A Tribute to Academia Falcon

The End of an Era

I started writing this blog,one afternoon while sitting in the lovely grounds of the school, hoping that I wouldn't need to publish it. Unfortunately, what was first whispered as a rumor is now apparently a done deal. Teachers are telling us that as of Sept. 4th, Academia Falcon will be no more. Below is the blog I started earlier in the summer:

I am in my idea of paradise. The birds are singing, the monarch butterfly is flying around, the fruit trees are filled with mangos, grapefruit, pomegranite, oranges, etc.... Everything is blooming. The sun is shining, climate perfect, breeze blowing.....There are mountains surrounding the view, a vermillion flycatcher on a branch... I am surrounded by nature's beauty within the courtyards of the school. Yet, I am sad, grieving in a way...I guess you could say...I am experiencing a loss, but not nearly as deeply as my friends here. It seems silly to some of you, I know.

I am certainly not an owner or even an employee of this school yet I feel a part of it. I did not dream it, design it, or hire the great staff and teachers. I am not invested in it in those terms at all. Nor do I have any kind of financial investment in it, other than paying my very reasonable fees for tuition, rent, and meals here. Yet, I do feel "vested" in this school. I owe not only my Spanish language skills but also my appreciation of Mexican muralists, history, culture, music ,dance, and Latin literature and films to the wonderful teachers I have had here over the past three summers.

I not only love the surroundings at the school and the lessons taught by such knowledgable and wonderful teachers, etc...but I also love the smiles I receive daily, the conversations with students and teachers, La Senora, the excellent cook in the cafeteria, Beto, who cleans our room and the school so well, Laura, Yolanda, and Moni, (smiling faces in the office), Pilar who does our schedules...Many of the teachers and staff have truly become my friends. I care about them and their families. Many have worked here in various capacities for over ten years....

I am afraid this year, has done them in. All the media hype with the swine flu, drug wars, etc...has been the kiss of death. Very few students have been here all summer. That has not changed the excellent instruction and care we have received and are still receiving here. I feel a loss. Oh, of course, there are other schools, but this is my school. They know me here. They are my friends. This is an exceptional school. It is my home away from home.

However, the sadness I feel is more for the people who work here. I know people are losing jobs everywhere. I know that I have previously been fortunate in not knowing of a friend or relative in this position. However, I do know these people at the school and I wonder if they will be able to find jobs. Yes, there are other schools here (many more expensive and not as good, in my opinion), but they already have their staff...Some of them have closed too. There are many people here wanting to teach, cook, work in offices, and clean.

All I know is I am going to read everything posted on the walls re: so much info. : history of MX., traditions, etc....I am going to take pictures of all the beautiful surroundings. I am going to enjoy each moment in the solitude and serenity of the surroundings. For this truly is the last time I will be here.

I wish I were wealthy and could rescue them: find a building, pay salaries, etc.... Sadly, that is not the case. What a great cause to be able to help great teachers keep this school for those of us wishing to continue our learning of another language and culture!

Words cannot express my gratitude to the wonderful teachers and staff here. You have made my life richer. I have received knowledge which will always be a part of me. You provided a valuable service for many years to people such as myself. Many people are saddened by the loss. My thoughts and prayers are with you as you search for work. Please know that your efforts and teaching are treasures to me. I will be glad to write letters of recommendation for any of you. Your student and friend, Joy Cary

Sunday in the Jardin Union

While having our Sun. am. breakfast with the "Gringo Group," in the Hotel Luna, (a restaurant adjacent to the Jardin Union), we heard a band begin to play. We were treated to this free performance by the State of Guanajuato Symphonic Band. Curtis walked around, filming while the band played. One of the things we enjoy most about Guanajuato are all the free offerings, concerts, plays, ballets, choirs, etc... Parades are fun and quite frequent here too. Most of the time we are just walking around, enjoying the city when we stumble upon these type of offerings.

Compilation :)

