quince anos

Saturday November 17 I attended another extremely cultural event...I went to a Quince Anos. (Yes, I too thought they were called Quinceaneras...but no, the Quinceanera is the PERSON celebrating her Quince Anos). It was an extremely interesting experience that frankly blew my mind. In classic us form (us = the family i live with) we left the house at 7:30 when misa (church service) was supposed to start at 7. So sadly, I did not get to experience the misa part...we just went straight to the fiesta. It was in a huge banquet hall, like, imagine the most extravagant wedding you've ever been to in the states and it was AT LEAST that out of control fancy. It was much more than anything i personally had ever experienced, and i was kind of appalled by it all in some respects (mostly the money respect). Every time I would mention something about how "wow" it was, their response was "but you guys have sweet 16 parties like this don't you???" i think they've all just seen the tv show My Sweet 16 and assume we all do that! I was like um....no. the most ridiculous part(s) was when the girl made her grand entrance she like came down this lighted stairway doing this interpretive dance type thing all the way down to the dance floor where she then danced several dances by herself and with a partner. Then later on she and two guys came out all in black and danced to a compilation of Michael Jackson songs (sort of cool being MJ but still way over the top). After her big entrance her parents made this big speech about how she is now a woman and they are presenting her to society and all that jazz. It was just frankly all way too much for me. Tons of LOUD music, live band, lots of dancing, yeah all you would imagine and more. Ridiculous. But interesting. Let's just say we left at 1 am and they still had not cut the cake ... now obviously this family (Itzi's cousin) has money, but I'm told even families don't do money they still make a big hooplah out of it all. anyways, it was interesting, very interesting. not so much my scene, but great to experience yet another very cultural event.

here are some pics of the family at the big event:






in other news, life at school is about the same. i spent the majority of my day teaching english in one way or another, which i am still not totally happy about, but it's life. with the little kids i am in charge and we basically just sing songs all the time, which is a delight i suppose, although the little ones still really just don't learn anything ... in second grade i help itzi out and basically just have conversation with the kids and help those who are struggling. in first grade it was SO overwhelming (really tough class) we decided to split up the class so itzi teaches half the kids and i teach the other half ... not a huge fan of this (especially since we're outside where distractions run rampant) and the kids are really quite a handful but i'll work on it! monday evenings i have regularizacion where i help 3 kids who are around ages 13-15 (FINALLY! an age i know how to deal with!) with english. it's actually a lot of fun. tuesday mornings two kids from the community come and i spent 2 hours with them working on spanish and math. other than that, my days are filled with helping with breakfast, brushing teeth, and not tons else at the moment! pretty much all english ... eh. :-)

regularizacion on tuesdays with brenda and oscar

giving the kids ketchup on their eggs

the whole crew at the kinder

english 101 with maestra natalia: these are your EYES!

i hope everyone is well and truly enjoying FALL! take care.