On Education and the Year in Coatepec

It’s Friday already! Over two week in our new home in Xalapa... time flies when you are having fun!
Today closes the second week of classes for the boys in their new school, Colegio Nuestro Mundo. It has been amazing to watch the ease in which they have made the transition to this new school, how quickly they surrounded themselves of friends and how excited they come back home after the schoolday is over. They won’t cease talking about the new classes they have and they relate to us every single thing they did at recess– in the labyrinth, at the patio, down at the forest. They are specially excited about the new ecology building down in the forest area and their weekly ecology class.
When we chose the school, we already had a good sense of what the focus of the education would be like. We were aware of the fascinating mix of philosophies and ideologies that were used to create a more unique approach to a complete education of the child. We were already very familiar with many philosophies, such as Waldorf, Montessori, Piaget, Constructivism, Reggio Emilia… and of course the useless “No Child Left Behind” that somehow leaves most children behind in overall learning (talk about stressful schooling with a very low expectations to any child in it, and even a child knows it: www.connectforkids.org/node/3336; thus we were fascinated with the more proactive approach of the school. An approach employs a mix of these philosophies to personalize education enough so that it offers the child a more complete view of the real actual world and arms him (or her) with tools to make sense of the information he is given: collecting, rationalizing and organizing information that the child will be able to use more and more as he/she develops a better understanding of the World around. Suddenly learning to read, write and do math become something more meaningful, a way to reach a realistic goal for the child. An art project, or a book do more than just fill the sensitive side of the soul, but become a path by which they can validate history, make use of skills they already posses and find more meaning to the written word.
In our time in Cleveland Heights, I found my share of teachers that shared this non-philosophy of using the tools that best fit the job. They are all great educators that, unfortunately, remained hindered by the “NCLB” policy. Even so, it was a tall order, even in a private school in Mexico, but so far it has proven to deliver even a little piece of what we were hoping: a newly found sense of responsibility and organization that usually is given prefabricated to the children, a sense of self achievement and security in themselves and the skills they posses (self-confidence).
One of the biggest reasons we moved to the area was to be able to give our kids a great education, not just a decent schooling option, but a life experience that translated into education for life. When we look back at their first two weeks we wonder if we missed an opportunity at not having found this school one year ago.
Had we found Colegio Nuestro Mundo last year, we would have set residence in Xalapa from the beginning, we would have not lived in Coatepec. The boys would have had two years of a very full school experience… Life would have been a lot easier than our life in Coatepec, but would it have been as full?
Colegio Calli was a very good transition school for the boys. Although it followed some of the Waldorf precepts, it was not quite a full blown Steiner school. This made it easy for the boys to benefit of some of the artistic richness of the philosophy without too much discrepancy to their life. It was an easy going, small school, and the size made it less stressful for the boys to fit in with a very limited knowledge of the language. Their first six months there were vital, both for the acquisition of the language, as for the getting rid of a lot of put downs the NCLB education had left in them: artistically and academically. Their self-esteem got elevated and their artistic nature got celebrated. The second half of the year could have been equally good, but the lack of challenge and variety of stimuli seemed to weight heavy on the boys once the language acquisition was no longer a challenge. So, that second half, added to the turmoil inside the school administration and teacher’s core, did not sit well with our expectations. Then, again, that same turmoil turned us into a path of research and investigation that helped us recognizing many downfalls in the up-bringing of children nowadays (ours included), and made it clear what our priorities and our path should be for the future.
About living in Coatepec. We probably would have missed a unique opportunity to make that learning process such a productive one. We were able to immerse them in a more authentic Mexico. All of us, not just the kids, were enriched by the trueness of the landscape and the starkness of the reality of those who have very little. Each day, as we walked to school, we would experience everything from the big lump of doggie doo on the sidewalk, to the men that had been up too late trying to clear their misery with a bottle of alcohol. The boys became aware of how running water has not reached everyone when they saw how women still take their clothes to wash to the river or carried buckets home (all this on the way to school). They also became aware of how many luxuries we take for granted are not shared by many, many people, like hot water: the first time they saw the old women go down the steep hills in search for fire wood it was strange and unreal for them. Even in Mexico, where gas is more than 50% cheaper than in the US, way too many people cannot afford to cook or heat their homes with gas. But, even with all those disadvantages, we all witnessed the beauty and strength of the human spirit.
It was a hard year to figure out ins and ends of a traditional and old culture, different in many ways to how I was brought up. It was a hard year to connect with people and landscape, but once we connected, the richness was unsurpassable. It was a hard year to partake in the hurt and struggle of an emerging school, were we left our hearts, but we knew it had outlived its potential to our children. It was a hard year to become pregnant, in the middle of uncertainty and cobbled roads, but it probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
In all, it was unique.


