fire, vomit, and drastic change

In another attempt to write something more concrete in describing our gringo teacher life here in Mexico, I'd like to relate to you a few recent developments in our dramatic story of teaching, living, and learning.

I'll start off with a sad note. If you have read the last couple of entries on this wonderful blog, you probably read about the details of my housemates and the joys I have had living with them thus far. Well, only a few days after I posted that description of our bilingual brotherhood, Jorge abruptly decided to resign from the church and leave the congregation (and the city) for good, due to various personal reasons. This came suddenly to us, catching us completely off guard. Today, a week and a half after, we're still feeling the loss and the hurt of seeing a good friend go away.

This drastic change implied several things. First of all, the church is now without a youth pastor to shepherd its 150-200 young people. Secondly, we lost a housemate (who was not only a good friend, but paid 1/4 of the rent as well!). Thus, a lot of things have begun to change in the past week and a half. David, myself, and a group of about 15 of the older, more mature twenty-somethings in the congregation have started to take some of Jorge's responsibilities for the youth group and start doing a lot of planning to make the youth group a solid, functioning, edifying body. Also, David, Mica, and myself have been looking for another place to live! We think that we've found a good apartment, and it's possible that we will sign the lease very soon and hopefully start moving on Friday of this week (yikes!). So, please pray for us in this time of transition, that God would be glorified in our life together.

As a part of some of the changes in the youth group, we decided to put on a big bonfire (fogata, for you Spanish speakers) on Saturday to give the youth an edifying, group-identifying, and just plain FUN activity, as well as to lighten the heaviness of the news of Jorge's leaving. It turned out to be INCREDIBLE! The locos fotos above are from that smoky, zany evening. Just imagine a typical American kum-bay-yah youth group bonfire, only spice it up with the chile of Mexican culture and personality, and make it last much longer. Then you might have an idea what it was like.

One final story to close things off with a laugh and satisfy your curiosity which is probably dying to know why I included the word "vomit" in the title of this post. On Wednesday morning of last week, I was in the middle of teaching a brilliant English lesson to my 4th grade students, who were doing their best to pay attention (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt). Suddenly, a boy named Alejandro simultaneously placed his left hand over his mouth and raised his right hand to ask me an urgent question with pleading eyes. Not fully understanding his mumbled, high-pitched request (with the hand covering his mouth, it was a little difficult to make out what he said), I nodded a confused "yes", at which he jumped up and ran for the trash can.

Too late. A liquid substance slightly resembling strawberry milk spewed from between his fingers and generously covered the floor (and several backpacks to boot). The general reaction of the class was a disgusted groan, followed by several screams, indicating to whom the affected backpacks belonged, followed by one of the most alarming of sounds to any teacher: the dry (soon to be wet) heaves of the students who could not handle the sight or smell of fresh vomit. After a few moments of confusion, I saw the unmistakable telltales of pre-vomitation growing strong: pale faces, hands clutching at the stomach, and voices clamoring, "Oh Teeeacher...I'm seeeeeck!"

Raul, one of my best students, opened the door to the classroom (which leads out onto a concrete walkway/balcony through which the classrooms are accessed), ventured outside, and promptly lost his breakfast on the concrete. Fernanda, a sweet yet slightly clueless little girl, managed to climb up on one of the desks which was close to the outside window, open the window, lean halfway out, and puked about a foot away from Raul. I'm pretty sure another student threw up in the classroom before I was able (shouting in Spanish over the sustained disgusted roar) to evacuate the entire class to the bathroom.

After getting them to the bathroom, I valiantly tried to form them into stately lines of boys and girls and proceed orderly to the toilets, but the urgency of the moment provided that they ran as fast as they could to the stalls in order to throw up in the toilet rather than in front of their friends. Before it was all over, at least six more vomited in the bathroom.

I had sent one of the more responsible (and less sick) students to find the janitor to clean up the mess in the classroom, and in order to give her proper time to repair the damage, I took my class outside and forced them to sit down in the slightly warm, tree-shaded school courtyard to rest their little stomachs and get their easily-distracted minds off the strawberry-milk mess in the classroom. After about 10 minutes of hearing the constant complaint of, "Teeeacher, I have a estomagache!" (that's Mexican 4th grader Spanglish for "stomachache", which was a vocabulary word three weeks ago--aren't I a good teacher?), I herded them back into the classroom and told them to play games for the rest of the hour. There was no way I was going to capture their attention and resume my brilliant lesson after that fiasco.