Day 114

Since I was last on the blog (I’m enjoying the resemblance of this word to a toilet), I have celebrated two different birthdays, in two different cities, done an annoyingly large amount of solo classroom teaching, and realised that cold has been redefined. Surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed all of these things, although I moaned and moaned and moaned about the solo teaching. Life isn’t interesting if there isn’t one thing marring the perfection.

The weekend was spent in Xalapa, with a gaggle of other assistants, for Jezzabel’s birthday. Cue salsa dancing, tequila, mariachi concert and a personal serenade for Jezza, karaoke and nigh-outnumbering Mexicans in sheer British presence. There are some points during this weekend which are a little hazy - we can blame that on number two on the above list. Sometimes I forgot what country I was in – number six can be held responsible for this. And I had a top-notch fin de semana – all of the above should plead guilty for this. The party was in a family restaurant, which was taken over by us for the night, along with a vat of mole and a ridiculous amount of confetti. I’m still finding bits of the coloured poison in my belongings, thanks to kids thinking it’s funny to throw it over you all night. Even when you’re holding a drink.

Mama Callie notched up another year this week as well, and so a late-night jarrocho band session (one harp, three jaranas – those little Mexican guitars which provoke a slightly ecstatic reaction in my being) along with coffee, sandwiches and an improvised biscuit cake from yours truly. Bearing in mind it was my handiwork, it wasn’t too laughable. You can at least make out the name written on it, and along with the huge heartfelt hug I gave her, it was apt for Mama’s 64^th year.

The days are getting nippier at the moment, I’m whipping the jumpers out, and even considering investing in a jacket. The rain which seems to be accompanying it is an unwelcome visitor, but the refreshing weather makes me feel that bit closer to the blizzard in Europe. I also had my first major nostalgic moment since I got to Mexico. It happened during a private French class I was giving to an adult student. I was talking about the weather, and about clothes, and as usual, most of the lesson was me giving ‘cultural’ titbits. We’d hit the point where I test him on words we’ve seen so far, and I found my mind wondering, for an instant, to the French Alpes, and more specifically, to idyllic, innocent times spent with my mémé, my maternal grandma. Before my student could even remember what the word I’d asked him meant, I felt tears suddenly welling up. I blinked them away as soon as I felt my ducts prickle and carried on being a competent tutor. But I enjoyed the visit to my childhood memory bank. Thanks mémé.

Now for a little aside. I’ve come to realise that it looks from the outside...oh, and sod it, the inside too, that most of my entourage are of the opposite sex. Most of my mates have members. A good deal of my company emanate testosterone. And so? Cosoleacauqe is a small place. I mean, no bank in the town small. Girls/women (can’t quite decide which I want to be yet) my age are either students who are stuck to their boyfriends’ mouths and are rabid with jealousy when they see me approaching with my louche English air, or they already have a husband and offspring. Most girls around here don’t go out drinking, or sit around chatting until the early hours. Instead I have ‘big brothers’, mates, people who I feel comfortable with. I don’t check what’s in their underwear before I embark on a friendship. I follow the way the breeze of circumstances blows me. And this is where I am right now. I do have female friends, and the girls in the house are the people who I can talk to most frankly. Unless I’m chatting to Guy Franks – then it’s pretty ‘Frank’ arfarf.

Disco-Teco

Oaxaca is to the average Mexican what London was to the average comrade of Dick Whittington: for all intents and purposes, it is paved with gold. Something about the traditions, the food, the people, the lifestyle, or the vistas makes this particular member state of the Estados Unidos de Mexico the one to be celebrated throughout the southern half of the country. Here in Veracruz a Oaxaceño (also known as a Teco) can more or less be found on every corner, as a staggeringly large proportion of residents have Oaxacan roots. The Oaxacans are known for their beer-full parties and hospitable demeanour. This makes for one happy resident Guera.

Every Monday I pay a fun-filled morning in two different primary schools in Minatitlan, doing the things that make teaching English fun: playing games, giving sweets to small children (although that also comprises the daily activities of people who should most definitely be kept away from small children), singing Wheels on the Bus and being asked by pouting infants ‘Why do you only come once a week?’ So yesterday-Monday, instead of heading straight back home to my beloved Cosolea after the final bell rung at midday (oh, it is a hard life), I hung around with Nora, a fellow teacher who happens to be from Oaxaca originally, and so the lavishing of attention, surprises and all-round undeserved and unrelenting generosity began. First things first, we got our hair done. A maze of plaits was elaborated in a sweltering salon, only to be complete ob

scured by a two-part flower, hair and ribbon-based headdress. The next most important task was, of course, eating. Nora happens to be an amazing cook. I also happen to be a fantastic eater. So the melt-in-the-mouth cochinita (something to do with pork) and creamy spaghetti, tortillas and cream cake for afters were demolished by the hairstyled, mming and aahing pale white girl she had let into her spotless house. I then did what every girl dreams of after watching Walt Disney Princess films: I got laced into a corset. We stopped short of performing full-blown cartoon lace-tightening, foot resting on buttocks and organs jumping up into the throat.

