Recoger elote

I picked my own corn today during a free period. It was a great field trip.

The father of one of my students was taking orders for manos (groups of five) of corn yesterday, and I took the opportunity to invite myself along to check out the operation. I wasn’t allowed to go in the corn field, though, because I was wearing a skirt and flip-flops.

Instead I got to be privy to an extremely amusing defense of a healthy diet on the part of another school father, who works with the owners of the field (who happen to also own pretty much all the land surrounding the school). This father has lost thirty pounds after some kind of cholesterol scare-speech from a doctor. He had lots of tips about not eating margarine, eating plenty of fresh vegetables and being careful about carb consumption (not eating spaghetti, rice and tortillas in the same meal, for example—a meal I have actually been served at school, on occasion with a platano substituting for the rice.) Even more humorous was the bemused look on the face of the landowner’s son, who’s my age. He became even more bemused when the diet maven declared that he had even (gasp!) given up beer.

At any rate, I was not deterred by lack of proper clothing, and vowed to wear legitimate footwear and jeans the next day, despite possible temperatures in the high eighties—“winter” in Honduras is stealing away. So today I went over and got a lesson, with the corn-agent parent accompanying me. Landowner’s other son looked boggled but gave the instructions to enseñarme how it’s done. We weaved our way into the corn field with a macheted man in rubber boots in the lead. The man pointed out that some ears of corn are too duro and won’t bend when you touch the tops. Others are more squishy and bendy, which shows they are good to pick. I ought to refer to the corn as elote—it was explained to me that elote is what corn is called here when it’s not “in a can like you eat it in the United States.” (I didn’t try to explain that I actually eat it on the cob there. Possibly some Hondurans think all Americans eat entirely out of cans. My dad suggested he could bring down an MRE and really mislead some folks about what we eat....that and the NASA dried ice cream...)

Here’s the technique: Grab the stalk right under the elote and pull down quickly on it to break it off the stem. It’s fun, at least when done in small spurts. I made off more than a mano, seven elotes (which the corn-agent turned ayudante kindly carried for me). Maybe I got a break for picking my own. I offered my assistance if they ever need a hand in the future. Somehow I don't think they'll take me up on it.

Class Notes

Today I more or less successfully implemented a rotation of English stations for pair-work. I’m always scared for some reason to do stuff like this, I guess because I know they don’t get along with each other and struggle to stay on task when unsupervised. But these were straightforward tasks and most groups held it together. The favorite station was definitely the study of concrete poems....I could see the lightbulb going on when they were figuring out on their own what a concrete poem was, and most jumped at the chance to try their own. Two students were really insightful about a poem about a football player that has the words dashing back and forth along yard lines on the page. One ninth grade student wrote about love again, and the specificity of her sentiments makes me think she has someone in particular in mind. Seeing her in that happy little haze made me think today of my favorite poem from early high school—a poem from the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe anthology called “The stupid jerk I’m obsessed with.” (It’s about the agonizing joys of fixation on a guy.)

I also did some more drilling with main idea—one of my goals of the bimester is to provide the students with helpful lessons in how to do research without plagiarizing—and then as a reward let the seventh and eighth graders do some self-portraits with my camera. They had grown increasingly jealous of the ninth grader’s self-portraits, which were taken before break (and developed in the States) and are now on display in the room in the frames they made themselves. My favorite is the frame shaped like a red high-heeled shoe. The others are more abstract (except for the star for the figurative “rock star”) but equally endearing. They all also wrote small poems about themselves and an explanation of what the picture does and does not reveal about them, now posted up near the photos.

Our paper mache globes are on hold because some people still have not brought in paint...I made that a requirement and alas I’m more or less stuck with it. Fingers crossed that the three paint-less students come through for tomorrow. We’re having a parents meeting tomorrow to discuss the possibility of contributions to defray the cost of materials for a Junior Achievement personal finance class for the middle schoolers. I hope there’s enthusiasm. I’m taking the lead on this, so I’m pretty invested in it....I really do believe it would be great for the kids to get that kind of practical knowledge.

I feel like I’m connecting more with students in the other grades, which makes me happy since so often, since the middle school is a building separate from the elementary hall, I feel a bit left out. I’m trying to remember the advice from Heat to be invisible and make yourself useful because it eventually pays dividends. In my case, I’m just looking to be more connected to the younger students. I helped out with a P.E. class today, and yesterday I spent a little time with a first grader struggling with some addition and subtraction problems.

Other events of today

Surely there have been interesting things that have happened since I last wrote, but today is most prominent on my mind, alas. And surely it’s in some way representative, at least of the good days! So here's what I did after school.... I walked home in the heat, cutting through some property (with permission) and waving to what I call the “garage door opener family.” They live in a house at the end of a long driveway, for free or at low rent, but always must be home to open the gate for cars entering or exiting. I always wish them “Buenas.”

I bought myself a mora slushy for 10 lemps (~50 cents) that was so-so and interrogated the teenager who sold it to me about whether there is a schedule for when they serve coffee slushies. (Not exactly.) I saw a police truck stop at a house down the small street around the corner from the house and a bunch of police who were riding in the back climb out, machine guns in hand, to grab some guy. That was a bit out of the ordinary. As I walked by the Aguas de San Pedro office, I noticed the water company's slogan today for the first time and chuckled: “Mejor cada dia.” Possibly someday even improved enough to drink. After chilling in the house and eating some Honduran cheese as a snack—queso fresco—I went running on the boulevard, getting a good deal of dirt in my eyes in the process and at one point even feeling the grit crunch between my teeth. One guy said, “la quemó!” (I was ahead of the friend who came with me.) I didn’t know that expression existed in Spanish. Evidently.

