Travel to Teach: Mexico Volunteer Story

Sue Townsend, 33, UK

I decided to head to Xalapa (pronounced Halapa) a week early to 'get a feel' for the place before I started my voluntary work. It didn't take long for me to panic about committing myself to spending 4 weeks here let alone adding an extra week now over New Year. Xalapa initially appeared to be a big, gray city with nothing much but traffic and busy Mexicans rushing around and staring at the only female tourist in the place - yes me!

I phoned Adriana who I had arranged the voluntary work with and we met for coffee, all very pleasant but I wasn't starting the work for another week and I couldn't start any earlier - great! Another girl turned up at the hostel and we actually had quite a good night out with several beers but that was short lived as she was only stopping one night!

After a quiet New Year (not actually that different from last years) I decided I needed some life so I headed to Mexico City and stayed in a hostel in the centre. It had a rooftop bar and I met quite a few cool people.

I went to the markets where I bought a few sad teaching resources for my voluntary work - sad I know but it made me feel at home again! I also visited the torture museum which was incredibly gruesome and sick so obviously I spent quite some time in there and thoroughly enjoyed it. I did decide though that I was rather glad I didn't live in the not so distant past (or in the countries which still torture) when people were tortured for practically everything. There were cages in which people were hung until they starved to death and those chastity belts gave me nightmares for a week - unfortunately (or maybe fortunately ) you weren't allowed to take pictures.

I headed back to Xalapa after a couple of days feeling much more positive about the city and ready to start the voluntary work and learn some Spanish once again.

Adriana and Ali from Travel 2 Teach took me to my apartment, YES apartment where I was going to be staying for the next four weeks. It was amazing to have my own apartment, a kitchen, a bathroom, a shower, a settee, a balcony, my own toilet, toilet paper and most importantly my own double bed - heaven!!!!!!!!!!

There was no fridge in the apartment but this wasn't a great problem as I  only need it for wine and beer and an occasional carton of milk so I kept them in cold water in the sink. Ants became a bit of a problem in the kitchen but then again at times they are a problem in my kitchen at home as well.

The first day when I started my voluntary work I met Lisa who was going to be working there for 2 weeks. We got on well straight away even though she could speak Spanish quite well BUT as she was half Mexican I should think so too!!! Over the next few days we visited the school, the boys homeless centre and the girls orphanage to see where we would be teaching - oh and of course so we could see which buses we had to catch and as we were doing most of our teaching separately it was worth concentrating during these journeys.

Xalapa is like a maze and the buses run non-stop to various places but as some of the names are similar or they go in the same direction but not actually to the exact place we needed to go, the  first 2 weeks we both spent getting lost en-route to our teaching places. We had both been given a map of the city and information about the buses but this didn't actually help.

During the two weeks Lisa was in Xalapa had great fun. We did some planning together, although admittedly I never really stuck to my plans (some things never change then) and then we often finished the evening with several glasses of wine. It was nice to be able to drink wine again because when you are on the move constantly it is difficult having bottles of wine in your backpack.

As part of the Travel-to-Teach package we had 2 cooking lessons included. These were at Adriana's house and we provided some wine. The cooking lessons were interesting especially when Adriana left us to try and make enchiladas independently - she did keep popping back every now and again but we assured her it was all in hand - as you can see from the pictures 'in hand' wasn't exactly what I would call it! It was hilarious, we cried over the onions and laughed over everything else - it was more of a pantomime than a cooking lesson but great fun anyway - one of the best nights in Xalapa.

Oh as for the teaching - that was ok too! Seriously it was good fun - the girls were a bit more willing to learn than the boys and were delighted at learning a number of songs such as "Sing a Rainbow" the problem was when they wanted to sing it to the Sister and when she came in and we both listened it was horrendous - it was all one note and no tune at all - all I could think was 'I taught them that tune'  The sister just looked blank and said 'Muy bien' I thought "you liar"

Like I said I wasn't very good at sticking to the lesson plans especially as you didn't really know what boys you were going to have until you got there. They were very keen on counting and learning numbers and when I had one particularly lively group the blackboard and chalk were abandoned and we resorted to doing press -ups and sit-ups and counting how many we could do! They were going to participate in a lesson even if it killed me!!!!

It was sad saying good-bye to Lisa as we had got on well and been out a few times, got drunk together and had lots of fun. I thought the next 2 weeks would be very quiet and boring without her. It was quiet and I suppose a bit lonely for about half a week and then after that I think I actually had more time to myself when I was working full time in England.

My Spanish was improving slightly and my confidence was growing, this could have been because I had resorted to a few glasses of wine during the lesson and persuading Ayulia to have some too led to hilarious Spanish lessons but hey - I say go with the pupil's needs and if alcohol is that need then so be it. Of course this extended to a social life as well so I had several nights out with Ayulia and her boyfriend , Hector and some other friends of theirs. Luckily the night when I didn't get in until 6 am was a Friday so I spent Saturday recovering in bed - can't take the pace anymore.

   

Ana was a colleague of Adriana's who gave myself and Lisa some lessons in teaching English. She taught English in a private school which just so happened to have a boy there with Aspergers and she openly admitted that the teachers were struggling to get him reading, working and communicating. That was it - a challenge! Something to occupy my brain and apart from the fact he was absolutely gorgeous and had so much potential I actually wanted to get in there and set some systems up.

After lots of early mornings to reach his school over the other side of the city and juggling this with the other teaching projects and Spanish lessons I set up a PECs style reading system in Spanish for him and made some TEACCH activities and schedules. I spent some time with his teacher and gave her as much help as I could in the short time and during my last 2 sessions there he started reading some words - I was ecstatic!

It was very sad saying goodbye to Adriana, Ana, Ayulia and the other people I had met in Xalapa and I promised Ayulia I would continue learning some Spanish when I get home and email her in Spanish - so I had better get some CD's and get learning, it'll probably take me 2 hours to write one short email. As for the teaching - why is it so enjoyable when you haven't GOT to do it?

                                             

Despite initial reservations, I am so glad I spent the whole month there. In fact if I didn't have so many other places to visit and only six and a half months left to do it I would actually have stayed longer and you never know I may actually have become fluent in Spanish - yeah right!!!!!!!!

Email: Sue

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