My Month in Mexico

It has been exactly 4 weeks from today, Thursday, that I have been in Mexico

Give or take a few hours.

My brother Nate recently came back from a trip to Tokyo, and will soon be going to Singapore for another business trip this week. He and his wife Jessica (who is currently carrying my very first ever niece!) have a cute little blog about their adventures in Chicago that Nate occasionally posts on. He posted a Lessons Learned blog about his experience in Tokyo so I thought I would steal that to document things that I have learned in the past 4 weeks that I have been here.

1. The Spanish word for 'tired' is one letter off from the word that means 'married'

I can't tell you how many times my Dad has tried to get me to say 'I'm married' as opposed to 'I'm tired'. He thinks it's the funniest thing in the world. I also can't tell you how many times I have mixed those up in public settings. I have decided to just stop telling anyone that I am tired.

2. You always eat more tortillas than you think you are

Our family eats tortillas with every single meal here. It doesn't matter what we're eating, there has to be tortillas on that table so you can put whatever your main entree is inside of the tortilla and stuff your face. You may think that you've only eaten one when actually you might have just put away 10 of those small little flour demons.

3. Don't take anything personally.

If you are light skinned and don't have dark hair in Mexico- you are going to be stared at. It's just a fact of life. If you are light skinned, don't have dark hair, and have blue eyes- it's worse. I have decided to just take this as a license to do any sort of silly, random thing I want whilst walking on the street because they will still continue to stare at me the same as if I hadn't done anything at all. It's kind of liberating...

4. When someone whistles, it does NOT mean you should turn around.

I feel this doesn't need an explanation

5. Leave the seller someone irked.

If you see a trinket at a local market that you really really really want- you should always leave having paid less than they initially tell you. They start the prices out really high any way, so if you are able to get the price low enough that the seller seems a little peeved, that means they made far less of a profit than they wanted. It doesn't mean they didn't make one,  you just got a good deal.

6. Get really good at taking 2 minute showers.

I have this down to a science now. Because if I am lucky enough to get a hot shower, I am never naive enough to assume it will stay that way. I wet my hair in the sink first to save me that thirty seconds of soaking my head. Forget about doing those little extras like washing your face or brushing your teeth. 

* I am so grateful for shower shoes.

7. Over prepare, and then go with the flow.

Teaching has been one of the funniest experiences of my life. My kids are SO adorable, and I love them to pieces. But one thing I realized quickly is that lessons rarely go exactly how you plan when you are teaching English to 6 year olds. One class I had that was supposed to be about Big Cats and Little Cats somehow turned into a 10 minute game of Bubble-gum. Don't ask me how. So I immediately came to the conclusion that the way I initially planned on teaching wasn't going to work out. I had to plan for every possible re-route or U-turn that my lesson could take, because when your teaching method is based purely on the concept of speech- it can run wild. So I decided that even though the preparation would take longer than the actual class, it was worth it to see a class that went smoothly and was filled with good conversations. 

* I have a little girl in my class named Aylen. Whenever I ask her a question and she gets it right, she does a cross over her body then kisses her hand and puts it towards heaven and says "Oh! Tank you teacherr.". One of the cutest things ever.

8. If a Mexican ever offers to make you a hamburger, LET HIM.

Last weekend we went to see the Pyramids in Teotihaucan

Anyway we had to get up at 2 to catch our bus and we didn't get home until about 8. So, needless to say, we were STARVING after. So we went to this cart close to our school and saw this guy making hamburgers! They didn't look very exciting at first, until he proceeded to put salsa, jalapenos, diced carrots, bacon, ketchup and mustard on top. I realize this might repulse some people, but lemme tell you- it was heaven.

9. Sometimes, all you need is a hug.

It has been a crazy experience being here. The culture shock, the distance from America, trying to get my handle on teaching kids who speak a different language, sometimes even trying to figure out which bus to get on is a huge struggle. I have probably only cried once, but I have had several times where I just think to myself, "What am I doing here?" 

Needless to say my other group members have had their moments as well, and my roommate Carly has been a huge asset to adjusting to this transition. And one day I was having a really hard day, and my head teacher Kate just pulled me into a nice big hug. It was very familiar, and made me realize that I hadn't hugged anyone for a while! It's something I did all the time in the States (for all of you people recoiling at the mushiness of this subject, I'm sorry, I'm emotional like that). And it helped a TON. 

10. You can never have too many cathedrals.

They are everywhere. Especially in city centers (which are called Zocalos here), they are on every corner. A lot of them have incredibly beautiful architecture, with really elaborate designs and murals and such- most of them depicting Christ being crucified. 

They are all beautiful in their own way, but you know what Church I still love most? 

