Impermanence & Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Nothing is permanent:  neither the dry spells which have seemed like I’m crossing the endless Altiplano desert, nor the downpours when love seems to rain down like hail and bonks me on the head. 

So I can’t get caught in either of them – thinking I’m nothing, thinking I’m everything.  I am neither, I am both.

Tonight at Amore Café with my English Salon group I felt a soft, warm rain.

I’d been resistant to starting this group.  The locals had been hounding me ever since I arrived in Rioverde:  Why am I not teaching English?  And I always reacted poorly:  Because that’s not why I came to Mexico!  For one thing, I had little free time between my two SEMARNAT Viva Viveros sustainability projects in the distant indigenous communities.  For another, and since the beginning, I’ve had this slight moral dilemma:  Isn’t teaching English sending a message that we are better, that you Mexicans must assimilate, versus taking pride in your local customs, language, culture?  

But more and more I’d been meeting Rioverdenses that already spoke English – it’s just that they didn’t speak it well and didn’t have much of a chance to practice.  And maybe learning English would not really decimate their sense of pride – just add to their toolbox of options – allow them to be a more effective part of the global economy which, admittedly, was being dominated by English.

Okay, so I’ve given in a little.  I’m not teaching formally – I refuse to prepare lesson plans. I want this to be fun and spontaneous and not a huge burden on me or the participants. So I’ve started leading this English conversation group on Monday nights – an early session for teens and a late one for adults – just conversation among people who already speak.  They had to be able to read and understand the flyer in order to participate.  Are you out of practice, have a limited vocabulary, or lousy pronunciation?  We will work on those things – as well as increase you confidence to converse with others.

At the first meeting we went around the circle:  where did you learn your English, I asked.  Some of them, wetbacks who’d worked on El Otro Lado, learned in the restaurants and on construction sites; others took intensive classes in one of the Easy or Fast English schools here in town; one fellow, Hector, learned by reading Hillary Clinton speeches!  The kids learned from TV, Internet and video games.

After a month of Mondays, I’ve found myself looking forward to these salons – they give me a chance to practice my English too!

Tonight we played Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.  How did I dredge that game up from my past? 

The idea just popped into my mind as I was organizing my backpack this morning and brainstorming internally about what to do with the group tonight.  Such rich words in and of themselves – animal, vegetable, mineral - categories within which to fit other words – and the chance to practice questioning.  

And it was a real hit – not just with the teens but the adults too.  I had chile gumball prizes leftover from my burro piñata for the winning team.  Patty and Mau were the powerhouse with only four guesses both times – once for turtle (animal), the other time for gold (mineral).  The hardest one was ant – David and Eric could not zero in – they were fixated on a furry animal and were not thinking of the insect world.  Omar and Carlos took a totally different path, skipping the first basic categorizing questions:   Is it an animal? Is it a vegetable?  And it took them 11 guesses to get to pumpkin. They got the boobie prize.

Some of the new words we posted on the flip-chart during the course of the night (yes, my facilitator flip-charting skills coming in very handy in this workshop) were:

·         Guess – guesser
·        Yummy =delicious
·        Zucchini = squash
·        Pickles ~ cucumbers (cukes)
·        Path
·        Clue  = hint
·        Capable
·        Cheater
·        Alley
·        Fur – different from fear
·        Feathers
·        Beak
·        Bee
·        Cockroach
·        Ant =/ Aunt
·        Octopus – octa (8 =ocho)

We wrapped up close to 10 pm. I felt the exhaustion settling into my bones, but a satisfying kind after a long, productive day, envisioning more check marks on my PCV Trimester report. 

Patty the owner was trying to get the chairs on the tables and the floor mopped; I was trying to get my backpack packed and zipped up.  Her little son Nicholas was insisting I read his train book with him. And when Nicholas wants your attention he gets he. He gently touching your cheek and guides your head where he wants you to look. Look, he says in English, the salon lessons rubbing off on him too.

Meanwhile, Hector was chatting away in my other ear about photography. He’s so serious about his Engleeesh – his accent is so strong, but he's determined to master this language and take advantage of every second he has to practice.  

Finally ready to head out, I'm stopped by Patty who's paused her mopping to tell me in very nice English that I am so funny and the class is very funny and thanks so much for being our teacher. 

This was a surprise, a slap out of the trance of checklists and the long desert stretches of striving to get where I am going, and underneath the unworthiness.  

AM I funny? I ask.  Yeeez, she answers.

When people are learning, connecting, conversing, having fun themselves, then I am having fun, and I am funny.  I feel worthy and the desert is not dry.

When they are sad, bored, walking dead, or worse, passive aggressive, manipulative, dishonest…then I get disappointed, exasperated, and disillusioned – and this camino across the semi-arid lands of Central Mexico feels endless.  

Maybe beneath it, I do fault myself:  I could be doing more, better. When maybe…that’s just the way it is.

Note to self:  for the next class I need to teach them the difference between fun (divertida) and funny (chistosa).  Maybe I'm both!