maria and jo

We had thought it would be nice to go on a canal boat in a place called Xochimilco, but we´d not only heard some quite bad reviews of the water there (apparently very dirty), it was also raining and quite cold. Therefore we decided we´d go to another place which everyone was quite keen to visit – Plaza Garibaldi. It was meant to be a lively square with lots of Mariachis (those are the Mexican groups of men playing brass, strings and singing) and nice cafés and restaurants on the sides. However, as we were walking towards it we already realised it was probably going to be rather different to what we expected. Our guidebooks had told us not to go approach the square from the South, so we approached it from the North, but I don´t think it made any difference – we still saw a lot of dodgy ´cafés´ and a very dirty and neglected prostitute who had her arm in a plaster, sitting on the pavement.

Luckily we arrived safely but the atmosphere wasn´t much better at Garibaldi. This, to be fair, was probably due to the weather and the fact that it was still fairly early, but we didn´t really feel like being there anymore. There were hundreds of Mariachi groups waiting to have someone to play to but we weren´t really in the mood and had no idea how much it was going to cost. Instead we tried to find somewhere to have dinner, but the only decent option we could find was very tacky – there were huge paintings of film stars on the walls, halloween orange and black bunting which didn´t do anything to lighten the dark room… then there was the leather apron clad waiter who was extremely slow in serving us and didn´t seem to understand any of our orders. It might have all been possible to block out if it hadn´t been for the ´live music´ i.e. a karaoke singer on a really loud keyboard which played all his tunes for him…

Afterwards, at least, there was a bit more life in the square though it was still raining. We watched some Mariachis serenade a couple which was quite entertaining and before there was any chance of being robbed, we took a taxi to the nearest safe metro station. We travelled to Ajusco for the first time to stay the night with the other girls who are working with Amextra there. I´ll write more about Ajusco when I get on to the following week, but for now I´ll just say it felt a lot colder than Chalco, so much so, that I could hardly sleep even with two blankets!

Sunday morning was very nice having a delicious breakfast with the host family of the two girls we were staying with. It was quite a relaxed day and some of us went to a district called the Condesa in the Distrito Federal. This is meant to be quite a rich, European-style area and the atmosphere was very peaceful – there was some good architecture and a big park which had the tall green trees that you see in a lot of the nicer parts of Mexico city. We had planned on doing some shopping here but most of the shops were closed (which was probably a good thing for me, especially as they would be very expensive). Instead we sat eating a delicious slice of carrot cake in a posh organic café and when we were ready, went back towards Plaza Garibaldi to get to Bellas Artes (much nicer and more elegant than PG!)

You may remember from the previous post that we´d bought tickets to see a production of Prokofiev´s ´Romeo and Juliet´ at Bellas Artes opera house. After quite a rushed change of clothes we went inside the theatre which was very impressive and unlike anything I´ve seen before. Especially beautiful were the stained glass windows – one screen as a stage curtain which depicted a volcanic landscape in Mexico, and one large circular stained glass window with the Greek muses which was only a few metres above our head. The performance was very enjoyable, both because the music was very good and because Irma Morales (Juliet) and the dancer playing Mercutio were fantastic. It was such a nice change from Plaza Garibaldi and it reminded me of times with my family…The performance was early evening so we managed to get back very quickly and in time for food at home.

 When we got home I started researching our new project in one of the music lessons – reggae. It turned out to be interesting but very challenging to translate it into good, more informal Spanish than Wikipedia uses. We went to our Zumba dance class and when we got home we think that some of Ruth´s money was taken out of her purse. We really weren´t sure what to do about this but decided that the consequences of a possible accusation wouldn´t be worth the amount of money. I did feel quite uncomfortable for a while afterwards but writing this now, it seems like a very long time ago and we´ve pretty much forgotten the incident.

I had more energy on Wednesday for music and the morning composition and singing went well. The afternoon was difficult because yet again we had to use the church keyboard which doesn´t work very well. It is ´touch sensitive´ which really means that you have to press very hard to get the notes to sound, and there is also the fact that half of the Cs don´t actually work! After work I managed to relieve my stress by writing and reading about the Amextra and Biblical ideas of transformation. Amextra regards holistic transformation as one of the key principles of their work – they aim to transform both the community and the individual through God so that their lives are changed from within, rather than from outside ephemeral programmes.

