Comitan and the Lagos de Montebello

Peace and quiet at last. Sitting at Helen's Enrique Restaurant (no joke, that was the name) in the center of Comitan, I listened carefully to see if I really could hear what I thought I was hearing...almost nothing!
Comitan, a smallish city about 3 hours from Tuxtla near the Guatemalan border, made me feel like I wasn't in Chiapas anymore. In Tuxtla, the NOISE LEVEL always seems way too high (See my entry, 'Cultural Bumps'), and in nearby San Cristobal I find more tranquility, aside from being pestered to buy, buy, buy from local peddlers. Comitan was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. There were almost no horns beeping, chains clanging, people screaming "agua", music blaring... just quiet chatter, a few cars, and a group of birds in a tree.
Not only was Comitan quiet, but it was also quite CLEAN!! Not once did I smell that faint sewage smell that I catch a whiff of, ironically, in front of the Human Development Office on my street, and there was little or no litter in the street. And no tourists! Not that tourists are dirty, but they do fit into the "detracting from my experience" catagory, and they make up at least 1/2 the people you see in San Cristobal.
Comitan was only supposed to be a transfer point between Tuxtla and the Lagos (Lakes) de Montebello, a series of at least 12 lakes of varying blue hues. The lakes turned out to be quite pretty, but it was Comitan that was adorable. And cheap! We stayed for 7 US per person per night, it cost about 12 US for round-trip transportation to Comitan and 5 r/t to get to the Lakes, and 5 US per person to have a guide drive us to 13 different lakes, including one that borders Guatemala, for the afternoon. I think including food, this weekend was all-inclusive for about 50 US.

Attention Walmart Shoppers...

If you know me at all lately, you read that headline and thought, "Here comes a blurb about 'The Man'..." Well, I will try not to be too indoctrinating, but a Walmart just opened about a kilometer from me, and I cringe every time I see it. One doesn't have to look far for reasons to be uneasy about the number one...commercial empire? in the world. They are known for low wages, bad benefits, and doing anything to undercut the competition. I was also told of a store (a Sam's Club) that closed near Albany, NY, and employees showed up to work only to be told the same day that the store was closed and they didn't have a job.
I went grocery shopping Sunday and they were playing music and making balloons for kids...basically doing a song and dance circus routine to try to keep their customers who might run to Walmart in hopes of lower prices. They had marked on a ton of their merchandise their price and Walmart's price, to show that theirs was lower. And who can blame them for putting up a fight? Even those who have a choice won't usually choose to pay more on purpose. But sometimes one has to think of what's behind the low prices, which is usually little guys like those saving money who really pay.

Creature [dis]comforts

I was warned before my arrival, by a former teacher from Canada, to expect large insects. I have to pat myself on the back and say that I have been handling these new "friends" much more calmly than I (or any of my few readers) may have imagined. Dad, that means you don't have to move down here to take all of the spiders outside!
Here are a few pictures of some "friends" (insects, spiders, salamander/gecko things) that have graced my apartment with their medium- to large-sized presence. Also there's one or two thrown in from the outside environment. It's 90 degrees Fahrenheit in October, so these bugs on steroids are the price I pay.

Cultural...bumps

Now that I'm into my third month in Mexico, I'd like to take the time to address some cultural differences that could potentially get on my nerves, or that I find interesting.

Class
To put it simply, you either have a maid here, or you are a maid. The middle class is small, and most people have everything or have nearly nothing. To risk overgeneralizing, most people are not shy about making their status known. Even at work, there are those who give orders and those who do. And there seems to be little or no resentment/protest on the part of those receiving the orders; it seems like this is just "how things are" here, and how they've been for a long time.
At the beginning of the year, I went to a student's birthday party. Arriving early, I asked what I thought was the family if I could help them set up. I received strange looks and polite instructions to just sit down somewhere. As it turned out, these were people who worked for the party hall, clearly hired to set up for the family, and as a guest, offering to help set up, clean up, or lift much of a finger, you are usually refused.

Noise Level
I read in a book I bought called "Living in Mexico" that the culture is louder here, sometimes people talk at the same time, etc., and I said, I can dig. Well, I can dig, but it's a tad frustrating to NEVER have a quiet moment, and to have students who are slowwwwwwwwly learning what it means to work quietly and independently.
The water trucks make noise. The gas trucks have chains behind them to signal their presence. Taxis and collectivos constantly beep to alert riders who might want to flag them down. Multiple grown adults in my building BLAST music. People shout to get others' attention instead of going to them. The list goes on... it is NEVER quiet here. Never a dull moment. Even at school, during recess there is constant shrieking far beyond the noise level of a playground back home, and many children SCREAM when the bell rings to end recess, every day, even though at this point it is not a surprise.

