An Unusual Day

Sunday was a most unusual day---a day of fun and fellowship followed by a funeral. Happiness and sadness; life and death. I'll start at the beginning...

My friend, Emma, invited me to go with her family to their church and then to their home for a special Mexican meal. They are Mormons and this was the first time that I had been in a Mormon church.

After church, we returned to their home, along with Juan Carlos, a most delightful young man who works for Emma at the colegio, for a delicious meal.

This is the Sanchez house:




As you can see, it is a 2 story home. The family of 5 lives here. Downstairs is a living room, dining room, small kitchen, and a small back patio which Emma dreams of making into a garden some day. There is an upstairs but I don't know how many bedrooms there are. The footprint of the house is very small. I cannot think how they have raised 3 girls in this tiny living area.

I was put to work chopping up chicken which Emma had boiled on Saturday. Emma and Carla, her oldest daughter, made the enchiladas. Notice that they are both wearing aprons. They offered me one but I haven't worn and apron for years! Everyone here in Mexico wears an apron when they cook.

These are the enchiladas they were preparing. They made 2 large pans! Emma is pouring the sauce over the enchiladas.

The stove is gas. Gas is purchased in a large tank which sits in the back patio. It supplies heat for the hot water and the cooking stove. A truck drives up and down the streets with the tanks on it. The driver calls over a loud speaker system: G-A-S, G-A-S!! and if you need a tank, you go out, flag him down and he exchanges the tanks for you. By the way, drinking water is sold in the same way. Our water truck comes by our house on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

While I was chopping and they were putting together the dinner, Juan Carlos and Daniela made sandwiches for another meal and set the table. Isn't that a cute picture? Juan Carlos is only 20 years old and the sweetest thing! Daniela is 9. By the way, in the background you can see the stairs going to the upstairs bedrooms.

Here we are at the table: Fernanda, Emma, Tomas, Daniela, Juan Carlos and Carla. I took the picture! But I do have one with me in it too! Fernanda took it. Tomas asked me to say grace, which I thought was nice.

Their dining room table is glass and wood. I have noticed that many dining tables here are glass. The enchiladas were great! By the way, we drank pina colada juice for a beverage.

After dinner, Emma, Tomas, Carla and I went to a funeral home to a wake. On Friday there was a terrible automobile accident in PV and the husband of our Director of Academics, was killed. He was a young man, in his late 30s or early 40s. It was a 6 car accident and the man who caused the chain reaction accident was not injured and ran away. The police are looking for him. Several people were injured but Azeneth's husband was the worst. Attending a Mexican wake---another cultural experience for me, albeit a sad one.

Hasta luego.

A Taste of Mexico

Saturday morning my friend, Emma, and I went to breakfast. This is what I had: enfrijoladas (corn tortillas stuffed with chicken), chorizo (Mexican sausage), queso (cheese) and crema; a few frijoles; fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee. The little red things are the sausage cut up into pieces.









Emma had "Divorced Eggs"!!! I thought you would get a giggle out of that name! Look at the picture and I will describe...

Divorced eggs are 2 sunny-side-up eggs, separated by cheese in the middle and each egg has a different sauce on it: red and green. There are, of course, the tortillas, and also tomatoes and lettuce with grated cheese on the side. She also had the fresh squeezed orange juice and hot tea.

A real different breakfast, right?

I do enjoy seeing "pancakes" being offered on most of the menus here where the tourists eat. Also the Mexicans eat a lot of yogurt and also cold cereal for breakfast. Fruit is always offered on the menus for all 3 meals. Usually the fruit plate has papaya, pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, and strawberries; sometimes honeydew melon is offered too. A warm tortilla with a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lime juice rounds out any breakfast!

Some other food pictures I thought you would enjoy seeing...

Ricardo is making salsa at the table. You can choose your ingredients and he mixes them in the molcajete. You put the salsa on the totopos (warm tortilla chips) for an appetizer. They also serve jicama strips with lime juice which are really delicious.

