Waves of Change

This morning the ocean is quiet.Waves

Most mornings the waves pound in on the rocks here where my family and I have temporarily relocated in Akumal, Mexico. Most mornings the waves are a steady reminder to me of their power and their continuity.  As each wave rolls in so close that I can almost feel it crashing on to the shore, it brings a cool relief from the heat, from the relentless humidity and from the mosquitoes that fill the jungle only just across the road. Each wave makes this a beautiful place to be. And wave after wave, each one loud and thundering, demands that I pay attention.

I love the waves but at the same time I am frightened and awed by them;  And in the same way,  I marvel at the power and force of the continuous waves of change in our world though they too command my respect.  The change has let me do so much.  Yet,  have I done enough? Do I keep up? Do I know enough? Am I outdated? Is it all moving too fast? Am I being carried by the current in directions I don’t want to go? Can I see where these waves are taking me?

This morning’s calm is providing me a pause in the urgency in the same way that this time-out year, this space away from the rapid waves of change in our society, is giving me time to think.

Our time in Spain before this was a transition and a true break in the waves, but now here in Mexico as our trip away wears on, the waves are starting up again as surely as the waves in the ocean will pick up as this day too wears on. It won’t stay calm.  All around me I’m seeing the impact of change. Being Canadian, coming here to Mexico I am often aware that I am riding high on the waves. I’m in a very privileged spot.  I should have a clear view. But the time spent here is starting to let me see the lows as well as the highs.   Change here has a power and force all its own. It has a current that we can’t control.  Change brings money and tourists but at the same time it brings poverty and an odd twist in the state of happiness. The change that put this beautiful place here for me to stay and enjoy meant others were moved off to make room for me.

Akumal, Mexico is a beautiful tourist “town.”  There are two gorgeous sandy beaches within a short walking distance of our rented ocean side property.  One of the beaches has a strip of condos on the water side, the other, three hotels and a bit of a “town” with two dive shops, a couple of small but expensive grocery stores, a handful of art and souvenir stores,  the obligatory silver store, four or five restaurants, a bakery, a “gringo” gym and yoga studio as well as hotel offices.  I believe there is even a hostel back behind the basketball court and the outdoor stage. Behind that, in the jungle across the highway is a small pueblo.

The “pueblo” of Akumal is easy to spot on Google Earth if you follow the single highway straight south from Cancun to a small carved out grid away from the water side,  just 4 blocks long, by 8 blocks wide. The pueblo was created in the late 1990’s to move the “locals” out of the beach area, not all bad apparently but in that 32 square block area, over 3,000 “locals” live.  The gap in the differences between tourist life and local life here is constantly evident, like the peaks and valleys of the waves on the shore. And as with the waves, there is tension too. There are quieter days when the water is calmer but the waves always come pounding back.

Walking into the pueblo

Walking into the pueblo

As for me, I’m here with a purpose. Naive as it may be, I’m trying to involve myself in the local community.  I’m trying to find real ways to help with education and to learn what I can about the people here. I’m trying to find out how with limited (but improving) spanish and all my technical wizardry, my fancy teaching experience, my cutting-edge knowledge of teaching methodology, how I might possibly have something to offer that is of value to the people here.  I’m trying, with my sixteen year old daughter, and my husband to not just tour the area for the five months that we’re here, but to sort out what in this constantly changing world we’ve catapulted from, is of value in what we know and can do, that might make a difference and be of real use to this community. I’m trying to learn about the waves here, when and how to dive in to swim without being completely carried away.

What I’ve learned so far

Once a teacher, always a teacher and as such I am always curious about learning. So this adventure is letting me really look closely at my own learning. Overall, I’m getting some huge lessons.

The biggest is of course around learning, or perhaps not learning to speak Spanish.  For almost four years now I’ve been trying hard to learn some basic Spanish:  I’ve attended night school four times through Vancouver School Board-level one successfully two times and half way through level two twice; I’ve done a week of Spanish class in beautiful Yelapa, Mexico, a small village a forty minute water taxi ride away from Puerto Vallarta and I’ve made three other trips to Mexico seeking some kind of immersion experience; I’ve listened to hours of podcasts including Coffee Break Spanish, Showtime Spanish and most recently Michelle Thomas’ excellent series for beginning spanish; and I’ve even worked my way through several exercise books and a couple of very, very beginning novels.  While I’ve come a long way, I am far, far from fluent.  At least now I usually know when someone is speaking spanish to me and in all honesty, I can understand more and more of what I’m hearing around me.