Fully decked out in our traditional Teca regalia, waved off by her daughter and mother, Nora and I waded into the party. An entire street was decked out with tables, many an ice-box, a live band, a dance floor and an abundance e of food. None of that compared to the amount of people crammed into a relatively modest space. It seems that old Santa Cecilia is someone worth celebrating. And she also happens to be the patron saint of music, so the volume was pumped up full blast. I pushed my corset to the limits, with the oodles of prawns, tamales, ceviche, beer and, most notably, illegally smuggled tortoise eggs which I was plied with. A quick word on tortoise eggs: next time someone tells me to make a hole, whack some salsa in then ‘suck hard’, I will explore all possible alternatives before blindly obeying. At least the clapping and whooping distracted me from the slimy yet oddly firm mass I was chewing and which was also hanging off my chin.

With music comes dancing, and in this case it was like a discotheque of the third age. My boogeying companions were generally upward of 50 years old, all wearing an equal amount of velvet, taffeta and fake gold, but the set-up was oh-so-familiar, evoking memories of Klute nights, club nights and teenage parties, taking turns in the circle, getting down low and pushing your friends into the middle to crack a move or two, preferably without cracking a bone or two. A personal highlight was my dance-off with a gentleman of around three-score years and five, in which I was trounced by his shoulder-shake move. I left with an invitation to the next fiesta, a love for the golden streets of Oaxaca and the golden hearts of its people, and a desire to dress like Frida Kahlo every day.

Crossing the Bridge

There are many bridges in Mexico. They are loved by all, fully taken advantage of, and extremely useful. These bridges also require no engineers (of which there seem to be an unhealthy glut in these parts). This weekend was one such bridge, or ‘puente’ to use its correct name. The regular weekend rolls into a bank holiday Monday like terra firma onto a suspension bridge, thus giving a long weekend open to an extra day of lazing, travelling, eating, gardening or housework. We chose the travelling option, and bussed it across the teensy-tiny distance to the next state along, Tabasco to get saucy (harhar) in Villahermosa, bridging the gap between ourselves and Alex, assistant extraordinaire over in his very own ‘green hell’ (lush vegetation, scorching heat). Alas, time was not something we had in bountiful supply (24-hours bus to bus), but there was an abundance of all manner of other virtues: conviviality, what with the trilingual conversations with Alex’s French housemates and Mexican friends; generosity, as our ‘guide’ took us an hour out of town to visit a chocolate hacienda and didn’t ask for a penny; and innocence, as we whiled away a gleeful half hour on a bicycle caddy thingamabob in the park, winning races against a group of children, only be told to ‘be quiet old woman’ when I gloated about the fact in good humour. Not so virtuous was the chocolate hacienda, where we learnt about the laborious chocolate-making process, from bean to bar, when all we really wanted to know was buy some of the sugary stuff. I wasn’t so childish and gleeful when confronted with the central park’s resident crocodiles, wandering around the waterside nonplussed. I would like to suggest an addendum to the song I learnt at primary school: never smile at OR use flash photography on a crocodile.

Scaramouche, Scaramouche

If Queen had asked me this question (will you do the fandango?) I would have said ‘gladly – but you’ll have to teach me the steps first’. And thus my first ever fandango was a seated affair for me – a lot of watching and learning.

Fandango: a fiesta involving dancing, jaranas (small Mexican guitars) and the early hours of the morning. The steps to the fandango dance revolve around the rhythm ‘café con pan’, one step, one step, two steps. But all this at a rate faster than light and in a whirl of colour, skirts, heels and percussion instruments. It’s what simpler people would most likely call ‘Mexican tap dancing’. As much as I was shuffling around in my seat and resisting the cry of my itchy, tappet feet, I couldn’t bring myself to get up and dance. You see, you have to get up on the stage, in the middle of a sea of musicians and other dancers and wait your turn to tap away. When it comes to your turn you get up on the stage, usually in mixed-sex pairs, and gently push the previous pair off. Small children, old women, beautiful young girls and pert-buttocked young men all joined in, as I watched on, increasingly eager to learn how to dance the dance and pluck the strings. The sound of the jarana has an incredible ability to fill the box, create a wall of sound which falls more abruptly than the iron curtain when it stops, and the music and the dancing together create a heady atmosphere of rhythmic psychedelia. Drinking and smoking was banned, as it was a family event, a celebration of Veracruz traditional revelries. I’ll leave it to you to ponder what’s next of my list of things to do before the next time a 70s rock group ask me a loaded question.

For Fawkes' Sake

After experiencing a celebrated Mexican traditional festival, it seemed only fair that we introduced our hosts to something truly British. The 5^th November provided us with this opportunity, as Guy Fawkes Night came around, with more of a crackle than a bang. This was Guy’s baby – quite literally, as he carried around his Guy all day as if it was his own flesh and blood. We had spent part of the night before surreally stuffing discarded children’s clothes with old banana leaves, and blowing up balloon heads, until we had two ‘Guys’ vaguely resembling Matt Lucas. The kids lapped up Guy’s presentation, to them the idea of November being cold enough to warm your bum cheeks over a blazing bonfire and eat jacket potatoes stuffed with baked beans (strange British cuisine) being utterly foreign and intriguing. We then started off what I feel is going to be an annual Escuela Secundaria Tecnica #116 tradition, by ritually burning our Guy in a small bonfire, which our students made up in the yard – what some of them lack in natural linguistic flair they more than make up for in more practical aspects, something which I will forever be lacking in. The Mexican calendar does allow for a similar tradition, on the 31^st December they burn ‘un viejo’ (an old man) symbolising the old year, thus they burn away the bad of the past 12 months in order for the new, successful year to rise, like a 365-winged phoenix, out of the ashes.

We didn’t have fireworks, and we sweated by the heat of the fire in the afternoon sun, but we nonetheless gave old Guy Fawkes the burning he deserved.

