Ten to one

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.  ~Jane Austen

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21st Century Literacy

It’s a good time to be a librarian, even if you’re not in a library.

In this week’s assignment for the Adobe Youth Voices online class, we’re talking about the skills and learning needed to create media.  We’re also looking at advertisements and dissecting them. Many of the same principles I covered with students in library classes are included; but the difference here is that we’re also incorporating aural and visual messages from both consumer and author’s perspective.

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Wisdom

I used to think that wisdom comes with age. Kind of like a natural by-product of living. It doesn’t. You have to work for it everyday.  A good place to start is with your thoughts, holding each one captive, examining them, asking if these are the kinds of thoughts a wise person would generate. Do you want to continue on this course into old age and end up in a place this kind of thinking manifests? It takes work, but you have the capability of simply and mindfully pulling yourself out of whatever thoughts imprison you.

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Peligro

¡PELIGRO! Alta tension

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Santa Rosa and back

After getting the idea from Isang, yesterday, Fernando and I took the bus to Santa Rosa and then walked back on a dirt path. It took us about 4 hours to walk back and it was a perfect day for perambulating: sunny, windy, and not too warm. We stocked up on tortas and drinks, had a picnic, and basically enjoyed the closeness of the mountains as we descended into a valley, next to the water which sang to us on the way back. We found an ancient mine and crossed through Mineral de Monte, a tiny town with homes as old as the hills and a huge cathedral. Then we saw the guys in the photo rounding up a couple of cows to put in their truck.   We finally emerged at the same Presa we were at last Sunday, Presa Esperanza. Fernando said his legs felt like those of a marionette when we finally got back home.

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Back in the classroom

I’ve completed the first of eight weeks of the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) online course.  The course is designed to help educators support youth media making. Topics include media forms; process and presentation; community collaboration and exhibition, and technical skills necessary to use Adobe media making software. It feels great to be in the classroom again and I look forward to putting my learning into action with the girls at Buen Pastor.

What’s most striking this first week is the wonderful diversity of students! I looked at the Participant list, and there was one person from the United States, and many from Argentina, Brazil, Botswana, Egypt and the Russian Federation. Next to each student is a flag so you can immediately identify their country. The class is conducted in English.

These are the list of countries represented:

• Argentina
• Bahrain
• Belarus
• Botswana
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• Egypt
• Japan
• Kingdom of Bahrain
• Mexico
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Poland
• Romania
• Russia
• South Africa
• Turkey
• Uganda
• United States

The diversity and reach of this online class revolutionizes what we think of in terms of the traditional classroom.  I truly believe if Higher Education is to remain relevant, they must work harder on virtual learning environments.

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Relax

She laid prone on the table, talking like a water fountain you can’t turn off. The table was drenched in words. Her parents kicked her out. Her mother was mean. She’s almost 40 going on 12. She won’t look you in the eye. Her head won’t stop hurting. It’s hurt for months. Maybe a year now. I looked to the Virgincita for compassion and grounding.

I asked her to turn supine. I asked her to imagine her mind a clear, blue sky, and wherever there is pain, there are dark clouds. Bring a small, steady wind to clear those clouds so that she can return her mind to clear blue. As she closed her eyes and visualized, she began to relax. The fountain stopped, her breathing deepened, her body loosened. I held the sides of her head for 20 minutes while the world stopped and transformed and released and renewed.

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Presa

On Valentine’s Day, F and I hiked to El Meco. Then we continued on to a second cross, Serena. From Serena, we could see all of Guanajuato on one side, and rolling hills on the other. We proceeded to the uninhabited side and when we saw a dam, we decided we would walk until we reached it. From the dam, we made our way back home. I saw another cross in the distance that I hope to hike to. I need to learn its name first.

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Reforma

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The Big Veezy

Ever since he swept her off her feet on the dance floor, it’s been Indio wishes and taco-stand dreams.

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Meco tree

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Saint’s birthday

It’s Madre Lourdes’ saint’s birthday!  That means everyone celebrates Madre Lourdes.  When your Saint has a birthday, you have a birthday too!  Anyway, the Madres, Isang, and I will all be going to Santa Rosa on Saturday for more celebrating. But yesterday, the girls put on a show for Madre Lourdes (choregraphed by Marla and Dani), some gave her presents, and we all had a nice meal.

Madre Lourdes had been telling me about all the money Angelina Jolie and Madonna had generously donated to Haiti. She felt good about her personal donation, a handful of coins, because that was what she could give, and it was something. When the girls gifted her with candy and candles, we smiled because it was the same thing: what they could give and from the heart.

