2 months, 1 week

If you were to ask me what I feel about Mexico and this whole experience right now, I am not sure what I would say.

A part of me loves it here. I am glad that I am getting to experience something totally new and I know that the second I get back to the States I am going to want to come right back her and see my kids again. But another part of me would be totally fine if they were to send me home tomorrow. I don't want to quit, but if I was told to go home, I would.

It has just been a rough couple of weeks in regards to teaching. Everything is so disorganized, and no one seems to know how to help us fix it. Some of the older kids complained to their parents that they weren't getting tickets like the younger kids were, so we got yelled at and were told that we needed to change the entire way we were teaching the older kids.

It is better now that we have settled into the new routine and gotten used to things, but for a while it was 100% stress 100% of the time.

I sometimes wonder if I am even doing anything worthwhile. Half the time the kids refuse to speak English and just run around and fight while screaming Spanish. I try to get control of them, but when you have eight kids staging a mutiny against one teacher, there isn't always a whole lot I can do. But then one of the kids will say or do something sweet and I am reminded of the reason I wanted to do this thing in the first place.

Granted, I got called crazy, bad and mean about twenty times before this, but hey, you take what you can get with these kids. 

Meet the Children: Part 2

Here are a few more of the kiddos.

Mayte and Alex, aren't they cute? Mayte is Danna's little sister, and Alex is the adorable brother of the adorable Angy. I think that all the girls have a slight crush on Alex, and he basks in the attention of their love. He is a punk, that is for sure and he loves to fight with anyone withing a two centimeter radius, but we all love him anyway. Mayte is just a cute little girl, and when she isn't around Alex, she is a decent student as well.

Lorelei is an interesting little girl. She craves attention even more than most of the kids, which is definitely saying something. Because she wants attention so badly she acts out 98% of the time. But she is sweet, and when you catch her during that other 2%, she doesn't drive you totally crazy. I feel bad because a lot of the other kids can be mean and tease her, but sometimes she is completely nutso. We also are all pretty convinced that she has a crush on Bryan.

Andreh is a geographical genius. He has basically all the countries in the world memorized and he is only eight or nine years old. He can also tell you which flag belongs to which country, it is pretty dang amazing. I mean I am 20 and there is no way I am ever going to be able to that. He also wears glasses that are constantly falling off of his face, which I find completely fitting to his entire personality.

Abi and Andres are siblings and I love them both quite a bit. We actually live in a little apartment that is under their house so every morning we get to hear their little voices speaking in the cutest Spanish ever as they are getting ready to leave for school. One day Andres even tried to help us carry in our 20 Liter water jug. He failed obviously, but it was so cute of him to try. Abi is just the sweetest little thing ever and her voice is high and adorable, plus she gives some of the best hugs.

Gil and Naomi are another one of our brother sister duos, and Gil is extremely protective over his little sister. It is really cute, but also a little obnoxious, because if Naomi starts to cry (which she is extremely prone to do over absolutely nothing), Gil cannot be kept focused until he knows she is okay. Fun story about Naomi, she pooped her pants or almost pooped her pants for three days in a row. That was a fun week.

I am extremely proud that I have this picture, because Jorge (the one on the right that is not Andreh) is about as anti-pictures and anti-everything as they come. Everyday for about a week he would ask me to play on my phone after class and I would always say he could, but only if he would take a picture with me, which I knew was the one thing he would not do. But one day I guess I wore him down because I got this out of it. I really really did not like Jorge for the whole first month; I thought he was a sore loser and a little brat. But in the past week or so, I am starting to like him more and more, and I think he is starting to hate me a little bit less too.

And that is enough for now I think, but here is one more video that makes me laugh.

Meet the Children

I realize that even though my whole life basically revolves around these kids that I teach, I haven't really introduced them yet. So lets try to fix that.

Meet Emiliano and Carlos. They are probably two of the naughtiest kids that we teach, but I also have soft spots in my heart for both of them. When they come up and hug me or say, "But Teach..." when I get mad at them or make them do something they don't want to do, I can't help but smile and love them even though they are horrible.

Adamary and Danna. These two girls are the best of friends, and definitely act like it. If you make Danna mad, you better believe Adamary is going to hate you (for about a day) for whatever it was you did, and vice versa. They can be so sweet and nice, but you better watch your back if you get on their bad sides.

These three boys. Max (front), Daniel (barely visible but he will get his own picture so don't even worry), and Isaac are probably some of my favorites. For the first week I got them mixed up all the time. Max and Daniel are brothers, and except for their size, they are basically identical. And Isaac and Max just look similar to me. These boys are so high energy and they are all in the same class so when I teach them I want to cry half the time, but the other half I am just loving my life.

I told you Daniel would get his own picture. Look at that face. This kid is my ugly-face-in-pictures soul mate. No one can pull a face like he can. He also just has the fuzziest hair and is so strange that you can't help but love the kid. He is terrible at doing what I ask and speaking English, but I don't even care, because he is one of my faves.

Older Emiliano thinks that he is too cool for school and basically everything else. The other teachers think he is a punk and don't like him very much, but for some reason I do. I can't explain why because he gets on my nerves all the time, but I do. Also, his hands and feet are bigger than mine and he is eight years old. I don't know what to feel about that.

 


Look at her. Look at that face. Angy is probably the cutest child I have ever seen. She is a monster and basically doesn't speak a single word of English, but she is three, and adorable, so what does that matter? She has this little raspy voice and her face just lights up when you say her name and I seriously love her.

