así es….de mi punto de vista, pues

This is a rather late writing of what happened on Monday, but it´s also telling of what this week´s been like.

We were going to start cilantro and radish seeds this week.  But when we arrived in Xitapontla, there was no water.  The organization that was going to bring water out to the boarding school hadn´t delivered it the week before.  There´s an organization in Mexico that works specifically with indigenous people.  This organization provides various services of which one is apparently delivering water.  Since they hadn´t, the plants that the boarding school has were drying up.  There wasn´t enough water for the kids to bathe, to water plants, to do everything you need to live.  Besides drink.  They did have drinking water.  As a result, we couldn´t plant anything.  And I´m rather worried for all the flowers that we started a few weeks ago.  The organization promised that they would deliver water today, so I´m hoping very much that it arrived.

Monday morning we went to Chiaucingo to visit every house, partly so Meredith could see where the women lived and their garden spaces, but also to check on the progress of the double digging in their gardens as well as to be available to answer specific questions about their seeds, worms or garden beds.  We had a very interesting conversation about men and women relations with Jeremina (Hair-eh-mean-a) over papaya juice.  She´s one of three sisters in our gardening group and is quite funny.  Her husband taught his kids (he has kids from a previous marriage) to treat every woman like they´d treat their mother-with respect.  It was a refreshing conversation overall.

Tuesday, Meredith and I went to Teticic to do home visits there.  We managed to visit everyone in one day.  Their worms were looking amazing and are going to be ready to sift the first harvesting of worm castings in the next couple weeks.  We´re going to use the worm castings to transplant the plants we started in trays and also use them when we direct plant the other seeds.  Everyone is very excited about their worms and takes good care of them.  They all think they´ve got tons of worms….worms are rather a nice pet to have.  They reproduce very quickly, so it´s hard to kill them all off and they literally eat poop and turn it into black gold for plants.

Tuesday afternoon my basketball team played a practice game against the high school girls.  It was the first time I´d been in the high school.  For the number of students, it didn´t seem like very many classrooms.  Students wear white polo shirts if they´re first years, gray if they´re second years and red if they´re third years.  There are six years of primary school here, three of middle school and three of high school.  It amazes me how interesting I apparently am to the students.  I feel like I´ve been here long enough now that I should have ceased to be quite so interesting.  But I´m definitely a status symbol.  All the high school boys that my basketball team practices with in the morning said hi to me…they also practice with the rest of my team, but they did not say hi to all of the girls on my team.  Granted, more than half my team is married with kids, but still.

The girls on my team (including the unmarried ones) seem to be okay with all the attention that I get, which is a relief.  It´s something that I worry about in my relationships with females here, but so far most seem not to be too offended that I get more than my share of attention.  Maybe they figure that I´m not actually a danger to their relationships because I can´t speak properly.  But I´ve also tried to be very open with the fact that I´m not looking for a boyfriend.  And I smile at everyone.

There is a basketball tournament and fundraiser this weekend.  We´re trying to raise money for the league in general.  There´s going to be a dance Sunday night and my team wants me to sell my dances and charge for any photos taken and any kisses given.  People do cheek kisses here to greet and say goodbye.  My team was specific that I could charge for cheek kisses and before they started discussing prices for any other sorts of kissing, I very firmly informed them I would not be selling kisses.  They feel that I´ve cheated them of prime money making opportunities.

This week ten middle schools from around the state have gathered here for competitions in sports (volleyball, track and field, soccer and basketball) as well as poetry and dancing.  Tonight is dancing and I´m rather excited about it.  Everyone seems to be able to dance here, so it should be good.

I´m off now to repaint the lines on the basketball court where the tournament will be taking place.

though i just put up one blog about Xitapontla, that was actually from last week. i´m going to try to blog on Xitapontla every week. and hopefully put up the blog that i wrote in the corresponding week. vamos a ver.

this weekend Meredith came!  which is very exciting.  she will be working primarily with me and so her first visit out to a community was to Xitapontla yesterday.  we took out worm castings from the family that raises worms in Zacango to use when we transplant.  the flowers that we had started at the boarding school two weeks ago were at various stages (zinnias, calendula and sunflowers…yes, i did start sunflowers in a flat….we needed to start something) and of course, the sunflowers were by far the most impatient to get out of the soil.  very few of the zinnias have come up, so i´m not sure what´s wrong with them, but the calendula was also looking very good.