Later on, some of the girls watered the garden.  Lori and her friend planted a few things yesterday. I’m really hoping that the garden takes off and that the girls will tend it.

Before I left, I watched the girls working on their math. During homework time, I often help them with their math, and listen to them recite their multiplication. But ever since Fernando found educational math programs in Spanish, all the girls want to study their multiplication tables on the computer. Why not?  It’s fun!

We’re really hoping to get two more computers added as the girls are using them and Fernando is finding good programs to help them with school. But may only have enough money for one more at the time. We’re about $150 short on buying two.

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Rooftop at sunset

Today’s desktop: the sun setting over Mexiamora.

Last Saturday, my friend Julie and I were invited to see the renovations an attorney from Austin had completed in his Guanajuato home. He lives in my favorite neighborhood, Mexiamora.  His house is stunning. What a dream to restore an old beauty like that.  The views from his rooftop are most assuredly the best in GTO. I could see all the cathedral clocks, the University, the hills and neighborhoods, the statues atop Teatro Juarez, and Pipila. It all looked like a toy town. But since Mexiamora is center of town, you’re in the vista, not on top of it like I am in my house above the Panoramica. If I lived there, I would want to work from my rooftop.

How is it that I continually fall more in love with Guanajuato the longer I am here?

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Young & Old

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Pent up

Yesterday as I cleaned the house, I listened to Terry Gross talking with Temple Grandin on NPR’s Fresh Air. I had heard the interview before, but thought it was worthwhile to listen to again. Temple Grandin is autistic and doesn’t think the way most people do.  She thinks in images. This has enabled her to understand animal behavior and instinct. What frightens cattle, frightens Temple. What comforts animals, also comforts Temple (consistent pressure). She has a fascinating mind and penetrating insight into the world of animals.

So when I saw this caged leopard on a busy street in Guanajuato advertising the circus, I thought of the interview. According to Grandin, animals don’t like sudden movement and sound.  It puts them in anxiety mode and kicks off the survival switch. They become uneasy and stressed when things are out of the ordinary, like a hanging chain or, much worse, little boys clanging on bars making ch ch sounds. My heart sunk as I observed this leopard and I wondered if she was drugged. She seemed lethargic, oblivious to the swell of people who came, stood, and went as she passed the day in a cage on a busy street in Guanajuato.

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Serena

You can’t make it out against the cloud, but there’s a cross on that hill, on top of the center bump. They call it Serena. I see it everyday, and when I do, I think of little Serena Sproles.

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Ana

Another great Thursday at Buen Pastor.  In between massages, I attended a meeting with Madre Lourdes and Tere where Becca introduced to us a Digital Culture project she would like to implement at Buen Pastor.  It’s a 6 month project and it  sounds wonderfully ambitious, creatively empowering, and certainly worthwhile.  I’m very much looking forward to this initiative and will post more about it once the project has begun, the middle of the month. Needless to say, the latest addition of four computers thanks to HEW and DoJiggy couldn’t have come at a better time.

Later in the day, I got the chance to chat with Ana, a kind and diligent University of Texas @Austin student who is completing an internship in Guanajuato for her Masters in Social Work. Ana has been working hard on a grant that aims to provide solutions and education surrounding domestic violence. This project aligns with her concentration in Community and Administrative Leadership (CAL). On a more micro level, she volunteers at Buen Pastor, working with three of the little girls that need a lot of one on one. She’ll be with us until mid-June and it’s going to be hard to let her go.

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Meco Lady

Coming down from the cross, we found her. Fernando was the first to notice she was pregnant and that her front legs were tied to one another. Alone, pregnant and hostage to one desolate hillside. I wanted to stay with her for awhile, but this only frightened her and she awkwardly jumped away from me.  It was painful to watch such a graceful animal move that way.

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El Meco

Actually, El Meco is spelled with one “c”, not as in yesterday’s post, Mecco.  It means “Savage Indian” or “gangster”, depending on what online dictionary you’re searching. I wish I had a place name reference book for the crosses here.  And the streets. And the neighborhoods. Knowing what’s in a name brings even more appreciation of place for me.

While on the subject of names, I live on Cerro de Ejido. Ejido refers to communal ownership of land, common during Aztec rulership of Mexico, and all but wiped out when the Spaniards came over and forced their laws, religion, and way of life on the indigenous people living here. The ejido system was reinitiated after the Mexican Revolution with repartition of land beginning in 1934.

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