exile to mexico

My immediate boss at work is Canadian, which is absolutely relevant when it comes to all kinds of cultural stuff. I mean, Canadians grow up with things like universal health care and gun control. Radical stuff like a year’s paid maternity leave, you know- social policies that set people up to have a good life. So even though I believe in all those kinds of things, sometimes it’s glaringly obvious that I was not raised in that kind of culture. It’s the same reason that no one can say, “Race doesn’t matter.” When you live in a culture permeated by racism, it can’t not affect you greatly.

Hehehe… (Missing some commas in this meme, though.)

It was one of those glaringly obvious moments when I went in to work yet again with my ragingly snotty nose, sore throat and cough. My mommy immunity had finally failed me after the kids had had an almost month-long cold and cough thing going on. It was the first thing in the morning, and I was in the bathroom using up all the toilet paper on my nose. My boss heard me as she walked in. “Julia, is that you? Are you sick?”

“No, it’s nothing.” I told her. “Just a little cold. These damn germ magnets of mine, you know. They finally gave it to me.” Cough, cough, sniffle.

“You sound like you’re pretty sick. You can’t be feeling good. Why don’t you go home?”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just a cold.” This is not just something I said. This is a mantra in my family. I can totally hear my mama’s voice, repeating, “I don’t feel like crap. I just have a cold. I don’t feel like crap. I just have a cold.” It’s part of the mind-over-matter prescription we give ourselves. That, along with gargling with warm salt water, is all you really need to take care of a cold. Rest? Pshaw! There’s no time for rest! That stuff’s overrated, anyway.

“Seriously. You’re not doing yourself any favors. Even if it’s a cold, it doesn’t feel good, and it’ll get better faster if you rest.” What? Did she not get my mental memo? Rest is not necessary for illness. I brought tea to work.

“And you’re not doing anyone else any favors, either.” She continued with her logic. “You don’t want to pass it to all your students. We complain about them coming in and hacking all over us, so you should set a good example.” Damn. She got me there. “Plus I don’t want to get sick. Vacation is coming up in a couple of weeks and I don’t want to spend it in bed.” Double damn the guilt! Especially when it’s all reasonable-sounding like that.

“Okay. You’re right. I’ll think about going home.” Years of stubbornness can’t be reversed with a 5 minute conversation, even if there’s good logic and guilt involved. But it’s not the first time I’ve had a conversation like this, and the thing is, I know that my attitude is absurd. Well, not the mind-over-matter or the salt water gargles part. But the idea that we should go ahead and go to school or work or whatever your regularly scheduled program is, despite whatever illness.

And the culprit in that part of my attitude is definitely my country’s culture. In part it’s that work-a-holic, can’t-rest-because-the-world-NEEDS-ME attitude. We’re all so damn important (eye roll, ‘Merica). And part of it, of course, is because most of us there don’t get paid leave. So if you’re sick but not actually on your death bed you might as well go to work. You might even get fired if you don’t go, so just pretend you’re not sick as best you can, guys.

Thanks to U.S. policy and culture, and the way I internalized those beliefs, I have taught classes despite losing my voice from illness. I’ve attended classes because I didn’t want to miss them (in college, not high school, mind you). I’ve walked around with pneumonia because I was too busy and broke to go to the doctor and get diagnosed until it reared its ugly head and put me into bed forcefully. I’ve gone to the hospital for a urinary tract infection that turned into a kidney infection because I was too busy to get it treated for real, and wished it away with copious amounts of water. I’ve waited tables with colds and fevers, because I couldn’t get a sick day. This is what U.S. culture looks like. We don’t need universal, free healthcare. We don’t need paid leave. We like our cooks and servers to snot all over our food, because that’s better than giving poor people benefits. People being in debt for hospital bills because they didn’t have access to preventative medicine, or better still, people dying from something curable, is preferable to changing our system. This is what the U.S. system looks like. It looks like not getting the care that we need. It means believing that you don’t deserve to rest and take care of yourself.

