At the same time, I feel the students have loved the time I take to really hear them, and have shone and beamed under my particular attention. My classroom experience has increased my confidence as a teacher and given me many ideas for making a lesson relevant and lively. My experience of the culture here has been for more educational than I every expected. I have felt the loneliness and isolation of an alien, as well as the sweetness and comfort of acceptance. I have lived as a lucky poor one, walking everywhere among throngs, wearing the same shabby dress, never buying anything unnecessary, eating simply and cheaply.
Food is mercifully inexpensive and so available.
Sometimes I wish I could close my eyes and open them upon a real soy latte, drenched in the chill Seattle drizzly. But I'm not really ready to trade the feel and flavor of Mexico, its simplicity and heart, for the former life that had become to ordinary I no longer noticed it. Last night we had our school Christmas Pastorale. Each class prepared its own act of singing and dancing to English Christmas Carols and then the teachers put on an amazing skit, a play actually, with costumes and music. The genuine universal display of enthusiasm, encouragement and appreciation was so exciting and heart-filling, and that is Mexico.