Thursday, February 20, 2020

Zihuatanejo, Mexico, el veinte de Febrero, 2020

I had a great day - typical leisurely morning and then I walked to the pool and swam a kilometre.  I thought I had been swimming at least that all this time but after calculating, no.  So, I’ll increase it by 100 meters/day until I leave March 7.  I was all alone in the pool until the last 5 minutes - my private Olympic sized pool!  Crazy!

Right after swimming, I caught a combi to La Playa Ropa which is just down the road from Zihuatanejo.  What a gorgeous place!

The beach is small-


and the sand feels like powder.  There are no big crashing waves and the breeze coming in off the water was awesome-


The beach is very flat and black sand ripples with the beige.  It’s a very nice place and may be where I spend a lot of my days from now on-


I had thought about not even going here because I’m not into beaches really, maybe I am, but Valeri, whom I met yesterday at Playa Linda, is staying close by and she suggested I come today.  She’s from San Francisco and a Jehovah’s Witness.  She got talking about God a bit but I didn’t say anything to cause an argument.  She’s full of life and likes to have a good time-


I left the beach at 2:45 in time to get home, get cleaned up and get “to work”.  I really wasn’t looking forward to going and was sort of hoping no one showed up because then I could spend all day every day at the beach!  Everybody there knew who I was and some of the adults even called me Maestra - I laugh at them when they say that and they giggle too.  I was shown to my classroom-


which has an AC unit that is way too small for the space, and a ceiling fan that was moving the air around.  At 4 which was starting time, there were 6 students.  By 4:30 there were 14.  We learned introductions, numbers 1- 10, days of the week, the date, colours, the alphabet and classroom objects. We played some games and at 5:30 I gave them a 15 minute break.  Learning a second language is hard.  You have to stay switched on all the time and you get really tired.  One woman had to leave to pick up a child at 6 and 2 men had to go to church.  After the break we talked about the length of the class and decided we would start punctually at 4 - no Mexican time allowed and quit at 6 without a break.  They seemed relieved with that so I assigned their homework and away they went-


During the class, two different men came in and recorded what I was doing, took pictures and even participated.  Another man brought me a big bottle of water.  The classroom is part of a large complex where there are all sorts of activities happening - music classes, traditional dance and Zumba out in the courtyard with music blaring.  It’s not the quietest place but it didn’t phase any of them so it’s me who has to get used to the noise.

Tomorrow, I’ll go swimming again, then go back to Playa Ropa, teach and then there’s supposed to be a MoTown night at a local restaurant that I’ll check out.  Life is great!

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