When I stop and look it all like that, I feel a bit sheepish about my attitude. Sure, I don’t want my students to miss class. But they’ll be thrilled about it! And it’s not going to make or break their entire language practice if they skip a couple days of class. Goddess knows they do it for themselves all the time. Repeat to self: I am not all-important. Everything will be fine if I am not there. I am important enough to deserve to rest when I am sick.

And we get paid sick days here. This is Mexico, folks- the part of North America that the U.S. treats like its Cinderella-style stepsister. The part of North America that’s “underdeveloped.” This is where I had to move to get maternity leave, sick days, and my first ever paid vacation time (5 weeks a year, thank you very much). I had to move down here to get reminded by a Canadian to take advantage of my rights here in Mexico.

So I drank my tea and assessed my situation. I decided that it was, indeed, a good idea to rest, even though it was “just a cold.” Imagine what it would be like to have constant access to tea and kleenex all day long! How it might feel to lie down! I might, indeed, actually get better faster.

The only thing standing between me and my bed was the insurance company, IMSS. I needed a note from IMSS to take off for two days. (It was Thursday already, and I was sure even 1 day would help, but I wanted a whole day to sleep past five in the morning.) IMSS is my nemesis here. I pretty much prefer death to IMSS. And the process is so slow and bureaucratic, and so many of their staff so incompetent, that death is certainly possible there, although it might start off as just a cold. Plus, as the secretary at my work informed me, I was not going to get an appointment that day. I can only get an appointment for the same day if I arrive before 7AM (preferably around 6AM to get a good spot in line for their opening at 7). Emergency services won’t see me without a fever or some other type of emergency.

Thus, IMSS was a no-go (disaster averted). I could go to a private doctor and that would buy me a paid day off, but only for one day. So I’d still have to go to IMSS at 6 the next morning in order to get off the next day. I decided to power through the Thursday (sorry, boss, coworkers, students, for sharing my germs).

I vowed to take Friday off, however. And I did! I slept in, thanks to going to a pharmacy doctor! I laid down for an hour in the middle of the day! I drank unlimited tea! I didn’t have to talk for hours on end. I rested much more than I would have at work, although I still did too much at home. It will take more than a day for me to really, truly convince myself that I deserve to rest when I’m sick. That I deserve to take care of myself. I don’t want a martyr complex. I don’t think any job I do needs me so much that I can’t rest when ill. I know I’m not irreplaceable. In theory I know this. But the idea that I deserve to rest is not what my country believes. It’s a powerful cultural message that I’ve been breathing in for 32 years. I did not grow up in Canada, although from now on, I’m going to try to pretend that I did. Let’s all try it, dear compatriots of mine, and maybe someday we’ll succeed in changing our culture and ourselves. Someday we can truly believe that we all deserve to rest and be well, and we’ll demand the paid sick days and insurance with which to do so. And hopefully the insurance will be better than IMSS.

The best part about teaching is that I have whole classrooms full of willing victims who are forced to interact with me and with each other every day. And I get paid to facilitate this interaction. And I have lovely, wonderful students! Bwahahaha!

So I am bubbling over with excitement this week, because the new semester has started. It seems like we had months without classes, although the calendar assures me it was only a couple of weeks. As soon as I stepped back into the classroom, my energy level rose about 10 notches. The spring was back in my step by the end of the first day. I had a big smile plastered all over my face, despite finally coming down with my kids’ never-ending  runny nose and cough. The fact is, I’m really a sociologist / social butterfly who just happens to also be an English teacher. I figure you have to be willing to learn about and learn with other people before you can try to teach anything. Thus, I always have an extra special place in my heart for the first week of classes, when I get to come up with thrilling icebreakers and review games to get them back into English mode. (I might be the only one in the classroom that calls my activities thrilling. But they’re cool, dammit!)

This semester I taught both of my levels the informal (aka not always grammatically correct, but always fun) expressions “me, too,” and “me, neither.” Students shared interesting facts about themselves, and the rest of us chimed in if we had that in common. For example, when someone said, “I want to see UFOs,” then everyone who wants to see UFOs had to say, “Me, too!”  They had to make some sentences using negatives, too, so we could say “Me, neither!” It made them come up with some pretty interesting stuff.