If we had found Colegio Nuestro Mundo a year ago, yes, we would have not had Coatepec. For that, our year here would have been much easier, but definitively not even remotely as rich as it was.

Second Part of One Year

(continued from ONE YEAR, previous post)

By the time we got better, it was time for Spring break and we were all anxious to do another trip! We headed South and explored the wonderful area of Tlacotalpan and Los Tuxtlas. The very edge of the real jungle, but not too much left of it either! The trip seemed short, but we all enjoyed it (even Kiwi, the dog!). We also really enjoyed the fact that all of us were speaking Spanish proficiently and our stomach had become acclimated so we could eat anywhere!
But somehow, my stomach was not doing too good… and then the surprise came… for someone who is pre-menopausic it comes as more than a surprise, more like shock, to learn that she is pregnant. After 9 years we found we had another little one on the way. Jevon was in shock, but elated. The boys were in shock and confused.
The shock subsided just in time to go back to school, and we went back to our routine as much as we could… yeah, I was kind of nauseous most of the time. I had become a very avid walker in the past year, walking at least twice a day to downtown Coatepec and twice a day to school, suddenly walking did not feel that good anymore.
Just a couple of weeks into school, I started to miscarry. Not a very happy time for anyone. It was very painful both physically and mentally, but we were lucky to find a doctor that gave us hope. It took over 5 weeks of bed rest and a hearty hormone treatment to make sure baby stayed in place. Needless to say, I stopped working for good. Even after my period of bed rest was over, I had to be no less than 60% on my waking hours laying down. OK, it was incredibly hard for me to really slow down… I couldn’t even cook! But all the sacrifice and patience and tears were all worth it the first time we saw the little one move around in the ultrasound!
So our life changed again, we were already looking up-North, but now we were faced with a new variable to add to our decision process. It would be almost impossible for me to make a move to the US… but we were also already wrapping up our year in Mexico.
The boys’ situation at school was rapidly deteriorating. With a teacher that spoke no Spanish and had no experience, and no counseling for the loss of their prior teacher, Diego’s second grade class was having really bad problems. Armando’s class had always been a tough class, but with the administration gone and the chaos with the core of teachers, it only got worse. The whole school was facing a really tough time and I was totally incapable of helping. The boys were very ready to change school by the end of April.
As it happens with any disability, the whole family dynamic had to change. The boys missed me at school, but were thrilled to be able to spend loads of time hanging out with me at home. They also enjoyed the fact that we had lots of Pizza delivered! Jevon had to stop traveling and became mom and dad at times. By the time May came around we were exploring the idea of staying in Mexico at least until the baby was born. We were (and still are) very happy with our doctor, the health care costs are 90% lower than in the US but still high quality, the boys felt comfortable in Mexico now and we had a good support system. And traveling thousand of miles to set up a home in the US seemed impossible to me.
We found another school for the boys, which they seemed happy and anxious to move to, and we started to look for an “easier” life. Coatepec is charming and quiet, but you still have to drive for a while to get to most high quality services, including hospitals and the new school. So we set our sights on moving to a more central location from where all of us had less need to travel distances to get things accomplished. It would still be a move, but only 10 miles up the road.
So we said our goodbyes to Coatepec while we searched for a Xalapa house, which was again stressful. We realized most of the things we were going to miss the most of Coatepec we had stopped doing months ago, when I went into bed rest! Our walking became minimal and no one wanted to be far from home for extended periods of time since they wanted to be close to me.
We wrapped up the school year on a sad note. Although the Principal came back from her exile, the school was in such chaos and disarray that it remained an impossible choice for us to even consider again. It was sad because of all the wonderful people, teachers, parents and kids, that we would not see on a daily basis, but the boys were ready to move on. We also had decided that they needed a more stable environment at school as well as a stronger academic background that could prepare them for a future move up North.
So, to Xalapa we moved. It was a little bit sad to leave our Cloud Forest, but we were all relieved to move on… we were ready for the next step.
The transition to Xalapa has been rather easy. The boys are elated at their new school and have quickly made lots of friends. It is still a school that foments team work more than competition, but now their focus is more on research and use of information in all areas as well as scientific experimentation. They are excited and happy. They are also taking swim lessons in a very cool new pool close to their school.
Jevon is getting back on track having had a part in an exhibition with the architecture firm he was working with. He is spending time driving more than anything, but he enjoys the time he shares with the boys and he is still making sure I move as little as possible. He also has to watch that I don’t overdo anything, which I tend to do when I feel well.
I am now very sedentary. I still have cramps once in a while and I get really scared. The move was stressful and that got me really tired, but it was a good move. The house is pretty comfortable and everyone seems to feel very content here. Kiwi keeps being my closest companion and warms my feet on my bouts of bed rest. I am now spending more useful time on the computer.
We are all getting to discover new places around the area we moved to. We just discovered a Sushi restaurant that delivers, two pizza places and even the supermarket delivers. There are a few parks we haven’t been to yet, so they are in the list of things to do. Medical facilities are closer and we finally got a pretty good pediatrician for the boys who is also an allergist (mostly for Armando). Life does seem different, but we don’t miss the no-see-ums of Coatepec and I surely don’t miss the bumpy roads that made me feel awful!
As for our families back up North: neither my parents nor Jevon’s are thrilled about us staying here. There are really concerned about my condition. We try to make them feel better, but the distance factor does not help. We are confident we have pretty good medical attention and a very good quality of life, but they still would prefer us around the corner.
We are, overall, happy, living one day at a time, learning about zen and concentrating on making the most of the time we have left here. My main focus is my boys, all of them: Armando, Diego, Jevon and the little one that still grows inside of me (yeah, another boy). We hope for a great time for the boys in school, a productive time for Jevon and a calm time for me, but most of all, we wish for a healthy birth in November!
We miss our friends and family up North, I specially miss them in this time of uncertainty and hope, but we are sure that we will see them soon. We miss our friends in Coatepec, since we can’t see them in a daily basis, but we know they are close. We have grown and we have changed and we realize how really small the World can be. Our friends everywhere have always made sure to make us feel at home anywhere and our little, growing family is grateful for all of those friendships that will go on no matter time or distance.
We miss you all, and we thank you for the love and the time you have given to our lives.
I will proceed to write as much as I can in our blog (xalapacalli.blogspot.com) and share photos of our new discoveries (flickr.com), you can always access it through our website (www.calli.us).