Día de Muertos

Day of the Dead. Or rather 2 days of the dead. Actually, it was five workless days in honour of day of the dead. And after a couple of them I felt like I was the living dead. There’s some Mexican traditions which really need explaining, and others which also really need to be seen to be understood. I believe this is one of them.

In true ‘intercambio’ (exchange) style, this weekend it was Guanajuato-based Sarah’s turn to come to Veracruz, after my visit the previous weekend. The ‘puente’ (bank holiday) allowed for more wiggle room concerning travel times and extended weekend getaways. A true baptism of fire awaited her when she arrived, physically and emotionally exhausted after a 2-day journey, thrown straight into a party on a ranch. It was in actual fact a sixth-form reunion, 12 years after leaving school, but even so, the three Brits who arrived with their dodgy dancing and wobbly accents to encroach on their drunken nostalgia trip were embraced with arms as open as a Mexican heart. A sleep and a groaning plate of chilaquiles later, we were headed in the pick-up to the beach. Cue likening to road-trip and general ‘driving to a destination’ banter and musical interludes. Then lots of splashing, ridiculous amounts of photo-taking (not on my camera for once) and grilled fish after sunset. I am also pleased to announce that, for the first time in my life I weed in the sea. Three times. I was like a nun who, void of her chastity after years of celibacy, just can’t get enough of the waves of pleasure she now finds herself permitted to. But these were warm (then slightly warmer) waves of water.

The next day was a mix of soft, cushiony, womanly domesticity, and grimy masculinity. I learnt how to wrap tamales, another indispensable skill for a Mexican woman of the house, and how to make papaya sweets, and with corn mix still squished under my fingernails I hopped on to the back of a quadbike to take a spin round Cosolea, through dirt, over potholes and almost to a point of no return when no one could figure out how to get the thing started again. It definitely wasn’t a good idea to wear a white shirt for this activity.

Over the course of the 2 days, the 1^st and the 2^nd November, we visited three cemeteries to get an idea of how different communities here celebrate the day(s). On the 1^st (officially All Saints Day), the people of Zaragoza and Oteapan (which used to be one community not so long ago) hold vigil all night in their candlelit cemeteries. Far from being a sombre, teary eery sight, it was at the same time magical and lively. I wish I could repeat the experience of walking into the cemetery, hundreds of people jostling around me on the narrow pathway leading up to the graves, salsa and reggaeton coming from different directions, with rolling mounds of tombs and earth dipped in candlelight slapping my sight for its ignorance of its existence hitherto. I was snapped out of my mesmerisation by the cries of ‘teacher’ from all of our students who were present at some grave or another. Oteapan’s cemetery was more imposing as it rises up from the entrance, but as less familiar territory, and therefore even less familiar dead people, we spent less time. I also realised there was no way I could ever get back the sensation I had when I saw Zaragoza’s display of mourning by darkness. Cosolea’s cemetery came alive on the 2^nd, under the scorching November sun (there’s two words I never thought I’d write together), so we only stayed long enough to see the flowers, sit in the shade by the (deceased) man of the family and other relatives, and have a cooling drink...sat on a gravestone...shedding peanut shells over the ‘rest in peace’ engraving. I was, however, granted permission to call them ‘my’ muertos.

The other side of the celebration of the dead is the altar. A multicolour splash of three-tiered paper decorations, food offerings and items related to the dead loved one being offered, we had one at school and one at home. There is a set way to construct an altar, revolving around papel picada (cut--out tissue paper with skeleton designs), calaveras (marzipan skulls) and flowers. The flowers are reputed to smell of the dead, and are only ever brought out at this time of year. I couldn’t help but tell everyone about the time my Dad, the old romantic, proudly gave my Mum a bunch of these flowers as an unprompted display of his love for her. It’s amazing he’s still around to bear the shame. Helping build the huge altar in the school was an all-hands on deck experience, with all the kids taking it seriously and helping out, they knew exactly what they were doing and had all brought offerings of food and drink -- traditionally the deceased person’s favourite snack of tipple -- to adorn it.

The relationship with death here is, in my opinion, healthy, happy and a hell ufa lotta fun. It’s not trivialised, it’s brought to the fore, and celebrated as life is. It is made more poignant when there has been a recent death in the family, but the medley of colours, light, morbidity and joyfulness makes it a celebration which I think warranted five days off work.

P.s. Beach photos copyright Sarah

Coach Trip: as colourful as Brendan's, channel 4's new offering

Many roads lead to Guanajuato: the prospect of the most beautiful colonial town in all of Mexico, the presence of Sarah (company and hospitality all in one delightful package) and what I thought was the country’s biggest beer festival. Most of these turned out to be accurate preconceptions.

The city was a painter’s palette of warm and vibrant hues which played with glee in the sunlight, running from cobbled passages to airy squares. Spilling down the surrounding hills, the town’s colours are evidence of Mexico’s status as a nation of colours. The Spanish-style buildings are a world away from the concrete cubes of Cosoleacaque and Minatitlan. I shocked myself by staring with amusement at all the ‘gueros’ ambling past me. I realised it had been weeks since I had physically seen a blonde, blue-eyed European/North American in the flesh. I suddenly found myself snarling at them with disdain, as if they were trespassing on my Mexican territory. The idea of transposing yourself into a country without compromising any of your rigid cultural ideas, without fully immersing yourself into the grinding routine of a place, now seems to me amateurish and misguided. I hated to think that I also looked like a tourist. I suppose however long I stay here I always will be. But I hope that by working like a demon on my Spanish and adapting my socks off, I can play down by ‘extranjero’ status.