In my level 1 classes we stood in a circle and I got them to high-five and/or fist bump when they agreed with someone. My level 2 students were too cool for that sort of thing, so we just sat in a circle. My level two students were just as interested to share about themselves, though; we added “Not me!” to the mix so they could express their differences, too. (Yep, also not grammatically correct most of the time. Oh, well.)

I made students write out their ideas about themselves and turn it in to me, partly for the needed writing practice and partly so that midway through the semester, when the students are driving me crazy, I have something nice to read to remember that they’re really lovely people.

I was all wound up and excited reading about my interesting students this semester,  loving their writing, so I thought I’d share with you lovely folks, too.

Most Popular and Most Awkward Things to Say about Yourself

One of my students couldn’t get anyone to agree with him. He said he loves to play online games, and everyone was like, “No, I don’t have internet,” or “The internet’s too slow.” He said he doesn’t like tomatoes, which is almost as bad as not liking tortillas, given the typical diet down here, so everyone just kind of looked away. Apparently that’s my class full of outlaws and rebels (aka brainy computer nerds), because he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get any fist bumps. One of his classmates was daring enough to say, “I don’t believe in God” (except he actually said, “I don’t believe in the gods.” Article usage is so tricky.) Everyone just looked at each other in silence. “Try another of your sentences,” I told him, moving right along.

Lots of high-fives happened with the ever popular “I love the babies!” Riding horses was the other most popular activity, for both guys and girls, in case you were wondering. But the absolute most popular phrase in all of my classes was: “I love my mother.” It was a high-five and fist-bump fiesta then. I love that you never grow too old for mama love in Mexico.

A Case of Confused Tenses- and Articles and Prepositions and Spelling and- Geez, English is Hard

I din’t die in much years. (He meant to say he hopes he won’t die for many years.)

I don’t like people lived in the poor. (Even in Spanish when I inquired what he meant to say it took us a few tries to confirm that it’s the situation of poor people that he doesn’t like, and not the poor people themselves.

I don’t love to cat (Was this supposed to be eat? Or you don’t love cats? Or you don’t love to eat cats? Is there a cat verb I don’t know about? All of the above?)

I don’t drink bear. (Dear English language, how can heel and here and hear all have the same vowel sound but not beer and bear? Sigh.)

I don’t have noise nuisance. (I still haven’t found out what this means. Maybe on Monday I can get enlightened. I think I might like it, regardless.)

I am a person lovely and friendly. (Good adjectives! The battle to change noun-adjective order is ongoing.)

I don’t want to smoking someday. (Glad to hear that’s not your goal, dear.)

The Obvious Feminists

There were a few radical comments from some young women in different classes that lifted my spirits a bit extra:

I will not hit children.

I don’t want women to experience violence. (Wow, way to use the verb experience from last semester’s target vocabulary!)

I’m not going to have many sons. (She really meant she won’t have many children, not that she’s against male children. Another victim of sad choices in the dictionary.)

And finally, my personal hero wrote that she likes travel and natural zones (areas, zones, whatever), and “I don’t like the liar people” and my favorite phrase, “I don’t like other people to decide for me.” Amen, sister, and impressive use of English to boot.

Most Common Desire

By far the most common theme of hopes and future plans was to travel, to visit and live in other places! These guys have plans and passions for places including England, China, Spain, Argentina, Paris, Uruguay, South Korea, Africa (country unspecified), and “in all the world.” They want to visit uncles in Italy, work in Canada, see snow in Alaska, and eat pizza in the USA. Some, perhaps, haven’t decided where they’re headed, but they have vowed, for example, “I will not live in Puerto Escondido.” Bravo, university, for helping students dream of other places.

