Visit to a Local School

Today we visited the Colegio Excelencia Bilingue, a private school that serves kids from preschool (K1-3) through 9th grade. Beginning next year, Mexico has made it mandatory that students begin learning English in preschool. This school, which costs about $2500 pesos ($220 US) a month, teaches students in K-3 (kindergarten) to read first in English, and then Spanish, as it is easier to transition to reading Spanish after learning all of the different vowel souds in English. Spanish vowels only have one pronunciation, always.
Teachers here earn between $550-$800 US dollars a month. Secondary school (grades 7-9) is mandatory for all children, but ends at age 15. Answers have varied widely, but many students do not continue their education into the years we would consider high school in the US. But for the students in this school and most other private schools in Mexico, students almost always continue their schooling up to and including college. There is, however, a severe shortage of available spaces in colleges for many who apply.
Upon arrival today, the students were listening to and singing Michael Jackson! It was classic. Then they serenaded us with theri ABCs. And during our tour, we could hear the older kids cheering loudly as they competed in a schoolwide Spelling Bee. Nellie, a 5th grader, was in tears after she won the contest, which was in English. The experience, I felt, gave us much to appreciate about our educational opportunities in the States. It left me with much admiration for the devoted teachers in Mexico, and their dedicated students, all of whom were incredibly respectful to their visitors from the United States. I wish I had gotten the winning word...

First Full Day

We met our host families yesterday, and how nice it was to see mi mama, Dora, again. I've never been surrounded by so many genuine and nice people as I have here in Cuernavaca, and it didn't take long for me to remember how special it is to be here. We are working hard in our Spanish language classes for three hours every morning. This afternoon we took a tour of the city, which included the Palacio de Cortez. The fortress was constructed by Cortez in the early 1500s atop an indigenous temple from which much of the building borrowed its stones. Today, it is a museum with pre and post colonial artifacts as well as some incredible murals by Diego Rivera.

Mercado municipal

On the first day that we went to school, it only took ten minutes to see something noteworthy of my journal. On the way there, we passed the Mercado municipal. This common market was very busy to be so early in the morning and smelled very much like trash. Outside this market there were two S10 pickup trucks with the beds entirely full of fresh, butchered red meat; all raw, sitting out in open air. It was probably 80 degrees outside at the time.

Welcome to Mexico

I was reminded today as we flew over Mexico city how crowded Mexico City is. Depending on the parameters, it is the third most populated city or urban area in the world with nearly 25 million people, and you can definitely tell this just from the flight over the city. Every block is so packed with structures.

Customs took about an hour, as usual, and sadly, after we made it through, Mexico was already down 2-0 to Argentina in the Copa Mundial. We watched the game from the airport cafe while the group exchanged currency. Many of us were looking forward to being in Mexico during the Cup and hopefully catching a game among the Mexican people while cheering on their team. We are still lucky to be here in a country that appreciates "the beautiful game" for the quarterfinals and championship, though. Luckily we have a free day on the 2nd of July to watch the games with the Mexican people. What a treat that will be!

Pre-departure thoughts

It has been 3 years since I had the privilege of traveling to Mexico, my favorite country away from home. Leaving my new wife of less than a year for 6 weeks is a bit difficult, even with her unwavering support from the very beginning, but I'm looking forward to seeing all my Mexican friends I have kept in contact with again. I also look forward to seeing the magical places like Tepoztlan, Xochicalco, and Malinalco again. I also hope I can finally learn some new tenses in the Spanish language, so I "know enough to get out of trouble, not just into trouble," as one native speaker once told me :).