Yuli is just a sweetheart. She is probably one of the only kids that hasn't said to me "Teacher Kendall no is good" or "Teacher Kendall crazy" or any other number of the wonderfully terrible things the kids love to say to us teachers. She is in the class with Max, Daniel, Isaac and Bryan (I will get to him in a minute). As I have mentioned, those boys are crazy. Whenever one of them goes off on a rant, Yuli just gets this face that says every negative thing a girl has ever though about how insane boys can be. I love it, and I love her.

Bryan, Bryan, Bryan... what can I say about Bryan. Well, if you read my last post, that is what I can say about Bryan, haha. But really, this kid is so funny and crazy, just look at the selfie he took of himself. There is never a dull moment with Bryan around.

Those are only a few of the kids I teach, there are about 45 kids in total, and I am not going to devote a picture to each and everyone of them right now. Maybe later, but for now it is too much work. I really do love each one of the kids, even the ones who make me want to cry more often than not. And I think they like me too, most of the time anyway. Mexico has been a great experience so far and I know that I am going to miss these kids and this experience like crazy when they make me leave and go back to the States. But I am going to enjoy it all while I can.

P.S. Please enjoy this video of me teaching two kids a very crucial phrase in English.

Important Life Lessons

Today I taught a seven year old an important life lesson: When you hug a female person, it is not appropriate to put your face between her boobs and nestle your face inside them. I let it go the first time it happened because I just figured it was a coincidence due to the fact that his face and my chest are at the exact same level. But then when he kept coming up for more and more hugs and nestling more and more each time, I figured it was time to have a talk with him. He was not overly excited about the new restrictions on hugging Teacher Kendall, but I think I got my point across!

Las Chiapas

Well, I made it to a major checkpoint in my Mexican adventure... THE FIRST VACATION! I can't even explain how much it was needed. I love the kids I teach, but they know how to wear a person down faster than I scream when I see a spider.

For our first vacation we went to the Mexican state of Las Chiapas. Chiapas is about as far down south in Mexico as you can go, it borders on Guatamala. It is a pretty traditional state from what I heard and saw and there are a lot of nature-y things to do and see there.

We left Pachuca on Thursday night right after we finished with school and got to our hostel in Tuxtla (a city in Chiapas) at about 10:30 at night. The next morning we decided to go to the zoo because we got as excited as a five year old would have gotten when we found out there was a zoo close to where we were. It wasn't the most exciting zoo because it didn't really have and big animals, but they grounds were beautiful and it only cost us 20 pesos (less than two dollars) for admission, so it was totally worth it. Funny story: As we were waiting out side the zoo to have a taxi come pick us up, a family was walking into the zoo and one of the little girls looked at her mom and said "Mama, why are those girls white"? I guess we had the pleasure of being the first un-tan people she had ever seen. I consider it an honor.

After the zoo we decided to do some typical tourist shopping in a town called Chiapas de Corzo. There was shop after shop of some many cheap and awesome souvenirs and clothes and you bet your butt I bought a shirt and some shoes that are totally Mexican looking, and I love them. I also realized my dream of drinking horchata in a bag. So it is safe to say that I was one happy girl.

The next day we took a boat tour through the canyons in Chiapas de Corzo. It was a two hour tour and it was probably one of my favorite things. The sun was on my face and the wind was blowing and the canyons were super pretty and it was just relaxing and fun. We also saw a crocodile super up close, I wanted to pet it, but I still have all my limbs so I obviously didn't do that.

Later that night we walked around the center of Tuxtla and ate ice cream and then walked some more. Then for dinner we went to one of those places that shaves the meat straight from the massive hunk of meat that cooked on a spit. Holy crap. They were fantastic. Like hands down the best tacos I have ever eaten and probably will ever eat in my life. Each of us ordered two to start out with, foolishly thinking that would be enough, but it wasn't and we had to each order another one to make ourselves happy. After dinner we went back to the center of Tuxtla because they had live marimba music playing and there was dancing and a bunch of people just sitting around and enjoying the night. It was a lot of fun!

The next day, on Sunday, we had planned on going to some lagoons that were about three hours away from where we were staying, but that didn't happen. At about 3:00 am, Maddie, one of the girls I teach with, got super sick. she was throwing up and crying in pain because her stomach hurt so badly. So we decided to just stay in our hostel for the day and let her relax so that she would hopefully feel better the next day. Plus, we were all kinda sick with coughs and runny noses and headaches so it was probably all for the best. But I really wanted to go see the LDS temple that we in Tuxtla just a few minutes from where we were staying so the three of us who weren't on our death beds decided to take a quick trip to visit the temple. It was gorgeous. I mean all temples are gorgeous but this was the first temple I had seen in a month and so it was really beautiful. Sadly the grounds were closed but we still had a really good view of the outside and it was nice just to be on temple grounds to feel the spirit that the Lord's house has to offer.

Luckily Maddie felt better on Monday so we decided to go to the lagoons anyways. We took a three hour bus ride to a town that I totally forgot the name of and then from that point we took a taxi about forty minutes outside the city. When we got to the entrance of the park, like ten people surrounded us and offered to take us on a tour of the lagoons and so we took one of them up on that offer. Don't worry, it was totally legitimate, they all had official park tour guide passes, and I mean, we didn't die, so it was totally safe, haha. So we hopped in the back of a guy's pick up truck and started out on our tour. One of the lagoons was on the border of Guatemala and Mexico so our tour guide asked if we wanted to go to Guatemala for a few minutes and do some shopping in the shops that were on the border. Obviously we did. So we went to another county for like ten minutes, pretty dang cool. I bought an apron there and I love it. Then we went to see the rest of the lagoons and we even got to swim in one, it was fantastic.

And that was basically the end of our vacation! Our flight left at 7:00 the next morning and it was back to Pachuca and back to teaching. Even though it was kinda hard to come back, it also felt like coming home, and it is always good to come home.