Well, I’m now looking out onto a rather noisy street in the somewhat cheesily named ‘Café Amor’, being interrupted every couple of minutes by the adolescescent waiter here who seems to be very keen on helping me with my Spanish! Having walked back from the school I just fancied stopping somewhere for a coffee - and this place looked as good as any with its balcony and pretty view out onto the mountains. I do feel a bit conspicuous though… Now that the weekend has passed, most of the tourists who visit Tepoztlan for the market are gone, and there aren’t many 'gringos' around seeing as the summer is almost over (it’s still fairly hot but there has been some heavy rain too - and the nights are getting cooler).
I guess I hadn’t realised how much I’d stand out here, being pale and freckly with lighter brown hair. I thought I wouldn’t really see people with such strong Native American features until I got further down into Central and South America. However, here in Mexico, from what I’ve seen so far, the majority of people have that deep tan-coloured skin, those slim noble noses, and those down-slanted almost Oriental eyes that at first look very serious, but that suddenly crease up with warmth and kindness when their owner breaks into a smile. I must say, I haven’t seen any amazingly handsome Mexican men yet, but, then again, I could hardly expect them all to be Gael Garcia Bernal! Most guys here seem to be either quite chubby with moustaches (and, yes, some with sombreros too) or, especially amongst the younger ones, they seem to go for the very greasy-haired Latino-lothario look. I’m going to keep my eyes open though – maybe I’m just not looking hard enough!
Anyway, I digress… I’ve had 2 days at ‘la escuela’ (the school) now, and have just been doing my homework, which I’m pretty sure I’ve got all wrong (condensing and shortening sentences using indirect objects, direct objects, pronouns etc. – very tricky!). The style of teaching and location of 'The Spanish Cat' is great though. The villa where the school is based is about 25 minutes walk from where I’m staying (and a fairly hilly hike - but with wonderful views of the surrounding scenery) and lessons start at 10.00am. There are only 7 students (including me) at present, so we all get a lot of personal attention, and the atmosphere is friendly and cosy. The others are mainly from the US (except for Alan the Glaswegian from Canada, and Helen, who is also British) and all a bit older than me, but that doesn’t really seem to matter. They are interesting to chat to at lunch and break-times in the villa. However, being the only one doing a homestay, as opposed to staying in the villa or guesthouse, I guess I’ll be doing quite a lot of stuff by myself in the evenings and at weekends.
In terms of the teaching, I’ve been put in the ‘intermediate’ class with Alan and David, and our teacher is Paco, who seems to be from Morelos (the state within Mexico where Tepoztlan is situated). He’s a very convivial but also quite principled guy who has already taught me a lot about life here. He's been talking quite openly about his political views (I’m gradually learning a little bit about Mexico’s political history and the struggle between PRI and PAN – er,I can’t remember which is which, but one is selling off all Mexico’s oil to the US and the other is fighting against this), and also telling us about the teacher’s strike currently continuing into its’ third month here in Morelos (something that has created huge difficulties for local families with children, and that has led to some fairly violent sounding clashes between teachers and armed police). Paco balances his serious conversations with a lot of humourous stuff as well, though. Today he was warning us of things not to say in Latin America, such as ‘chaqueta' - which means jacket in Spain, but which has a slightly different significance over here. ‘Hacerse una chaqueta’ (literally to do or make oneself a jacket) apparently means to masturbate in this part of the world, so I will need to be careful if it gets cold and I need to go and put my jacket on (luckily there is another word – ‘chamarra’, so I will try to drill this into my memory instead!)!
This actually leads onto my discovery that a lot of my ‘Spanish’ Spanish is kind of getting in the way over here. Much of the pronunciation in Latin America is very different (‘c’ is not pronounced ‘th’ over here, as in Spain but as a soft ‘c’), as is a sizeable amount of vocabulary, and some forms of grammar. Still, I feel I have retained a lot of the basic ‘building blocks’ of the language, having spent some time in Spain earlier this year, and this is proving helpful. So far, I’ve managed to have a few more basic conversations with Socorro and her daughter-in-law. Yesterday also, when I went to buy a notebook in a small stationary shop in the town, I found myself getting into a conversation that must have lasted at least 10 minutes with the elderly shop-keeper. Oh, and I took the liberty of going out for a beer on Sunday night and, again, got some keen attention from a wannabe language-instructor waiter! This is just the kind of practice I need – no matter how tedious, awkward or slow it seems at the time…
So, yes, classes are from 10.00am until 2.00pm and then we break for lunch, which is the main Mexican meal of the day, and usually pretty substantial. Yesterday it was 'pollo mole poblano' (chicken in a rich dark sauce that bizarrely contains chocolate amongst a multitude of other ingredients – Socorro tells me that it takes 3 days to prepare and cook traditionally, and that every Mexican family has a slightly different take on the recipe). Today, it was delicious cauliflower fritters in a spicy tomato sauce. Socorro is feeding me well at the casa too, with oatmeal cooked with cinnamon for breakfast yesterday, and cheese omelette with the ever-present ‘frijoles’ (beans) and green salsa today. I am quite glad I have the walk to school in order to digest all this fortifying food at the start of the day!
Life in the casa is generally proving good and relaxing. Yesterday evening for makeshift ‘homework’ I read one of the Spanish ‘Cosmopolitans’ that I found lying around in the casa and tried to translate a few of the articles. At least, if I learn nothing else, I will have learned the ’10 essential mistakes not to make in bed’ and the vocabulary for ‘sigh’, ‘groan’, ‘sheets’ and a few ‘intimate’ body parts! Tonight I think I might be watching films with the family, as Socorro said earlier that some of her favourite old Mexican movies were showing on T.V. tonight. Therefore I'd better get back there actually, looking at my watch…
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