Inspired by the Teacher- For Better or For Worse

Some students were inspired to not be like me, which was pretty amusing. They wrote things in direct opposition to things I wrote on the board as examples for the assignment. I wrote that I love to cook and eat international food, and a few students wrote things like, “I don’t eat international food.” I wrote that I was a vegetarian for many years, and so a student wrote, “I am not going to be vegetarian.” I wrote that I will learn Portuguese and live in Brazil someday, and somebody wrote, “I will not listen to music in Portuguese.” I suppose negative imitation is a different kind of flattery. At least I’m inspiring them to write!

Other Fabulous Randomness- The Struggle to Express Yourself in a Foreign Language is Real!

All of these comments below are just little things that tickled me to read, to think about my students and how unique they are. I was so impressed with how well even my level one students were able to express many things about themselves. I was thinking about how, in general, we’re so quick to have a nasty attitude about the youth of today, to have that “kids these day don’t/aren’t (insert complaint here).” I was also thinking about how people in the U.S. often get sold an image of Mexican people that is racist and not based on the reality of the people of Mexico. So I wanted to give you guys just a few more excerpts from these lovely young folks, who are a much more real face of Mexican youth than any images you’ll see on TV.

I will listen to music of Beyonce in live. (in Spanish we say en vivo, so it was a pretty smart translation.)

I didn’t learn the book of biochemistry. (Me, neither, guys.)

I never thought about Santa Claus when I was a child.

I will be an important businessman. I won’t be poor.

I am going to drive an airplane 727.

I will not listen to heavy metal. (Is this like a New Year’s Resolution? Giving it up for Lent?)

I will not leave English class. I will learn English to finish school. (This is from my student who’s auditing my class after failing multiple times due to goofing off- not due to any lack of capability. This is his very last chance to get through and graduate. To show me that he’s serious, he even used comparative and superlative correctly in his other sentences.) I want to have a dog bigger than a horse. I don’t have the car fastest in the world. (Almost perfect, right?)

I don’t play football. (aka soccer, dear USA) I went to study music when I was a child. (So, you’re trying to tell me you’re not into the typical guy stuff, huh? Got it.)

I learn fast. I like to work in class. I like to eat cakes. I am positive. (I’m positive, too, while eating cakes.)

I am participatory. I think much about the birds. I believe in the fairy. I can play football. (Don’t you want to hang out with this person?)

I love to cook and paint. I love to cook and movie terror. (Does she really, really love to cook or did she run out of other verb ideas?)

I am not going to fight for bad people. (I suspect that this student gets picked on some, and probably got picked on a lot in middle/high school. He’s a bit unique and expressive for the world of small towns.)

I don’t like people with negative attitude. I didn’t say that I can’t. I will build a tae kwondo school. (This student chose to share his second sentence in class, but nobody understood it. We had to translate it word for word, and then he still had to explain his meaning. Obviously there aren’t many other posi-core kids in his class.)

I didn’t play extreme sports. I like to see the movies from Star Wars. (True story- Star Wars is not a popular thing down here. Nobody cares in the slightest that I’ve never seen it, and  nobody ever tries to force me to watch it, because at last half the population here hasn’t seen it, either. It’s just like me being short- fitting right in down here!)

I read books every day. (Yay for my students who love to read!)

I love bikes. I like to watch the sky. (Me, too!)

I love my girlfriend but I don’t know why. (From the flirtiest student of all- but he’s not flirty in an aggressive or inappropriate way, so you really can’t help but like him.)

I hope to be a teacher. I listen to listen to classical music.

I love exercise.

I can dance ballet.

I don’t understand the women.

I don’t like party. I don’t like the school schedule. (This is the same student who loves “the babys.” She doesn’t have any, she just loves them. Much cooler than parties for some eighteen year olds, I guess.)

I don’t listen to music rock. I don’t watch horror movies. I don’t eat vegetables. I want to go out with my friends. I love my mom. I am happy.  (I don’t know why this one- all of her responses together- tickled my fancy so much. She made herself sound so simple, and yet- I don’t know- so sure of herself, and thus, interesting.)

You can see why I’m so ecstatic with my job- and my great students. Kids these days in Oaxaca are awesome, and the best part is that I get to be their teacher!