Mexico Capstone Blog 2010

The TIS fifth grade Spanish Track students traveled to Merida, Mexico in March 2010 for their Capstone Study Abroad experience. They spent the first week living with host families and the second week touring historical and cultural sites in the areas. Following are blog entries written by TIS parents chaperoning the trip.

From Wynton’s Mom,  March 10, 2010

Try to be very quiet . . . . school is in session.

No one could have prepared us for what happened at the school when we went to pick up uniforms (before our children met their host families). It was an unplanned “meet your host kid” party.

We travelled to the school in five taxis (40 pesos each, super cheap) and walked as a group to the uniform room which was housed in a covered hall with an enormous potential for echoes and amplification. Our kids travel as a barely detached group, some holding hands, all bumping elbows, some talking with their noses only inches apart. Fourteen children, five adults and one Maestra descending on a school at 10:00 am can have quite an impact.

The kids from Escuela Modelo noticed us right away, ran in from the playground and began to gather at the other side of the hall way. Five, ten, then 20 children, staring across at us. After about 15 minutes a Modelo girl breaks thru the crowd and asks “Who is Olivia y Simone?” The first fix-up happens. Emotions explode, people cheer, parents cry (for some reason), cameras click. Then Ciara and her sister meet, then , then, then. It was loud in there and it really lasted an hour. The girls almost fainted with excitement while the boys almost fainted from awkwardness. Adam’s boy showed up first, then Colin’s, Ethan’s and finally Javier showed up for Wynton. Wynn did so well. A question here, an answer there, these are my classmates; finally, a whole conversation that lasted 10 minutes. At the end, I was introduced and found out that Javier has a dog, a turtle, a fish, a WII and a DS. He is Wynton’s height; they can see eye to eye.

As a matter-of-fact, almost all their kids match our kids. Everyone notices, even Wynn. “Mom, their kids look like us.” Someone did a nice job with that.

Sweetest thing I heard all day.

“I wonder what dad and Gus are doing right now?” asks Wynton.

I don’t really like Mexican food.

A lot of worries have gone into Capstone. The expense, an entire day of travel, “tourista” to prepare for, letting my 11-year-old go home with a strange family (a really nice strange family I want you to know). I could have skipped the first three and focused on the fourth worry. The hand-off was really hard and I cried, quietly, throughout. The hotel prepared a delicious meal for our luncheon to meet the host family. Wynton kept his emotions in check and translated for me but couldn’t eat. Our host family’s mama, Lucy, is a nutritionist and I could see her staring at his almost empty plate. “What can I feed him?” she asked in Spanish, she was preparing an emergency grocery list. “Cereal, milk?” “Bread,” I said in Italian (not sure why). Finally, I said in English, “He will eat what you tell him to eat, but you have to tell him.” Not sure what they made of that but I have reports that he is still alive and kicking and it’s been 5 days now.

Let’s go see the horses

Our first night in Merida ended with a carriage ride. Wynn helped me negotiate the cost from 200 pesos to 100 which I thought was pretty good. Constanza told me later that this was very good because the drivers don’t typically negotiate. Our ride was a tiny little thrill that lasted about 20 minutes. Clop, clop, clop. The driver pointed out the sights and Wynn translated. The tenor was just right.

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From Wynton’s Mom, March 11, 2010

If you cry hard enough the host family will take you home too.

The hand-off lunch on Saturday was difficult and I got less conversant as it progressed. I don’t speak much Spanish. Then, finally it was winding down. Everyone was frazzled. Lucy, Wynn’s host mom, talked faster and more in my silence. Faustina was translating as quickly as she could but she could barely keep up. Lucy was clearly worried about me and launched into directions for her husband’s office downtown in case I needed to check in. She told me that she got home at 2:00 p.m. every day and that I could call anytime I needed to, that I could come over Tuesday night. She was beginning to make concrete plans when I firmly said “no,” and that was that.

It turned out that while I was turning down their invitation, other families were making plans. Tereece’s family took Tammi for the rest of the day on Saturday and the next day too. She went to a 2 1/2 hour mass with them on Sunday. Simone’s, Olivia’s, Colin’s and Sophia’s families took the parents to a cenote on Sunday. A big group of them met at the mall later on. Dahlia’s family took Rochelle. Adam’s host mom drove him back to the hotel on Sunday to pick up a book and get one last hug from Charlie (TIS dad). Charlie has been a real champ throughout the trip, but Saturday was hard on him too. “I feel like I just took a bullet for the family. You owe me one Becky!”

