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Dancing for Mother's Day
The best group of dancers where really excelent and their costumes amazing. This weeks most annoying event has been my contraction of an irritating, Mexican illness. It is really only a cold and I will survive but not being able to breath through my nose and looking like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer have not really been enjoyable experiences. Luckily though this week has also been full of fun things to fill my time too.
Last Tuesday, Beto took Anne and me to a football (soccer) match. It was Chivas, one of Guadalajara´s 2 local teams, against an Argentinian side in the quater finals of the American Clubs Championship, basically an Pan America UEFA. It was quite exciting as everyone was supporting the Mexican side and I soon employed my ability to switch allegience to wherever it is required (applies to sporting matches only) to fully support our club. Unfortunately the nil-all score line did not reflect the match and it was frustrating at how many chances Chivas got but were unable to finish off. There was still plenty of action though to keep us occupied while drinking out liter of Sol and eating Palomitas (popcorn). I have also been swotting up on Spanish football vocab ahead of the world cup.
School
Secondaria Tecnica No 50, Zapopan, 1st and 2nd grade classrooms School, as usual, has been full of distractions. Including, mother´s day celebrations and preparing from Mother´s day celebrations, such as making paper flowers during our lessons and choir practices. It really is a wonder these children manage to learn anything.
On Mother´s Day itself, with no lessons to give, Anne and I headed down to Chapala, a town on Lake Chapala about 40km south of Guadalajara. Really it was just a normal Mexican town on a lake which itself is nice but not a spot in colour, beauty or size on Lake Titicaca, the last lake I visited. The low-water level, caused by the provision from the lake of water to both Mexico City and Guadlajara, leaves a small wet-land around the lake which is also a breeding ground for insects of every type which then flew around biting and generally irritating me. We did have a nice lunch-snack though of guacamole and tostadas while listening to a kind of Mexican mother´s day kareoke. Only here!
Mother´s day celebration at school was really nice and was an excellent indication (if one were needed) of just how important family here is Mexico is. Anne and I were treated just
Dirty Feet
My feet after a shower - Mexico is not the place to come if you want to be a sandle model, the dirt just layers and scrubbing doesn´t help! like all the real mothers who came into school to watch their children celebrate from receiving a little badge that said "Felicidades Mamá" (Congratulations Mummy) and a flower to receiving the flyer reminding us to vote for the PRI in Mexico´s upcoming elections because to them "Mothers are really important". This actually seems to make up the majority of their manifesto and worryingly they have a lot of support despite their last stretch in power (ending in 2000) lasting for 60 years after the population were denied the right of free and fair elections - I don´t think anyon here really understands Mexican politics, including possibly many of the politicians.
The mother´s day celebrations started in the rain - the second time I´ve seen rain since I´ve been here (6 weeks - hehe!) and so it was a cool morning which saw the children in their traditional costumes, many of which were made by their mothers especially for the occation, perform their traditional dancing and singing. Much of their performance was excellent, particularly the local Jaliscan dance and the singing. Some of the dancing however was slightly, um, under-rehearsed I think would be polite, but I still couldn´t help
Lake Chapala
Lake Chapala at Chapala feeling so proud for all the children who put in so much effort - you would never get this many kids from a UK state secondary to stand up and sing/speak/dance/play in front of 1000 mothers and their classmates. Especially not dressed in traditional costumes. There was also a raffle and bizaarly, although the numbers had been on the invitations to the event, every number was claimed by someone present, it seems, every mother had come. The prizes though made Anne and me have to stiffle the disire to burst out laughing, these mums were not receiving packs of luxurious toiletries or boxes of chocs, or flowers or chamagne, instead each winner was presented with a beautifully wrapped collection of ... kitchen goods and processed foods! Washing-up liquid, vegetable oil, tuna, dried beans and limescale remover. hey were well-presented tombola prizes, but each winner seemed genuinely thrilled. It was lovely.
It is amazing to wonder just how much the event must have cost the school, with the equipment to make the badges and invites, the flowers, the costumes, the sodas provided to all the audience, and more microphones than MMPS could afford in all four years I was involved
Escorts
The mothers (and us) got escorted to our seats by the boys in traditional dress. (all very embarassing for them!) put together, it can´t have been cheap for a school which, while not poor, doesn´t seem to have enough textbooks for every student and doesn´t have equipment such as OHPs. I guess it´s all a question of priorities and resource allocation, much of the money available probably isn´t controlled by the school anyway.
This week´s distraction is teacher´s day. We had Monday off school, then Tuesday was a festival with, you´ve guessed it, more dancing (actually this is getting a bit tedious, and the most exciting buit was when a stay dog wondered onto the playground where they were dancing and did a poo - and I missed this because I was buying orange juices!) then on Friday there are no classes and instead the teachers have a day out. 3 days of no classes to celebrate what a good job teachers do. Hmm.
We also went to the cinema this week to see "Una Pelicula de Huevos" - A Film about Eggs. It was actually very funny, although I really didn´t understand everything. It´s in the cartoons for children and adults category and I think our understanding was probably set at about the age-8 level. The whole things was clearly full of references to famous Mexican people, events, films and books and loads of word puns that we just didn´t know, but we did at least recognise where most of these jokes should have been (even though we were almost the only ones in the cinema) so my Spanish must be improving. We also saw the film "Le Tren de Vie" on video and I was amazed by how much French I can remember. Even with French actors and Spanish subs I was not difficult to watch at all, although I have since been slipping in a few random French phrases into my Spanish, bother.
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Beryl M
non-member comment
Gosh! What a diary!
Its fun getting news of the travels! You will have to put it into a book one day! I must say I often recall super travelling days and cant wait to do more when earning my living (more like holding the fort (just)!)allows! I look forward to catching up with you when you are back in the U.K. love, Beryl