así es….de mi punto de vista, pues

I´ve had a few questions about what it is that I´m actually doing here. My job description, when I accepted the position, was to teach English as a Second Language and teach basic computer skills. This changed pretty much completely and my job description was re-written to say that I would be involved with women´s groups, developing family gardens in different communities. I still am going to be working with a computer center, but I am no longer teaching any official classes. I am, officially, a support to the computer center worker.

This may come as somewhat of a surprise to those who know of my computer skills. I can get around on a computer as well as most people, but they´ve never particularly excited me. This does not matter, however, when you´re working with a community who does not have a telephone line, yet has satellite internet. You have more knowledge about computers than anyone within an hour of the community. Because you can check email.

The computer center was a project of the Mexican government. There are a number of computer centers set up in rural towns with satellite internet access. The communities picked one person from their community to be the worker in this computer center and these people all attended a two-day training on computers. The computer worker in my community, Teticic (that´s the name of the community, not the worker), knows how to turn the computers on and what all the parts of the computer are called. This is about it. It´s been hard getting in touch with the computer worker, seeing as there isn´t a phone line in Teticic and he doesn´t know how to check his email. Harvest has just recently come to a close, more or less, so I have my first official meeting with Filemon (the computer worker) on Tuesday. We´ll see how it goes….what with my lack of vocabulary in computer type things in English, much less in Spanish

What has been occupying me for the bulk of my time here has been the family gardens. Liz, my main co-worker in this, and I are currently meeting with two women´s groups in different communities as well as with a boarding school in another community. We´re going to add another women´s group in December. We visit each community once a week and conduct mini-workshops for about an hour or so and then each person has “homework” that they need to complete in the next week. For example, two weeks ago we visited a couple in Zacango…I´m going to do a quick geography lesson.

Zacango is a community about fifteen minutes away from Olinalá. You drive almost entirely on paved roads to get there. Very convenient. Chiaucingo (chow-sin-go) is about twenty minutes away. The road is not paved and quite rough. But still convenient, as the distance is not great. Xitapontla (sheet-a-pont-la) is about forty-five minutes away. The road is not paved, but it´s graded for much of the way. And you drive through pine trees on the way there. Teticic is an hour away. About half of it is, or will be paved, in the near future. At the moment there is a lot of construction going on, which at times makes for some adventuresome driving. The other half of the trip is over very rough dirt road…our average speed is probably around 15-20 km/hr. El Refugio is about an hour beyond Teticic, also over very rough, dirt roads. None of these roads are straight…it´s like you´re driving through any mountains in the states on back roads.

So, back to gardens…we took the women´s groups from Chiaucingo and Teticic and the boarding school kids and board members from Xitapontla to see a couple and their worm beds. They have been cultivating worms for several years now and have seven worm beds and a great deal of knowledge. This past week, we took supplies to make worm beds to each community…these included panels with foam-stuff in the middle so you use less cement when covering them, bags of cement and wire for tying the panels together. This next week, we´ll take worms and the couple from Zacango that cultivated them, to each community. The couple will talk about worm upkeep and such and each person´s job is to introduce their worms to their new homes and provide enough food for the worms to be comfortable. We´re going to put in drip irrigation systems, start plants, put in gray-water filtration systems, etc.

So that´s my official work while I´m here. So far I´m really liking it a lot. The main thing I wish could be different are my language skills….but that will come with time, as I keep telling myself…

I´ve got multiple women here volunteering to be my mother-in-law. I´m also quite hot on the Olinalá singles market….but seeing as my conversational skills are rather limited, the idea of a date is not all that exciting. Plus, the way people seem to go about pursuing someone here is slightly different than I´m used to. And ever so slightly awkward. At least the younger ones….they use someone else to ask if I want to “chat.” At first this confused me because I thought it was a request for a date, but no…only to chat. Which confused me more, because if they wanted to talk to me, why not just do it? Or at least attempt?  I´ll talk to anyone that tries to talk to me.

I´ve gotten a rose from an anonymous person, well, not anonymous, but I don´t know anybody by the name of the person who gave it to me.  A young kid came up to me, very nervously, and handed me a rose and told me it was from Julio somebody or other, who the other people at my table in the plaza knew, but I didn´t and still don´t.  Mostly men just offer to buy me food or drinks, of which I decline.

I told Liz that I think my ego is going to take a leap upwards this year…she laughed and said, why not enjoy it? I said that because I couldn´t actually have real conversations with people, it would probably keep me somewhat humble.

The problem is that I have so much power in relationships here….I mean, if I would actually want to date someone here….I´m white and from the US. The fact that I´m female with this much power in this society makes it very weird. I don´t really trust that people are interested in me for me (I mean, besides the fact that I have had very few actual conversations with males other than the ones I work with or I live with…all of whom are either married or a bit too young for me). But, because I am from the States and so many people here either want to go there to earn more money or have family there and if we got married, then I would be a very easy way to get into the US….far easier than most people here have it.