This is Tamal de Camarron (a Poblano pepper stuffed with a mixture of rice and cheese) with garlic shrimp in orange sauce. In the little "boat" are fruits in a sweetened adobo sauce. It all tastes better with the mango margarita!!

This is a luscious dessert! Unfortunately the photo is a little washed out. Sorry about that.

The "washed out" part is vanilla ice cream served in a corn husk dish (the dish is not eatable) and Tamale liquada de chocolate, sort of a chocolate cake-like mousse. Three pieces of apple slices are also on the plate. And behind the plate...a tiny taste of crema de tequila!

So now you can see that "Mexican food" is not just the tacos, frijoles and rice that we get in the States! Although tacos are available everywhere here, and people eat them as a snack, good Mexican food consists of different sauces, meats, vegetables and peppers (not necessarily hot peppers), prepared in many different ways.

And always, when passing someone who is eating, one says "Buen Provecho" (loosely translated as "Good Appetite"). That is the polite thing to say.

Are you hungry??!!

Hasta luego.

A Taste of Home

Yes...we do have McDonald's! and Starbucks, and Chili's and Domino's Pizza, Hooters, Burger King, Pizza Hut and even Outback Steakhouse! The pictures prove it!


This McDonald's is at the Plaza Marina, a shopping mall where I change buses on my way home from school. A long time ago, I discovered that Mickey D's is cool..cool..cool! Their AC works great! The bathrooms are clean, it is never crowded in the afternoon, and I often stop there, buy a "Coca Dieta Grande" and sit at a table and do schoolwork. I think it is not unlike the folks who take their laptops to a WIFI cafe, work and drink coffee! By the way, a Happy Meal costs $35 pesos (approx. $3.50 US) and I do not recommend their aguas frescas! Made by Minute Maid, they are NOT the real thing!!

I went to Chili's one afternoon when I was craving a hamburger. It was a beautiful burger to look at, but not very good! The meat was tough. I thought "When in Rome, do as the Romans" and decided then and there to stick with Mexican food. They do a good job with that down here!

Domino's Pizza and Hooters are right off the Malecon. They probably do a big tourist business, and, no, I didn't go to either place!!

Later I will show you some good Mexican restaurants!

Hasta luego.

Good Food and New Friends

After our nice day at the beach on Saturday, Leticia invited me to her home on Sunday for dinner. She has recently moved into a new house---quite large for a single person---3 floors with, I think, 4 or 5 bedrooms. She is so thrilled with the house and I am happy for her.

Right now, our friend, Lucy, who is a pediatrician from Guadalajara, is living with Lety on the weekends. Lucy is working at a clinic here in Vallarta on Saturday and Sunday, and then returns to Guadalajara, by bus, to care for her private practice in Guadalajara during the week.

Anyway...Lety is slowly buying furniture for her house and loves her new kitchen, thus, the dinner invitation! She said 2:00 PM for la comida, with Guillermina and Isthalia, and also that I would meet her friend, Carmen. Since she lives very close to me, I took the bus to her house. On the way, I saw this pick-up truck filled with wonderful fruit and vegetables. I couldn't resist a photo of it. Doesn't it look good?







I actually got to her house at exactly 2:00---a real faux pas in Mexico!! One should never arrive on time for an invitation. 30 to 60 minutes late is acceptable, but it had started to rain and I wasn't about to lurk about in the rain, waiting to be late!!! I knew Lety would forgive me! Here she is in front of her house. Doesn't she look happy?

In case you are wondering, the pink "sidewalk" is actually where she parks her car. Cars are parked right next to the houses here and usually there is an iron gate surrounding the car and entrance to the house. I don't know why there is no gate at Lety's house. Maybe because it is a new development, the gates have not been installed yet.

