Mi barrio

All of the little things don't catch my attention as much anymore. I hate this part of the acclimation process. My favorite part about traveling is that moment when your plane hovers over the city you are about to visit and you have no idea what is going to happen next. Upon arrival, you stare at everything, "What's that!? Look at this! Let's eat it!"

They use some crazy words here in TJ. Every Spanish speaking country has a few twists when it comes to language. Anticipating Mexico, I switched coche for carro, zumo became jugo and pisos for apartamentos. Working with adolescents is tricky. If you use a word that sounds funny to them, they do not assume that your crazy word might be used in another Spanish speaking country. They just think you're wrong. As do some adults. I was corrected for calling a pool a piscina and instructed to use alberca. Apartamento was overruled for departamento. And here in TJ, chaquetas are chamarras and muchachos, chamacos. Oddly, sweat pants are called 'pants', but with a little latino pronunciation. Profe Hector and I snickered a lot about a kid we both teach that gets on our nerves. We always referred to him as the kid that wore 'pants' everyday instead of khakis. One hot afternoon while I scaled the hill that leads to the school, the sweat pant wearing child was mysteriously at my side. "You're not wearing 'pants'!" I howled, upon viewing the jeans he was wearing. "I always wear 'pants' because se me rompieron the khakis" he explained. He used one of the beauties of the Spanish language; the khakis "broke themselves on me", instead of saying that he himself had apparently ripped the pants. That day I learned that if you rip your pants in Mexico, you're relegated to wearing the same pair of sweatpants to school everyday for a solid semester. I don't joke about the 'pants' anymore.

I have achieved a certain level of notoriety around the neighborhood and the school. While I walk to work, the various taxi drivers who have given me rides beep their horns and call "Hey, teacher!" in English. One day, I had to go to school early, before my afternoon students arrive. "Are you going to teach in the morning too?" one of the morning students asked me. As I passed through the sobreruedas one afternoon, one of the vendors called out "Hey teacher, the road to the school is closed, you have to go the other way!". On yet another day, a minivan with two students that I have never seen in my life pulled to the side of the road and their father insisted on giving me a ride. It's flattering, yet mysterious. Was there a mass mailing that the neighborhood received describing my presence in Tijuana?

I now know that the majority of dead dogs I see lying in the street are not dead, just sleeping. The people that stand outside of the OXXO staring inside are not simply amusing themselves, they are waiting to use the ATM.

The border has changed since I arrived. I crossed recently to pick up a video that I had ordered from the UPS store in Chula Vista and to visit the wonder of their Target store. I always make a point to drink out of the drinking fountain and flush the toilet paper instead of throwing it in a little trashcan beside the toilet, simply because I can in Chula Vista. When I crossed back, I noticed that the Mexican army, machine guns and all, now greets visitors instead of the ordinary customs agents. And on the American side, the U.S. Border Patrol hassles people entering Mexico. I have never seen them stand directly in front of the turnstiles before. After my visit to Chula Vista, I noticed a Wackenhut bus parked directly on the line between Mexico and the U.S. A long line of men stood beside the bus, waiting to be deported to Mexico. I inadvertently stopped walking. Twenty, thirty men. Were they okay? Did they know where they were going? Had they been to Tijuana before or were they laterally repatriated? I hovered. I could explain to them how to get to Casa del Migrante. I have walked right up to Border Patrol agents in Arizona while they detained large groups of migrants and asked them if I could speak with the people and distribute water. Why didn't I know what to do? I stood there with my Target bags, worrying that I might make an ass of myself if I was misreading the situation. What was there to misread? Wackenhut isn't Greyhound. The men were shuffled into the Mexican immigration office as I walked slowly past the border patrol and into Mexico.

I guess I am not used to everything.