Top Pics: Children at Resplendor

Pics Below: Renee and Peter at their home

So Much to Write About-So Little Time

I am including a couple of topics. So much has happened since I last sat down to write. It is a busy time now. I have five classes this week, get out around 2, eat at 2:30, take a brief siesta, then prepare to teach the children before we leave around 5. Today, a young woman from Quebec will be joining us. Her younger sister has been attending classes with me. The older just flew in today. They have expressed interest in helping teach at Resplendor. We will all meet Jacquie today at OXCO, to be picked up around 5. We will be there until classes are over at 8 pm. Then, they will take us back to Academia. My first class is at 8:30 am. Usually I have been awakening early to study. As usual I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew. My reason for being here is to increase my Spanish skills and hopefully have a little free time in the process. The volunteering opportunity arose, one in which we had not known of prior to coming. Had I known, I would have brought some speech therapy materials, books, etc...Since I do not have those things, I am spending time developing activities. Once I arrive at the school and am adequately prepared, I do enjoy it. We go every Mon., Tues., and Thurs. Tues., I brought a Mexican memory game I purchased and then printed the English words on index cards. The children enjoyed finding the matches and learning the English words. We then did some additional vocabulary activities. I taught them body parts/directions prior to doing the hokey pokey. Later, I had a private speech therapy session with a young boy. It was all very rewarding. Children and parents were very appreciative. I guess that's what keeps me going. One parent came up to me to practice her newly acquired sentence: "It is very cloudy today." I complimented her and replied, "Yes, it is going to rain." Of course, she then immediately wrote down that sentence to learn. What a wonderful lust for learning! Man if we had a tenth of that in the states, right teachers? :) However, I must admit that if the two young women enjoy working with the children, I may back out a bit and serve more on a consultation basis. Curtis is taking fewer classes and having more time to enjoy class preparation, etc...He is great with the older boys. We are trying to make everything functional. The boys are learning names for farming equipment, car parts, etc... Of course, Curtis certainly has the background re: farming vocabulary. :)

Another topic:....Last night we had a very enjoyable evening. We had been invited to the home of a couple we met at "The Gringo Group." They were staying in one of their vacation homes, which happens to be here in Valenciana, very close to Guanajuato-phenomenal views of the city. The home was built by their now deceased parents, about 40 years ago, and is now shared amongst the siblings. The home was designed by a very famous Mexican architect from Mexico City. It was very Mexicana:boveda ceilings, lots of Mexican tiles, paintings, furniture, rugs, etc.... -beautiful! On the outside of the home was an original sculpture by Gene Byron, of the Gene Byron museum here. Peter and Renee are from Toronto, where he is a physician and she a high school principal. We spent about two and a half hours chatting and enjoying the wonderful views from the mountain of Guanajuato in lights. How kind of them to invite us to their lovely home!

Above are pics of Peter and Renee at their home and some of the children from Resplendor.

Third topic: Teachers/Classes
Teachers: If you have read my blogs at all, you know how much I love the school and teachers here. I want to share two examples of why, both which happened today. Magda has taught Curtis and me in the past. I currently have a conversation class with her. I had mentioned to her that we were looking for a specific t-shirt. She told me her sister who lives in Irapauto would look. Today, she told me that her sister had found the shirts we couldn't find here. She was asking our sizes, colors we wanted, etc...We have made plans to meet her sister. How thoughtful!

Another great teacher here is Eva. She teaches me my private Spanish lessons. Today she invited us to her home next Sat. for breakfast. She is a young, single woman engaged to a man in France. Eva studied there last year. How sweet of her to want to invite us to her home!

Gotta take a pic of our good looking dance teacher before we go too. :) He,(Emmanuel) also is a great, positive teacher who has made our private dance class lots of fun!

Classes: This week I have continued Latin Literature, dance, a special grammar class, conversation class, and my private instruction. I truly have enjoyed all of them. I must not forget to mention Carlos. He is a graduate of Univ. of Mexico and has actually attended lectures by the famous writers we have studied. Latin literature is obviously his love. He knows so much. I am getting a great education: Catalina en musica, Carlos en literatura, Emmanuel en baile....not to mention increasing my skills in the language. Tengo mucho amor por mis amigos en los estados unidos y en Mexico tambien.

Update: Just returned from Resplendor. When I try to talk myself into a less active role, I begin to question it after an evening there. The children were so good and so eager to learn. They listened as I read an Eng. book to them, first telling them the Spanish sentence equivalent prior to reading the printed Eng. sentence. Then, we reviewed the English word, providing the Spanish palabra. The children then made up sentences in Spanish using the Spanish palabra and later after I modeled the English equivalent version, they would repeat the English sentence. They also enjoyed the review of the Spanish/English memory card game I made. We then went outside and played luz rojo, luz verde/red light, green light and discussed los semaforos-traffic lights. You know, I don't think I have even seen any here in Guanajuato. :) Of course, the stop signs only mean slow down and look, here. :)

After my session with the group of children, I changed hats from Eng. teacher to speech pathologist and worked with a deaf boy and his sister who is also very hard of hearing, on Mexican sign language. As previously stated, all the children are so eager to learn. Dominique, the young woman from Quebec, is delightful. Glad she arrived to help with the kids. Curtis's group of boys enjoyed learning/seeing the different parts of the pick-up truck Jacquie drives. Curtis asked her if we could pop the hood tonight. Of course, it is now 10:30 pm. and I haven't done my own homework for tomorrow. I will arise early to do so. Buenas Noches, Joy

Fri. night-check out Curtis's blog/Resplendor

1st pic: school at Resplendor where Eng. classes and art classes are taught. Equine therapy is also provided.