It's the one with the little room that I meet in every Sunday with just enough room for about 40 people. 

The one with very little decorations on the walls.

Where I sing Hymns that I don't understand very well.

Where I get a hello and a handshake from every person I pass.

Where even though I don't understand the words, I still understand the feeling.

The one with some of the most humble, faithful people I have ever met.

And the one that I plan on sticking with for as long as I can fathom.

This is my Church. And it's the same in any country.

And that is the only consistency that I need.

So, here is to a great month of lessons and many more to come. 

Love you all,

McKenna

Did you know

that Mexicans don't waste anything?

I mean seriously, when it comes to cooking or storage, or any sort of domestic thing- they know how to re-use things. 

You know how Americans always have one of those cupboards filled with tupperware and somehow there's always a million lids missing, and it has to be organized every month because you just need so many tupperwares to store your food in?

It doesn't exist here.

All food that is stored or refrigerated is held by either a yogurt container that the family has gone through, a used jar, or the wrap that it came in in the first place.

It's a no-hassle, no-tupperware world I am living in. 

And you know what, I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that more families can afford niceties like that in America, or that tupperware isn't as well-known here. I think that the Mexican family community just realizes that there is a necessity in everyones lives to make sure that nothing goes to waste.

Do you know what my kitchen garbage can looks like? (Everyone quickly visualize the monster in your kitchen with the fancy lid that you have to step on in order to open it)

Mine looks like this.

That little grocery bag is my garbage can.

And you know what?

It's perfect for this family of 7 PLUS 2 American english teachers.

Amazing, isn't it??

I'm not saying I would successfully be able to adopt this sort of lifestyle back in my homeland, but I definitely think it's a quality to be admired. 

Far Overdue

Wow.

It has been one of the craziest weeks of my life thus far.

I have been going through some intense culture shock people, an yesterday was rooouugh.


I felt like going and sitting in the Wal-Mart just to feel closer to America.

But it's okay because guess what?

Today is Sunday!

Why do I love Sundays so much? 

Well let me see...

It's not just that I get to go to Church and be sprititually edified, no matter WHAT language I am listening to...

It's the peace and quiet of many other people and homes revitalizing themselves for the week ahead and contemplating on the past weeks events.

It's the meal that is near if not the exact same as every Sunday, and the feeling that you can never ever escape of being absolutely FAMISHED when you come home from Church (fasting or not, you come home from those 3 hours of meetings and you head straight for the box of cheez-its)

It is the family walks, and games and time that is spent to just forget the rest of the world and enjoy the awesome gift we all have of being here.

A Sunday in the Cruz home:

- Carly and I wake up at 7:45 to get in the shower

-Carly gets out of bed, I don't

-The shower is occupied so Carly sits and waits while I catch up on snuggling with my blanket

- We realize that this someone in the bano is having a bad hair day, can't shave well, or REALLY likes to brush their teeth so we clean our room and pick out our outfits while we wait (while doing so realizing that living together has caused us to start dressing a little bit like twin sisters..)

-Hallelujah! The door to the bathroom is open so Carly sneaks in and hops in the shower while I brush the teeth and wash the mug

- We get dressed and load up in the van to go to our 9 o'clock church

- We read other literature during the Sacrament meeting (sriptures, preach my gospel, ensign etc.)

- Sunday School= repeat sacrament activities

- Today our sunday school teacher asked if we could read the verses she asks us to to remain "part of the class" I give her an example of me reading a verse in Spanish. She gets it.

- I make a goal of learning more Spanish 

- Intently watch the passion and conviction that is our group of women in Relief Society. I don't care that there's language barriers, I know exactly how these women feel about the Gospel and being members of the Church. It is a wonderful thing to see in a tiny, cramped, cold space of a room. Talk about inspiring examples? Tyra Banks cannot even touch the word fierce in comparison to Mexican women.

- Go home and stub my foot hard core stepping over the metal door frame. There was blood.

- Watch while stunned as my sisters and cousin rush me to the bathroom, stick my foot in the sink, wash my grody toe, put a cotton alcohol swab on it and band-aid it to perfection. Total. Sweet. Hearts.

Thanks so much for documenting this Carly Kay. You're a gem.

- Mess around with Carly in our room taking pictures.

- Then we all make dinner together, and just like last Sunday Carly and I get to make the orange juice!! We really like this job. Even if it is a way for our madre to get us out of the kitchen and stop saying "Necessitas ayudar? Necessitas ayudar?" Which means, need help?

HA! I think she looks kinda funny in this one.

Love ya Berg.

Pops showin us how its done.

-After we have stuffed ourselves to the brim with chicken, beans, tortillas, salsa, and the best guacamole you have ever tasted, we all take long nice siestas. 