On Thursday I was quite tired again but managed to get through the lessons alright and when we got home, Adriana and Johnny had brought two little kittens with them. They were very cute but were shut up in a tiny cardboard box out in the rain and I´m afraid to say that after about a week, we found out that the kittens had died… On Friday it turned out that the cupboard key had got lost (it had been kept separate to the main church keys which is a bad idea). All our materials (for today it was music books and recorders) are stored in this cupboard so it was pretty impossible to teach. At lunchtime, feeling fairly nervous and worried, I had a look through the copious notes on Reggae, hoping that my Spanish pronunciation wasn´t going to be too painful for the pupils. It turned out that the work was probably worthwhile because the pupils seemed quite interested in the Rastafarian religion and Rudeboys! Someone had brought the cupboard key to the afternoon lesson but at the end, we somehow managed to lose it again… (Don´t trust me with your valuables!)

In the evening we had a fun evening going to the cinema where we enjoyed luxuries like seats with enough room to fit your legs in and a big bucket of popcorn… It was tipping down with rain when we got out and when we got into the combi to get home, I had to sit in the front next to the driver becuase of the lack of space. I ended up having to wipe his windscreen and windows for him and I was both terrified and very impressed by the way he coped with the awful driving conditions, whilst taking the money from the passengers and giving them back their change! Luckily we arrived home safe and sound, despite being somewhat wet.

On Monday Libby and I had the day off because there was a meeting of pastors in the church in Lomas. We spent some time planning our last month of teaching. It felt quite strange that we were coming towards the end of the teaching time, and I could think of so many more things we could teach – we haven´t even got onto any other tenses apart from the present! For lunch I got a torta from a café and since they apparently wouldn´t clean any of the tables, I went to the park to eat it. When I got there, I was quite surprised to see three or four cows wandering around, feeding on the scant ´pasture´ of the playing fields! I tried to sit down on a small patch of grass, but either the grass or my torta was too tempting and I started being approached by the cows. I tried moving a few times, but in the end got fed up and scared and went out of the park.

There was a very good bookshop in the museum which I could have spent a long time in. I finally managed to find a copy of Octavio Paz´s ´The Labyrinth of Solitude´ – a work on the Mexican psyche by a Nobel Prize for Literature winner. I had been wanting to see some sort of entertainment in Mexico for a long time and on Thursday had found out about a performance of Romeo and Juliet (the ballet to music by Prokofiev) which was taking place the following week in Bellas Artes. I wasn´t sure if anyone else would be interested so I was very excited when the others suggested buying tickets. We bought the cheapest tickets (at seven pounds fifty each) for the following weekend, and I will tell you how it was later.

For lunch we decided to go back to Casa Azulejos. I probably wrote about this a long time ago, but to refresh our memories, it is a very striking house on Avenida 5 de Mayo (a special road for obvious reasons) because it is covered in blue tiles. There is some very good pottery in Mexico and I imagine we will see more in Puebla and Oaxaca (if we get there) and these tiles were a good example of this craft. It used to have an open air courtyard inside, but now the whole thing has been converted to a Sanbournes café (Sanbournes is a posh chain of shops and restaurants) where you can eat at a high price. Luckily, and very unusually, I was not feeling very hungry that day so I had a salad and quite a few refills of very nice coffee. I have to say I was imagining myself more in some English teahouse rather than Mexico, but it was a fun experience. It was also a little on the tacky side (for example, the crazy dresses which all the waitresses wear – they are quite indescribable I´m afraid) which was good for such a big group of English girls!

In the afternoon most of the girls wanted to go up the Latin American Tower (one of the highest towers in the world) but I wasn´t convinced that it was the best visibility for doing it that day. I turned out to be wrong, but nevertheless had a very enjoyable time by myself going to the Franz Mayer museum. He was a rich German who used his money to collect lots of art, furniture, books and other antiques (including pottery and silverware) from all around the world – mainly Europe. Again, this was slightly a ´transport myself back to England´ experience but the museum was very peaceful and empty. It had a beautiful courtyard in the middle where I could have spent a while enjoying the sun and the trees if it hadn´t been that we had to meet up to go to Neo.