Standing Out
There is NO way for me to blend in here. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and I am melanin-impaired. Because of this, I feel like half celebrity, half freak show. The only time I feel sort of normal is at school, because almost half the teachers are foreigners like myself. Otherwise, I'm subject to stares, and sometimes hisses, whistles, and 'mamacitas' from the menfolk. And, no one thinks twice about calling us gringos or gueros (whities, basically). It's amusing...but sometimes I would just like to go a day, or an hour outside, without being stared at!
As a not-bonus for standing out, I often get offered "gringo" prices at the market... c'est a dire, the market vendors know immediately I'm probably not from these parts, they see dollar signs in their heads, and think I won't notice paying a little more than a local might pay. No way, folks! I live and work here; I earn pesos! I will barter with the best of them, so to speak.

Manana...
Nothing ever happens on time. I'm getting quite used to making few or no plans, and then even having the few things I think *might* happen not happen, or at least not when/how I thought they would. Things are a lot more...relaxed here in Tuxtla. No one's in a hurry to get things done, although sometimes outward appearances would tell you that all is going well and is organized. This even continues at school, where the teachers are supposed to plan a week ahead but then be okay with last-minute interruptions, lost prep periods, etc. I've found it easier to laugh and adapt rather than get my shorts in a knot, mostly because doing the latter wouldn't do any good.

Probably more to come...

How am I still alive?

I must be a cat...

I think I've used up a good share of my nine lives, though, since I've been here, and most or all of them have been used on transportation. My ride to work in the colectivo, for starters, is trying at best and perilous at worst. And many private cars don't have seatbelts, or at least they're tucked under the seats and not reachable.

I really didn't think I was going to survive this weekend, though, on my way to Tapachula with my roommate, my roommate's partner teacher (the 6th grade Spanish teacher), and her husband. Her husband was the driver, and he rarely drove below 75mph on NOT straight strips of highway. He slowed down to maybe 55 for the switchback mountain curves. How nice of him. We left at midnight, and in theory we were supposed to be sleeping overnight while he drove, but I think I could sleep better in a rickshaw. I woke up at one point, and wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep at the wheel. Realizing he hadn't, I said to Shelly, "I was hoping he hadn't fallen asleep at the wheel, but now that I think about it, if he did fall asleep, the driving might actually improve!" She replied, "Yeah, I think he thinks he's Mario Andretti." "Or in Mario Kart," I retorted. This drive was even worse than our bus trip home from Puerto Escondido, where the bus took the same dangerous curves (curvas peligrosas!) at speeds that exceeded safety, to put it nicely.

When we actually arrived Saturday morning in Tapachula, it seemed surreal that we'd survived! Sirley (my roommate's partner teacher) and the cousin of her husband that we took along, didn't seem to notice that we'd been tossed like ragdolls due to high speeds and Formula 1-like moves, as well as some sort of tire alignment issue that made the ride feel like a roller coaster in some parts.

We were escorted through Sirley's mother's house just before the crack of dawn and taken to our room... on the roof! No lie. Don't mistake this as being ungrateful; we were really happy to go to Tapachula with Sirley and to stay with her family, who were gracious hosts, and her husband didn't let us spend a penny (one time when the machismo thing here comes in handy), but sleeping on the roof was hilarious! We had cement block walls, a tin roof with a one-foot gap between the wall and it, and a bathroom semi-enclosed in plywood. The second night, a BIRD flew into our room, sending us shrieking under the covers. I figured it wasn't a bat...it wasn't fast or low enough.

Saturday, after our catnap (no intended reference to my nine lives), we checked out some Mayan ruins nearby and then hit the downtown area. I use the term "downtown" loosely here, as it was smaller than Tuxtla and not overly happening. There were some interesting snacks, though, like freshly made root beer. We then went to a place similar to Chipalin (here in Tuxtla) where you buy a drink for 2-3 USD and food comes with it. LOVE these places. I love anything where the food is, or seems, free.

Accompanying us on Saturday was "el diablo" (the devil), or Sirley's 2-2.5 year old nephew Gael who is used to being played with roughly by his family members. I would try to be nice to him, and he would hit me. Finally by day two, he realized I wasn't going to throw a shoe at him, so I received smiles and waves instead of kicks and whacks.

