El mundial

I have the fever. When I open my eyes in the morning, my first extinct is to get my coffee and get in front of the TV. I flip through the channels until I hear the familiar buzz of the vuvuzelas. Just the sound fills me with happiness.

Alec and I went to Profe Hector's house for a carne asada party. "I can come pick you up" Hector offered. "No!" I insisted, "I have a car now. You don't have to do that". I had forgotten how rough the ride is to his house. I remembered a big dusty unpaved hill, but forgot about the sounds of the wheels falling of the car. Pick up trucks were having trouble with the off road conditions; dry packed dirt riddled with huge holes and in some areas, loose beach like sand, all located on a steep hill. I was curious if my Mazda could make it and dove in, passing the shanty houses and dodging children and dogs, high above Tijuana.

"¡Del diablo!" Profe Sergio howled, "¡Esa muchacha tiene la boca del diablo!" I adore this man. I found him difficult to talk to when I first arrived in TJ, his gruff demeanor intimidated me. He teaches the electronics students how to wire things, radios, TVs, whatever. I didn't think we had much in common, but we teach all of the same groups now. "¡Son del diablo!" he stated again, eyes wide, when I brought up my favorite electronics group. "I am afraid to let them wire anything if I am not standing over them, they'll blow the classroom up!" Poor bobcats.

As I stood upstairs brushing my teeth, I felt the ground bouncing beneath my feet. "Alec!" I called down the stairs "The house is moving!" In another minute, we were both outside, me barefoot and without my glasses and Alec pretty regularly dressed. "Está temblando!!!!" a little girl yelled from the street, while my neighbors emerged wrapped in blankets.

"Hilary! Hilary!" children's voices called from the rattling front gate. "Can you take care of a dog?" the neighbor kids asked, "it's Diego's, you know, the tall boy that speaks English? Our cats are going crazy...it's a french poodle!" "When will he be back?" I asked. "Um, no sabemos. We can give you his number...". "Okay" I agreed. The dog rampaged for a little while, ate a corn tortilla and passed out.

"Goooooooollllllll!!!!!" the announcer screamed from the TV. I was screaming too. "Michoacan, Sinaloa, Oaxaca...!!" the announcer howled, calling off various states in Mexico. "Mexico Nuevo, California, Tejas!" he added for good measure. The door across the street sprang open and my neighbor came out, trailed by her three year old, soccer jersey wearing son. "Mexico!" she shouted and threw a flag over her front gate and went back in the house. People ran through the streets with full sized flags and pick up truck loads of jersey wearing, flag waving fans drove through the neighborhood, honking and cheering. It was like the whole country just exploded with joy for a day.

"Do the kids get to school on time when there's a seven o'clock game?" I asked my principal during the drive to Ensenada. "They are at the gate at six-thirty" he informed me. "We told them that we would have TVs set up for them to watch the game, but each group dragged it's own TV into their classrooms. Some had really big ones. And when we scored...ahhh, the kids were just running laps around the school with flags...." he said, a satisfied smile on his face.

They took me to see a state wide art competition. I really didn't want to go, I have very little time left with my students and I am not big on student art work. I didn't realize it would be four hours of singing and dancing. They were truly incredible. The Norteño dancers looked like professional dance troupes. Another group did this insane, blindfolded dance while they waved machetes over and under their legs. My face hurt from smiling so much. "Ti-juan-a! Ti-juan-a!" the kids chanted, drowning out the groups from Mexicali. A vuvuzela honked wildly. A timid looking boy got up in front of the crowd, wearing a worn mariachi suit. He began performing a trotting little dance to the opening cords of his song with a vague, expressionless look on his face, while the announcer stated that he came basically from a school on a highway in the middle of nowhere. He charmed the crowd and even dio a little vuelta when instructed by the girls. "Give him a hand!" one of my bosses shrieked "Está solito!!!!!" Another group of students performed an indigenous dance. Students dressed as evil spirits darted through the dancers, attempting to distract the participants from their mission. I suddenly realized I was about to cry. The dancers continued stomping and rotating to the rhythm of the music, dressed in hats and scarfs that covered all but their eyes, their will triumphing over the evil that attempted to lure them.

I stared at my lap, willing myself not to cry.

While the world slept...