I felt a bit weird from all the coffee at Neo (I am actually quite disciplined about drinking it – don´t worry!) but after a few glasses of water I felt normal again and enjoyed the worship and talk on Gideon and his three hundred warriors. We had decided to try a new (supposedly quicker) route back from Neo which involved taking buses rather than the metro. It didn´t start off well as we ended up going in the opposite direction. Luckily the metro bus driver was very helpful and put us on the right bus free of charge. We then managed to get the next bus without any problems, though it was a long journey and I started to feel quite homesick (which, no offence to my family, doesn´t happen very often). The next bus caused a lot more trouble in that it never appeared. It turned out that we were probably about ten minutes too late, and they had stopped running the main buses. Instead we were advised to take a VW van (called a Combi). This was meant to take us straight home, but after going down some roads which I didn´t recognise, the driver suddenly stopped and told us to get out. We were in the middle of nowhere, but he clearly couldn´t be bothered to drive any further so we searched for a taxi. One doesn´t actually have to search for taxis in Mexico – they are practically everywhere – but I still haven´t worked out which ones are the really dangerous ones you´re supposed to avoid… The VW green taxis are always reliable though, and we eventually managed to find one whose driver recognised our home town and took us home feeling very relieved, never so glad to smell the river of sewage.

The 22-year-old with learning difficulties (she is illiterate) got quite despondent in art because she wasn´t satisfied with her drawing, and before I could stop her, she had just walked out of the classroom (i.e. church). This is when I sometimes wish we had a school set-up so that real discipline could be enforced. I don´t want to sound like I´m really tyrannical or strict – it is just difficult to know how to react when children really should be sent out when you know that there is no follow up you can take.

On Tuesday it was Amalia´s birthday (she is the ´middle´ female in the house, mother of Jenny). We had more interruptions in the afternoon English session from two boys not getting on with each other and the older ones just provoking the situation. It was quite a frustrating afternoon but I cheered up after an ice cream and buying a present for Amalia.

We are seeing constant improvement and enthusiasm in music when it comes to singing ´Hey Jude´, which I´m pleased about since I feared the Engilsh words and the whole concept of teaching children to sing was going to be too difficult. I found out that the girl I was writing about above hasn´t even been taught the alphabet. I don´t know much about learning difficulties, but I´m sure that people have given up too soon with this girl, so I tried to teach her the alphabet up to G so that she could at least work out the notes on the stave.

On Thursday we had our visit from a Tearfund representative. She came to stay two nights to see what work we were doing and how we were getting on. I enjoyed having new company (it can be a bit strange being around the same three girls the whole time!) and chatted to her a fair bit. She had done a Transform trip herself to Bolivia and has been back there since to work for a year with the same charity. I would love to go back to Mexico to work, but I have no idea if that is where my path will lead me – at least I know it´s quite possible to return to such a faraway place! She came to watch our afternoon English session which felt quite long (in the heat) but was also very productive. We were about to have more classroom politics issues but I was very firm this time and told them just to stop getting irritated with each other. This luckily seemed to work (at least on this occasion) and the pupils seemed to enjoy their activities. I started developing a cold and by the end of the lesson was sneezing every twenty seconds, which was quite embarrassing in front of the pupils.

Despite feeling pretty rough on Friday, music was actually a lot more bearable than I thought it would be and some of the pupils are making really good progress on the keyboard. The afternoon pupils were really late and we were about to leave when three of them turned up… One of the pupils had brought some of his CDs (I daren´t say how many CDs here are illegal copies!), including Credence and some strange Rasta music. We had quite a short lesson and when I got home I just collapsed on the bed and read C.S. Lewis´s ´The Screwtape Letters´ which I really enjoyed.

We had a bit of a treat later when we cut up and ate a mango Ruth had saved from our weekend away – there are so many mangos, and so delicious… We watched a film called ´Under the same moon´ which was actually mostly in Spanish. It was about a mother who emigrates to the US (leaving her son behind) so that she can earn enough money for them to live. I enjoyed it not because of any originality, but more the familiarity of Mexico, which almost made me feel nostalgic in advance (if you see what I mean).

I was terrified at this prospect, especially in front of people I didn´t know very well, but rather than agreeing to do individual shows, three other English girls and I decided to do YMCA. We hadn´t practised at all but luckily we had the karaoke machine to sing from and roughly remembered the dance. I think the only amusement was in the fact that we couldn´t remember the routine properly and ended up spelling the word YMCA backwards… After our entertainments I talked to one of the girls who works to prevent sexual trafficking in Mexico and she told me that over 40 000 children in Mexico alone suffer abuse and abduction. Partly this, and other thoughts kept me awake for a long time and I probably only slept a few hours before waking up to see the sun rising over the mountains which were behind the lake.

