half-way point

OK, so here is what has been happening since last time. I have started waking up in the mornings (before 8!) and helping Santiago cut alfalfa for the cows everyday. It is a lot of fun and takes about an hour and a half between the both of us (He is much faster than I am!). Then, we have also started teaching at the local middle school in the town over (about a twenty minute walk that seems like forever in the height of the day when we go and come back because we teach from 12-2). Then we come back to El Gusano, and I have started a soccer team-type thing with the boys. We had practice and a few games between the kids there and some kids in the town over. We gave them jerseys that we found in the community center, and they LOVED THEM! They se emocionaron (got really excited, but the verb is so much better in Spanish). I explained to them that this is their jersey, and their responsibility to take care of it, their responsibility to wash it, etc. It is so funny-cute-interesting-encouraging to see them wearing these jerseys EVERYDAY!!! It gets dark around 9:15ish, so around 8-8:30 we go to the community center to watch a movie.

In the schools, we are teaching English, math, and motivation. The motivation class is with middle schoolers, and we ask them questions about where they see themselves in five years and how they are going to get there. It is really awkward when they stare back at you and you force them to answer, but it is totally worth it when you can see their minds working and them really contemplating their futures! Math is fun because I am not some old woman, and I tell them that the purpose of math is to apply it, so their assignment for this week was to find a real life example of how to use circumference (animals tied to a tree, fence around a mountain, curtains on a table, etc!) I am pumped to see what they come up with next week!

Few lessons/things I have to say:

-communication is really important! When there are certain expectations for 9 American college students to come and work with a Mexican foundation for six weeks. There has to be complete communication. We cannot know exactly their vision for what they want us to do, when they do not give us the exacts. We also cannot sit down and plan what we are doing all summer in 30 minutes. We thought they were going to have more planned for us to do, they thought we were going to come down with our own plans -- communication gap. Also, communication is just different in Mexico. Instead of calling someone right then when you have a question, it is OK to put it off until the next destination or until you see them the next time. It is also, OK to change your plans last minute and not give people a heads up. It is just really different and really outside of my schedule-loving, planned American framework.

-undocumented migration: I cannot stand IGNORANT Americans in general, but especially when it comes to undocumented migration. America has been using Mexican migration since the mid-1800s for OUR benefit. We have created the system and institution of migration. I was talking with Santiago, whose brothers and sisters and who he himself all have traveled to the States multiple times sin papeles (without papers), told me that in Mexico he can earn $1000 pesos a week ($80ish), and in the States he can make $700 per week and send back $500. We cannot complain that people are coming to our country and "burdening it" when they are only trying to make money, (and not to mention the fact that Mexican migrant workers are in the States keeps our prices LOW!) Our $45,000 GDP compared to that of Mexico being $12,500ish, is really fortunate on our end, but the fact is our development and industrialization happened at the right time, in the right place, and by taking advantage of the right marginalized people, so where do we ever get off thinking that this is OUR doing? Where do we get off thinking that it is OK to spend $11 billion on bottled water per year when $20 billion would provide all of Africa with clean, drinking water? America: it is time to wake up and realize that our good fortunes and vast wealth is not meant to be used to invest in ourselves, but to invest in the freeing of the captives from poverty, hunger, forced migration, workplace injustice, thirst, AIDS, and food sovereignty. One person cannot change the tide of this war, but some 300 million educated, fortunate, compassionate people can (and we happen to be that people). After traveling a lot of places around the world, I have come to realize that Americans are some of the most passionate, generous, kind, and loving people, but we are also some of the most ignorant and mal-informed. Let us break the bubble where we find our security, let us encounter these "stranger aliens" with the same generosity and kindness we would someone who is white, speaks English, and is Protestant. We have the most information in the world at our fingertips (Raleigh is the #1 wired city in America), so let us read, let us inform ourselves, let us be open to the idea that we are wrong, let us be open to the idea that we are right, let us be open to the idea that we can change the world, let us be open to the idea that changing the world is not going to be easy but that it is worth it. Talk to a Mexican migrant today about why they are here, how they came, what they have in their home country, the education and nutrition of their children, the well-being of their aging parents who have been farmers all their lives and now have no system of Mexican social security. Migration has happened since the beginning of human history, and it in the end ALWAYS benefits the host-country. IT IS AN INVESTMENT, but a worth-while one.

Shine On,
Jacob