The bobcats told me they were getting up at 5am. "Doesn't the game start at seven?" I asked, "Yeah but the inauguration is at five, Shakira's going to sing" they informed me.

I slept in my Tri shirt and got up a little after seven. I had to pee. Suddenly, I heard screaming coming from the house next door. "Alec!" I yelled, ripping open the bathroom door, "What happened!?" I busted down the stairs to see Alec sitting in his Tri shirt in the early morning light. "Mexico scored, they're not counting it" he answered.

I remember walking through the sun-baked streets of Madrid in summer, 2002. They were empty. Not a person in sight. As I wandered around, all I could hear were television sets playing soccer games from inside houses. "If you go outside during a game in Mexico, you are not going to see one person" Roberto informed me during our break. I told him about what happened to me during my first World Cup experience in Spain. "I think they may be even more fanatic than us," he informed me "are Americans fanatics for American football?". "I don't think it compares. I don't know, I had a roommate that didn't go out for a whole weekend once because the Packers lost..." I told him. "Was he Mexican?" Roberto asked. Actually, weirdly, my old roommate's mother was Mexican. "Así es" Rafa responded, smiling.

Alec darted up the stairs about a half an hour before the game should end to start getting ready for work. "Alec, no one is going to get a head start on getting to work here, they're going to watch the end of the game" I said, in a voice I'm sure he associates with a scolding mother. Around the end of the game, we started hearing the first signs of motion outside. I went to the dirt track for a run. I was met by a sea of green. Even a passing dog was wearing a Mexican jersey. "Goooooollllll!" the flip flop wearing kids on my street screamed, kicking soccer balls between trash cans.

Oh, my poor students. It was like trying to teach people that were hung over. Tijuana is experiencing something called "June gloom". The ordinarily full sun city opens each day with a cloudy haze that lasts until about ten. It is actually a little chilly. Friday, the gloom stayed all day. It seemed to match the tired mood of my students and co-workers. The only thing that would get them going was game talk. "Dulce, what time did you get up?". "Five am" she answered, putting her head on her desk. "My dad started blaring the TV at 5:30!" another announced. "What do you guys think about that noise they make in the stadium?" I asked. "La vuvuzela!" they announced with delight. "I read that they don't think the Mexican team will be as affected by the noise, because Azteca is already so noisy" I told them. They looked at me blankly. Noise? Who in the world could be bothered by noise?

We got to go home early. First, they sent all of the female students to a bicentennial celebration. When the teachers were left with half empty classrooms, they decided to go ahead and send the boys. It was only later that I found out that they students were given the day off from school in exchange for an obligatory presence at a political rally for a mayoral contender and not to participate in a patriotic display of Mexican history. Attractive young girls and later, a few lurking boys, championing the prospective mayor of Tijuana with sleepy, World Cup eyes, all at the behest of their school.

"That's what's wrong with Mexico" Roberto told me quietly.

Fire

"What's that smell?" I abruptly asked my second class of the day. I walked outside of the classroom to see smoke billowing over the roof from behind the school and into the central area between the classrooms. Kind of a lot of smoke. I returned to the classroom and climbed on a chair, through the window I could see large plums of smoke coming from the dry grass directly behind the school. My school is located at the top of a steep hill and we were on the third floor of the building. We stood on the chairs, watching the smoke. "Looks like Carlito is on it" I murmured aloud, as I watched my favorite custodian run directly into the smoke and turn around a run directly out of the smoke with burning grass chasing a few steps behind him. "Maybe we should get out of here" I instructed the class. A few of the students stepped outside, only to return saying there was less smoke inside the building than outside. The other groups didn't seem to be evacuating.

I have experienced wildfires before. I thought of two young men, probably the same age as my students, walking very slowly through a hot summer afternoon. I remember the weak man thanking me, thanking me for helping him, thanking us for driving him to meet the paramedics on a small road in southern Arizona, struggling to speak to us through an oxygen mask. I remember the panic in the eyes of the girl who was driving...this is how people go to jail...they can charge you with trafficking...I remember the rescue helicopter lifting him into the sky and heading toward Tucson. I remember his friend, arms raised, being loaded into a Border Patrol truck, his friend that said he wouldn't leave him, even if it meant getting deported. And I remember the fires, glowing red lava-like embers lacing the hills in the twilight.