Luckily the next day required no energy at all and I spent the day doing absolutely nothing which was what I really needed. I sunbathed and swam a bit and actually did do 1 hour of Spanish work to make sure I didn´t have too guilty a conscience. We also went for a walk down to the lake where we saw millions of tiny frogs and tadpoles as well as some storks and wild horses in the distance. For lunch we had a BBQ which was delicious and reminded me of summers in England (when it´s hot!). I have to say, there seem to be no proper sausages in Mexico, only frankfurters, so I can´t wait to have some traditional English sausages when I get back!

In the evening we had a kind of worship session which mainly revolved around the leader giving a talk about freeing ourselves of stress and anxieties in our busy lives. I actually feel much less stressed than usual here, possibly because I know what my work will involve and I look forward to it, and also because I´m at a distance from the little things I feel I always have to think ahead about in England. After this a few friends and I tried to learn some African dancing from a girl who is originally from Ghana. I found it pretty difficult (I think it´s definitely something you inherit!) but it was fun. In the evening we went up onto the roof and had a view of the moonlit lake lying peacefully below. I slept a lot better the following night and we had another relaxing morning before going back to Mexico City by coach.

The next day (now on the 21st May) was music and no one turned up until 11 (an hour late) becuase of homework… It´s interesting that even homework itself can be used as an excuse! I think the children are having a busy time at school and have exams so we should really be pleased they want to come and do any other lessons at all. It has been a bit frustrating when the attendance is very low and we have to keep catching people up or repeating material for others. Eventually quite a few people turned up and we had a good lesson composing some rhythms in 3/4 time. In the evening I put up some pictures of our Acapulco holiday on Facebook. I had a scary moment when I thought I´d lost all 480 photos from the last couple of months but luckily they are all safely stored on a DVD now. I will try to put up the rest later too.

On Thursday, after no one had turned up again, one of our very proactive helpers went to round up some children which we were very grateful for. Once they were at the lesson they were well behaved and didn´t seem to be desperately wishing to be somewhere else – I think it´s more a question of having lots to do at home and not really having the energy to come out for more lessons. At lunchtime we had a good discussion sharing our favourite Psalms with each other (I chose 139 which isn´t necessarily my favourite but was very striking to me since it describes how God knows our every thought and word before they are even created in our minds).

In the afternoon English class our pupils were again very lively and one very bright ten year old was telling me how he stays up until 11 or 12 watching TV and in order to stay awake for this, he drinks one or two cups of coffee a day! I was quite shocked and told him it was bad for him but I think everyone was just laughing at me for saying this. He started asking me if fish was bad for him, what would happen if he ate too much chicken, drank too much milk etc… It is unbelievable how much time people spend watching TV here (though it´s probably the same in England) and soaps (telenovellas) are especially popular. I´ve been very boring and told the children they have to read instead.

In the evening we went to Zumba and had an audience of Amalia and her son and daughter-in-law which was very embarrassing. Afterwards we looked at the photo CD which I had made of baby Santiago (on their DVD player) which came out very well. Everyone is extremely fond of the baby (sometimes a bit too much when they start making constant cooing, whistling or screaming noises to encourage the baby…) and Jaci looked over the moon in one picture where she was holding Santiago.

On Friday we didn´t have many pupils and some were too tired to really learn properly but the afternoon went well and we had time to leave early to buy more banner materials. We then went home to get ready for our weekend away with Neo – the house church in Mexico city – which was for two nights.

Please see posts from May 29th onwards for latest news.

Over half way through now!

Look forward to hearing from you,

Maria

 Whilst we waited for Edmundo to finish the stoves of other villagers Mateo gave us a little tour around Ursulo. It is actually a very beautiful place (if you´re not too sweaty to forget the good parts) since it is surrounded by hills and has a stream running through it where the women wash their clothes. We went back to Jerusalen for a while before joining the others in Palenque (rather later than originally planned). Luckily they had already sorted out our accommodation for the next two nights since we had now finished our time with Amextra. The hotel was pretty empty but had a pool which was such a relief after quite a hot and tiring day.  

