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Published: October 23rd 2006
Transportation
This bus is one of 5 that comes to Tec at 7:30 on Saturday morning. On each bus are 3 groups headed for three different rural neighborhoods. Everytime the issue of Osama Bin Laden comes up, I wonder why the heck he hasn't been found; however, that question inevitably leads me to think about where I could hide if some government agency was after ME. Well, for everyone that has ever felt spooked when they see themselves on the Wal-Mart camera or heard that the farthest you can get from a road in the entirety of the Great Smokies National Park is 3.7 miles... I've got a good place for ya. Way out in the middle of nowhere in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Now, we all can't go out there at the same time, but I think you could probably run across the border, and hide out in somebody's pig barn until the CIA finally gives up.
San Jose, Nuevo Leon has approximately 100 residents, and for 3 weekends I've gone to a little school and pretended to help out with the kids. I feel most useful when I'm kicking the soccer ball around with them, but I'm also quite good at multiplication. However, I think the multiplication ability throws a lot of these 5th and 6th graders off... See, they think that because I understand math
Yellow Balloon
Popping the balloons was very popular. in espanol, that I'll be able to help them with Spanish grammar... poor souls.
The schoolhouse has three rooms, and the middle room houses a refrigerator and a bed where the teacher sleeps. The kids are there every other weekend with us because the government has an agreement with my university, Tec de Monterrey, to give supplemental education. The students arrive at 9 am on Sat. and stay until 12:30. We break for lunch until 2, and then they return and learn some more until 5:30. Even more surprising is that they spend their Sunday mornings with us. The kids are eager learners and are great at math, but geography skills are seriously lacking. When asked where Australia was they answered, "Mexico!" Well, no, sorry guys, um, just no. They had no maps in the school, they don't have the money to travel anywhere, so its kind of difficult to capture their interest for the world outside of their own. So, that gave our leader an idea.... have the foreign teachers make up a speech and talk about their country. So, that's what I did today. I took pictures of the Smoky Mountains, talked about UT football, and brought
a t-shirt with the map of the US. I even brought a football which they were excited about while in the classroom, but they tired of it and had traded it for a soccer ball within about 5 minutes.
But, what do we do after the kids go home? After 5:30, the Tec we explore a little bit, walking the roads and visiting a general store or two. This time we had to walk to the nearest little town because I had to pick up my stuff from the other school in the nearest pueblo because my bags weren't taken of the bus with everyone else's (human-chain bus-unloading method is alway trouble). On the way home from our walk we stopped at a store and got Cokes in glass bottles, rocked in rocking chairs, and petted some of the numerous dogs that always seem to be around. Last night, we returned to eat our supper, told ghost stories around the cement picnic table (I didn't have to plug my ears this time, I can just quit concentrating and it's like the people aren't even talking 😊, and then went to sleep while watching Anchorman projected from someone's laptop.
James and
In Motion
This is the one picture that captures the true spirit of these weekends: running around like crazy, screaming, playing tag, and kicking the soccer ball around..... and some fractions every once in a while. Aaron have gone with me each time, and they don't have the perks of a Bonner Scholarship, so we obviously have a good time. Check out the pics!
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Ben M.
non-member comment
they still make coke in glass bottles?
If i'm ever running from the government, i'm deffinatly just gonna come back to monroe county. I'll be just as secluded, and gramma can make me supper. :) lol. the pic of your bus, are you standing behind and barbed wire fence? I fell on on the cemment floor... hard to believe, but i know from my weekends at Kent state U. that a concrete floor is just pretty awsome. LATER, Ben. p.s. I have been savin some of the pics of you and cara (from myspace) and we're gonna print them off for gramma and granpa.