"Hey teacher, people are going down" a student from another group instructed me from the doorway. "Let's go" I said and waited in the room for the kids to clear out. Below, the custodians and the guy in charge of printing the students' report cards ran toward the fire with fire extinguishers. I found that to be a hell of a job description. A large black floating thing burned my arm. "Move your cars!" the teachers were instructed, as the fire spread toward the parking lot. Our fire crew made a second round with rakes and shovels. The fire alarm started to chime quietly. Nice timing. Luckily, teachers are not required to do fire duty. After the bomberos finished the fire-fight by dousing it with water, we finished the day in classrooms that smelled like a wet ashtray.

It appears I have a job. I have been duly informed that I should be glad to have one during Great Depression II. It's a teaching job, in a school that I have always admired. Why does it feel like the prison door just slammed shut on me? When I was unemployed, I felt a little nervous. When I would get a few bites from prospective employers, an even greater anxiety would fill me. Part of me wants to return to Atlanta. I miss my friends and family and I miss a more "normal" way of life. Jogging in green parks, social events and no fear of kidnapping or El Teo. A bigger part of me says that I am missing a opportunity to do something awesome if I stay in Tijuana. Something more in tune with what I have wanted to do for the last ten years. This may be my opportunity and I am giving it up. I did the responsible thing, which grates on me. But, that bitch Sallie Mae isn't going anywhere and I will be a lot freer in a year to perform my bleeding heart antics.

It scares me how quickly one year turns to ten.

Have I told you lately that I love you?

Day three: The chola lady with the long shorts wasn't there. Neither was the prison workout guy, the one that does push-ups after propping his feet about three feet off of the ground on a cement bench, all while wearing jeans, work boots and a baseball hat. I started jogging around the small dirt track that circles the park by my house. Not the one with the taco stand onlookers and mad dogs, the other one. On the first day, I felt like one of those boxers from the movies that trains in the inner city. You see him stoically running past graffiti stained walls, burning trashcans and other evidence of urban desolation, fueled only by superior inner strength. By the second day I started enjoying the view of the desert mountains that encircle the city and the weird morning haze and pastel houses of Tijuana.

I wear regular jogging shorts, my pasty white legs jiggling in the breeze as I circle the track. Yes friends, have a good long look at 'merica, as George W. Bush would say, and all your corn tortillas didn't help matters much either. I watched a soccer team practice some painful looking drills in the middle of the park. "TEACHER!" a couple of the guys yelled as I gasped my way around the track; I looked over my shoulder to see two of my students waving like maniacs as other players jumped over their legs. "How are you?! How are you?!" the rest of their teammates howled in English, just to show me their skills. They cheered me every time passed. I was horrified when their coach instructed the team to start running laps. I really don't think I am any match for a group of teenage soccer players. I managed to stay ahead of them, hearing their coach periodically chastise them with "She's already here! She's already here!" and point at me like I was a rabbit in a greyhound race. Tijuana didn't seem like a big raging city that morning. It felt like a friendly small town where everyone knows everyone else.

As I walked into school, I could already hear the Norteño band that was playing in the area between all of the classrooms. Day of the Student is a pretty big event here. We all got an extra day off and when we returned, the school decided to throw in a party instead of having classes. Students manned food stalls that offered elote, tamarind flavored popsicles and tostilocos. Others dressed like cowboys skillfully whipped their partners around in front of the band. An electric bull spun wildly, throwing kids left and right and then swung around to smack them once again before they could get up. The bobcats are really accustomed to group work in class. They wouldn't even ride the bull alone, often piling two boys on the thing's back and holding on for dear life. The teachers beckoned me to sit with them in the shade. I gave myself a head freeze from a mango and chili popsicle and jumped up to roam around and play with the students. I really didn't want to sit down. It was fun out there. I felt genuinely happy, a rarity for me, and didn't want it to end.

I have finally decided the filth covering my car is something of an embarrassment, and apparently just spraying it with the hose is not going to get the job done. I whipped out the Pine Sol type product and finally washed it off. It looks pretty shiny now, but Pine Sol type product does not seem to be the best thing for a thirteen year old paint job. I probably should have used the dish soap. Shampoo is too expensive.

