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Published: October 4th 2008
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It doesn’t feel like only a couple of days since I posted, it feels more like a week or two! So much to see and do and experience and take in. Monday we started our Spanish classes and they are amazingly intensive. No English is spoken and we have gone on trips to markets and a pueblo that we will be working in.
I have noticed, in the last few days, that learning a new language requires a certain sort of self degradation. It is impossible to learn a new language without making a total and utter fool of yourself most of the time. If you play it safe, only use the words you know, then you will never actually learn anything new. You must have a willingness to expose your inadequacies and let others laugh at you. You must practice and practice and this requires patience on both your part and the part of you listener. The difference between ‘caminar’ (to walk) and ‘camida’ (lunch/food) must be reviewed and mistaken again and again. Learning to speak in a new language is like learning to ride a horse, the more times you fall off, the better you get. Unfortunately the
falling off often means many Mexican’s laughing at you.
In Oaxaca this has been an even bigger challenge because I have a great need to fit in here. I want to be accepted and not looked at like a tourist. As soon as I open my mouth in a shop or on the street however, I am quite obviously that, a tourist. The immediate reaction is to revert into my comfort zone of English with those around me, but this gains me nothing except a few moments of not having to critique all my words three times before saying them. Living in this place, within a family who speaks the language is a phenomenal learning experience and one that many would jump at the chance for. I feel myself remembering words and phrases that I never thought I knew and having a full conversation with my Mexican mum made my day yesterday. It is these small victories that make the many embarrassments in class or out in the markets more tolerable and give me hope. Hope that one day a full sentence will roll of my tongue without a second thought and Oaxacan’s will think, ah, she’s one of
us!
On Monday evening we all went to place called Bibloca, which is going to be one of our teaching experiences. It is a non profit library set up in the families’ car port that has been filled through donations with hundreds of children’s books in both English and Spanish. Bibloca not only offers their books as resources to local teachers but runs reading and language classes for the children in the neighbourhood around it which is predominantly a lower income. Near Bibloca we discovered the big cinema (hurahhhh) so I will be volunteering at the library a lot!
Tuesday we had the afternoon off so Diana, Prudence and I wondered around the zocalo to find some camida. We ended up eating at this lovely restaurant call “La casa de mi abualla” or “My grandmother house”. It was a bit pricy for Oaxacan standards (but not Vancouver) and the food was delicious. We ate at a table overlooking the zocalo and listening to the musicians playing bellow the window. Perfection. After comida the three of us hit the shops and Diana and I discovered that we are shopping enablers and should never be allowed to shop together again.
Wednesday we went out to the Santo Thomas pueblo where we will be working with the children and the local artisans teaching English once a week. Santo Thomas is a Zapotec pueblo famous for its weaving and a possible start place for the Feather Dance, a famous six hour long dance with elaborate costumes that depicts the war between Moctezuma and Cortes. We met with the artisans and the children and then we let up the mountain behind the pueblo for a view of the valley bellow and a history lesson on the pueblo which is thought to be older then even Monte Alban.
Yesterday we went on another trip to yet another market in yet another pueblo. This market was full of sellers for almost anything a person could possibly need. Meats, breads, fruits and veggies, pots, bags, clothes, sweets, whistles, pinatas and even live chickens and goats could be bought. We split into small groups and went around tasting everything and chatting with the sellers. We ate churro's, banana's, molle, cactus fruit, roasted peanuts in the shell, cocoa beans, empanadas with cheese, chicken and salsa, sweet breads and pastries. With the help of our teacher Oman
I bargained for and bought a little painted pot carved out of a gourd, for 75 pesos, $7.50.
When we got back we brought out the cake and piñata we had bought for Steve’s birthday and had a fiesta in the school. That night some of us went out and celebrated at a funky little place with collage covered walls.
As I sit here writing this, drinking my sweet cinnamon tea, I am amazed that it has only been one week since I arrived here.
xoxo
S
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