Sarah oozed company and hospitality. She showed me her ‘locals’, her favourite hangouts and showed me ruddy bloody good time. As a past tenant of the city she knew it like a sister, but we still managed to make some memories, in the restaurants and bars, and on the salsa dance floor. We were joined in our shimmying by Anna, Alannah and Christine: ‘El Bar’ (original name) played host a spectacular display of British Council gyrating, booty-shaking and general attempts at moving with the rhythm.

The only disappointment was in myself. I had led myself to believe that ‘Cervantino’ was a massive beerfest. My pea-sized, lager-lout, uneducated brain, failed to make the obvious connection between the festival name and the highly-regarded Spanish writer, Cervantes. If I had, I would have realised that asking where the giant beer ten was ten times a day would never reap any further response than ‘what giant beer tent?’ I also would have prepared myself for the intimidating amounts of culture I found myself confronted with. Plays, improvisation, dance shows, comedians, circus acts, musical performances lay in wait on almost every inch of the city, it was impossible to avoid. Even when we sat in a chillaxalicious square for a quiet beer. We were treated to a nine-peice mariachi show, and a punk-goth street performance of a story of ‘two absolutely insane lovers’. It didn’t end happily. I still got my beer, but I also felt a little more educated for having visited Guanajuato when I did.

30-hours on a coach well-spent.

I hablo mexicano

A change has come. Anglo-French Claire, the same Claire that arrived in Mexico with an unhealthy amount of trepidation and borderline fear of the Spanish language, has been replaced by a Claire who is confident with trills, subjunctive conjugations and, more importantly, Mexican vulgarities.

Having spent two months in France, I was rightly worried about being able to communicate once I got here, especially when I was thrust into the monolingual bosom of Cosoleacaque and the Zuñiga family. Although able to string together sentences, my neck and ears began to feel the strain of trying to follow rapid conversations, like a fast-forward, foreign tennis match, but now it’s roughly 30-love to me. I even find myself having quite dense discussions about life and love and philosophy. I dread to think about how many mistakes I make in every stuttery, Anglicism-speckled sentence, but I seem to be understood, and for basic conversation I’m rarely at a loss. I still have a long way to go: thinking about it now, I couldn’t give you the word for pavement, or flannel, but at least I know how to say ‘you’ve got big testicles’ (you’re a lazy bum). The most difficult arena for airing my Spanish seems to be in the classroom, when giving instructions to the kids, or chastising them. My stern warnings have slightly less gravity when I stumble over words, or have to ask the culprit how to go about telling them off in Spanish.

The one worry gnawing at me is that as a consequence my French is being pushed further back into my cerebral linguistic recesses ( ‘linguistic recesses’ rings slightly naughty...I’m sure I could make it into a euphemism for something). Skype and phone conversations to French friends and family go some way to helping alleviate the language loss, but I’m having to work to keep all three balls in the air: English, French and Spanish, so that by this time next year I can easily switch between all three and have almost equal mastery.

I’ll leave you with this thought: in Mexican Spanish, all of these words mean the same thing: la Tortuga, la cucaracha, la rana, la cuca, la conhca, and are used with unfathomable regularity; have a guess.

Matt the Chat touches down in Cosolea Town

This weekend we Cosoleacaqueños were treated to a spontaneous visit by Matt the Chat, who usually resides in Fortín de las Flores. This visit lasted all of 40hrs, but we managed to give him a pretty good idea of what our end of Veracruz state has to offer, including drinking beer hanging off the back of a pick-up truck, swinging in lazy chairs on the terrace on a Sunday, and the beautiful oil refinery of Minatitlan. Now we need to get ourselves up north and see what life on the other side is like. Considering that he is 4-5 hours away by bus, this is nothing for Mexico, but in British terms saying they were the same place would be like equating Surrey to Liverpool. It was lovely having you Matt; and look, you get your very own blog post!

Let them eat cake

I have, unfortunately, more than once in my life been accused of attempting to have my cake and eat it. This week, the finger of blame points assuredly towards me, but the matter does not involve one cake, but approximately 15. There are some weeks when someone gets a year older, and then there are weeks when everyone seems to be celebrating their birthday. And we all know that birthdays mean cake. And if there’s cake, I’m not going to say no.

Cake number one got sploshed on the birthday girl’s face before being consumed. Jade’s birthday party was sprung on me much as her face was on to the cake: I got home from work, ready to receive a call, eat lunch and get ready for my evening classes, all with calm and a goal to work towards. These plans were blasted from the water by the words ‘party’, ‘mole’, and ‘ahorita’. Apparently I’d been told about it. Apparently I’d forgotten. I wasn’t going to complain, as mole is one of those chocolate, chilli and chicken concoctions which I would find as hard to turn down as a backrub from Mr Depp. And to accompany it, there was a rip-roaringly drunk Mama Callie,a live Mariachi band, and the aforementioned cake. Everybody else present knew without exception all of the mariachi songs, and the idea is to be able to request the songs of my choice and sing along to them by the end of the year. In the mean time I ate cake.