One of the factory work groups was kind of rowdy and getting difficult to teach. As I darted through the rows that separated the nearly forty students, a kid asked me a good question and I made a mad dash to the board to write something on it. And stumbled....and slipped....and staggered...and completely wiped out in front of the whole class. I think the whole display lasted at least ten minutes, as my fall was very elaborate and intricate, involving many twists and turns and somersaults. I jumped up and spun around. The room was completely silent, the students' eyes were wide and mouths open with horror. I covered my face and began laughing hysterically. The room erupted in screaming laughter. Class was pretty much over at that point. Every time I made eye contact with a student and attempted to teach something, I would begin giggling all over again and the whole place would go crazy. As I signed out for the day, I ran into one of my buck wild electronics students. "Guess what I did, Hernandez?" I asked as I signed the papers. "I just busted my culo in front of 4CF". His face widened with horror. "Did they laugh?" he asked, moon eyed. "Yeah, after I did". Then he laughed, and put his hand on my shoulder. "Profe, I fell down over there one day," he said, pointing, "during the recess. And one time over there too..."

Ching, ching, ching ching ching....I looked out to see someone tapping on the front gate. "I'm with the census," the señora informed me "can you answer a few questions?" Okay, why not. "Does your house have a dirt floor, a cement floor or a tile floor?" she asked me. "Um, tile" I answered. "Do you have electricity?", "Yes", "Do you have a bathroom and tap water?", "Yes" I answered. "A refrigerator?" Check. "Did you attend high school?" Yes, that too. As the questions continued about my living conditions, my 'yes' answers continued. Yes, I have everything. Everything a person could want.

I know that I am lucky.

Love you on a Tuesday

"Please buckle your seat belts for take off" the flight attendant instructed. That's what I like to hear. I stared at my Tijuana - Culiacán boarding pass. If you had asked me thirteen months ago if I ever expected to be holding a boarding pass with those two names on it, I would have definitely said: I believe those two names are restricted to newspaper articles about narcotrafficking. Apparently not for the families and ordinary looking people that filled the plane. One of those two names probably meant home.

I was surprised when my school approved my request for a Monday off on late Friday afternoon. "Is it enough notice?" I asked. "Oh, no problem. Culiacán es preciosa, I'm from there!" one of my bosses told me, beaming. At my U.S. school, we had to request days off, even days for professional development, at least a month in advance. Have I mentioned lately how much I love Mexico? The principal appeared and commented again on my absence from the work Day of the Teacher party. "We would like to invite you to a breakfast, Saturday morning at nine, downtown" he stated, "I noted your absence at the party!" He handed me an invitation for a breakfast in honor of Mother's Day. Hmmm, Mother's Day was weeks ago and I do not have children. Exactly why was my presence requested? The fog of confusion entered my brain. 9AM broke through the fog like a cryptic, smoldering black menace. I nodded vaguely, knowing I wasn't going to go and dreaded the retribution that is surely coming.

I had found a cheap ticket with an airline with "bus" in its name. I am always kind of against using that word to describe planes. I am not sure why anyone would like to identify themselves as the Greyhound of the sky. There is another airline that uses the word "calafía" in their name. In Tijuana, the cheapest and most rickety buses in town are called calafías. They zig zag through traffic, cutting others off and stopping wherever they please. Whenever I think of this calafía airline, I think of a rusty plane blowing black smoke through the sky, tearing in front of 747s and landing in a dust covered field while the passengers jump from an open door of the plane to the ground because there are no stairs.

I bought my plane ticket and decided to hose off my car. I haven't washed it once since it arrived and it uh, shows. It is so dusty here I really didn't see the point, but the students are becoming increasingly fascinated by the level of filth present on my automobile. It looks like a rolling beach. I see their heads snap and stare when the sandy hooptie of the American profe rolls by. A quick spray down made it look like it was just kind of dirty.

I stepped out onto the stairs to exit the plane in Culiacán and was hit by hot, damp air at nearly ten o'clock at night. I pulled my hood up, crouched low and crawled on my elbows and knees military style to the airport entrance. Just kidding. The city looked nice from the taxi windows. I met up with another exchange teacher to attend a teaching conference that was arranged by a third exchange teacher that is based in Culiacán.