Dahlia’s happiest moment so far . . .

At our first tour on our first Friday we visit a watering hole. Most of the children took off their shoes and socks and went ankle deep into the water. A welcoming committee of tiny fish greeted their toes with nibbles. Rochelle wasn’t sure if it was the salt or skin they were after, but both the kids and the fish seemed to like it.

Synchronicity in Merida.

Rochelle, walking down the sidewalk, glances over at a bicyclist. It’s Dahlia! With her host family.

Escuela

Parents hike two miles to the school on Monday to have a tour and see our children in their uniforms. The school was celebrating its 100th birthday that day so all the students had new clothes on. Looking through the gates of the school I spot Wynn’s red hair. Adam spots me. “Wynn, your mom’s here.” Host brother, Javier, Wynn, and host little brother Jerad all run to the fence to check in with me. There is no drama just a “hello mom, what are you doing here?” Perfect.

Little Jerad lets me know that Wynton has been playing with his DS. This is very interesting to me because all DS’s have been confiscated by us parents prior to the visit in strict accordance with TIS regulations. It was the one thing Wynton really had a fit about and I’m actually glad to hear that he has access to one.

The school buildings and grounds are very nice. We gather from our tour guide that the school’s big focus is games and I joke that Escuela Modelo is a sports immersion school. Going into their library was interesting – more of a study hall with lots and lots of trophies; few books, though. All the children have something they play. Javier, Wynn’s host brother, is the #1 gymnast in the Yucatan. He trains 24 hours a week with a special coach from Beijing, but will cut back his training by half for Wynn’s home stay.

On our tour, we are fortunate to see Leigh (TIS student) helping Constanza (TIS Spanish teacher) teach English that day. She is giving a lesson to two boys at the front of the class showing them how to make the “ou” sound in “about.” Leigh’s student gives a good try and the whole class laughs. TIS students look completely at ease.

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Charlie Schulz’ (TIS Dad) best moments

“I was sitting in a little taco stand after dark watching all the families go by. That’s when I could feel myself decompress.”

“I really, really liked seeing all our kids sitting in class attending to their lessons. I felt then that this is not just a vacation for them. Capstone is doing what it is supposed to do.

“I also like the moment when you receive the food – seeing if it’s what you actually ordered.”

Everyone around Charlie laughed at that as Yucatan food has been a challenge for many of us. “Harsh” isn’t a good word to describe food but, “ye gads, man. What is that?” And don’t get me started on Cuban food!

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From Ciara’s dad, Saturday March 13

The children have now returned from their homestays, and we are beginning to see some of the drawbacks to a TIS education. We received our first clue when we arrived in Cancun. On a different flight than the main group, we had to take the bus to Merida. Helpfully there is a bus counter in the airport, and our daughter Ciara took over with her Spanish immediately. Cue many comments about her good Spanish, her wonderful accent and where did she learn it and so on. Once we had completed those formalities, they happily informed us we had just missed the bus to the city center.

The real blow hit us however at the end of the homestays. We saw the children off with their host families two days after arrival. And while they worked hard in school and spent their free time staying with a family and conversing entirely in their second language, we parents were allowed to play, be on vacation and generally have a good time while fumbling around in our shaky Spanish. Many stayed in Merida; others took trips around the Yucatan peninsula (white sandy beaches with warm water hold a strong attraction to Pacific Northwesterners). The parents had all reassembled by the following Friday ready to welcome our children back after their arduous week. Only it didn’t quite work out that way. Ciara, who had almost forgotten to say goodbye to us the previous week, cried so hard when she had to say goodbye to her host family that I began to wonder if indeed we were kidnapping her from her real family. Matters weren’t helped that after the official goodbye at the host school, Escuelo Modelo, Ciara’s family generously invited us out to dinner and we had to repeat the entire tearful farewell again.

Although every child’s experience was different, it was very apparent at the final gathering in Escuelo Modelo that the children had bonded very quickly. They ran, played and joked with the other students as if they had spent years, not days, with them. Constanza (TIS teacher) also reported that it was a very good week. Other parents were overwhelmingly positive: one child claiming “it was the best week of my life.”  Ciara had such high expectations of the homestay that any let down would become a real disappointment. However, it exceeded even her greatest hopes, and she came to feel very much part of the family very quickly. That is quite a testament to the welcome her host family offered her, because Ciara speaks fondly of not only her host sister, but her mother and her grandmother and cousin who live in the same house. And although it is very difficult for a pair of ten year olds, I really hope they are able to keep in touch in the coming months and years. Whatever the future holds, I believe Ciara will always treasure the memories of this experience.