Then when Teresa’s birthday came around, I contributed personally to the cake provision. For lack of other ideas for a present, and as a vague attempt to live up to my family name, I baked a chocolate cake (chocolate cloud cake to be precise). I chose this cake carefully as I wanted to impress with an understated but astonishingly tasty sweet treat. Chedraui Supermarket, however, didn’t have the same idea. Thus my chocolate cake was made with a chocolate substitute, the wrong sort of cream, and lumpy sugar. The ‘hecho con amor’ comment seemed to do the trick though, and the ugliness and sickly texture of my sorry-looking cake were forgiven. The other 4 cakes at the table also helped to soften my failure and fill everyone present up with dangerous levels of sugar and cream.

The other 8 cakes were to be seen but not eaten: they were arranged in an artistic circular suspension installation at the wedding-like 15^th birthday party of a student from our school. The cakes were positioned next to the indoor canopy hanging over the high table, alongside the soft-focus photos of the birthday girl in various different outfits, lining the walls of the venue. These nicely complimented the 8 white plastic cherub plinths lining the entrance path, and the life-size cardboard cut-out of the birthday girl. As I said, they were to be seen, not enjoyed.

A is for Apple

Oficially, I am not a teacher. I’m a teaching assistant. Realistically, I shouldn’t be touched out of all proportions by small gestures. Usually, I don’t receive apples from my students.

Today, at the beginning of my second class of the day, in the centre-of-town primary school, a nine-year old girl called Valeria gave me an apple. It was a lightly bruised, green apple, which had probably been given to her by her vaguely health-conscious mother, and which she hadn’t had time to eat during the lunch break just before the lesson. And yet she considered that the best thing to do with this small piece of fruit was present it to the slightly ditzy, badly-spoken English teacher that visits them once a week. With this small, innocent gesture, that little girl made my day.

Routine clear-out (amended, post-photo retrieval)

My routine is now nicely established. The week gets eaten up by a soothing mix of timetabled classes and irregular private lessons, aimless conversations, meanderings, musings and consuming. The fact that this routine is now nicely established means that I need to steer clear of the ‘wasting time’ route. I’m miserably failing so far. With the weather being that bit cooler, it’s oh-so-tempting to stay in bed instead of cracking on with the day, and the constant presence of at least one person rocking in a cosy chair on the terrace with open ears means that there is always a reason to subscribe to the ‘mañana, mañana’/’ahorita’ attitude. All of my great intentions (scrub up on my Mexican history, make myself au fait with the Zapatista presence in the country, join a volunteering scheme in Minatitlan) all seem a little too much like hard work. In the long run, though, time is not something I appear to be lacking in.

The good of the week culminated on Friday night: Guy and I introduced Juanito to the joys of Ring of Fire (to the detriment of his sobriety and his stomach), we followed the usual crowd to a new crowd, a friendly mix of co-workers, friends of friends, friends of family, and many people who extended welcoming hands and future invitations, including a gay bar-owner, a deaf and mute football player and a generous drunk. The rain should really have put us off standing outside a shop for 7 hours, but we didn’t let it so much as dampen our spirits.
The bad of the week came from a couple of hangers-on, who took it upon themselves to cause some unnecessary trouble after-hours, which didn’t end well but could have turned out so much worse when you out a positive slant on it.
No photos of this night now exist (due to my inappropriate relationship with ‘delete’ buttons), nor of my Mexican’s grandmas’ birthday celebrations of last Sunday night, which leaves me only to rely on good old-fashioned memories, of the more ephemeral but nonetheless evocative sort. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
I do, however, have some photos of Aaron’s 15th birthday party, which we celebrated today. Being not only a member of the family but also one of my private English students, I got to take part in the age-old tradition whereby the birthday boy has to dance with every female in the joint. And I feel it necessary to point out that he looked just as uncomfortable when he did the waltz with every single girl, woman or old dodderer.

ps. Photos have now been retrieved, thanks to a nifty little program called recuva (I highly recommend looking into this if you happen to permanently delete any photos). This post now comes with even more pretty pictures.

‘“Heads, shoulders, knees and toes”: all places I currently feel like smacking you’

For my first group kids’ class this week I came into the class feeling highly satisfied with a great, fun-filled day of school, ready to kick some English-teaching ass, and totally carefree. I came out of the hour with the 3 pre-schoolers ready to teach the entire vicinity some very bad English words. I doubt they learnt anything from that class, but I learnt that trying to hold a class when the students are in their own home, surrounded by their toys, in the presence of a romantically involved pair of 5-year olds, with a teacher who is unwilling to discipline them for fear of being rejected as a sister-like co-resident, DOES NOT WORK. The teacher becomes the student.

Guy gets his disabled badge

This is my homage to Guy.
Guy saved me from some big scary men attacking me and trying to rape and pillage me for all I’m worth, and in trying to defend me he suffered an arm flesh wound. He is my hero. (That is what you told me to say, right Guy?)
(abridged): Guy was playing football with the 5-year olds, Eliot and Caleb, and he jumped onto a spiked gate, which helped itself to a substantial chunk of flesh from his right arm. He now has regular clinic visits and a life-long scar to look forward to, and is sporting a rather fetching Baby Disney blanket as an arm sling.