there was a variety of reasons for starting only flowers.  they only wanted to plant radishes and cilantro, both of which are directly seeded into the ground as opposed to being started in the (relatively) safe environment of the flat.  variety is always good in a garden.  we are requiring that people plant one bed in a nitrogen fixer of some sort, so this will, in general, be green beans or soybeans.  we are also requiring that people plant flowers to help attract beneficial insects.  we also wanted people to have the experience of starting something in a tray.  so, flowers it was for Xitapontla.

when Meredith and I arrived, the kids were all studying their respective homework (their school lessons are both in Spanish and Nahuatl).  their tinaco (cistern) still did not have water in it, so we decided not to plant the radishes and cilantro.  the tinaco feeds the drip irrigation system in the garden…without water, it´s difficult for drip irrigation systems to function to the best of their abilities.

the calendula and sunflowers were ready to transplant, so we did that instead.  the kids got more involved than they ever have (though, granted, most of the work up to this point has been rather heavy labor and transplanting is rather fun).  the kids did nearly all of the transplanting after an example and we gave instructions to them about watering and keeping them alive.  they were very enthusiastic about the whole process.

after this was done, they wanted to know how to count to 50 in English.  so Meredith and I got a Nahuatl lesson on numbers 1-10 and the kids got an English lesson on numbers 11-20.  most things that Meredith and I say in Nahuatl (which, given our vocabulary, is really not much at all) are very funny to the kids.  I unfortunately did not have any battery left in my camera so I didn´t get to take pictures.

I have put more pictures up online ( http://www.zooomr.com/photos/yoda784/ ), but they are not yet labeled.  if you go to sets, the new pictures are under Papalutla, but again, there are no descriptions attached as of now.

my life has gotten quite a bit crazier in the past week or so.  i was asked a couple weeks ago if i´d train a girls basketball team…they were to have a tournament in two or three weeks and then that would be all (so i was told).  we set a date, they didn´t show up.  set another date, again, they didn´t show up.  some other girls asked if i would train them.  i said yes, seeing as i was not training this other team.  eleven girls came the first day and, on average (well, there´s only been three practices so far), but the average is twelve.  after the first practice, i was approached by a few the of same girls from the first group that asked me to train them and could i train them now?

so, my schedule for my afternoons is as follows:  monday- Xitapontla, tuesday- practice with 12 year olds from 5-6:30, with 10 year olds from 6:30-7:30 (but really 8), wednesday- Chiaucingo, thursday- same as tuesday, friday- i´ve decided i need free.  there was supposed to be practice, but i can´t do it…there´s not enough time in the day to get everything i´d like done for work done.  tonight i was approached by a women who is tired of her two boys sitting around on the computer in the afternoons and wanted to know if i gave classes…i told her the boys could join in from 6:30-7:30 on tuesdays and thursdays.

i´ve never coached anything in my life before last thursday and now i have two basketball teams…soccer, i could understand, but basketball?  goodness.  luckily, my mother and sister are PE teachers.   they´ve given me a number of ideas and, since i still have practice every morning at 6:30, i steal ideas from Juan David (my team´s trainer) as well.

i am really quite hungry at the moment, so that´s all i´m going to write for  now.

Yesterday I went out to Xitapontla (see photos here: http://www.zooomr.com/photos/yoda784/sets/27300/ ). I go to Xitapontla every Monday afternoon, but just recently I´ve begun going by myself. Normally, Liz and I go out together, but for a variety of reasons, I´m now going by myself to this one community. We´re working with a boarding school in Xitapontla where about forty kids spend weekdays and go home on weekends. The school is just too far away from their houses to walk everyday. The views are incredible from the school…there´s a 280 degree view that you can see the mountains for miles. And that´s really all you see…mountains.

The first language in Xitapontla is Nahuatl…there are similarities to Spanish, but I understand none of it. Yesterday, however, I had my first lesson in the language, much to the delight of the kids. I´m working on five words…

Nextili (Nesh-ti-li) = Good Morning

Kilti (Kill-ti) = Good Afternoon

Tlapoyaualte (Tla-poy-ya-wal-ti) = Good Night

Matiakan (Ma-ti-á-kan) = Bye

Tinotaske (Ti-no-tás-kay) = See you later

The oldest boy knew good morning and good afternoon in English and I taught the kids “Bye,” of which they used with great enthusiasm. They cracked up every time I said Matiakan, no matter how many times I said it. As I was backing down the driveway, a boy yelled out “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!” in English as well. This never fails to make me laugh. Usually kids try out their English words on me as I´m leaving a location or if I´m kind of far away. I´m apparently too intimidating for them to try it out up close.

I´m going to continue to have lessons in Nahuatl every Monday, which is sort of exciting. People will get a kick out of it, if nothing else.