The first course was shrimp cerviche. Oh, my gosh, it was good! I will ask for her recipe and you will taste it some day at our house! For dinner, we had fish and a salad: lettuce, tomatoes, with pickled onions. Dessert was canned peaches. I will spare you the picture of the dinner but here are the cerviche and tostadas.

Lucy joined us when she got home from the hospital and I enjoyed the afternoon, the dinner, and the new friendship with Carmen.

Leticia is a superintendent of the public pre-schools here in PV and she has instigated a new program of teaching English in some of the kindergartens and elementary schools. In the public schools in Mexico, they start teaching English in the Middle Schools, so teaching English classes in elementary and kindergarten is a new concept for PV. She has been working on implementing this program for 2 years or more. This is the first year and she is excited about it.

On Tuesday evening she had a meeting of some of the English teachers and she asked me to come and talk with them about teaching English.

Ana teaches English in kindergarten, Ricardo and Miguel both teach 2nd grade English, next is Lety, then me, and in the purple is Magdalena who teaches kindergarten English in the morning and in the afternoon she teaches middle school English. Ramona joined us after the picture was taken. (Thanks to the nice waitress who took the picture and made sure our heads were in the middle of the picture!!! Why do people do that, I wonder?!!)

Lety had very nice metal, magnetic, nametag pins made for each teacher with their name and "English Teacher" on it. She asked me to do the honors and present the pins. This is Miguel receiving his pin while Lety looks on. We took a picture of each teacher and I emailed the photos to them. They were very happy.

This has been a very long blog but I simply must tell you about Magdalena and her classes. The public schools in Mexico have 2 sessions because there are so many students. A child attends class in the morning (usually 7:30-12:30) OR in the afternoon (2:00-8:00). She teaches the kindergarten in the morning and then from 2:00-8:30 she teaches in the middle school. There she has 3 groups of 7th graders, 3 groups of 8th graders and 3 groups of 9th graders. In each class there are between 30 and 50 students. So she teaches 9 classes there and says that discipline is a huge problem for her. You can just imagine---that age group, that many students in a class---I truly don't know how she does it. I have so much respect for the public school teachers in Mexico.

Thanks for sticking with me and now, finally, I can say to you:

Hasta luego!

A Day at the Beach

It did not appear to be a good day to go to the beach. Overcast, cloudy, quite warm but not hot, and not too much humidity. The phone rang, about 1:00 PM on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 20th, and my friend, Leticia, asked me if I would like to go to the beach with her. Of course I said "yes"!! Why not? I always say "yes" to an interesting invitation!

Thinking like an American, I wondered: isn't it kinda late to be going to the beach for the day? But, thinking like a Mexican, I realized: the day is long, it is only early afternoon, and we have the day in front of us!! Then Lety added, "We are going to a restaurant" at the beach. Now it became confusing....are we going to to beach to swim or to go to a restaurant? I'll just wait and see! Everyone who knows me, remembers that I am not a swimmer, nor do I like sitting in the sun very much since I burn like a lobster in only a few minutes. So I was just as pleased when Lety said, "I am not going to wear my swimsuit".

She picked me up in 20 minutes with our friend, Guillermina and also Isthalia, a new preschool teacher in PV. We drove for an hour, north, to Punta de Mita, Nayarit. Nayarit is the state directly north of Jalisco (Puerto Vallarta's state is Jalisco) and the state line is only 10 minutes away from my house. Most Vallartans prefer to go to the beaches in Nayarit because they are sandy beaches whereas the beaches in Vallarta are very stony.

We arrived at the restaurant Anclote, which is directly on the beach in Punta de Mita. The owner, in the red dress, greeted us and asked if we wanted to sit inside or on the beach. We opted for the beach!





From my lounge chair, I watched the ocean and the boats which are for rent. The boatman tried to talk us into a boat ride but he had no takers!

Guillermina, me, and Isthalia relax in our chairs while Lety takes the picture! We ordered drinks: limonada for Guillermina and me, orange for Lety and a coconut for Isthalia.

