Reorientation is Better with Karaoke and Donkeys

All of my fellow Fulbrighters and I gathered this week for a re-orientation. The English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) met in Mexico City Tuesday morning before heading over to San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanaguato in the afternoon. We took part in round table discussions and listened to presentations about English teaching resources provided by the United States and Mexican governments. There was also a great presentation on translanguaging (using a student’s native language to support the development of a second language). The presenter was preaching bilingual education and I was loving it. We had the fanciest comida corrida I have eaten in Mexico thus fart. It included soup with anise, chicken with a corn sauce and pureed sweet potatoes. Delicious. Then we hopped on the bus to meet the research Fulbrighters in San Miguel. It only took 5 hours and one police stop. The program fed us very well the whole week. There was a plated dinner waiting for us when we arrived at the hotel. We didn’t arrive until about 10PM so we just relaxed after dinner.

Wednesday was filled with lots of learning! All of the ETAs and researchers prepared a 7-minute presentation on the work they’ve done in the past 4.5 months. We were divided into groups to hear the presentations. What the researchers are doing is especially interesting to me because of the variety of topics from fishing laws to cultural inclusion to custody of people with special needs. After lunch, a group of us went to a mask museum. It was a personal collection of a man from the United States who had an interest in masks and the rituals associated with them so he made a museum behind the bed and breakfast he owns. There were hundreds of masks. Before that, I hadn’t realized how prominent they are in the Mexican culture. When we returned to the hotel, everyone took part in another round table discussion about culture shock and life after the grant. I like the round table discussion. Then the ETAs had their own special session about English grammar. Many people think that we are English experts but a lot of us have never studied English. Granted, it’s our native language but it’s nice to have a refresher course on it even though it was a little dry. At night, we got dinner on our own so Jordan, Meg, Britney, Charllotte, Preston and I went to a little restaurant on the way downtown. It was filled with elderly English-speaking white people. They make up the majority of the population in San Miguel.

On Thursday morning we heard more grantee presentations and had a classroom management workshop with little to do with classroom management. It was more like a vent session. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. After lunch we had a goal setting session and Q&A. At night, the Binational Business (BBs) grantees arrived to do the cultural activities with us. We went on a walking tour of San Miguel to learn about legends and historical buildings and facts. The weather is beautiful in San Miguel so it was a nice walk. After the tour some of us found a bar with a 2 for 1 margarita special so we obviously took part in that “cultural event”. However, the waitress saw a bunch of Americans and tried to charge us for 13 more drinks than we actually had. When we finished explaining that we aren’t tourists, we went to a karaoke bar across the street. It was the highlight of orientation. All the Fulbrighters took command of the microphone. We were singing in English, Spanish and Spanglish until the bar closed at 4. Successful night of bonding.

Friday was the last day. After checking out of our rooms and having some breakfast we went to a ranch for some good ‘ol Mexican fun. What does that include? Chicken chasing, tug-of-war, potato sack races, and bare-back donkey riding/racing. We divided up into teams of 4 and each sent teach members for each task. My team was beast at tug of war. Thanks to my mad strength. Totally kidding. After the games, the people on the ranch made us a typical Mexican meal. This included tacos of various kinds of meat, beans, rice, salsas, chips, fresh fruit and naturally flavored water. It was a great way to end orientation. From there we took buses to our various destinations. It was sad leaving everyone because that’s the last time we will all be together. Guess that means I will just have to plan more trips to visit everyone!