sembrando

for the past two days, I have set aside my encuestas and gone out to plant corn, beans, and squash with my supervisor Nacho and his family. I was a little worried that I wouldn{t get the opportunity to do this, and was really happy to get out there in the soil. and get dirty I sure did.. the people in Amatlan mainly plant the seeds by hand. first one of the two tractors in the town comes through to churn up the soil (barbechar) and then a second time to create furrows (surcar). then people walk up and down the rows, dropping 4 grains of corn and a squash or bean seed as well, and then cover cover them up. this is best done in bare feet, because the soil sticks to your shoes and makes it really hard to walk. so, many things happened to my feet, including taking a mud bath and getting bitten by red ants. the first day we planted it had rained the night before, and no joke, we were pretty much planting in mud. it felt good to walk in (if you didn't slip too badly) but I didn't realize until the next day when the soil was drier how much harder it is to plant in mud. the soil just doesn't want to cover up the seeds. the next day was beautiful, the soil more easy to manage, but I also stepped in a few ant hills. it actually hurt less than I thought. once we were done in our fields, we saw some friends planting across the street, and went to help out. and this is an example of why I really love Amatlan.. people will help each other out, because it is a community and the lands are communal, even if they are not going to reap the gains of that field. in exchange, they gave us some beer and pop after the sun went down. all in all, a pretty good day.

also, the dog here that had become my favorite, Duma, we think is pregnant. ! they had her operated on so she wouldn't have be able to have puppies, but i guess it didn't work..? everyone is like, want to take a cat home? want to take a dog home? want to buy my dog? because there are so many dogs and cats here. really Duma, we don't need more puppies!

asi es la vida

I've been in Amatlan for 2 weeks now, and things are starting to settle in. Not that they weren't settled in before, but I am continuing to meet more people, and now recognize a lot of faces when I walk around the streets. I am happy to report that my Spanish is good enough to joke around, which is nice because I have made friends with 4 jovenes (young people), who are my supervisor's nieces and nephews. The oldest one is 19, so they are a little younger, but it is still nice to be friends with people more my age.. or i guess people that aren't married and have kids. as for the people my age, I know there are some out there, but for the most part they are either married, or have left to go work in the United States or Canada.

the surveys are continuing to go well, and now have crossed 30 people off of my list. and in the middle of planting season, I might add, which makes it harder to find people. regularly, I get two questions. 1: "where are you from, Canada?" Most white people that come to Amatlan for longer periods of time are from Canada, and there are three people from the town who are married to Canadians. Which leads to the second most frequent question, which is: "and are you married?" To which I reply.. no, I'm not, but I'm not looking to get married quite yet. We will see if I can escape without a wedding... haha. But I always hear really good stories from people while talking to them about their immigration experiences.. just last night I talked to a guy who has been migrating to the US and Canada, legally, for about 18 years. a lot of people here go to Canada through a worker's program, and go for a maximum of 8 months a year, although sometimes they go for 4 or even only 2. and this man had a health problem from being in the sun so much, but the patron didn't want to take him to the hospital and pay some of the expenses, so this man called the UFCW in Canada's migrant worker help offices, and had a really good experience because the woman was able to advocate for him and forced the patron to bring him to the doctor. It gave me hope that workers do actually find those kinds of supports useful.

I am also going to be giving English lessons throughout the summer, which I am excited to have started. Its nice to be doing something concrete that gives back to the community that is hosting me and most graciously answering a survey taken by a United States citizen. I have one group of kids and one group of adults, with a special emphasis on those that migrate to work in the United States or Canada, so they can learn some English that can be useful to them. I had my first class with kids yesterday, and I think it went pretty well. I just went over some basics and tried to get them to participate.. although they speak really quietly and are kind of embarrassed. also, for not ever having taken an education class or taught English or any other subject I think I held my own. and I even developed my own pedagogy! its called the "how do you say..?" pedagogy. The kids ask a question in English and insert a Spanish word that they want to know. Then I will tell them what that word is in English and then we spell it, using the English alphabet. its good for several reasons: it involves the kids, letting them take a little bit of control of their own education because they get to choose what words they want to learn, they have to ask the question in English so it helps with pronunciation, and then we spell it, so they learn more of the letter of the alphabet. not very many adults came yesterday, but I am hopeful that Saturday people have more free time.