Later we ordered dinner and ate that inside at a table. Of course, "inside" means no walls to the restaurant so we are still looking out at the beautiful view.

Dinner was Pescado Sarandeado, with white rice and steamed broccoli and carrots. The fish they use is Huachinango fish, and it is grilled with a dry rub and a special sauce of the restaurant added to it. Very, very good! Take a look:

After dinner, we retreated to the beach where Isthalia finished her coconut. They take a coconut, chop off the top, add a straw and you drink the coconut milk. Not for me, but it is a very popular drink here in Mexico.

We sat for a while, walked on the beach, read, and relaxed. Since the weather was not 100%, there were no tourists out, so we enjoyed an uncrowded afternoon of relaxation. About 7:00 we headed home. I had a nice afternoon on a day that I would not have thought would be a good "beach day".

Hasta luego.

More Harbor Day

I need a new lesson in blogging from my friend, Judy. I still can't put more than 5 pictures into the blog at one time. Thus, either I have to post the pictures in a backward order so they will read correctly for you, or you have to read the blogs backwards!! This time you need to read backwards! Read "Harbor Day" first and then "More Harbor Day"! Sorry!

This is a very large market, located very conveniently (!) close to the ship's exit so the tourists won't have to go far to spend their money and buy souvenirs of PV.






And for those people who prefer to take a city tour or go shopping in the downtown area, the bus picks them up at the ship.

After my tour of the harbor, I walked over the the VIPS restaurant for la comida. The main meal of the day, la comida, is usually eaten between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 pm.

VIPS is not a very "Mexican" restaurant but it is not an American one either. I describe it as a comfortable place for either Mexicans or Americans (USA or Canadians) to eat. When you walk in, they size you up and hand you a menu in Spanish or in English, whichever they think you can read.

The menu has Mexican food as well as hamburgers and French fries. It is similiar to an Applebee's or O'Charley's restaurant in the US. They serve breakfast (chilaquiles or pancakes!), lunch and dinner.

Judy posts pictures of food on her blog, (which makes me drool when I see them), so I decided to take a clue from her and show you a picture of my dinner!

I had Enchiladas Zacatlan and a large limonada. The enchiladas are chicken, cheese, and crema mexicana (this is the white cream you see on top of the enchiladas) served with green sauce.. They come with frijoles (left) and "flor de calabaza" which is pumpkin flower. Pumpkin flowers are often served and are very good. In the little white bowl in the back is a medium spicy sauce you can add if you would like.

And even though I really didn't want dessert, I thought I should have it just so I can show you the picture!!!

Pastel de Tres Leches de Limon and coffee. (Lime Three Milk Cake)

After eating all this, my mile or so walk from the Harbor and to the bus felt good!

Hasta luego.

Harbor Day

After school today I spent the afternoon at the harbor with the cruise ships. Every Wednesday, during the low season, cruise ships dock at the harbor and now that high season is beginning, they come more often. The harbor is only a few blocks from my house and every day as I go and come from school I see the ships. Today was the day to go there and take some pictures.




Self-explanatory picture.

This welcomes the tourists to Puerto Vallarta and provides a photo op for most people. On the floor of the fountain is the symbol of PV: the seahorse.

This is the Dawn Princess from Canada.

I think the arrows and white spot may be a helicopter landing pad.

That's a pretty big boat!!

Today there were two ships docked there but this is the only picture I could get of the second one.

There are a few more pictures and they will be next.

Hasta luego.

My Neighborhood---Animals and Buses

I took my camera and went for a walk in my neighborhood. I thought i would take some photos of the houses but as I turned the corner, "what to my wondering eyes should appear" but 4 horses strolling down the street, completely unattended. I quick got this picture of the little guy crossing the street. He had been grazing in the front yard of this house. He crossed the street and joined his friends who ambled into this yard and began their eating their dinner! I still don't know where the horses came from. None of them had bridles. They were just enjoying the neighborhood as I was!