Merida itself is a quite wonderful city. The capital of the state of Yucatan, it is quite a large city numbering about a million people. The city hosts free cultural events almost every night, and at any time of the day there is a welcoming and vibrant atmosphere. Many people stop you in the street to talk. Often they want to direct you to their store, or their cousin’s store. Yet there is also a genuine curiosity about the people who visit here, coupled with a fierce pride in their Mayan heritage. An innocent question will often induce a long explanation of Mayan culture and beliefs. Each night the roads around the main plaza are closed to traffic, and at the weekends this is extended a few blocks in very direction. At this time, the restaurants hurriedly set up tables for customers to eat, many with live music of varying quality. The Plaza itself is a riot of stalls selling food and handicrafts, street entertainers and Meridians strolling through the square. And while Merida is certainly a big tourist destination, rarely does one feel that tourists are in the majority or that the events are for the visitors. The city is very much geared for its own, and they simply welcome outsiders in a friendly fashion. At least one parent is talking seriously about renting a house for several months sometime in the future. And even though we will have spent the best part of two weeks here, I for one feel that I have begun to scratch the surface of what Merida has to offer.

The next few days sees the entire group taking trips to nearby sights, including Mayan ruins; a nature reserve full of coastal animals; and a hacienda that still grows and processes henequen, the plant that made Merida one of the richest cities in the world briefly in the twentieth century. It should be a fun and educational week for both students and parents only a tearful farewell that evening.

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From Ciara’s Dad, Wednesday, March 17

The second and final part of this year’s Capstone trip has drawn to a close. The last few days the group has spent time touring cultural and historical sites around Merida and learning a tremendous amount about the region’s past while having a tremendous amount of fun. Two factors dominate this area: the lack of rivers and the very thin layer of topsoil. This has presented problems for centuries, both for the pre-Hispanic peoples and during colonial times.

There have been two trips to Mayan ruins – Uxmal and Chichen Itza. Both are incredibly impressive, boasting huge buildings constructed by a Stone Age society. How they moved and carved such impressive edifices still puzzle historians. The Mayans also developed complex mathematical systems, recognizing the concept of zero that allowed far more advanced math than many other cultures.

Another of our trips focused on hacienda that grew and processed henequen. This is a fiber that briefly made the Yucatan and Merida in particular one of the wealthiest regions in the world. Navies in the Second World War used henequen ropes, and until Brazil started to grow the crop, here was the only producer in the world. It is incredibly labor intensive, and though in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century rudimentary mechanization made the processing and manufacture less so, the actual harvest was still done by hand.

The students seemed to have enjoyed the trips, and learnt a lot in the past few days. As an adult, it is always hard to know how much they can critically appreciate. Huge ancient structures are all very well, but they can go to downtown Portland and see 40-storey buildings anytime. The development of the calendar is great, but they have watches that can tell time to the second. As I have asked them questions, I have received some very impressive and mature answers, but I hope that Ciara at least can return one day and see these sights again with a different, broader perspective.

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A Final Word from Merida
From Wynton’s Mom, March 22

Favorite things

Simone’s (TIS student) favorite thing – “Visiting the cenotes and swimming in them. The Mayans thought they were caused by meteors. It was a good opportunity to swim in a water hole.” Second favorite thing – “Being with our host families. That was cool.”

Heidi’s (parent chaperone) favorite thing – “One of my favorite things has been getting to know all of the other parents. The other has been seeing how well behaved our kids have been in every situation. Immigration which took two hours, drawn out meals, long days of field trips or just being at the school.”

Heather’s (parent chaperone) favorite thing – “Tres Cenote’s with Colin’s host family. It was unbelievable. We jumped off this 15’ ledge into the cenote and it was absolutely perfect. Not too hot or too cold. Although I thought the horses which pulled the trucks to the cenotes were underfed.”

Wynn’s (TIS student) favorite thing – “The kids’ personalities change. In our school the kids are really connected. They were too, but really different and it makes me feel different. I liked how the people had different personalities.”