today, I spent a good amount of time "dis-graining" corn that they will soak in water, cook, bring to the maize grinding store, and then make tortillas out of. there are several different colors of corn, and sometimes they mix! which makes a really pretty dried ear of corn.

encuestas

this week was the first week of going out and talking to people about their migration experiences. Mario, who is the suplente (kind of like vice president) of the Ayudantia wrote me a list of more than 50 names of people who have gone to work in the United States or Canada, and what streets they live on. what makes it interesting is the houses aren't marked, and I really have no idea which family lives in which house so what I do is go around to the houses, knock on doors, show them the list, and ask if anyone on the list is a part of their family. I was a little intimidated at first to not even know which person I was going to talk to, but actually people are suprisingly helpful and do look over the list, and so far in 3 days I have done 12 surveys. also, i have gathered more information about who lives where, what times I should come back, etc, so I have some good prospects for today. I think actually I will have to do a lot of surveying on Saturdays and Sundays, because that is when people are around the house more. and even saturdays aren't ideal, because most people work.

In terms of what I have going against me (an outsider from the community, and not just an outsider but from the United States, and also asking about maybe a touchy subject) I think people have been pretty receptive. i have met a few more reserved people, a lot of people that are willing to help out, and a also a few who really want to talk about their experiences. most people want to know what is going to happen with the information, so I have gotten really good at explaining that what they say only goes to the Ayudantia and NOT to the United States (one woman wanted to make sure that if she told me her daughter's name, that her daughter wouldn't get deported) and that the goal is to use the information to help people from the town who migrate, immigrate, or are thinking about it. and truth be told, that is the part that I am really looking forward to, because gathering information is good, but not really if nothing is done with that information. I just hope that the surveying doesn't take so long that there isn't much time left for the second part.

a lot of people guess that I am from Canada when they ask where I'm from (I don't know, maybe Minnesota is really more like Canada than I thought) so one time I asked a guy who was really friendly why he guessed I was from Canada, and he said that Canadians are more easy-going and friendly than the US citizens that come to Mexico. so, at least to some people I am coming off as easy-going and friendly! today it rained hard for about 6 or 7 hours... and my rain jacket is still in Cuernavaca... got to get that soon!

also, the mosquitos here are unnaturally fast.. I think I have killed 3 the whole time here, and I usually have pretty quick mosquito-killing moves.

la temporada de lluvia

so, I think most of you know by now but if you don't, I decided to come back to Mexico for the summer and intern with the Communal Land Council (or Ayudantia) in Amatlan, Morelos. I have a grant from the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility at my school, and so was able to come back! I arrived in Amatlan yesterday after a full day of traveling, ate some amazing tortillas, talked with people at the Ayudantia, and slept really well. Everyone said when I came back I would be amazed by the beauty of Amatlan in the rainy season, and it is really true. The mountains are green and misty and when you walk around the streets there are many green trees poking out over people's walls. And I would know, because today I took a map and walked around the streets to familiarize myself with the town. Some of them I had been on before, but I went on a lot more back roads where people actually live. I only met one angry dog, and walkd the other way. People say that I should just say hi to the dog and everything will be fine, but I'm not ready for that yet :). I also visited Dona Chimina and Don Bonfilio, my homestay family from before and got to talk with them for a while, which was really nice. It seems like everything is bursting with life, with all of the green plants, rain, and the new puppies that my supervisor, Nacho, has at his house.

I will be continuing to update this blog all summer, so please keep tuned!

Ruth