Sunday morning I awoke to find a cocoon in my sheets. That's all I can think it could be... some fuzzy gray domelike structure cemented onto the sheets. I was a little more than grossed out that I found this cocoon after I slept in those sheets for two nights!

We were supposed to leave that day at 11am. Those of you who have any concept of how time is treated here may have already guessed that we didn't leave at 11am. Or noon. Or 2pm, like the third estimate. Instead of leaving, we went to the beach for lunch and fun, and at 3pm, our driver, Mario (real name Daniel, fyi), was snoozing in a hammock, hat over his face.

At 5:30pm, we were ready to leave, but not until we learned that "la prima" (cousin) had her husband coming with us (he works in Tapachula). Six people in a car that uncomfortably sits five... where will we put the sixth person? Logic clearly states that the sixth person has to sit in the back with the bags, of course. Of course...

This led to a great idea... why don't we put all of the bags into larger plastic bags, grab some pink twine, and strap them to the roof?? GREAT idea, since Mario will surely have star power in his foot and floor it all the way home over bumps and curves. I thought Shelly was going to wet her pants when I mentioned the similarity between this idea and the ideas of middle schoolers or high schoolers (or even college students, who am I kidding) when left to their own devices. But there were no adults to say that this was a bad idea, since those who'd thought of this genius plan were the adults. Shelly and I opted to keep out bags at our feet. Better cramped than bagless.

Somehow we got back to Tuxtla alive, and with luggage. Seven hours off schedule. But really, do schedules exist here?

The pictures include: Me and the biggest hamburger I've ever had, "el diablo", me in a cocoon before I found a cocoon in the sheets, Daniel the driver sleeping and me ready to go and an engraving from the Mayan ruins.

September Spanish du jour

I'm still trying to keep track of new and/or interesting words that I encounter. Here they are for September:

9-1 hoja (sheet [of paper])
9-2 rompehuesos (bonebreaking)
9-3 nalgas or nalchas, not sure (buttcheeks)
9-4 wey (castrated bull; insult or greeting, depending)
9-5 tijeras (scissors)
9-6 diente flojo (loose tooth)
9-7 resistol (glue, b/c of the brand)
9-8 pegar (to glue, to stick)
9-9 arbitro (referee)
9-10 federales (federal employees/officials)
9-11 cola (animal tail, or a line)
9-12 estuche (pencil case)
9-13 un pedo ( a fart)
[Vacation]
9-16 pinche olas (freakin' waves)
9-17 moscas (flies)
9-18 bronceador (sunscreen/bronzer? not sure which)
9-19 cajeta (caramel)
9-20 junta (another word for meeting)
9-21 chistoso (funny)
9-22 pastanas (eyelashes)
9-23 paquete (package)
9-24 rompecabeza (puzzle, lit. "headbreaker")
9-25 suceder (to happen), Que sucedio? (What happened?)
9-26 unas (nails)
9-27 conejito (bunny)
9-28 hazmerreir (laughingstock, a "makemelaugh")
9-29 bomberos (firefighters)
9-30 carril (lane [of traffic])

My Kids

I have to admit, when I first started off this year, I was wondering what exactly I'd gotten myself into. My six- and seven-year-old students in first grade are in many ways more immature and dependent than my four-year-old charges were this summer in D.C., and this came somewhat as a shock. It is very much the result of a culture where children are babied moreso than in the states, and the children at my school are quite wealthy, so they don't really have to lift a finger at home. Some of them cut their paper right over the floor. Y'know, to save the trouble of having to brush it off of their desk onto the floor.
But, I also have to admit that they're adjusting to me, which means I won't talk to them if they're yelling "Teacher! Teacher! Finished!" until I come to them, and not cutting their paper over the floor, and I've adjusted to them being a little more needy than kids their age would be in the Land of Autonomy. All in all, they're growing on me, even the kids that, at the beginning of the year, I wasn't sure I'd grow to like.
Last week, the third grade teacher, Glenn, came to do a science and bubble show for my lovelies. Here I am posting some pictures from that adventure. There's also one or two from "mufty day", what they call Friday because the kids can come in their...mufties? I don't know, it just means they're out of uniform. Aren't they cute?
Above: Mr. Glenn getting his bubble on for group 1A.
Right: Gustavo in a bubble!
Below: Sergio, Arturo, Siu, Alejandra, Andres, and Gustavo.
Below that: Joseline, Ixchel, and Maria Jose on the reading rug.