Shopping at the Calvia market today after I managed to park.

Shopping at the Calvia market today after I managed to park.

Today though I’m having a bad spanish day. At the market in Calvia, when I was trying to park the car an older spanish woman cut me off, literally stealing the parking space that I’d waited patiently for by pulling up in the lot to block my entrance to it. While I politely reversed the car  so she could pass me by as I thought we clearly had an understanding that the spot was mine-the driver pulling out had even told her that I was taking the spot-she then had the gaul to pull into the spot while yelling at me, in spanish, that she’d been driving around for twenty minutes waiting for a spot, as if that entitled her to so rudely do what she did. I pulled up to her window dumbfounded, with a stupid idiotic look on my face I’m sure, while she hurtled explanations at me as to how tired of waiting she was and that she was entitled to the spot after viente minutos.  I understood pretty much all of what she was saying but my active spanish vocabulary vanished completely and all I could think to yell back was “puta!” (Oh what a dishonorable person I am!) So how did I learn such language in the first place you might wonder?  Well apparently swearing is quite the past time here.  Robert and Hannah have both been learning to  swear up a storm while I thought I was above it all.  We hear it on the buses around us, from the people at the side of the soccer field, pretty much everywhere, little children, teenagers and adults alike.  Last week when I asked Hannah how she was doing with speaking spanish on the soccer field con las otras jugadoras she told me very proudly that she was doing really well. She’d sworn twice at the mosquitos on the field.

Starting to make friends

Starting to make friends

But honestly, what  I am learning beyond the language itself is about the learning of a language. Learning a language is really, really hard work and immersion doesn’t happen naturally.  It is far too easy for me to sit at home in the comfort of my family, and to rely on the very few english speaking people, including my family here, to speak and translate for me. I have experienced too the huge feeling of helplessness that comes from not being able to speak the language, a helplessness that for me actually makes it even harder to learn.  I watch myself going into “shut down mode” when I don’t understand what to do or how to find what I need.  I see myself withdrawing and choosing not to participate in the community  rather than seeking help and pushing myself harder to try to overcome the language that I don’t understand.  So for example in our trying to deal with “officialdom” here I feel so lost.  It took us a whole week just to find out if there was a soccer team that Hannah could play on.  Then we needed help finding the field where they practice. Now we’re struggling through some kind of registration process that we just don’t understand. We’ve pretty much given up on finding any sort of schooling experience for her outside of the VLN program that she is registered in from home. Our next step is to try to find spanish language classes for all three of us but even that is hard to do. It is hard to sort out what is tourist hype and what might be real. It would be easier to just stay on my beautiful deck, keep swimming daily to the island across the bay until the weather gets too cold, continue to play on my computer and forget spanish all together.  Keeping at it is tough going.

In short, this is giving me a whole new perspective on all of the amazing parents I’ve dealt with over the years who have moved to Vancouver despite not knowing the language, and really truly persisted to get their children into good programs and to learn the language themselves enough to actively participate in the school at any level.  To those of you reading this  who are teaching and working with ESL parents in your schools right now, please reach out and find one parent or one student who is trying to understand but may be feeling frustrated.  Please, even for a day, give them all the help you can.  You will make a world of difference.

Diving with Turtles

Today as I was swimming in the Mediterranean outside my door...

Today as I was swimming in the Mediterranean outside my door...

Today as I was swimming in the Mediterranean outside my front door I started thinking about writing this post, not because I was lucky enough to actually be diving with turtles today, but because the image of doing so is what was really the beginning of this whole adventure for me.  Several years ago when I was the coordinator at the University Transition Program I was enticed into taking scuba diving lessons with a group of students.   While people talked of the beautiful fish, coral and shells we would see under the waters of the Vancouver area, I started to envision myself now being able to dive with turtles. I love turtles and I’m fascinated by them but I’ve never seen a turtle in the wild so this was huge for me.  So there I was approaching 50 years old, proud of myself for taking on something as challenging and scary as scuba diving was for me, and suddenly realizing that getting older wasn’t about moving towards the “golden years” of one’s life, but really about gaining the freedom and the confidence to do and be whatever we choose. I’m understanding the truth in Jenny Joseph’s poem which starts,

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

It was probably around that time that I decided that it was time to learn Spanish. Truth be told, scuba diving was much less challenging than learning spanish is turning out to be, but I’m determined.  Thus our decision to come to Spain. I’ve been “book learning” spanish now for a few years with some limited progress.  So here (as they say in ShowTime Spanish) I’m moving it to the next level.  Twice already since we arrived our friend Kim, who we’re staying with, has invited us out to her friend Marta’s for lunch.

