifteen?”
Awkward pause. I open my mouth and shut it again. More pause. “Tell me in Spanish.”
“15.”
“Are you sure?” Blank stares and polite smiles. Right. I only believe it in the slightest because I figure if she wanted to impress me or lie, she would give herself more years than she has, not less.
“You know what? We are going to play a game. OK?” Smiles. Horray. I run to my room and grab a deck of cards. Screw this. We’re playing “spoons” until the bell rings.
My favorite joke when I was teaching English in Taiwan with my buddy Ethan was this: when telling each other about a class that hadn’t gone well and we were about to bail and just play some stupid game, we would say to each other, as if we were talking to our class, “listen up. I am going down to 7-Eleven for a smoke. You, um, Johnny or Hoo-Cho-Crum or whatever your name is, you guard the door. If the principal comes, tell him I am in the bathroom and look like you are busy with English.” Of course neither of us smoked, but when we were especially tired and wanted to tell the joke, we would just pretend like we were smoking a cigarette, taking a deep inhale and exhale, finger and thumb holding the imaginary cigarette. Most of our jokes were pretending like we were being extremely culturally insensitive, or extremely “American” like our Australian buddy Paul liked to say. That was his favorite joke, I think. We, of course, are not quite the jackasses like I might portray us as. The worst thing we probably have said or done is that Ethan says he votes only for men, because he is sure there are women who only vote for women and he wants to even that out. I say that I like to only vote for the people who I think will win, kind of like filling out my college basketball Final Four bracket, trying to predict the winners. Our friend Liz says that makes us horrible people. No one else has called me a horrible person except for her.
Just to let you know, for the sake of my good name, I will faithfully fill out Final Four brackets for the next three years even though I will watch zero games. I will do exactly as well during those three years, having known nothing, as I had done the previous ten years. Just pick upsets here and there!
I pretend to smoke my cigarette, grab my cards and get back and motion for everyone to gather around one table. I have realized the brilliance of non verbal communication. A lot can be accomplished with hands and facial expressions. These should be greater revelations, as each one makes my life a trillion times easier. But they aren’t. They come too quick to be thought about and just happen and I hope I am not taking them for granted but I figure I probably am.
So we all circle around the table.
“OK, is what we do, we are going, ok, sit. OK, I am going to give everyone one…these…”
“Cards.”
“Right. Cards. Four. Every person four. Understand? OK, only 8 people. Only small cards. Only eight people, four cards. Now. Do you have pencils? Give me pencils.” They break out the pencils and I put seven pencils on the table. “So. Eight people have four cards. So I will start, I will take one card and give one card to you. You say yes or you say no and you give one card to her.” I sound like a child and I know it. I am actually using “so” in English. “We are going…just to play.” I say “just” in English too. I have no word to replace it. Actually I take off the “t” from the end, saying “jus” and hoping it sounds something like what I hope its Spanish equivalent is. So I go. I just start picking up cards and handing them to the “A” girl sitting next to me, who is smiling at me, looking at my face every time I turn her way. It is making me incredibly uncomfortable. I swear that if she has “Te Amo” written on her eyelids I am out of here. She is not doing anything, so I motion for her to pass her cards, which she does. I just keep going as everyone watches me, passing cards to the girl on my left but obviously not knowing why. I am looking at Kike hoping he is figuring it out. He is not. OK, so I get four jacks and show them to everyone, and pick up a pencil. I motion for them to pick one up, which they do nicely, leaving one person out. She looks at me like “what?” and I smile and say “you lose. Change with you” pointing at another girl.
There is a tremendous “aaahhh” as a collective understanding occurs and suddenly I feel a lot better. They chatter among themselves as those who didn’t give the “aaahhh” shout out the first time now give it. Sweet. Sweet. Yes. I smile and nod like four or five times and deal the cards again. Four out to each, and here we go again. Pass left pass left girl still looking at me and not her cards but at least the others are suddenly really into it and catching on really fast. I got the four again first, and grab a pencil to have five of them grab pencils leaving on the table one pencil and two of them staring. The others chatter and they both dive for the pencil. One is out and another in, and everyone has grasped the idea. We are not in any way learning English but I figure they are getting used to me and that is probably good enough to keep going like this. Around the cards go and the pencils are out and someone loses and a new person is in, and everyone is now not only understanding but intensely interested in winning.
This goes on for like a half-hour. I couldn’t put the breaks on this train if I wanted to. Finally two pencils break as a result of people fighting, so I stand up and say: “ok, ok, ya. Fun fun. Is all. Math class 1 tomorrow. OK?” I get some head nods and Kike’s gives me the thumbs up so I clasp my hands together, smile, and everybody watches me as if I am going to do something. I turn and walk out of the room and they all laugh. Man I am smooth.
I would later find out that the two sisters’, Lolita and Chelo, real full names are Maria Dolores and Maria Consuelo. “Dolores” of course means “pains” or “sorrows,” and “Consuelo” which means “consolation” or “comfort.” I never would find out what it was, but there has to be a story there. There has to be some great story behind that one.
posted by Patrick McEvoy at 1:33 PM
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