They wouldn't turn around for me to take their picture so you see the horses' rears! Sorry!

They were grazing in this empty lot.

While I was photographing the horses, the city bus came along. People refer to the buses by their color. This is the "white bus" and it goes downtown and to the hotel area.

I walked on down the street and the Guadalupe Victoria (the green bus) came along. What luck! This is the bus I take in the afternoon to come home and I told you in a previous blog how they leave the door open as they drive along. Check it out!!

We have to cross a canal and it is filled with water. Sometimes it is very deep. This day it wasn't too bad. You can see the water level on the car. I have seen it when the water was almost to the door.

Across the street is a "Mini Super"! Since I cannot "ford the creek" on foot, I have not been able to check out this little quick mart. Maybe after the rainy season is over, I will be able to walk over there.

In the next blog you will finally get to see some of the neighbors' houses.

Hasta luego.

My Neighborhood---The Houses

The houses are very pretty. They are often painted bright colors, some have flowers in the yard while others are very plain. All these houses are within a block of my house.

Look at the details in the picture above. First, the house is flying the Mexican flag. See the beautiful mountains in the background? The cars here seem to be very new or very old! Lots of Volkswagens. They still make them in Mexico, I think. The trees are unusual. The street is cobblestone and that is a big pothole filled with water.

Next you will see a couple of 2 story houses. They don't give house loans in Mexico so people save money to build a house and when they get so much saved, they add on to their house. I think these are rather nice houses though. They don't look like "add-ons". They are on my street, about 4 houses down from mine.

I call this next photo "Pinatas and Paint"!! You'll see why.

Very colorful, eh?

People wash their clothes and hang them to dry. Clotheslines can appear just anywhere. This lady has a good place to hang hers. Sometimes the clothes hang on the line for days. They dry, it rains and they get wet again, they dry, they get dusty. whatever!

Hope you enjoyed my little neighborhood tour.

Hasta luego.

Compare and Contrast

One can't help but to compare and contrast life between the USA and Mexico. Of course you know that there are big differences in the cultures, but sometimes it is the little things that are interesting and that make you realize just how different life really is. In no particular order...

Mexican walk. They walk everywhere. They are used to walking. With the exception of New York and a few other big cities in the USA, people don't walk anymore. They hop into their cars and drive. Mexicans think nothing of walking a mile or more to the grocery store and then walk home carrying several bags of groceries.

Two on a bike. Remember when you were a kid and rode 2 on a bike? Kids ride 2 on a bike here and have fun. If they fall off, they get hurt on the cobblestone streets. They know that and keep riding! Very few kids on bikes or adults on motorcycles wear helmets. Although I think there must be as law for motorcycle helmets because I do see many riders with a helmet hanging off the cycle.

Four wheelers driving on the city streets. When I was staying in the hotel, the young people on 4 wheelers were everywhere but I do not see them downtown so perhaps the area where my hotel was, may be their special place to ride. I just never see 4 wheelers on streets at home.

People ride the bus. This may not be too unusual in the USA, but here, people go to work on the bus, they go on dates on the bus, they go to school on the (city) bus, if they are not walking, they ride the bus.

And while I am on the subject of the buses, I must say that I have shared my bus rides with a weed whacker, 2 buckets of plaster, surf boards, a person praying very loudly, guitar players, a parrot and several dogs. Everyone is welcome on the bus! Men with guitars hop aboard the bus, free, and play and sing songs, and then ask for pesos, and get off in a couple blocks. Sometimes the people on the bus applaud but I am not sure if they are applauding because they like the music or because he stopped singing. Some singers are pretty bad!! Bus drivers talk on their cellphones or carry on a conversation with a friend riding on the bus. Once the bus stopped at a tire place and had air put into the tires. (Frankly, I am happy when I know the brakes on the bus are working!!)