Beer-bellied pig

I have also this week discovered the Spanish for ‘beer belly’. I use the term ‘discovered’ in all senses of the word. My waistband, my wallet and my mental dictionary have all felt the strain of this new discovery. ‘Panza de Caguama’ equates your stomach to a giant bottle of beer, roughly 1litre, which the Mexican men have a firm fondness for. Mexicans refer to these as if they have deadly powers, as if the beer contained within its imposing glass will knock you down with a force almighty...to be honest, it’s just a slightly bigger bottle of beer, so you drink fewer bottles and you end up drinking warmer beer. But when I look down at my own personal fleshy ‘Caguama’ I consider it with the same fear and none of the fondness. The establishments in which I have been exposed to caguamas have their own special atmosphere: generally devoid of women, frills, and with a soupçon of the lewd. Enrique, the 2 Juans and Betho have guided us to the best ones in the area, one just down the road where we went this week. When I say I want to see as much of Mexico as I can, this is one such aspect of the country and culture that I relish – more raw, completely real, and it doesn’t feature in the guidebook.

The holiday continues

Thank God my clocking-in slip is only for show. If the SEP (Secretaria de Educacion Publica, the bigwigs that pay us our grant) actually checked this and paid us accordingly I would be dressed in rags and holding out a trembling hand for spare pesos under a bridge somewhere. As it is, we are still being paid our full amount despite only having completed one full week of work since getting here. This had mostly been down to classes being suspended because of flooding, and national celebrations (one of which is fun, the other not so much, I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself). On Monday I had one class: it’s a hard knock life. It happened to be in one of primary schools where I do a weekly lesson, so no more than literal fun and games. They even threw in breakfast and a chat afterwards as I had nowhere to get to in a rush. Tuesday and Wednesday school was called off. However much I love unplanned time off, when you’re stranded because of collapsed motorways and flooded towns, it becomes more of a bore than a fun break. At least I’ve got my regular private student, Carlos, who’s so keen on learning French he more than adequately gives me a vent for my teaching energy when there’s no other outlet.
This relative lack of teaching time was more than compensated for by Thursday. Alberto, the English teacher I usually work with (who is also my tutor), couldn’t get to the school form his family home in Xalapa, so ‘Clairrre’ became ‘Maestra’ for the day. I single-handedly delivered four improvised classes to the first years, and much to my surprise I loved it. Teresa scoffed at me when I confided that I used to be pretty shy, and I often have to fight these timid instincts in order to meet people and make the most of opportunities, but in front of these kids, all eyes on me, I delighted in the opportunity to act up, prance about like a clown and scout out my own individual teaching style, which at one point involved throwing a ball of paper at an incessant chatterbox; it worked, and I earned unbounded respect for the slightly daring move.
If I do happen to be given the boot from the school because of my teacing methods, I should now have no problem finding a Cosoleacaqueño to marry me and becoming a kept woman due to my newly acquired tortilla-making skills. The few restaurants which boast ‘tortillas hechas a mano’ (basically handmade tortillas, as opposed to machine- or tortilla-press –made) will always have the upper hand in the restaurant sector, and the same can be said for the marriage-able woman market. Teresa and I got down and dirty with the dough Saturday morning, and Enrique helped convert my surprisingly successful tortillas into tasty picadas, complete with cheese, onions, avocado and refried beans, for all the family. The men should be falling over each other to get to me any time soon.

Happy Families

In order to provide some context to the drivel I write here, I feel it’s high time to concentrate a little on the people, instead of focusing so acutely on the events and the places. Not only have I managed to land myself a year in a country full of some of the most fantastic people I’ve ever had the good fortune to find myself amongst, but I have managed to slot myself into the family life of one of the most genuine and kind-hearted families I could ever hope to spend time with. I don’t actually live with the family; my little ‘casita’ is a self-contained annexe, but I tend to eat a majority of my meals with them, and can wonder into the warmth of the family bosom as and when I like, be it for food or company. It’s not all sweetness and pie though: oh no...this family have a filthy sense of humour and dirty great sets of lungs. In short, they’re perfect.

Doña Callie reminds me comfortably of my maternal grandma: hard as nails, a large repertoire of insults which she oh-so-often hurls at her children, but a beautifully soft side which makes me feel so protected. She always seems vaguely insulted if ever I turn down her food, which thankfully is always delicious, so refusal is a rare occurrence. She more than fits the bill of a mother figure to me, making sure I toe the line.
Her three children, Mabel, Teresa and Enrique are my Mexican siblings. The three of them are as different as myself and my own brother, but they all share a common generosity. Mabel, P.E teacher by profession, scientist and researcher by hobby, lives in the house with her mischievously adorable 5-year old son Eliot. She’s got a much more serious side to her, she was more of a tough cookie to crack, but once she gets started on something she’s passionate about, you just can’t shut her up (not that I would ever want to).
Enrique is now the man of the family. He inherited his dad’s job at PeMex (Petroleo Mexicano), and when he’s not working he’s to be found with the lads, drinking beer, driving around and setting up parties at his palapa.
Teresa, the youngest sibling, is the entrepreneurial offspring with an uncontrollable laugh and as shrill a voice as ever I’ve heard. She and Callie have taught me all manner of Mexican innuendos and slang phrases, phrases that would normally make your mother blush. Not here. The family is completed by Elias, Callie’s grandson who she adopted at birth due to tragic unforeseen events, and Ruth, Elias’ older sister, who is currently doing an English degree, and whose 5 year old son, Caleb, is an untameable monster.

That is my Mexican family. The only members I have neglected to mention are the dogs. I haven’t mentioned them because every time I talk about them I start to get angry, and I remember all the times that they have kept me up in the early hours with their incessant barking at the stray dogs on heat outside who loiter outside the house. But I feel that if I carry out my threat to kill one of them and make dog steak I wouldn’t be such a welcome new addition to the family any more.

