A Couple of Lists

THINGS I WILL NEVER AGAIN TAKE FOR GRANTED

• Toilets that flush always on the first time.
• Being able to brush my teeth using the water that comes straight from the pipes.
• Having safe water to drink and not having to buy a billion water bottles a day when out purified water runs out.
• The full selection of American Netflix shows.
• Being able to watch the Bachelor on Hulu.
• Speaking the dominant language.
• Being able to eavesdrop on any one at any given time.
• A car of my own to go anywhere at any time I want to.
• A microwave that doesn't take 30 minutes to make my cup of noodles slightly luke warm.
• Lights that don't flicker constantly depending on how many outlets are in use.
• Heat. An apartment that isn't constantly super cold.
• Hot showers.
• Family and friends all around
• Space of my own.
• Walking down the street without being honked at and whistled at all the time.
• Not being stared at for being one of four white girls in the entire city.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MEXICO

• Mexican pastries for only four pesos.
• A 1.5 liter water bottle for only three pesos, which is only about twenty American cents.
• How friendly everyone is to us.
• Brightly colored houses everyone.
• The fact that the brightly colored houses cover the hills that surround the city and make the hills bright and beautiful.
• Free four course meals for lunch every day.
• Guacamole and hot sauce on EVERYTHING!
• The Children. They are so freaking cute and have so much energy and love to give.
• Not feeling bad about not showering all the time because the showers are so freaking cold.
• Getting to make crafts with the kids all the time.
• Getting the opportunity to travel.
• Forming new friendships.
• Experiencing new opportunities.
• Living a sort of simpler life.
• The fact that we use a waffle maker to cook basically anything we ever need to cook.

Week One

I survived my first week in Mexico! It has been a crazy week for sure, but it has also been a good week.

The kids I teach are 100% certifiably crazy. I'm not even making that up. They are some of the cutest kids I have ever seen in my life, but they also make me want to scream and pull my hair out every second of every minute I teach them. Some of the children are complete devils. But the devils are also the ones that tend to be the cutest, so I love them anyway.

I teach six classes each day that last for about 25 minutes each. The first three classes are the younger kids who are between three and seven years old. The younger kids are the hardest to teach because they have no attention span and they also speak and understand very little English. So the lessons with them usually consist of them running around and us teachers trying to calm them down and make them stop speaking Spanish. The last three classes are the kids that are between seven and ten. They have so much sass and so much personality and they love to bug their teachers. They know a lot more English though so it is easier to keep them under control.

We aren't supposed to have favorites as teachers, but I totally have my favorites. There is this little boy named Daniel and he looks like a fluffy little penguin and he always has the grumpiest look on his face, even though he is a total sweetheart. I want to take him home with me. Abi is so quiet and soft spoken, but she will always just come up to me and tap me on the arm and then just gives me a huge hug. She melts my heart and I just love her to death. I really love all of the kids so much, but I just love those two the most at this moment.

I am so sad because I haven't been able to teach my classes for the last two days because I have absolutely no voice. I tried to talk and all that comes out is either a high pitched noise or some nasty deep sound. I can't raise my voice past barely more than a whisper. So I have absolutely no way of keeping the crazy children under control. I really hope that I wake up tomorrow and can talk again because I hate not being able to do what I came here for.

Welcome to Pachuca

Well, I made it to MEXICO! And in one piece to, which is definitely a good thing. The town I will be living in for the next four months is called Pachuca, and from what I have seen of it, I think I am going to like it here. The buildings are all so colorful and they continue up on the hill, so the mountains are dotted with brightly colored houses, which is beautiful!

Our apartment is a pretty cute little place. It is basically a bathroom, a bedroom for the head teacher, a big open room in the middle that has our dining room table and two bunk beds for the rest of the teachers to sleep on and then a little miniature kitchen. So not a lot of room, but it is a cute place nevertheless. The only really bad thing about this place is that there is no heat. So the nights are freezing, which will be hard to get used to. The only heater that they have is this tiny space heater that only heats things that are within like four inches of where the heater is so it is kind of useless. But it will be okay.

We took a tour of the school we will be teaching in today, and got to meet some of the kids. Mexican children are adorable and just so open and willing to talk to you and ask you questions even if they don't know what you are saying to them. There was this one little boy named Emiliano (I might have butchered the spelling, but it is my first day in Mexico, I can't expect too much of myself) who kept coming up to the four of us new teachers and just gave us the biggest hugs ever and asked our names. I probably got five or six hugs from him in the 20 minutes we were around the kids. I am really looking forward to getting to know the kids more and seeing more of their personalities, it will definitely be the most rewarding part of my trips.

It is hard to not be able to communicate with the majority of people here. I feel really guilty that I don't speak their language, so I am going to do my best to pick up as much Spanish as possible so that I can have a fuller experience here. Other than they language, I don't feel like I am going to get too much of a culture shock, which I was really worried about. I am sure that I will be cultured shocked a little bit, I don't see how I can avoid that, but I don't think it will be too bad. Although I did find out that Netflix doesn't have the same selection of titles here in Mexico so I can just forget about watching the first 5 seasons of Friends because they only have seasons 6-10 here. Oh, and Hulu plus doesn't work in Mexico either, so no watching the Bachelor. On second thought, maybe culture shock will be a real thing...