People ride in the back of the pick-up trucks. Children, adults, I even saw a couple with a child in a stroller in the back of a truck. Car seats are few and far between. Kids ride in the front seat and even hang out of the car windows.

A restaurant named: "El Negro" with a caricature picture of a black man on the sign.

Food handlers not wearing gloves. In the grocery stores, workers wear masks over their mouths but not their noses when they work at the deli counter. At the school, even though they feed several hundred people a day, there is no dishwasher. A woman washes the dishes under running water ( I wonder if it is hot water??) and stacks them on a drain board.

They pay in cash. I don't see much use of credit cards by the Mexican people and many, many places do not accept credit cards.

If you are handicapped, don't come to PV. Very few stairs have handrails, often the sidewalks are slanted (there goes the wheelchair into the street!!) and heaven help the person who walks slowly and wants to cross the street. There are no crosswalks and one needs to sprint across the street when there is a break in the traffic. Pedestrians do not have the right-away in Mexico (although occasionally I do see a sign that says "Respect the Pedestrian").

Many, many people carry backpacks. I guess if you walk, it is easier to carry things in a backpack. The mochilla (backpack) business is booming!

Mexicans do without so many things and they save everything. You never know when you may need a plastic bag or a piece of aluminum foil. Most of my students bring their lunch and if they have a sandwich or a quesadilla, it is usually wrapped in a paper napkin; but if they have aluminum foil, they fold it up and take it home.

When you buy something I am always amazed that the store clerk seems to have a plastic bag that exactly fits the object you purchased. The grocery stores have small, medium and larger plastic bags and you do not get a size larger than you need.
The baggers in the grocery stores are very old people or often young children, 12, 13, 14 years old. Many people tip the bagger. I wonder if they work for tips or if they get a salary. There is no pushing the cart out to the car for you in PV!

There are cars and trucks that are fitted with loud speaker systems and drive through the neighborhood playing VERY LOUD music and/or speaking VERY FAST, unintelligible words, trying to sell something. They drive at all hours. I have heard them as early as 6:30 am and as late as 10 pm. Laws in the USA prevent this from occurring there, thank goodness.

People in PV do not respect the rights of others. They often appear to be selfish and think only of themselves, i.e. the loud music and speaker systems. Also I am really appalled at the lack of concern for the environment. They throw trash on the streets and out of car windows. There are not many trashcans available. A taxi driver told me that a new law went into effect on August 1 saying that there is a fine for throwing trash on the streets but I am sure no one is ever ticketed for that. They have a beautiful country but it is blighted by all the basura (trash and garbage) thrown everywhere. I remember back in the 1950s when the litter laws took effect in the US and people became aware of littering. Unfortunately the Mexicans are still in the 1950s when it comes to littering.

People stand in line everywhere and seem to have the patience of Job. At home, if there are 4 people in a line at the grocery store, we expect that they will open a new lane. I went into a bank and the line was so long that I could not physically get into the door. I had to go to the phone company to pay my phone bill (with cash--they don't accept credit cards!!) I waited in line for 35 minutes. If you go to Walmart on a Sunday afternoon, the check-out lines are so long it may be Monday morning before you are out of the store!! (I made that mistake only once!)

Bicycles made into a cart so the rider can sell things. There is a young girl who comes in my neighborhood almost every day, with her bike-cart, calling out "Elotes, elotes". Elotes is corn-on-the cob with mayonnaise and chile on it. (P.S. You never buy anything from a bike-cart if you want to remain healthy!!)

Security guards in stores are very obvious. Grocery stores as well as regular stores have uniformed guards at the doors. If you go into a store carrying a bottle of water, they put a stamp on it and if you have a bag, there is a place to check bags and, by golly, you check it! Banks have security guards WITH GUNS inside and outside.

These are just a few of the day to day observations that make life here different and interesting. Some things are ok, some, not so ok, and some are just different!

Hasta luego.