NEW YEAR

Over a year has gone by and I find myself breaking the promise I made to all, that we would be back in July. It has been such a full year: filled with stress, pain, happiness, excitement, wonder, growth, beauty, anger… you name it. We’ve had more experiences this year than we probably even dreamed about, but we still miss our friends and family who still await our trip back. So why are we still here? Some may already know, some may wonder and some may have their own hypothesis, but for all, here is a synopsis of our year in Mexico.
Finding our way in Mexico was not terribly hard, taking in consideration that I had been away for over 13 years and had really not lived in this region at all. The hard part was finding a home. School had already been pretty much set for the boys so it all revolved around our house hunting. That was the biggest set back we encountered, it was depressing enough that we actually considered the idea of just turning back. We found out, the hard way, just how incredibly hard it is to rent in Mexico: few rental properties and unrealistic requirements for a contract. As luck had it, we found two houses in Coatepec that would fill most of our needs and were within walking distance from the boys’ school. We settled on a new one where the owner gave us preference and let us sign a contract without having a co-signer.
Our first month in the house was devoted to making it livable: furniture, appliances, dishes, pots… Prices used to be sooo much better in Mexico than they are right now. There are so many imported items that even Mexico made stuff has prices very close to imports. The market is also saturated by Chinese products… it sucks! No wonder Mexico has such a big rate of unemployment! But, finally, with a living room, a fridge, a coffee maker and pots, pans and dishes, we were set for the year long adventure.
As our stay in Coatepec progressed, we took about all the hikes we could find around the town. We would go to the main Plaza many times a week just to indulge in the many delicious local snacks offered from little carts there. The boys highly favored the handmade potato chips or the churro fritters, while Jevon relished more on the homemade ice cream (specially Macadamia and rice pudding) and I preferred the fried plantains with condensed milk. As our stomach got stronger, we went for hotdogs packed with homemade string cheese and hamburgers also made there in a cart at the Plaza, and the delicious corn on the cob.
Our weekends were filled with hikes or trips to the nearby waterfalls and parks, both around Coatepec and Xalapa. We also delighted the boys with trips to the local balnearios (pools) as well as the not so local: like Carrizal closer to the coast. We also made a few trips to the beaches near the port City of Veracruz, which was a very nice contrast to the cloud forest around Coatepec.
In and around Coatepec we tried every possible roast and bean of the wonderful coffee produced in the region. We pinpointed the best roasters and a few good spots to sip on the perfect cup of Java. There are about 20 different coffee places in a tiny town like Coatepec, and a lot more in Xalapa… oh, and to our relief and the safety of our taste buds: no Starbucks in sight… no over burnt coffee here! Our favorite so far is the dark roast with beans grown in the area of Xico.
In our own backyard we discovered many interesting species of plants and animal life, but more importantly, we discovered very simple and big hearted people that helped our transition be so much smoother.
Since our house was in a construction area overlapping with the cloud forest, it gave all of us a unique opportunity to learn about the region. We quickly befriended the workers who took it to themselves to “train” us to live in Coatepec. We learnt how to behave with the stray dogs (that
really did have an owner, but lived in the street), and we pretty much adopted a few of them feeding them and giving them love. We all were taught what bugs were better left alone and which ones were harmless (from the blue and pink winged grasshoppers to the Carnivorous beetles). We were introduced to a myriad of exotic fruits and edible flowers that grew freely around the area (like the Jinequil, the Berenjena– tree tomato and the Gasparito). We learnt about coffee fruit, to suck the pulp around the bean (very sweet) and to slather the juice to deter bug bites. The boys were taught how to use a Machete and ride horses. As for us, we were busy during the week but fascinated by all the knowledge these people passed on happily and freely.
It was through these hard working people that we understood more of the real history and culture of the area than from anybody else. True, they are economically poor, but their empirical and inherited knowledge is so rich! And they hurt as much as the Cloud Forest with the devastation the area is experiencing.
In the first six months we lived in Coatepec, we saw more than 70 acres of Cloud Forest disappear in front of our eyes. In the name of progress, construction moguls and even the city government, are leveling forest area to make way to new streets and new high class housing developments… That makes me so sad and so mad! There are many projects for rescuing the ecosystem, and then, the governments turns a blind eye to the tree-cutting going on at the foot of the Municipal President’s own home!
By the end of our first six months in Coatepec, we were enamored by the simple people of the town, and very disappointed with the government and its lack of vision…
The boys had a good first semester at school. The size of the little school as well as the philosophy (Waldorf) helped them with the hard transition of a new Country, new language, new culture and new people. Diego quickly made friends and found himself in the need to finally speak the language (which he had been resisting for years now). Armando quickly grasped the language that he still was missing and found his self esteem boosted by a less stressful academic system. Overall, they both experienced very positive changes that were very obvious to us by December. The school community was a delight to be part of. It was a very multicultural, artistic community that really helped us feel part of it.
At the beginning of our first year in Mexico, the boys had experienced a very hard transition. Armando was mad, Diego was confused. They both missed home and their friends and their toys… By December, they were really enjoying the trips to the Plaza to get treats, the trips to the Market to get fruits and look at the trinkets. By January, at the end of our stay at my parents’ home in Texas, they were both happy to come back to Coatepec.
January started 2008 in a nice way. We took a trip to El Tajin and Papantla, the home of Vanilla production in the Americas, and the birthplace of Vanilla production in the World! It was a fascinating stop that tweaked the boys’ interest a little bit more about Mexican history.
By then, we were nicely established, with good friends and pretty good familiarity of the region and set routines. Then changes started to happen a little more quickly. It was not just me doodling (designing) anymore, Jevon started to do some architecture. He started traveling to other areas of Mexico to survey and design eco-friendly residential developments. It was an extraordinary opportunity for him to get involved in a whole new kind of research and design. It was also a great opportunity for all of us to widen our people pool and get to meet other fascinating individuals.
Since I took over the walk-to-school responsibilities when Jevon was traveling, I also started to get more involved in school… which I had promised not to do this time around! So, first promise broken. It was then that an awful thing happened in her life that made the school principal (also Diego’s teacher) leave to hide with her family in the US. She is part of a high profile family from Mexico City and her father received a kidnapping threat that involved the whole family. Due to the serious need left at school by her unplanned departure, I became the new administrator at the kids’ school (part time) and also devoted time to translating for Diego’s new teacher (who spoke no Spanish!) and a little bit of counseling for staff and students. A lot of the internal workings of the school had seemed off track to us from the beginning, but then, from the inside, I soon pinpointed many problems that were hurting the development of the whole community… I started to devote more and more time to trying to fix these.
Our life suddenly started to wind up again… it had been so nice to slow down at first. Even if it was supposed to be part time, school seemed to suck up most of my free time and the weeks started to get pretty hard. Weekends were very welcomed. By this time, too, Zafra was in full swing!
Zafra is the time of the year when sugar cane crops are harvested and burnt. Veracruz is a main sugar cane producer, so, by November, soot starts flying all over. As soon as coffee harvest is over (October-November) everyone in the field turns to the sugar cane crops. By late February, you just long for clean air and no more flying burnt pieces of sugar cane.
So, with the over-work environment (I really need to learn to say no!) and high stress (nothing stresses me more than those events that involve my kids!) my health became rather brittle. And it seemed all of us were due for a really bad bout of sickness, which we had escaped for such a long time! We all got colds that turned into some sort of pneumonia. I developed asthma, Diego got severely dehydrated and Armando became a cough machine… even Jevon, who is always healthy, got a really bad case of the cold. Diego even visited the doctor across the street to get a try on alternative medicine (sound therapy) and homeopathy.
(To be continued...)

Almost there

OK... new year for us, I guess a new blog format too... I was really fed up of the problems I had with the other editor so I am now trying this one... for better or for worse.
It will take me a little bit to figure it out, but I will start writing soon.