I recently lived in a rural Mexican community for about a week as a school trip. Calpan was the town my group was placed, about an hour away from Puebla.
The idea behind the whole experience was this was a reality check. We would go and live in this rural community sleeping every night on the floor, with limited showers, working in the field or typical rural jobs and gain something more in the end.
the first day we stopped at a public school who was working on planting trees. First we shifted soil, moved soil, and packed soil into small bags where they would later plant trees. We also were taken to just about the middle of no where except for the small dirt road. There was a typical field of wheat or some plaant very similar. In the field were planted small pine trees. Our task was to open the area around the pine trees so they could grow. The first day passed very slowly. Later in the afternoon we were given our town placements and we loaded our suitcases to be taken. Since the towns were not too far away we were to walk. We started walking and told we were going the wrong way, we walked the other way which was the wrong way, there were only two ways to go. This repeated I'm serious at least 6 six times. In the end both ways led to Calpan. I was taken aback when something happened that we would call dangerous in the United States. As cars passed the other students started hitch hiking, I don't think anyone walked all the way. I was in awe of the interest people showed in the country rather than in city. In short we arrived late in the afternoon, set up our sleeping arrangements and then relaxed.
In Calpan there were about 40 students and we were all sectioned into groups of 5 or more. My group consisted of all girls however I knew they all very well and we had a great time. Each group was assigned sort of to a family to help out with daily work and whatever they needed. My group was assigned to a kind man named Magarito. The first day we met Magarito, it was odd. He showed up on his tractor to take us to work, work we were unknowingly given. Well the 20 minute ride to work the first day was unexpected. We all fit onto the tractor sitting on the wheel coverings, we were all a little scared. We arrived at our "job" which was a field in the middle of no where. We were each given a machete and taught how to hand cut stocks of corn and put them in piles. None of us were mentally prepared for the first day of work. As soon as I started chopping my hands began to hurt. We had before us this huge field of corn and were not told how much to cut or for how long. As the morning progressed we became more tired, more corn was cut and our hands ached more. The machetes were a little more than scrap metal formed and sharpened. We were told to be careful. Howeverr one of the girls in our group within the first hours knicked her ankle. Everyone over the course of the week cut fingers either by machete or the sharp leaves of the corn stock. By the end of the week I could barely bend my right hand, it was blistered and those blistered broken and bleeding. All the days we worked from around 10 am to 4 pm. The work was like no work I had done before. One day, on a day we worked the whole day Magarito surprised us with hot food from his wife. It included hot tortillas, eggs and beans. The days of work soon passed faster as we were mentally prepared. By the end of the week in Calpan Magarito was famous amoung our group. Magarito didn't say much, actually almost nothing at all however everyone loved him. Also the last day, the day which we left we went to Magarito's house for lunch. Where we met most of his family. We helped prepare to lunch which was most delicious. We ate... well here;s the problem I can't remember the name. But pretty much it is a hand made tortilla with either cheese, potatoes, chicken or soemthing in the middle it is then fried and on top you can put salsa, more cheese or sour cream. I ate these numerous times on the street in Calpan but the ones at Magarito's house were by far the best. On the last day with Magarito I wanted to give him something and I had brought NY maple syrup but it was misplaced so all I could give him was on of my rotary pins. Being a man of few words he said nothing. There goes the working part.
After we retuned from work around 4 pm we had free time mostly for the rest of the night. There were a few small convience stores, a restraunt, a hotel and my friend's favorite a food express. The foo express was a small building with only a refrigerator and a stove. They served coffee and eggs with tortillas in the morning and later on shrimp and fish burgers as well as sodas and beer. My group of friends and I spent most of our time there. Also it had a great few of the volcanoe and the sunset. In the evenings we ate and jsut passed the time. One night everyone, I mean everyone almost all 40 students went to the local restraunt to watch the futbol match. Another night our friends who weren't on the rural experience or had gone the week before came and brought us pizza and passed some time with us. One of the last nights we had a campfire with marshmellows and one of the teacher's talked about the "Experience."
One of my favorite parts of the whole experience was what happened before anyone else was awake. Two mornings I wactched the sunrise. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful things you can do. The first morning it was just my friend Mariana, Sarah and me sitting on a stone wall that surround the church where we were staying. The next morning the entire group of my friends got up to watch the sunrise however this time from the top of the church. It was us: Brenda, Mariana Mas, Mariana Salgado, Fer, Sarah, Ozge and me. The mornings in rural Mexico are cruel with a temperature of around 30 degrees or less. We were all shivering but we spent at least an hour watching the sun climb into the sky. It was one of the most sincere and beautiful things I've ever done.
Rural Mexico reminded me a lot of Cooperstown. They were probably about the same size give or take. It was safe. There was no way to get lost and it was beautiful. There were no rushing cars or mass amounts of people. No car horns honking, to fading sirens.
I'm not saying the whole experience wasn't great, I just want to say there were a lot of things people missed. I don't think anyone from my school will drastically change there way of life after the rural experience. It was just something they did once for school. I really wanted to interact with the people. We were supposed to have projects but those soo fell through the cracks. Our paint was stolen and our wall that we were going to paint was nonexistent.
And por fin the title of the blog is Classico de Magarito because all the time Magarito was late or just about anything Magarito did we would say "Classico de Magarito." Soon everything was classico de Magarito. "No te procupes es classico de Magarito"
I apologize again for the tardiness of my blog
Salud
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