Fideau is the catalan equivalent of paella, made with noodles instead of rice.

Fideau is the catalan equivalent of paella, made with noodles instead of rice.

Two weeks ago when we first went to Marta’s we ordered in a huge big plate of fideua, the catalan equivalent of paella, made with noodles instead of rice. It was really amazing especially with the copious amounts of good spanish wine that we drank with it.  We had a great long drawn out lunch that was so entertaining as we tried hard to speak Spanish with Marta who claim to speak very little English. Actually I think her English is much better than our Spanish but it was a great opportunity for us to practice. Kim and her daughter Pacha were really helpful, translating back and forth as we tried to elaborate on stories or whenever something got far too silly to possibly explain in a language we just don’t speak that well.

Pacha speaks Spanish beautifully, often correcting her mom. Plus she’s fun to watch because she is so very expressive, using her hands, her shoulders and pretty much all of her body for emphasis.

We all love to watch Pacha talk. She speaks so beautifully and is so expressive.

We all love to watch Pacha talk. She speaks so beautifully and is so expressive.

Hannah enjoyed sitting across the table from Pacha and taking a ton of pictures.

Did I mention that there were also two 14 year old boys at the lunch?  Hannah later was invited back to Victor’s birthday party but it was late on a Saturday night and short of us hanging out somewhere not to far away whilst Hannah partied we really had no way of getting her home, so she passed. She would have enjoyed the chance to meet more teenagers.  If you aren’t attending school in an area, we’re learning that it is quite hard to  make friends.

Later in the day we took the new super tunnel up island to the lovely little town of Soller (google it! More on Soller another day).  From there we drove part way down the west coast of the island just in time to stop Miramar and watch a beautiful sun set.

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The train to Soller

The train to Soller

We had such a great day  on our first trip to Soller that less than a week later, when Lynn, our first Canadian visitor came we spent the day riding the beautiful  1918 wooden train back up from Palma to Soller.  Then we walked down to the Port of Soller, a few kilometers away, sat and had yet another delicious lunch, this time on the beach, swam and then trammed back to Soller for the train back to Palma, all  a very touristy thing to do but really a fun full day. Soller and the Port of Soller are both beautiful.

Time Out

I’ve not written in several months as there has been a major shift in my life with my husband Robert deciding to retire, my choosing to leave SFU and now taking a break from teaching for the next year.  So, we’ve packed up with our 15 year old daughter and given ourselves a year to travel.  As I write this we’ve landed in Mallorca, Spain. We’re living in an apartment in an old house right on the water.  The house is old and quite rustic, but charming in a funny sort of way.

The view from our deck.

The view from our deck.

We’re loving the view from our front covered deck and the sound of the waves lapping on the shore beneath the house.  There are big, very spanish arches framing our view of an island with an old brick tower on it.

Apparently the tower is one of a ring of towers around the island, all built in the 1500’s and used to warn the islanders of approaching pirates.  The islanders would light fires in the towers and when one was lit, the next would immediately be lit and so on until the whole ring around the island signaled the warning, all in less than an hour.  The history all around us is quite intriguing and fun to learn about.

So, I’ve changed the blog title here to Betty Online – Time Out. I contemplated just starting a brand new blog on WordPress.org, but it isn’t set up as nicely as this edublog site and after the first couple of posts and finding myself not able to add photos the way I wanted to I’ve decided to stick with this blog.  I realize that I’ll lose many of you who may have chosen to follow this blog for the small bits of educational insight I may have occasionally had, but at the same time, maybe I’ll gain some friends and family who want to follow along on our adventures.  I’ve struggled a little with the whole idea of writing a blog about this year out, not wanting to write just another travel blog and thinking that I’d have some thoughts about education too. Not quite sure where I’m going with that but shall see.  Certainly my interest in education and research in education is one that I will continue to carry with me.  Where ever I go I find myself asking about the education system.  There is certainly lots and lots of fodder here where the system is very demanding, with secondary students taking up to 11 courses per term. But at the same time the failure rate is ridiculous.  We looked into putting Hannah into a school here, thinking that if nothing else she would benefit from the socializing, the spanish and the sports, only to find that generally physical education is only one day per week and many of the schools where she could attend at great cost, are in English. Plus, if we are only here for a few months, she won’t actually get any credit for being in school. So Hannah is doing all of her schooling on her own, online through Vancouver Learning Network. That alone will be an interesting adventure for me to follow.