The next day we decided to go on one of the ´tours´ which left from Palenque. This tour included stops at three different waterfalls. The first was Misol Ha, which was competely enveloped in the jungle, with tall trees of numerous types stretching high above our heads and long creepers hanging down, where I wouldn´t be surprised to see monkeys jumping. The waterfall came down from high cliffs also shrouded by trees, and one of my favourite features of the place was that you could walk behind the waterfall. As the path continued we came to a place where you could pay to have a tour of a cave which was meant to have its own waterfall inside. I wasn´t sure it was worth it but felt adventurous so three of us followed a rather dim light into a very slimy cave… When we arrived at the main cave the guide shone his torch around so we could see the waterfall – and then at the roof. I first saw lots of ball-shaped lumps which I thought were some kind of algae, but then I noticed they were moving and before I realised what they were, bats started flying around over our heads. I don´t think I´ve ever screamed so much and I really couldn´t wait to get out again! Luckily afterwards we were rewarded with the most refreshing swim in the pool which lay underneath the waterfall. It was very beautiful swimming under the giant trees and if we´d had more time I could have stayed there a while.

However, we had to move on to our next stop, Agua Clara. This place was even more remote and the water seemed much calmer (there weren´t really any falls here). The water was an amazing shade of pale turquoise and we decided we would have a very good view if we walked over the rope bridge. This was another interesting experience: once I was at the start of the bridge I realised that half of the planks were missing and though the sides were netted with metal wire, you couldn´t actually hold onto the rail without risking cutting your arm from the sharp pieces of wire… I really felt like I was in an Indiana Jones film and I kept wondering whether I would be abe to shimmy along to the end of the bridge with my arms if the planks fell beneath my feet. This all meant that I didn´t feel like it was really worth stopping in the middle of the bridge to take a picture of the water below! We did get a chance to swim in the water though, which was very cool and surprisingly deep. Two of us swam across to the other side (much more relaxing than going by bridge) but when we swam back we got into quite a strong current. It was fine though, and we got a raft back to the first side with all our belongings.

The third stop was Agua Azul, the busiest and most famous of all three places. There were a lot of smaller waterfalls here which were quite impressive but it wasn´t such a novelty and there wasn´t as much space to swim. The water was blue, as the name suggests, which was lucky for us because in fact it is only blue two months out of twelve, due to the rain. We had a look around some of the stalls there but I didn´t really buy much. A lot of the Mexican crafts are very nice though – lots of colourful bags, shawls and dresses as well as the usual multitude of jewellery.

When we got back to the hotel we went for another swim (I think I´ve swum in ten different places in Mexico so far!) before going to a very nice pizza restaurant. It had been one of the girls´ birthday earlier that week so she brought along her piñata which the waiter kindly put up. This one was on a moveable string so I think the waiter had a lot of fun trying to get it out of the baton´s way. There was also a live guitarrist/singer who sang a lovely birthday song especially for her! It was a very relaxing evening but the mosquitoes were still around and I ended up getting quite a few bites which was annoying.

Sunday saw us going to the most famous site at Palenque – the Mayan ruins. We had already seen various ancient sites, but none of them were really anything like this. The atmosphere was completely different to Téotihuacan, for example, mostly due to the abundant tropical vegetation – flowers, trees and big fields of grass. The Mayan site is huge and still being discovered after the first opening in the 1800s. We decided to focus on the main group because there wasn´t any way we could do the whole thing in such humid conditions (we are very sensitive girls…). I actually felt strangely energetic that day and climbed up a few temples and pyramids where there were very good views of the site. I also went up a small one right in the midst of the jungle where I could almost imagine what it must have been like there all those years ago. It´s hard to describe the site but I will try to put up some pictures for you to get a better idea of what it was like. There was definitely a sense of freedom here because there was so much to see and hidden spaces to explore. I read in my guidebook that an eccentric explorer from England, Count de Waldeck, lived on top of a pyramid for two years in the 1830s… I´m not sure I´d like to spend a single night exposed to all the weird insects and mini dinosaurs (yes, it felt like a mini Jurassic park), let alone two years.

After a relaxing afternoon at the hotel we got the bus back to Mexico City and by this time it had started raining and thunderstorming. For about four or five hours we saw the whole landscape lit up intermittently by lightning and it was quite impressive, though a little distracting when I was trying to sleep! I didn´t really manage to sleep this time though because the coach was a lot fuller; luckily, although we had to go to work in the afternoon (arriving on Monday morning) we survived and eventually caught up on sleep. The whole Chiapas experience was very special and I feel lucky that Amextra let us go to see their work there, which was pretty different to what goes on in Lomas.