Fifteen days

It rained one day last week and the temperature immediately dropped, transforming a late April day into a pinche mid-January one. There was a bit of ambiguity about whether or not classes were being canceled and few students remained at the school. For some reason, the entire software group of students was out in force. I stood around with some other teachers, not teaching because I didn't have students, and watched a group of the software boys as they ran through the rain and jumped in puddles in order to splash each other. They were shrieking and laughing. They are all around seventeen years old. I was surprised that adult tendencies hadn't set in on them yet. I was bored and my only attempt to entertain myself was to lean against a wall and listen to other people talk. At parties, I usually sit around and drink and talk. It never occurs to me to run through the rain and jump in puddles or to climb a hill and throw pebbles at the people below. I saw the prefecto pass by the students and say something to them. One of the kids ran up to me. "The prefecto told us we were acting infantile!" he gasped, still short breathed and wild faced from his puddle activities. "Whatever" I said, smiling, watching a boy kick up some more water on another student. For some reason my mind wandered to a memory from a pizza place I used to work at. "Only children and women wear shorts" my Moroccan boss told me, eyeballing all of the American guys walking around in shorts while the Moroccan men sweated out the day in black jeans.

I got some Ramen noodle soup from the snack shop. They have different flavors of it here in Mexico. The school serves a chili and lime flavored one. After adding the hot water, the snack shop guy dumps an additional blob of hot sauce in it and gives me a real lime, to enhance the "natural" flavors of Ramen. It's weirdly delicious. "Do you know how long Ramen soup stays in your system?" one of the teachers asked me as I ate it. "How long?" I responded. "Fifteen days". I don't know why eating plastic can be so appealing at times, especially when served with lime and hot sauce.

In accordance with my ecology themed unit, I made my students bring in scraps of things the found in the street to celebrate Earth Day. Aluminum, wood, paper and plastic - some of the vocabulary words they learned. As I walked the aisles of the classroom asking each student to rattle off the items they found in English, six students pulled out six empty Tecate cans and set them next to their notebooks. I have an image of them saying "Let's do our English homework" and walking into OXXO to buy a six pack. I also wondered about the people passing by our doorway and seeing kids with beer cans on their desks while they worked.

Ecology Week ended up forcing a lot of class suspensions. Three of my classes were suspended so that the students could present projects that they made for the Ecology competition. About halfway through the second class, it became apparent that all forty kids from each group really didn't need to sit around with one project, waiting to present it. "Tell the other kids to go back to class" a teacher instructed us. I looked at Profe Hector. "How are we going to get them back in the classroom?" I asked him. "It's impossible. Don't worry, this is Tijuana, we can do whatever we want" he answered, and we leaned against a wall a talked for about forty more minutes.

Alec has become addicted to Saturday night fights on TV. We watch brutal boxing matches between various Mexican competitors and occasionally, big name fights. Our favorite part is when "Brought to you by HBO pay per view" appears on our cable-less, public TV station. We are hoping for the Mayweather fight, after already watching Pacquiao wallop someone and Holyfield lumber around with some out of shape guy. I imagine weird wires crossing the border and connecting with some house in California that bought pay per view, bringing prize fights for free to Mexico.

I love the blue and white bus. It's Alec's principle ride to work and he often comes home with stories that begin with "You won't believe what the blue and white did today..". I watched the blue and white cut through the McDonald's drive through, going the wrong way, and sail back into traffic just the other day. When traffic gets backed up, the blue and white simply drives into the oncoming lane, swoops into the maquiladora parking lot when oncoming cars come, and swoops back out into oncoming traffic after exiting the parking lot. Or it just drives through the dirt on the side of the road. You got somewhere to be? Take the blue and white.

So I made a dentist appointment. I found this guy's name on some surfing website. This is when my dormant xenophobia really kicks in. While eating a couple of weeks ago, I managed to chomp down on a rock, yes a rock, that was in my food and crack one of my molars. It doesn't hurt, but I am a little nervous about waiting for it to hurt. I am not to keen on going to any dentist and my fear of dentistry is compounded by going to a dentist in another country. I did it once in Madrid. It was okay, except that when the cleaning started to hurt, the dentist addressed the situation by holding my head down with his forearm until the sweat on my forehead made it start sliding off.

I think everything will be fine.