-Wait, that might have just been me.

- THEN my favorite part of the day! Carly, Dad, Mom, Melany, Frida and me (grammar?) took a nice Sunday walk up up up the hill to this bad boy 

Puebla is the Capital of the state of Puebla, but this is just a Church and they're everywhere

- Our parents are adorable. So we stalked them up the hill.

 

-Finally got to the top of the hill

- Frida was trying to show off her push up skills so I thought I would join and make it a little competition.

-Victory! Age makes no difference.

-Playing hide and seek with the little sisters. Totally fun.

- Just some good ol' nonsense on the way back home 

So that was our Sunday, and now we are about to go eat a small dinner. 

If you will excuse me, I have to go and roll out some tortillas for my meal.

Because that is what people do in Mexico.

I'll tell you all about this little beauty down here next time :)

Missing and loving you all!

First Day of School

I've got my lunch pack packed, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Ohhhhh back to school

Name that movie!

Greetings everyone from my humble room, which looks like this...

Soccer posters of our brother Alonzo's adorn our walls. This is technically his room but he goes to a private LDS school in Mexico City and is away most weeks.

Our closet space and end of the bunk beds.

That's right. BUNK BEDS!

So fun.

Mine is the top bunk (the nicely made one, eh em Carly) and of course our Office calendar currently featuring Dwight K. Schrute.

No better way to feel at home then have Dwight stare at you while you're sleeping...

Lesson planning.

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of meeting our kids and introducing ourselves to what we are going to be spending most of our time doing here. The kids were absolutely adorable, albeit a little shy with a fresh batch of new teachers, but they were so well behaved, it was wonderful! This is Carly and I before school started, in our awesome teaching polos.

And after school ended and we had cleaned up. I said it was great, I didn't say it wasn't tiring..

This is Carly's classroom on the top floor of the school. She teaches the youngest batch of kids, mostly trying to get them used to speaking English, not as much comprehension as it is practicing the muscle movements and memorization.

My classroom is downstairs in the kitchen area. Our school is quite small, and doubles as a living space for our local coordinator Moroni (pronounced Moronee here) so we work with the space that we have. I will put up more pictures tomorrow of my school and the past few days we have been here.

My class roll:

Aylen

Cesar

Constanza

Luciana

Diana 

Gerrardo

Aranza

Gerlinda

My job is teaching the kids to read and practicing their functional fluency. The better they speak, the better they read so we go back and forth between word skill practice (consonants, digraphs, phonograms and prefix/suffixes) and activities that require extensive discussion.

Lesson planning is turning out to be a little bit more challenging than I expected, but its honestly a blast. I love teaching the kids, but its just so hard not to be friends with the little munchkins! Seriously, they're adorable. I would put pictures up, but I don't want to get sued or anything..

Fun fact: Saying goodbye to a group of people takes about 20-30 minutes because you kiss and hug each individual before you go. It is very endearing.

Fun fact: You ever head the "If it's yellow let it mellow.." phrase? That applies here.

Fun fact: I am going to get fat from all the scrumptious-ness that is served in this home.

Zumba, anyone?

On the Spicier Side of Life

I have arrived in Puebla.

And even though I have been here for two days, it already feels like a week.

We've mostly been organizing the discombobulation that is our school which means:

- Organizing the school supply closet
- Cleaning the desks, chairs, and walls. Thats right WALLS
- Making all of the necessary charts and posters needed for opening exercises
- Deciding who is teaching what levels
- Walking around like chickens with our heads cut off every once in a while
- Taking short breaks to chill on the patio because the weather here has been absolutely phenomenal!

My first meal in Mexico.

It's thick corn chips sitting in a type of salsa verde sauce (way spicy) drizzled with what I think is the Mexican equivalent of sour cream.

It wasn't so bad! I couldn't eat all of it because it was really spicy!

Carly: Whimp

Thank you, dear friend.

I apologize for the awkward expression. My face doesn't always look like this, I was just a little bit scared...

Anyway, there is much more to tell you and I have much more pictures, but I am currently a little bit swamped with having to practically outline an entire semester for my class and pioneer the curriculum because no one in my program seems to have a clear idea of how my class is to be organize. Fun, right? I

I'm actually REALMENTE excited. 

Monday we get to meet the kids and start class!!

Nervous?

Why yes. Yes, I am.

The One Where She Tells You the Real Reason Behind the Blog

Hi Friends!

Just so we all know, I am completely psyched about having started up this blog!

You: Why, McKenna?