Monday morning, the conference room was filled with teachers from Sinaloa. I was surprised by the turn out and was left with the impression that the Sinaloa education ministry is pretty hot shit. Of all of the impressive teachers in the room, one strange one approached my friend and me. "I want to be an English teacher" the shifty guy with a long scar on his forehead told us. "I went to the U.S. as wetback ten years ago and learned English in Las Vegas". I asked myself if I should question him about his choice of terminology and decided not to.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I was back in the airport. I watched Argentina whup Canada in a friendly match and headed towards security. "Please wait" the security guard told me solemnly. I waited a few minutes and was sent to the X-ray machine. As I turned the corner, I saw a cluster of guards surrounding an empty pizza box that was sitting on the conveyor belt. They all started giggling. "It was her birthday!" they called between giggles, pointing at one uniformed woman.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Mexico?

*Title, Tuesday Moon, Neutral Milk Hotel

Walk on the Wild Side

"HILARY! Why didn't you come to the party?" Roberto asked me. "I don't know, Profe. I planned on it. I got home, I was tired and in a bad mood and just didn't make it" I answered. "Even Profe Julio came," Roberto responded "he has been out sick for two weeks and still showed up at the party and danced all night!". I don't know, if I had been out sick for weeks and showed up for a work sponsored party and danced all night, I wouldn't be lauded, I'd be fired. "I know Profe, I screwed up" I said and hid from the teachers for the rest of the day.

"Profe, ¿va a ir al baile?" the students asked me. It has been one party after another for various holidays that aren't celebrated in the U.S. Day of the Teacher. Day of the Student. Day of the Child. Day of the Woman. "I don't know if I'll go to the dance..." I answered. "Come on Profe, dance with us!" That's the thing, chamacos, I'm a white American. We look gross when we dance. One of my African American students in Atlanta told me specifically, during some goofy class activity, that I was proof that white people can't dance. It's okay. I accept it. Sometimes I do secret shower dances, or this crazy Norteño dance I invented, but that's all I have to say about that.

"¡Voy a bailar en la mesa!" one bobcat announced, with a head jerk and hip twist. "Dance sexy, erotic!" he emphasized, in some crazy English.

Holly came from Miami, F.L.A....I decided to use a song to help me teach the past tense. I wanted something narrative, something that told a story. I've heard "Walk on the Wild Side" so many times in my life that it seemed like a good choice. I was surprised that the students had never heard the song. I saw them holding back giggles when Lou starts his do do do, do do do do..... When I realized they were trying not to laugh, I laughed, then everyone laughed. I'd forgotten how unbelievably lacking in rhythm it is. It's Lou. He's my man.

I entered one group on Wednesday to find the classroom empty. "They're at the cevecería" others told me. The brewery? Why didn't I get to go? I ran into them later and asked them how it was. "It was good," the told me. "we got to try the beer, a cup apiece". You learn something new everyday. The drinking age is only eighteen in Mexico and most of these kids aren't eighteen. "But you know.." one student explained "things aren't so strict here". Have I mentioned lately how much I love Mexico?

I entered another group and found only a third of the students that should have been there. I got talking to some of them. They had questions about my job in the U.S. Do I always teach? What age group? What subject? "Spanish" I answered. "I took Spanish when I went to school in the U.S." one told me. I laughed. "Yeah, I've had a lot of Mexican kids in my beginning Spanish classes at home," I told him "they take it because it's easy, or because their parents want them to learn more about their language". For some reason, I felt sad. I have taught a lot of these kids in Atlanta. It seemed strange to be talking to a student that had been through the same experience and was back on the other side, voluntarily or involuntarily. Everything is strange. The world really is one big back yard, with signals crossing and people moving. It's beautiful and sad all at the same time. And me, well, I'm just floating through.

Sometimes I wish I could put the beauty and tragedy all in one box, wrap it up, and pet it for a little while.