2nd pic: mural painted by Mexico City artist, on the wall at Resplendor

I want to begin my blog by suggesting you first check the blog Curtis wrote yesterday re: Fri. night: http://www.cwcary.blogspot.com/ It was truly a special evening. He has lots of good pics.

My blog will pick up where he left off, re: the remainder of the weekend. After having had a really fun evening Fri. with Alma and Arturo, we began the 2nd part of our weekend around 4:00 pm. Sat. We were picked up at the school by Jacquie, the woman Curtis mentioned in his blog. She took us to Cajones, a "currently" rural farming area, near the city. We were invited to see Resplendor, the school currently being built there in conjuntion with the Univ. of Arizona, and also Jacquie and Don's home and land close to the school. We spent the night at the "hotel." Now, by anyone's standards this wasn't a hotel. Perhaps it could be better described as a hostel. However, it was everything we needed: a clean room, a bathroom, a comfortable bed....

I first met Jacquie and Don, my first summer in Guanajuato when we were all staying in the homes of the Delgado family (Alma and Arturo) in my case, and Alma's mom and dad's home next door, where Jacquie and Don stayed. I remember after having stayed there 10 weeks, that I was truly sad about leaving. Yes, I wanted to see loved ones at home, but secretly wished we could return for more time here. That is always how I feel when I leave here. Anyway, Jacquie had the same sentiments, but was able to act on them. They returned to Arizona only long enough to prepare their home and land for sale. Since that summer of 2006, they have been a major part in the building of the school and the instruction there. Both Don and Jaquie are previous chefs. We were treated to a wonderful meal and enjoyed our evening visit. As night approached, we ventured to our room, not far from their home. We had a good night's rest and awakend early enough to venture out for a morning walk. We saw goats, sheep, farmland, mountains, a lake. It was a very scenic view.

Around 9:30 this am. we all left for the "Gringo group" breakfast. We enjoyed visiting with everyone. We met a very nice couple from Toronto who were staying in his parent's home. His parents are now deceased and the children divide time at the home. The home was designed by a famous Mexican architect. This couple invited us to see it. We will certainly enjoying doing that.

We have also agreed to help Jacquie at the school. For the remainder of the time we are here we will be teaching Eng. classes at the school on Mon., Tues., and Thurs., evenings. We will ride the bus there. We are looking forward to teaching the children. Love from Mexico, Joy

pics from Aquascalientes

1st pic: Museo de Muerte
Catrina's hat is prettier! :)

2nd pic: Palacio de Gobierno
Aquascalientes, MX.

3rd pic: : Curtis discussing
plans for the city :)

4th pic: Don Quijote at
Museo de Muerte

Aquascalientes

If you know some Spanish, you know that Aquascalientes means "Hot Waters." This weekend we ended up going there. It was rather funny how this came to be. We decided we wanted to take a little weekend jaunt somewhere by bus. Considerations were Pozo, Quereterro, and Aquascalientes. We spent much deliberate calculation as to which we would choose. We spun a bottle. :)

Now, some of you who grew up with me in Clarksville, know that our favorite little jr. high game was Spin the Bottle. :) Of course, when we played it then, it was in hopes that the bottle would land on the cute boy we had our eye on, so that we might take a walk around a home together (usually mine), because the parties were often at my home.

This time, Curtis and I were checking out the various bus itineraries when our friend Solomon appeared with his empty coke bottle. While we were standing in front of the bus office, discussing our dilemna, Curtis, saw the bottle and said, "Let's spin the bottle. " That was exactly what we did. :) Each of us represented one city. Ah MX. :) That's about as close as we seem to get to the backpackers we admire, who just hop on a bus and go. :)

It turned out, Aquascalientes was a good choice. You probably haven't heard much about it. We certainly hadn't. Most people seem to bypass it on the way to Zacatecas. Although we want to go there too sometime, it is a little farther than we wished to travel this weekend, so it didn't meet the spin the bottle criteria. :)

Before leaving early Sat. am., we did decide to treat ourselves to a nice motel. We have been staying at the school for 3 weeks with no tv. That part really hasn't bothered us. We get the news by internet. However, although we have a nice size shower here, it was nice to treat ourselves to a room with a larger bed, bathtub, tv, etc...We felt after 3 wks. we deserved a little treat. To tell the truth, Quinta Real was a fantastic place. Our price was around $120 with taxes for the overnight trip, but we are sure in the states it would have been closer to the $300-$400 per night rates we have seen advertised for rooms of the same caliber in Las Vegas, etc... (you know, those we never stay in. :) Not only was the motel and room beautiful (hacienda style), but the food and entertainment were phenomenal. We had the brunch there today and were not only treated to a very reasonably priced, delicious meal in a beautiful setting, but excellent entertainment as well. There was a quartet of one woman with a beautiful voice and 3 men. We enjoyed dining in the beautiful area with the wonderful music so much that we spent quite a bit of time there and ended up buying 2 cds.