I will tell you why..... Because up until now I felt that I had absolutely no good/ worthy reason to write about my life. I frankly thought it was simply too boring for me to get on maybe every week purely for the purpose of telling you about the goings on in my average life. I'm sure you all have dozens of familial blogs that you have obligations to read therefore very little time to pay attention to my incessant, pointless banter. It would become like a journal or something, and in my journals, lemme tell you- homegirl is whiiiiiiinneeeyy.

It is not at all pleasant. I strongly dislike re-reading my journals. Although it does remind me that I have made progress in my life. Thank goodness....

You: Ok McKenna. Gettin a little off-track here, soooo why did you start a blog then?

Ah! Glad you asked. Well folks....

I am leaving for Mexico in 5 days. 
 

So for those of you who were so confuzzled by my choice of blog title "What fiesta?! WHO'S HAVING A FIESTA???" I'm sure you were all wondering. BUT, you can all be put out of your misery now- there is a method to my madness.

And I will be there for 4 months, teaching English to adorable little ninos!

• Donde esta el bano? = Where is the bathroom?

• Lo siento, no hable ingles. = I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish.

• ¿Sabe usted dónde encontrar un Nordstrom? = Do you know where to find a Nordstrom? 

That last one, key.

I will be here.

 And here.

 Aaaand here.

 Eating this. Mmmmmm

And playing, what is hopefully, a lot of this.

And it's all because of this program riiiight here 

A few months ago I was accepted to the International Language Program to be a "student teacher" for a group of kids in either Mexico, Russia, Ukraine or China. I was initially assigned to Tehuacan, Mexico then transferred to Puebla, Mexico a few weeks ago.

I can not tell you how excited I am to be a part of this program! English is a huge commodity in foreign countries, and being able to learn English at an early age will be a doorway for the kids to better educations, jobs, opportunities and general improvement of their lives and their families lives. Mexico is obviously in a bit of a rut right now (no worries! I am completely safe and my family has done well in scaring me into an acute sense of awareness and slight paranoia that will aid me in not being stupid whilst I'm there. Hopefully. Plus we have lots of rules that prevent us from getting in dangerous situations. Mk pumpkins?) so I feel greatly motivated to be part of an effort which is leading towards a better future for the country's children.

And hey hey hey....

Guess who's coming with me????

THIS GIRL!!!!

My wonderful roommate since first semester (pictured with my other goofy faced roommate since first semester) Carly K Berg will be traveling with me from LAX to Mexico City and joining me in spending the next 4 months eating mountains of Mexican food, visiting the Mayan Temples, becoming acquainted with locals, getting incredibly good at soccer ( watch yo back Mia Hamm! Even though you're like, 40-something now), avoiding the 15 lbs which is rumored to be gained by EVERYONE who goes to Mexico (losing 5, right Carly?), teaching kids a language which we occasionally struggle with ourselves, weekly Office episodes on Hulu to try and keep up with our tradition at college, and every so often breaking down and crying, wondering why we ever left our American comforts in the first place.

So let me tell you a little bit about this girl, and why I am SO stoked that she's going to be my closest compadre on this expedition.

Carly Kay Berg

Roommate Extraordinaire

Her stats:

- She is the youngest in a family of five older brothers. So yeah, she's witnessed all sorts of horrors and gained tough skin through her traumas.

- She loves her Ducks. (Oregon)

- There is no one nicer than Carly. NO ONE! You're probably thinking to yourself "Well I have this one friend and he/she is actually really..." I'm stopping you right there! Because I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but you are wrong.

- She has the best bursting, loud laugh. I'm serious, you didn't know a noise like that could come out of a girl of that size.

- She's the one who told me about the program in the first place.Thanks doll!!!

- It's hilarious when she gets excited. Which is often.She giggles uncontrollably. And starts bouncing.

- She is the reason for about 80% of our apartments inside jokes. Not because they're about her or anything, she's just that funny.

-She is a peace maker. A common phrase for Carly is "Whatever is good for everyone else!" which is a precious commodity in our apartment of stubborn personalities.
- Her parents, Pat and Stacey (spelling?) seem to be very grateful that I am going to be there with her, when actually I should think it definitely the other way around- Homegirl's gonna be needing some definite comforting.
- I just lover her to pieces. End of story

Now that you're all up to date on where I'll be, who it will be with, and what I'll be doing for the next little chapter of my life, I just want to say one thing:

I have gotten several different responses about going on this trip. Both negative and positive. People telling me I'm a silly goose to spend money on going to teach English in a foreign country when people do that for free, or paid in other situations.

But I would just like to give a quick, little, itty-bitty, cutie patootie, shout out to all of my friends and family who have supported me through this whole process.

Including my roommates who listened to me through ALL of my going back and forth like a ping pong ball in indecision.

To all of you awesome, wonderful, loving, generous people: 

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

VIVA LA MEXICO!!