Photos of the School # 1

Here it is: the Colegio Mexico Americano school where I teach! It is a private bilingual school, with classes from preschool through high school. All students study in both English and Spanish--yes, even the preschoolers!

As you walk up to the school, you see the administration building straight ahead with the offices of the secretaries, principals and coordinators. To the right you see, what I call "the gathering area". It is actually a small store where you can buy soft drinks, coffee, pan dulce (sweet rolls), and tacos. The middle school and high school students gather there in the morning and afternoon and during their lunch break. Teachers can sit here when they have a break.

There is a teachers' lounge (inside!) but it upstairs in the high school area and very far away from the elementary and preschool areas of the school. I went to the teachers' lounge one time since school started. The room had 1 computer and it was full of student lockers waiting to be installed. I haven't bothered to go back. Most of the elementary teachers sit here in the gathering area or in the dining room (which you will see in the next blog) when they have a break.

The only breaks the teachers have is when the students have "specials". They have music, artistica, (This is not art. I am not really sure exactly what it is even though I have observed the teacher on several occasions.) swimming, caracter (character class), gym, computer class and pensamiento class---and I have no idea what this class is! A very nice teacher comes in and teaches them in Spanish for 45 minutes and the children seem to like it so....whatever! This gives me a chance to grade notebooks or prepare lesson plans, or whatever needs to be done.

These are some of the students in the "gathering area" and just beyond you see the gate. This gate is closed and locked at a certain time in the morning so if a child is late to school, the parent has to bring him into the administration area and check him in. Since the Mexicans are notoriously late, this is a discipline for the parents as well as for the child. There have been parents who said they cannot enroll their child in the school because they can't get him to school on time. Most of the schools here have the same rule---a good one I think!

Just across from the gathering area is the side of the administration building! Yes, it is outside facing a garden area! And yes, when it rains and the wind blows, sometimes water gets in there!

This is where the three secretaries sit. The white doors behind the computer, and along the wall, are the offices of the principals and coordinators. The woman sitting is a parent waiting to talk to someone. Behind her is the garden area you saw in the previous picture.

Scroll down to the next blog and see the classrooms.

Hasta luego.

Photos of the School # 2

In this blog #2, you will see pictures of the classrooms.



Here are the Pre-school and Kindergarten rooms. They call it Kinder 1, Kinder 2 and Kinder 3--i.e. 3 year olds, 4 year olds and 5 year olds. The 5 year olds are the kindergarten class. Notice the high fences around the classrooms. The preschool/kindergarten area is enclosed and the elementary area is enclosed with the high fences.

These are the 1st grade classrooms. They face the elementary area playground. A couple of basketball hoops, a couple of hopscotch patterns painted on the ground and that is it for the playground.

I like to call this the "2nd grade hallway"! There are five 2nd grade classrooms and they all face this area. I think our area is the prettiest in the school.

When I teach my 2 small group classes in the afternoon, I have a table and chair and sit out here. Yes, it is VERY hot!! And there are a lot of bees because the (uncovered) garbage can is in this area too. I bought a can of Raid and spray it around!!

And this is my classroom! The signs in the window say "2 E English and Spanish" and the other is the list of students and the schedule. My students stay in this classroom all day. I teach English to them in the morning and after recess the Spanish teacher comes in and teaches her subjects in Spanish.

In the other four 2nd grade classrooms, the teacher stays in the classroom and the students change rooms. Those classes are called 2 A-2 B and 2 C-2 D. For example, you see the door next to mine? That is the English teacher who teaches the 2 C group. The room next to hers is the Spanish teacher who teaches the 2 D group. After recess, the students change rooms and the English kids go to the Spanish room and the Spanish kids go to the English room.

These are the 3rd and 4th grade classrooms. These rooms were built during the school break in July and August and finished the weekend before school started on Monday, August 20th! They are opposite the first grade classrooms overlooking the elementary playground.

Next are the middle school, high school and sports areas.

Hasta luego.