Then stopped by the grocery store and vegetable market with my friend just as they were closing up, since everything more or less closes when the sun sets. The woman at vegetable stand folks was super-nice and asked us about where we run and even offering her own experiences of running around town (that’s a rare thing, particularly for a woman). Quick walk home for a cold shower, some pizza that my awesome housemates made and kindly let me partake of, and some computer work before bed.

And so here I am, with kids in the street yelling “Que golazo!” since their schools are out of session so they get to play and play and play. Since I came back from break, I’ve noticed a lot more the casual friendliness and chattiness of people we encounter daily. I suppose I’m seeing the contrast with my life in New York. As I walk through the streets, I do get annoying comments and kisses from guys that I wouldn’t get in the States. But much, much more prevalent are the simple “adiós,” “buenas” or “buenos días” or “buenas noches.” It’s so wonderful and natural to converse with people you interact with in stores or say hi to people you pass on the street.

Oh, and did I mention that I spent the weekend sitting on a quiet beach called Tornebe? Awesome.

Some not-so-recent events of note

The Christmas concert. My small group of high-heeled seventh and eighth graders sang “The Magic of Christmas Day” and “Jingle Bell Rock” quite angelically. (The only boy in the group was a no-show, alas unsurprisingly.) The fourth graders I taught “Jingle Bells” on the recorder to were adorable and more or less played the right tune—once I was able to get them on stage. After their class performance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, they all mobbed Santa—one of their fourth-grade classmates—and knocked him over in his sleigh in an effort to steal his candy. I did have to play fairly loudly to guide them, but fortunately I was used to that light-headed feeling after three weeks of noisy lunchtime practices.

My middle schoolers prove that middle schoolers are universally horrible. By the time vacation came around, I was so sick of them I really couldn’t wait for vacation. There were only a few moments in my first four and a half months here when I let the thought enter my mind that I might not come back after Christmas, and most of those moments were in the final week of school before break. They were disrespectful to me, not paying attention, whining, hitting each other, calling each other names, trying to get off-task, not doing their homework, not taking notes, breaking classroom property and much more....not all of them at once, for the most part, but enough to really get me frustrated. During break the New York Times had an article about how adolescents are the plague of school systems and that all the reconfigurations—junior highs and middle schools and so on—have done nothing to fix the problem. I was glad that the paper of record could put it on the record that basically, when it comes to that age, you just have to remember that they’re inherently a struggle.

My last day reminds me (sort of) why I want to come back. On the last day, I insisted that they take their vocabulary test, which they had been annoyed about since Monday when I handed out the words. I reminded them that English learning couldn’t stop just because we were getting close to a break. Then I gave them a vacation homework assignment of three independent reading entries and three journal entries. (In retrospect, a poor idea, since it made this week a bit difficult—i.e. made them hate me—when some people just flat out did nothing and I had to get on their cases for it.) But after that, I let them more or less hang out and play games. Well, until at the end of the day they had to clean up the room and the yard right outside before I would give them their brownies. Food sure is a motivator... We watched some TV shows, played some games, listened to music and talked. Oh, and I let them throw water balloons at each other. I told them if they were responsible enough to remember to bring them in, they could throw them. Alas things got a little out of control and they started throwing buckets of water at each other. Of course, I ended up getting completely soaked and spent the rest of our final day of school seeking out sunlight in free moments in an effort to ensure that my underwear would eventually dry out. But even though a lot of times I’m no fun, I’ll admit it...I enjoyed getting soaked. The kids were at their best—they dropped the angst for a few minutes and just had a good time.

Goodbyes. I printed out some bilingual Christmas cards with a picture of Cusuco National Park as viewed from the window of the ecolodge there and the words: “Open the windows of your heart / And let in the light and peace of Christmas.” “Abra las ventas de su corazón / Y deje entrar la luz y paz de Navidad.” Then I went around handing them out to friends of ours here, mostly to the families who are friends of the volunteers each year. Getting that chance to talk to these people who we rely on so much for support and friendship was really wonderful. I was glad to be able to formally express my thanks to them. And when Dr. Z told me they’d be waiting for my return, I was really touched. Suddenly I realized that I have established relationships with lots of people here, even if I feel as if I should know them better at this point, that our relationship should be less superficial somehow. But even if our conversational topics are generally unexceptional, even if I’d like to get to know them all better in the New Year but don’t know exactly how to go about it, I felt really known. It was a good way to leave. And it gave me an odd premonition of what leaving for good will be like....how we’ll have these same small moments of goodbye, but

Christmas and New Year’s. I celebrated with family and friends, respectively, in New York. It was awesome. In between I spent all my time relaxing, sleeping, or running around the city trying to meet up with all of my friends. It was so, so, so wonderful to see everyone and talk with everyone and share stories and photos. That made it hard to choke out to everyone that the next time I would see them is (gulp) six months from now. I didn’t sleep much that final week at home, knowing that I would be headed back here to Honduras.

But here I am. More soon.