my roommate teaches business administration stuff, i think. his english is pretty decent, but he, and i agree with him, would rather speak spanish, mainly to force me into learning. when i really cannot understand something, then he puts it into english. our levels are about the same, but he has more english vocab than i have spanish.

no one in town speaks english, which is pretty normal. the indigenous community resents the fact that they have to use spanish, so the inclusion of english as well really rubs many people the wrong way. as the community is forced to become more global, the indigenous attributes start to become stronger. it makes sense, as new ideas are introduced, people realize what they are giving up and try and hold onto traditions. the same happens all over the world. there are some kids here at the university during the day. they are high school grads who are trying to test in to the university. this university is free for them; all they need are good scores to get in (my campus is business, accounting and computer science). all of the courses are taught in spanish, so some students have no english ability at all. i really have no contact with them right now (or anyone else for that matter) because i am working on my own lessons and i have the building to myself.

next week i am going to start teaching english to four faculty/employees at the university for three hours or so a week. it is part of my work day, so i do not give up lunch or anything, because the university wants to get all they can out of me. i am going to try and use these same people to help me with my spanish, which i am sure they will not mind.

as of now, i am the only member of the language department in ixtepec. my boss just told me she is going to hire four teachers instead of three, and that another teacher is expected to arrive the third week in sept. i will believe it when i see it.

i still feel pretty isolated here. the people are very nice and friendly, but we have no real way to communicate other than in spanish. i have seen a lot of improvement in my spanish abilities over the past week and i continue to work on it through the books i brought with me for about 2 to 4 hours a day. it is difficult to work all day in english (making lesson plans, messaging the other teachers about class stuff) and then transition into spanish at lunch and after school. oh well, that is what this is all about. at first it felt kind of defeating: if i do not figure out how to make two languages work, i will be very unhappy. now, i just see it as something that must be done. do or do not: there is no try. thank you yoda. where would the world be without star wars (kate, brian can you tell me?)?

oh well, back to work!