I know that part of the attraction to me is that I´m new….it´s sort of like being the new kid in school, in a town this small. But the three main questions that people ask me (aside from what part of the US I´m from and do I like it here) are: 1) are you single? 2) are you going to stay here? and 3) can you drive? When they here that the answer to number one is yes, someone invariably says something like, oh, well, I´m sure there´s someone here in Olinalá for you. My answer to question two is I don´t know, so there´s not usually much response to that, but when I say yes to question number three….whoa. I´ve risen to all new levels. Especially because I can drive stick too. My goodness. Shocking. I´m a female and I can drive.

Another part of my attraction is that I look more like the people that they watch on TV (and everyone watches TV here) than the people they are surrounded by…again, I´m white and tall.  I was talking about this with Martin and he pointed out that they´re insulting their own culture, in a way, in their attraction to me.  There are some beautiful people here…far more beautiful than I will ever be and yet, like last night, I get far more attention than most of the women here.

Last night, as part of Día de Los Muertos, there was a dance on the cancha that is nearest to my house.  It was quite a set-up, with enormous speakers, a band and a dj.  My ears are still ringing, which is probably not a good sign of my ear health at the moment.  There were a good number of people there, despite the cold.  And it actually was rather cool.  Normally when people think it´s cold here, it´s a perfect crisp summer morning to me.  But, seeing as I managed to dance every single dance, I also managed to stay quite warm.

There were a few memorable dances…I danced with two very short men…short enough that even when I´m not wearing heels they would have only come up to my shoulders.  And I was wearing heels, though this did not seem to discourage them.  During both of these dances, other men came up and asked if I wanted to dance with them…apparently they were trying to rescue me from this unfortunate situation that I had gotten myself into.  My policy is dance with everyone once, unless they´re obviously inebriated, and after the first dance, I´ll decline the offers.

The dancing here is not generally what I would consider much of dancing…mostly it´s just 1-2, 1-2, 1-2…except you don´t even need to count because it´s more like a bouncy walk with another person right in front of you.  If you actually can dance well, there are other things you can do, but I believe the men here are a little afraid of trying to attempt something like a turn with me…partly because I´m as tall as them (when I was dancing with one of the short men, he kept trying to turn me, but I had to duck so much, that he just gave up and turned himself), but also because I am obviously not well-practiced.  Despite the easiness of it, you still have to avoid stepping on people and I think this comes with practice, of which I do not have.  I got a quick lesson on dancing from my neighbor, who is also on my basketball team, right before the dance.

Dancing is so very much a part of the culture here.  Everyone knows how to dance, no matter how young or old.  My three-year-old host niece can dance better than I can.  Oh well.  Seeing as I´ll be getting lots of practice if these dances are held very frequently, I can only improve, right?

This is the name I am frequently called when people don´t actually know my name or can´t remember it. It means, essentially, “white skinned female.” Mexicans are also called this if their skin is lighter. One guy that I know here is known by “Guero.” Most people don´t know his real name. So it´s not insulting or anything, just sort of weird. For me, anyway. Since people greet pretty much everyone they pass here, people, both men and women, just tack on “guera” at the end…so, “buenos dias guera”….”good morning white girl.” Odd.

On a rather different subject, one of our goats has a cough. It´s been coughing for a little over a week and it still cracks me up. At first I was really confused as to who was hanging out in the limon trees in the dark and then I realized that it was actually one of the chivos. It is one of the more human sounding noises I´ve ever heard an animal make. We also have two baby goats…kids, I suppose they´re called. They were born about two weeks ago and are pure white and quite cute, as baby goats are wont to be.

Wednesday was the the beginning of Día de Los Muertos and, despite the word ´día,´ this actually lasts at least through Friday and I´m guessing through the weekend. It should be interesting. Especially seeing as we have the tradition of Halloween at this same time.

Many people build “ofrendas,” which are basically shrines to remember and honor those who have died.  My family´s ofrenda was a table, covered with a tablecloth and surrounded by large palm branches.  The palms were tied together with their own leaves to keep them standing and then decorated with rather intricate paper flowers and ribbons that were all strung together…sort of like what some people do with Christmas trees.  The table had plates of food and water and some candles.  On the floor in front of the ofrenda, there were more candles and a path of flower petals leading out the door.

With my family, I felt like this tradition was just that-tradition and not a whole lot more.  Some people are much more religious about it.   People make a point to remember family members for a long time after they have died, which is kind of a cool tradition.  I think it also helps keep the belief alive that elderly people are important and add immensely to society.