Arizona

Arizona sure has helped the nation. We've woken up and smelled the coffee! Iowan Pat Bertroche, a Republican running for a congressional seat, would like to put microchips in undocumented folks before deporting them. "I can microchip my dog so I can find it" he is quoted as saying, "Why can't I microchip an illegal?". Well cochino, an "illegal" is a human being, not a canine. GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim James would like to offer his state's driver's license exam in English only. "This is Alabama; we speak English" his commercial states. Some of us from other states might differ that the language spoken in Alabama is actually English. The Maverick John McCain has further displayed that he misplaced his backbone and supported SB 1070 in an attempt to beat a Tea Partier out of his Senate seat. Representative Duncan Hunter, you guessed it, a Republican from California, would like to deport U.S. born children along with their parents, though they are American citizens and not citizens of any other country. The Department of Education in Arizona is blocking people with "heavy accents" from teaching English as a Second Language. I have a feeling they are not talking about people from Alabama, Brooklyn, or the Scottish. On April 18th, an Ecuadorian man bled to death on a platform in Queens while multiple people passed, without calling an ambulance. Some took pictures with their cell phones. The passage of SB 1070 in Arizona has accomplished exactly what I feared it would accomplish: it has opened the floodgates of hate.

I had a warning. Things seemed to go relatively smooth when Obama was first elected. Things got nasty when he actually tried to govern. After the health care vote, black Representatives were met with racial slurs and spit on while they attempted to enter the Capital. The opponents weren't screaming "I hate your health care bill". They were screaming racial slurs. My representative in Atlanta is John Lewis. You may have seen him in old sixties videos, strolling beside Martin Luther King in places like Alabama. They called him a nigger. I can only imagine what he must have been thinking. Did he ever imagine that the election of the first black president of the United States would lead to being spit on as he entered the Capital in 2010? It was brewing, the racism, stewing and building and waiting for Obama to act, for Obama to do something they didn't agree with. And then the bile spilled forward.

After watching a series of videos recorded during earthquakes, our principal told us what to do if there is another earthquake, before gliding into another slide on his Power Point that dealt with myths about earthquakes. Number three: "Don't panic, the United States will help us". As soon as the slide came up, multiple people in the room said "Arizona". "That's right: Arizona." our principal said. "The U.S. doesn't want us and we can't rely on them for help". I felt awkward and people were looking at me. It wasn't the first time Arizona has come up since the passage of SB 1070. I understand that it is not a bad thing if Mexico doesn't rely on the U.S. should a natural disaster occur; they need to be prepared. But I don't like it that the legislative moves of one racist state has made visa carrying, Mexican citizens feel unwelcome in our country. They are one of our closest neighbors. We share a border and a history. We are sitting on their land. They welcomed me to their country. And aside from all of that, they cross the border daily, on legitimate visas that they pay for, to go shopping in American stores, eat in American restaurants and visit American theme parks. I couldn't even get across the border during Christmas because the line at San Ysidro was hours long, they had shopping to do. And now, they do not feel welcome. Actually, they are afraid they will be completely harassed. So they'll shop here, not in Chula Vista, not in Nogales and not in El Paso. Congratulations, Arizona.

Alec and I spent the weekend in Puerto Peñasco, in Sonora. The beach is pretty and is a popular destination for southern Arizonians. Mexico is not forgetting about SB 1070. Various articles and editorials about the law are still a daily feature in local newspapers. As we got closer to the beach, we began seeing a lot of cars with Arizona tags. Current tags, not the expired tags of Mexicans that bought cars in Arizona. I really couldn't believe it. They own homes and condos and continue visiting the hotels and idiot gringo bars that take up little pockets of the town. My mind wandered....seventy percent of Arizonians supported the law. Maybe the percentage of supporters was lower among people who actually visit Mexico regularly? Or maybe not. That takes balls. I'll harass you if you come to my country, but I will wander around yours like I own the place. Actually, I do own parts of it! When interacting with locals, I found myself thinking, "Please don't let them think we are from Arizona". For once, I was glad to have Georgia tags in Mexico.

It wasn't the first time I have felt uncomfortable with my nationality while traveling. Indonesia, late in the year 2000, was a little awkward. Turkey, March 2002 was an experience. Vietnam brought obvious difficulties. But I am American. It is who I am.

There is something wrong with our country. The country of immigrants. The melting pot. Sometimes, I think we should just give up on the experiment. Send everyone back to where they came from and leave the place uninhabited, except a few Native American reservations. Seal it shut with an impermeable, Simpson's dome. It can't be saved.