Friday, March 4, 2011

Well, here it is ladies and gentlemen. My home-sweet-home for the coming year. I did the deed, I sealed my fate, I realigned the stars and accepted the job in Tuxtla Gutierrez.

I've never even been to Mexico. In high school I would see people come back from their authentic Mexican experiences in Cancun or Acapulco. Corn-rowed hair and peeling noses distinguished them from my own pasty self and marked their status as "cool". Now I'm gonna be the one with the corn-rows. Bitches.

But in all seriousness, I am excited to know another country and have some more responsibility at my job. I'm slightly nervous - and when I say slightly it's only because it's still a full six months into the future - but my backup plan for when I'm in front of the kids is just to talk really really fast and kind of slur a bit so they won't understand if I'm saying anything stupid. It's going to be a really good year, I'm sure of it.

I'll be teaching 5th grade for two different classes; each grade is divided in half and group A takes classes with Mexican professors in the morning while I teach group B, and then midway through we swap. So I won't be teaching English but rather core subjects in English. Really hoping that long-division is not a part of the 5th grade curriculum in Mexico.

My new home's claim to fame is that it is the capital of "Mexico's most southern and poverty-stricken province, Chiapas. A province dominated by indigenous Indian communities and largely excluded from any capitalist development. Ninety percent of indigenous households in the state are without electricity and running water." Just to be clear, I will not be living in an indigenous household. Chiapas is also where the Zapatista movement took place in the '90s. More importantly, the average year-round temperature is 25 degrees Celsius - like 80 Fahrenheit, and they are big producers of coffee. Boo-yah. I think we're going to get along.

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