Why I'm getting fat

Mexico has a lot to answer for when it comes to food and weight. There is a reason why the country ahs the world’s highest rate if child obesity, and it’s certainly not laziness or a lack of Jamie Oliver campaigning. It’s because the food here is so friggin’ good. Food is such a great part of the culture: the women spend their days cooking, for their family, visitors, or paying customers. Every other shop is a restaurant, or ‘antojitos’ (snacks) outlet, and every fiesta or religious celebration is celebrated with food – even the dead get their share of tasty goods when it comes round to the Day of the Dead (which also involves everyone heading down to the cemetery to share a meal). It’s difficult to find a Mexican who isn’t either eating, about to eat, preparing food to eat, or has just eaten and so is rubbing their belly. This is why I feel so at home here. I’m yet to leave my room without my Mexican mum or siblings trying to coerce me into eating something, and my well-learned and practised English ways of generally saying no on polite principle have long vanished.

Not only am I eating truckloads of delicious tacos, memelas (Mexican pizza), tostadas (crispy tortillas with topping), tamales, stuffed chillis, soups, stews and a multitude of other marvellous concoctions, I’m slowly starting to learn how to make them too. I’ve already chopped and stirred my way to tacos chiflados (mad tacos), constructed Carlotas (creamy biscuit pudding), husked the corn for tamales and observed the lengthy process, chopped a LOT of onions to go in salsa and been promised many more delights to come. Don’t worry, I started running last week.

All work and play

Another week of My Mexican Life has flown by, who knows where the time goes, I must be getting used to this place. School is getting better and better, as I’m beginning to get to know the kids more, becoming more confident in my ability to get up in front of 40 kids and shout an unknown (to them) language at them, and my routing is becoming nicely established: early morning run down at the football pitch, breakfast of leftover tacos, fried plantains or hot cakes with the family, before hailing a cab to school. My working day never lasts longer than about 11 to 3, so it’s not too demanding or tiring, and then I get plenty of time to chat Spanish with family or friends, have a leisurely lunch, do some planning or go for a spin. This week I have been attempting to pimp out my language-teaching skills at every given opportunity, hence posters have gone up, open house sessions have been set up, and I’ve even given my first private class; a beginners French class to a young and enthusiastic university student. More of that to come in the coming weeks, watch this space (O.K, stop watching it now, it’s going to take longer than that).

Thursday was Enrique’s birthday, so a little family cake-cutting and eating session filled up Thursday evening, and leftover cake has been filling me up ever since: they made the mistake of storing it in my fridge, and telling me they’re not big cake eaters. Oh Dear, Diary. The same birthday was again celebrated on Sunday, with a family get-together for which we did a ‘carne asada’ a sort of glorified barbeque with bucket loads of meat, piles of tortillas and a whole day of chilled out company. Even the 24 hour rain (which is still pelting down outside my window as I write) didn’t put a dampener on things. We stayed sitting outside around the party tables until late night, until the rest of the guests had cleared off and the cups of coffee stopped having an effect. Some of us were a little lacking in sleep due to our exertions on Saturday night....

Saturday night started off so well. Having gorged myself on tacos, washed down with a couple of beers, which I’d only bought because mama Callie had said she quite fancied a ‘cervecita’, I lounged in my hammock for a couple of hours, before heading out for a coke and a stroll. Guy and I had a bit of ‘Larathon’ (back to back episodes of Curb your Enthusiasm) before hauling our lazy bottoms out of my house to get a snack. At which point Enrique and the two Juans and Bethoo pulled up and said ‘how about it?’ Cue a trip to a traditional table dance ‘cantina’ (generally male-dominated watering hole), late-night tacos and gate crashing a ‘quincenera’ (15th birthday party, a huge deal for Mexican girls). I was willingly carried along by the spontaneity of it all, and lapped it up, even the grotty cantina, where the only table dancing we actually got to see was from drunken middle-aged men. Slightly disappointed at the lack of naked ladies, or even partially clothed ladies, I waltzed with the guys and forgot about the fact that an hour beforehand I had been almost ready for bed, which explains the foxy glasses, dirty hair and Durham Regatta t-shirt look I was rocking. Mum, this should explain why I got your ‘good morning’ email as I was getting ready for bed, at my somewhat delayed bedtime.

Backtracking some more (this is getting increasingly non-chronological but, frustratingly, increasingly ‘Dear Diary’-like), Friday night gave us an opportunity to see a local football match and, more importantly, a match in which our local team, Cosoleacaque, trampled the opponents, Minatitlan. The fiery Mexican passion was clearly evidenced by the relatively small but feisty crowd of supporters, though the after-party was a bit of a damp squid due to the rain which announced its arrival on Friday night as has yet to sod off.
In other news, I now have a bucket, a mug , a king-size hammock in my room, and a salsa-dish-cum-jewellery holder. All this adds up to me feeling increasingly settled, and I’m gradually realising that this isn’t a holiday. No one has their own mug on holiday, right?

Birthday

Our calendar was particularly harsh on us this week: we only got ONE DAY to recover, sit and do nothing, before we were off again experiencing the true Mexican ‘fiesta’ spirit. Well, we did go to a fiesta on our 'off' day, but as Mexican do's go it was a very quiet affair, with traditional 'posole' (maize and chicken soup) and family banter to-ing and fro-ing between tables, regularly bouncing off the 2 English guests. My actual 21st wasn’t until Saturday, but I shall forever see Friday as my true celebration: so would you if you’d spent the day sunning yourself in the back of a pick-up truck with some upstanding Mexicans (and two dodgy Brits), eating snails, oysters and prawns, swimming in the sea, a crystal-clear lagoon, and singing Mexican pop songs at the top of our voices speeding down the highway. The lagoon is called Catemaco, and it’s a famously beautiful natural sight, and in all honesty we only managed to cover a tiny slither of the breathtaking coastline and jewel-like nooks and crannies. It didn’t do any harm that with every beer opened there was a general ‘To Claire’, and that many pop songs were spontaneously re-written in my honour. Once back in Cosoleacaque, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, as there had been talks of a party, all very vague. We actually ended up at Antonio’s house (unsurprisingly, another member of the family, but also a teacher in the school), where they cracked out the expensive tequila and another drink which they described as ‘tequila as it was before the Spanish arrived and turned it into water - ie it was STRONG; ‘no-voice-the-next-day’ strong. The bunch of guys we found ourselves with were perfect specimens of Cosoleacaqueños: they accepted us with open arms into their group without prejudice, they proudly showed us all of their ways and taught us their phrases (some of which I’m likely to get into trouble for if I repeat them in polite company) and made the whole day truly special – we were among friends, however little time we had known them. I almost fell off the top of the mountain of happiness that I’d been climbing all day when they brought out an ad-libbed cake of chocolate cupcakes and a chocolate bar (those of a naughtier disposition might be able to figure out what sort of shape this might make...), with a candle, accompanied by raucous singing and many hugs, all at the stroke of midnight, as I stumbled into my 21st year.

The day of my actual birthday was a hot hot day, beautiful sun, a fresh bunch of flowers first thing in the morning and a seafood restaurant for lunch. The party in the evening was hosted by another birthday boy, a Lady Gaga-wannabe who managed to unite the entire gay community of the town of Minatitlan in one place for one night only, though he insisted that it was our joint celebration. I’m not sure I want to be associated with the slightly surreal cross-dressing Paulina Rubio impersonator who managed to cop a feel of Jeremy, or the big singing mama of dubious gender who repeatedly touched up Guy. However, it was a one-off experience of a night, topped off by a torrential downpour (I should mention that we were outside), and being told ‘you’re not beautiful, but because of what you’re doing here in Mexico, you’re beautiful’.

A Sunday at the beach the day after in Coatzacoalcos was deserved and needed.
Thank you Mexico for validating my score of years,
Thank you everybody for the birthday wishes,
Thank you Jeremy for coming to spend the weekend with us AND bringing me a very well-chosen present,
And thank you in advance universe for letting me turn 21 every year to come.

Getting down to the nitty grito

After the responsible affair at the school to prematurely celebrate the bicentenary, the real shindig kicked off on Wednesday. The main event, after the preparatory cooking, primping and the fireworks in the main square, was the family gathering in the family bakery, where we did our own ‘grito’, and then tucked into mountains of to-die-for Mexican food and drink: chiles en nogada, tamales, chicken stews, fruit sweets, carlotas, tequila and beer. I flitted between the young members of the family who were interested in knowing whether or not I liked to dance, and the old, who thrust all of their homemade specialities on me, and regaled in watching me eat and getting greasy fingers (the greasy fingers are the reason for the lack of photos of this night). It was so admirable to see all of the women and girls dressed in traditional Mexican clothes, with their hair plaited, embroidered smocks, long, colourful flowing skirts – and a lot of the men had cracked out their sombreros. I had a long cream skirt and little halter neck top with some patriotic ear-rings (all a loan from Tere, one of the family). Once I could no longer fit into the skirt for eating, I ran off to get changed and skipped on down to Enrique’s ‘palapa’, outdoor bar with a grass hut roof, lights, music and beer. As is to be expected, I danced. I twirled, swayed, swooped, shimmied (Guy equally so, as he spent half the night in one of the girl’s heels)... and then ate tacos. Happy Birthday Mexico: you may be 200 years old, but you know how to party.

Children of the Revolution

There was bound to come a time when the people of Cosoleacaque would make marriage comments: Tuesday was the day. In honour of the bicentenary of Mexican independence, and a celebration of Mexican revolutionaries, Tuesday was designated as ‘grito’ day in my school. The Grito is a call to war, a revolutionary speech ending with ‘Viva Mexico!’ and the ringing of a bell. And for Mexicans it’s a huge deal. It also gave me the perfect opportunity to let all the women I know in the school dress me up like a traditional ‘Cosoleacaqueña’, with the traditional ‘refajo’ (folded skirt), plaits and smock top. It also gave all of the kids in the school even more of an excuse to stare at me and even surround me and just look up at me, in breathless anticipation of what I might be able to say in Spanish (which is increasing by the day but still isn’t anywhere near the level a grown adult living in Mexico should have). The costume, and my enthusiasm about anything local lead the deputy head to insist on introducing me to his nephew, in an unsubtle attempt at setting me up with a Mexican so they could snag a full-time native-speaking English teacher.

We first enjoyed the ‘convivio’, a meal shared with the class, then moved outside for the civic ceremony and the grito, out in the rain, with the open-air stage adorned with flags, bunting and the all-important bell. I thrust my fist in the air and bellowed ‘Viva Mexico!’ like the best of them (though paler and slightly more timid version than the best of them), and then the headmaster beckoned me on stage so everybody could basically clap, whistle and woot at my costume and my simple foreign presence. Then more food – obviously, this is Mexico.