conor.net: emails: Gringos

Teacher Sian

So we are now teachers which is really scary. Some poor people are relying on us for their English education. We keep telling ourselves that we are okay as we are fluent at least. It�s not as bad as all that though it is really tiring. The classes are an hour and a half long and there is alot of preparation time. You try keep a class occupied that long. There are also different age groups,I have one class where the youngest is 10 and the eldest is 57. I keep sending all these mental apologies to my teachers in school. I am so sorry for being a little brat if I had any idea howstressful teaching can be i would have been a little angel.

There is always one or two serious brats in the class and i am constantly surprising myself when i start to discipline. I sound like a cross between 3 or 4 different teachers from school. It can actually be a bit of a power buzz at times.

It�s a bit of pain having to do the working thing again after such a fantastic holiday. We really had an amazing time. New Years was all right but was definitly not the night of our lives. I wasn�t really expecting it to be but we were a little disappointed that absoloutly nothing came out of the big scary Y2K thing. It would have been so cool if something happened. There was a huge army presence all over Mexico because they thought the Zapatistas were going to start a massive rebellion but even they didn�t do anything. Highly disappointing.

From all the tales I�ve heard from Dublin, nothing incredible went down anywhere. Did anyone have a night to remember and to tell their children about when they ask where you were for the 2000 thingy.

Back to Poza Rica. It is not the most exciting place in the world but we really haven�t has any time to explore because of teaching and panicing about teaching. We have a day off today so we�re going to go check out something other than the school,the supermarket, the house and the busstation. We are staying in a lovely house with two other teachers who are really sound. One of them is actually our boss. Apparently we live in a really dodgy area, or so my students keep telling me. They can�t believe it when I tell them where we live. It�s a poor area with a big drug problem. Yeah I see the poverty big time but no sign of any dealers and trust me we have been looking. The street is really bizarre. There is about 5 or 6 houses like ours with two stories and really quite big. Then the rest of the street is a mix of shacks with corragated iron roofs or one floor houses with the top of it burnt out or half of it is missing. Some of the houses/shacks have no windows or doors. There are cocks and hens and chickens, lots of dogs, donkeys and mad shit going down.

There is a definite social hierarchy in Mexico. The darker you are the lower down the scale you are and different social classes don�t mix. On our street we are the gringos who live in the big house. You will walk down the street and nonone will speak to you until you say hello first then you end up saying Hello about 100 times as you walk down the road. Despite the fact that it is a dodgy area, no one will harm the gringos. Before we moved in the house was burgaled and there was outrage because you don�t do that to the gringos.

It�s wierd because even with all the hail the gringo shit it does not stop the men being lecherous bastards. Aoibheann you were right complete building site mentality. I wonder if they actually beleive that hissing at you and oogling and wolf whistling at you will make you stop and go " Atually yeah do you want to come back to my place" The funniest is in the mornings. My first class is at seven and I have to leave the house about 6:30am. As you turn on to the main road there are literally hundreds of Mexican men waiting for the trucks to come to see if they can get work on the farm. When I turn the corner there is usually about 5 trucks in a row full of men. The guy at the back notices me firstand he starts and then it moves on until All 5 truck loads are whistling. It�s actually quite funny. But you can do without it at 7 in the morning.

Attitudes towards women here are arachaic. The whole breadwinner/ homemaker thing is evident and that�s how they live. I have a class of girls all around the same age as us. We were doing the future tense and I asked them what they thought they would be doing in 5 years time and everyone said they would be married with kids. Most of these girls are also in university and doing stuff yet they will give all that up when they marry. The family comes first. If you become pregnant when you work in a bank you have to resign and go have your sprogs. I can see that I have my work cut out here. The classroom is the best place to start. I can spread my revoloutionary message and they have to listen because I am the teacher and I said so.

The girls are in good form but we are all knackered. I am going to go now and read the Irish Times to find out what is going on in the world. I am still on the Pro Choice Mailing list so at least I�m up to date on the abortion thing.

I am not sure of some addresses so I have sent this to variations of what I think it is. So sorry to anyone who got sent this and does not know who the fuck teacher Sian is.

Drop me a line and let me know all your news.
Hasta Luego,

Sian

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo