Semana dos

Jaja algunas de los detalles son un poco obscuro porque este semana fue divertida y muy ocupada! Una tema de esta semana es como personas identifica yo y como lo siente. Una otra tema es muchas cosas muy divertida.

Día 9 – 7 de abril

En el diario antes de este, no tuve tiempo para explicar algunas cosas en sábado, entonces, ahora explicaré. En clase de inglés por primaria, yo estaba juntos con tres niñas. Ellas me preguntan sobre donde soy. Antes de yo respondía, las chicas adivinaron China, después dije no, adivinaron Chile o Brazil. Quizás ellas saben los países y no recuerdan otros en el momento. Yo siento emocionada si ellas notaron mi mezclado etnia pero no sé si es verdad.

Después de edúcaTE, Sophie y yo trabajaba en nuestra tarea y un muchacho llegó a la puerta. Un grupo de estudiantes de universidad las enseñan sobre salud y alimentación. En una actividad, ellos nos dieron agua con sal cocina en diferente cazos.

Sophie y yo fuimos a la playa en Progreso. Es interesante miré el puerto y como cercano de las personas en la agua. Estoy curiosa sobre la economía y actividades en la economía.

Este noche por cena comemos tacos con salsa picante. Me gusta comida más picante entonces, yo comí más salsa. De pronto, mi boca y cuerpo tienen más más pica y yo reí mucha jajajaj. Nadies saben porque.

Muchas diferentes personas me dijeron mayo y junio hace mucho mucho calor. 😮

Día 10 – 8 de abril

Es muy difícil para mi expresar mis experiencias en español pero lo mismo tiempo, quiero practicar español todo el tiempo. Esta noche, las clases en edúcaTE fue muy muy divertida y profundo. Trabajamos en una historia de una mujer se llama Gabriela y la pregunta es ‘yo me imagina’. Las respuestas de las estudiantes fueron muy poderoso y las expresa como edúcaTE es importante en apoyando los estudiantes en ellos vida y aprendiendo.

Día 11 – 9 de abril

Me gusta mucho la tradición sobre nuestra mamá sentado juntos en la mesa. Es un bien tiempo por hablando y crecen buen recuerdos.

LLUVIA!!! Fiesta de Lena! Buen comida! Baile! Personas!

Día 12 – 10 de abril

Uou, cuando yo despierte, y estuve adentro en mi cama, abajo de mi manta (o frazada o cobija, no sé cuál es correcto).

Mi cuerpo siento un poco frío. Me gusta este temperatura. Yo llevé pantalones y siento bien!

Tomoso y Lee (maestros en edúcaTE y Habla) nos dan un aventón después de edúcaTE. Fue muy interesante aprender más sobre la historia de edúcaTE y porque ellos son muy inteligente.

Sophie y yo compramos helado y tenemos un fiestecita para las chicas de intercambio de Canadá.

Día 13 – 11 de abril

Después de clase, tomamos un Uber y la canción “I’m so lonely” estuvo en el radio. Tuve nostalgia! Recomendaciones de nuestra conducir – Jaguar house (música electrónica) y Dembow discoteca. Estudiamos en un café, la ambiente fue muy calma y mágico.

Día 14 – 12 de abril – viernes

Tarea, un proyecto para mi trabajo en Estados Unidos y edúcaTE.

Día 15 – 13 de abril – sábado

En el camión a Cholul pensé sobre como estuvo en la etnia minoridad y como este siente. Pienso que es importante para personas usualmente en la mayoría de etnia ser en lugares donde ellos están en la etnia minoridad. Mi experiencia es diferente de personas están en la minoridad en E.E.U.U. porque soy blanco. Y la jerarquía pone blanco personas arriba de otras personas.

Las estudiantes en edúcaTE me preguntan sobre cuánto tiempo me voy a quedar. Y después, me preguntan volveré a Cholul. Es difícil y demostrar como las estudiantes conectar conmigo y voluntarios en general.

Double-exposed self-portrait from spring of 2017 in Shelton, WA.

A poster in a house window that says “crack open your mind” with a drawing of a brain in a nut cracker. Taken in Tacoma, WA 2018.

Cracking open my mind to let Spanish sink in and grow like flowers in the Spring, blossoming with connections like synapses and friendships with people. Lots of thoughts, lots of hard work, but lots of wonder and light and joy all wrapped up into the experience.

This blog has always been a place that I see as my electronic scrapbook. And in that manner, I have felt a certain level of freedom to express how I am feeling or what I am processing because just like a scrapbook, moments of growth and change are memorialized. Therefore, these are some of my thoughts, but not a complete picture of what I am thinking about.

In that same vein, I want to remember the details, facts, memories like finding sea glass on the beach. Later, rolling the piece of sea glass around in you hand, you are not only taken back to the moment that you found it and the setting and emotions that were present but also you begin to recognize new divots in the smoothed over glass, begin to make meaning of the cloud shaped form, and begin to connect the experience into the broader scope of life. This is what I aim for this record of my time in Mérida on study abroad to be. A time to savor and remember. I am going to be sharing photos and writing in mostly Spanish with some English sprinkled in. There will be lots of typos as I navigate a new language and different ways of life.

A little background:

The memories that stick out from the two years of Spanish I took in 7th and 8th grade are De’Ana getting a bloody nose during class, having secret eraser wars with our classmates across the room, the time that Señora our teacher fell which is the only time you would have been able to hear a pin drop in our rambunctious class, getting my only detention for uncontrollable laughter, being nervous to sing a song in front of my teacher for my test, and the creative projects we did to memorize body parts and practice telling about our families. Sometimes I question whether or not I learned much but those two years set me up to understand the framework of a rich language.

In my first year of college, I got to study in the town of Shelton in an elementary school which half the subjects are taught in Spanish and half are taught in English. I also got involved in activism against detention centers which are privately owned prisons for people who are seeking asylum, may not have all their documentation for immigration yet (in a complex system that takes a number of years to navigate), or a number of other reasons (I can go more into this later, it’s very complex and I don’t want to name things and not represent all the factors that are in play in the systems and histories). These detention centers commit awful and heartbreaking human rights abuses against people held within them, all which is a system fueled by greed. All that to say, I decided to commit again to learning Spanish. In my quarter long Spanish class I definitely got to learn new vocabulary and have a refresher on the process of conjugating verbs, but I also remember feeling so overwhelmed by the other classes I was taking at the time and couldn’t spend as much time in the language as I wanted to. What I did focus on was really watching my teachers mouth, just like I see babies do, and then coping that formation until I was able to emulate that accent and way the sounds were represented.

My plan going into college was a plan fueled towards how I could be the most money efficient and how I could get to my goal of becoming a teacher in the quickest time possible. But as I was in my 3rd year of college, I knew I could graduate that year (because of AP classes in high school that transferred to college credit and because I for some reason took more that 16 credits quite often in my time in college ~and along with working was constantly overwhelmed haha~) but I decided to take a fourth year, recognizing the opportunity that college is (also big shout out to financial aid – couldn’t have done it without those tax dollars and generosity of scholarship donors) and that I will be more able to provide for my students better with more experience and growth that I go through.

So looking through the catalog for programs at Evergreen State College, I chose the Spanish Speaking World because of my goal to become fluent in Spanish before I enter my classroom (with the idea that I will be able to connect with and provide for students and families who speak languages other than English) and because I am studying to become a middle school history and English teacher, and this program was focusing on the history of Latin and Central America. Also, the profesoras who were listed to teach the program were people I had my eyes on to study under.

I might edit this later to make it more complete of make a different blog post about what has impacted me in this program already but I have to continue to do my homework haha. Get ready for some updates on my time in México.

~peace & joy, breanne~