Goodbye and Hello

Last Sunday, Nikki left, which was a little sad. We did, however, actually get new students in the school, so there are more than just 4 of us! There are two students from Nigeria, one a Catholic priest and the other a missionary, who are staying in a convent. Felix, the priest, has been to the school before so he already knows some Spanish – he’ll be staying for 10 weeks. The other student (hard name to remember) is staying for 5 months, and it is his first time learning Spanish. Both speak English (Felix actually lives in Texas now and used to live in Tallahassee), so I can communicate with them. The other student who came is an older woman from Boston who will be staying for about a month.

I had conversation class with Felix and Concepción as the instructor (who is really cool) this week. I really liked it, as it was really laid back, and we pretty much shared stories and joked with each other. Felix seems pretty open as a priest, but sometimes it was a little uncomfortable when Concepción would bring up certain things. First, in a different class with Anna, she asked us what we each thought of religion (Anna is agnostic and didn’t yet know Felix was a priest). Another time, she suggested the movie that I had seen on Wednesday, The Crime of Father Amaro, which is basically a critique of the Catholic church…and then finished the conversation by saying that she doesn’t see why Catholic priests are celibate since it’s not in the bible and that she thinks the life of a priest is very sad and lonely. She made it a little better, at least, by saying that she once was considering being a nun (although she said she’d be a bad one, haha).

Along these same lines, we had a joint “conference” (basically an excuse for all of us just to sit outside and talk) with a few of us for class on Friday in which we discussed some differences between Mexicans and USers (not Americans, obviously). One thing brought up was that Mexicans are not usually so worried about being politically correct as people in the US; it is more common for people to speak their minds (as Concepcion). Another is that plays on words and double entendre is common in Mexico, but not necessarily for the indigenous cultures (Cesar gave a hilarious example how Filemón didn’t understand his innuendo about his manual prostate exam). On the other hand, sarcasm isn’t as common here (that’s bad for me, considering that’s where all of my humor comes from – hopefully I don’t come off as mean!). The other major issue that came up is that Mexico has a culture with the message that the most important thing is to have competed rather than to win, as is common in the US. Mexico also has somewhat of an inferiority complex with other nations (esp US and Europe), due to a deep-rooted history in which the indigenous peoples were considered a lower class than the conquistador Spaniards. An interesting convo, which ended once we all noticed Anna being attacked by a swarm of ants! At least they were black and not fire ants.