One man was playing a musical instrument he had made. It was a small box high enough for him to sit on while he reached between his legs to beat on the front and sides of the "drum. " We are assuming there were different types of chambers inside it to produce several different sounds, (depending on where he would beat it with his hand).

Of course, I am really giving info. in reverse re: our trip. This was how we spent today, prior to returning to Guanjuato. Sat. was when we saw the sites of Aquascalientes, which in it's own rite, had some very interesting things to see and do.

We arrived in Aquascalientes around noon and were provided a name of a restaurant. It was around 1 pm. when we arrived there. They were serving breakfast. Their "lunch" did not start until 2 pm. Thought some of you would find this interesting. :)

Aquascalientes is the home of 2 very famous Mexican artists. One is Saturnina Herran, a woman I truly had not heard of until my Mexican art class. In the Museo de Aquascalientes are several of her paintings and drawings, mainly of Indegenous women of Mexico. They are all quite good.

The other museo we visited was the Museo de Muerte (museum of death) :). Now, at first, we thought we might just bypass this, but after reading the literature, I discovered it actually had lots of Mexican folkart. We decided to go. It was around $1 per person. They honored our teacher status. Wasn't that nice! Again, we were pleasantly surprised with the museo.

This museum consisted of 3 floors of not only Mexican folkart (wooden toys, Catrina skeletons, etc...) but great relics from the Prehispanic ages, some of the codigos the Aztecs had used-(booklike with beautiful drawings) and lots of drawings by Posada, another very famous Mexican artist. He is the one who is famous for all the skeleton figures, such as Catrina, who are enjoying dancing, feasting, life, etc...in the after life. Mexicans like to illustrate life after death in terms of viewing the person (skeletons)continuiing to have fun in the after life. Perhaps it is easier to accept death when thinking in those terms. In each room was a film explaining different artifacts according to the time period. The film was in Spanish; however, I enjoyed it because the man speaking spoke very clearly and I did understand the information.

The Palacio de Gobierno was a beautiful building in itself. It had beautiful arches/architectural design.. It is a 3 story building located around the large plaza, so typical of many larger Mexican cities. There were beautiful murals painted in this building depicting various scenes of Mexican history. In the plaza was the huge Mexican flag with a large statue of the eagle with the snake, nearby. There were the typical iron benches and beautiful fountains, with families enjoying the day.

The first thing we did was take a tour of the city via trolley. This is usually how we like to begin touring cities, to get a broad over-view of the area.

Then, we spent a little time walking around, viewing some of the shops for Quincenera and boda (wedding) dressses. We decided to take some pics to email April, our son's fiance, just so she could have an idea of the type of dresses made here. I would always go in and ask the shop keeper if she minded. They were more than gracious. The funniest thing was seeing Curtis taking off his shoes, per shopkeeper request, and slipping behind the manequins, to take pics of the dressses. :) That is another story in itself. :) Don't think he would do that for just anyone, April. :) Amor desde MX., Joy

French does help-at least that's my excuse :)

It is a little after 2. I am sitting at a table on the covered patio discussing "las clases" with a young French speaker from Quebec. Of course, we were conversing in Spanish. Spanish, being a romance language, has many words very similar in French. I have noticed that most French speakers speak Spanish quite well or certainly can learn it quickly. He has now left as this particular bout of rain has subsided.

As you know, we are in the rainy season here in the mountains. It is actually a bit chilly, ( I know my Texas friends are tired of me mentioning this. :) The rains are very refreshing and usually do not interfere with our plans. Usually, it either rains pm. or evening, but not both. Sometimes it comes quite fiercely and for a substantial amount of time; however, usually when that happens there is a day or two with no rain.

We are enjoying our dance class. The young man is such a good teacher. After dance, I have writing this week, followed by cine. We saw a very good movie, entirely in Spanish. Sometimes I get a bit frustrated watching Spanish movies. I usually do "get it" overall, but just when I think I'm doing so well, I realize that I do miss parts of some conversations. It is like everything else, the more practice, the better. :) There is always more vocabulary to learn. Anyway, the young man from Quebec was in my cine class. I wondered how his Spanish could be so good. Then, I discovered he is a French speaker. This always makes me feel better.

Next week we will continue our private dance lesson. I will have another week of Latin literature, a conversation class, and my private class. Each week, the school allows you to pick and choose your own schedule. As I knew, the school did not even question giving me credit for the classes I had to miss due to the emergency I mentioned in a previous blog. I do love this school!

I know my US friends will be celebrating the 4th this weekend. Have a great one! Hasta Luego, Joy