leftovers

A few things that happened a while ago but I never got a chance to post:

What did I do wrong???: The first night that I stayed with my last family in Guantajuato, we were taking about my beverage preferences.  I mentioned that I liked water, juice, and hot chocolate.  The next morning for breakfast what did I get but nice streaming mug of yummy hot chocolate.  But only that once, never again.  Another time, I was asked if I liked granola.  I went on and on about how much I liked granola.  And yet they never served it to me.  Finally, I was asked if I liked oatmeal.  Again, I went on and on about how I ate a bowl of oatmeal every day for breakfast back in the States.  And yet, I was never served oatmeal.

Okey-dokey: According to one of my teachers in Guanajauato, it`s quite common for Mexican adults to say okey-dokey.  The teacher was actually surprised to hear that in the States, that`s more of a kids expression.  BTW, another way of saying OK in Spanish is  Sale Vale (not sure how to spell it but it`s pronounced Salley Valley).

Notebooks: When I was in Guanajuato, I needed to buy a notebook for my classes.  I was surprised that most notebooks here are lined differently than notebooks in the States.  Instead of just having lines that go across, they have lines going up and down, creating a grid pattern (many notecards are like this as well).  I`m not sure what the purpose of this is.  The individual boxes are really small, too small to just fit one letter.

Definitely not in the States: When I was in Guadalajara, I went to the mall to see a movie.  The mall actually had tow casinos in it, one with slot machines and one for playing cards.

Some people never learn: You may remember San Miguel de Allende, the town I really disliked because there were too many Caucasians.  One of the reasons the town is so popular is because of Tony Cohello`s book On Mexican Time which details his and his wife`s experience moving to and living in San Miguel.  When I was in Guanajuato, I met someone who knows Tony.  Turns out, he and his wife no longer live in San Miguel.  They decided to leave because, like me, they felt there were now too many Caucasians in San Miguel.  They have now moved to Guanajuato.  And guess what?  Tony recent wrote an article for the New Yorker, extolling the virtues of Guanajuato.

More about street kids

After working with street kids for the past month, I have to admit that there`s something I just don`t get.  I`ve been told repeatedly that these kids are poor.  Dirt poor.  And yet here are some things I`ve observed:

• The other day, one of the kids had $190 pesos on him, about $18.
• There`s a kid who I`ve seen riding a really nice, new looking bike
• I`ve seen some of the teenagers with cell phones.
• Most of the kids have several outfits to wear.  And sometimes they`re wearing really nice clothes.  And with some of them, I`ve seen them in more than one nice outfit.
• The night my cell phone disappeared, I treated Esmeralda to an hour on the computer and let her play video games.  At least I assumed it was a treat.  But clearly she knew what to do.  She knew exactly what website to go to and she clearly knew how to play several different video games.

I`m not saying the kids aren`t poor.  But as I mentioned before, they`re clearly doing better than the really poor kids of the world.

I`ve also noticed that several of them are behind in school.  For example, Esmeralda, who`s 10, is in second grade.  Same with Maria de Los Angeles who`s nine years old.  The kids certainly seem bright so I`m assuming they`re behind in school because they didn`t start school when other kids their age did.

And then there`s Luz. Luz was banned from Estancia Infantil for a while. Not for anything she did but for who she is. The director felt that Estancia should only serve indigenious children. And Luz is not indigenious. She’s white. I don`t know much of her story…I was only told that she`s being raised by a single mom who works in an office. Fortunately, there`s now a new director who doesn`t care that Luz is white.

Cell phone update

So.  I now have my cell phone back.  The story of how I got it back is a little odd.  I was at Estancia Infantil this morning.  A boy who I didn`t recognize came up to me and told me that he knew where my cell phone was.  He gave me an address.  How this boy knew who I was or where my cell phone was will remain a mystery. 

The address he gave me turned out to be the address for Oaxaca Grassroots Streetchildren, the place where I tried to volunteer when I first arrived in Oaxaca.  And guess whose mom works there?  Yep.  Esmeralda`s.  And sure enough Esmeralda´s mom is the one who returned my cell phone to me.  If I understood what she told me, some other kids took my cell phone from my backpack and put it in Esmeralda´s backpack.  I don`t know.  That`s hard to believe.  So in the end, I guess I`ll never know what happened. 

A theft

So far as I know, nothing`s been stolen from me druing this trip.  That is, until last night.  I was playing with Esmeralda and some other kids in the town square.  At one point, some of the kids wanted to know what time it was.  I pulled my cellphone from my backpack, told them it was 8:30 and we went back to playing.  About half an hour later, they again asked what time it was.  I reached into my backpack and my cellphone was gone.

Now.  I should mention that I really don`t care about the cell phone.  The only value it has for me in Mexico is as a clock.  I can easily pick up a cheap watch to replace the cell phone.  What makes the theft hard is that the cell phone was probably stolen by one of the kids I was playing with.  There were other kids in the area, but the kids I was playing with had the best view of the cell phone and where I put it in my backpack.  And what really, really makes it difficult is that it`s entirely possible that Esmeralda is the one who stole it.  I just have no way of knowing.  I would hope she wouldn`t do that after all the time we`ve spent together but who knows?  Anyway, the experience definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and spoiled what was otherswise a very fun evening.

Of course, it would be easy to blame the theft on poverty.  But the only other time I can remember someone stealing from me, the person definitely wasn`t lacking in material goods.

poverty in Oaxaca

I think I mentioned this already but Oaxaca is the poorest state in Mexico. Something like 3/4 of the population lives in poverty. A government survey in 2000 showed that 1/4 of the people in the state earned no money in the prior year.

Things are a bit better in the city of Oaxaca but I still see many more people here begging for money than I have in other cities in Mexico. The beggars aren`t aggressive however the way I`ve heard they are in other parts of the world (India for example). As you pass them on the street they may call out to you (“Senor, Senor”) but that`s about it. Most try to do something to try and earn money (playing the accordian is popular). Sometimes people will come up and try to sell you things but again, they aren`t aggresive about it. If you simply tell them “no thanks” they move on. Again, I`ve read that in other countries people are much more aggressive.

As far as I can tell, there are two main reasons why there´s so much poverty here. One is that there`s very little business or industry here. The primary business by far is tourism. I read somewhere that 75% of the money generated in Oaxaca comes from tourism (can`t remember if that`s for the state or the city). I can`t imagine what this place would be like without tourism.

The other reason that there´s so much poverty is that Oaxaca has a large percentage of Mexico`s indigenious population. The state of Oaxaca only has 3% of Mexico´s population, but 40% of its indigenious population. And like in other parts of the world, the indigenious people have a difficult time in the “modern world”. Many of the adults do not speak Spanish which makes it difficult for them to get jobs. And their children are at a huge disadvantage in school since Spanish isn`t the primray language spoken in the home.

Still, it`s important to understand that there are far worse places for a poor child to grow up. From what I`ve seen, the children aren`t starving like they are in some other countries. They do have parents to take care of them. And the girls won`t be sold off into prostitution and the boys won`t become children soldiers.