The Drama that is Casa Achoy

I left the house at 3 in the heat of the day to stop at the Oxxo (gas station without gas) and get a cold beverage for my trek downtown.  I got on the bus and managed to get off at the right spot as well as find my way to Casa Achoy.  I was about 20 minutes early after stopping in several shops in order to not be too early.  I went in and no one was there.  Well, the custodial staff was there, but no Eduardo, no children, no nobody.  The air conditioning was on in our room and the projector that was disconnected yesterday was up and running.  I figured Eduardo was somewhere in the building.  Guess again.

I started getting all of our things out from the office area and unloading them in the classroom.  At 4, I finally went outside and struck up a conversation with the female custodian.  Still no one.  I was beginning to think I'd missed the memo.  At 4:10, with conditions remaining the same, I texted Eduardo asking him if we had groups today and that no one was there.  Within two minutes, he walked in, ridiculously sweaty and apologized in heavily accented English for being late.  Apologized is probably the wrong word.  He basically just admitted that he was late.  Since no one was there (he said this school is about an hour away so they would probably be late), we decided to improve the lesson by utilizing the projector and Smart board.

At 4:30 a boy walked in, but we asked if he could wait until the 5:00 group since no one else was there yet.  At 5, we had 8 students.  We did our little lesson, did the craft, and practiced for the exam.  Marielos (the woman in charge of the program) came in at one point and then left.  After we finished for the day at 6, she was there again.  She wanted to know how I felt, how things were going, etc.  I told her the truth: it's easy and fun.  It's different from school, but I like it.  Then she broke the news.  I'm not getting paid.

Now, I am here to work, and with the 10 hours at Casa Achoy and the 21 hours in school, I still work less here than in the States.  However, all three girls from Culiacan in the States now said absolutely positively do not work for free.  And the Fulbright people told us repeatedly that we are only obligated to the school for 24 hours a week.  I was specifically targeted in DC and told that since the program was new and since it was for primary, I would probably be asked to do many additional things and that I should feel no obligation.

I want to experience a lot.  The problem with the working for free is two fold.  One, the job is from 4-6 every day.  If I want to go out of town for the weekend, I can't go until after 6 on Friday.  Which means this weekend to Mazatlan, I'll be going with Maricela on Saturday morning since she has clinic until 7.  Otherwise I could go with the rest of the family Friday after school.  The second part is more important I think.  If I agree to do this this year, when other US teachers come next year, it will be somewhat expected that they'll give their time for free.  Or if they don't, it will look much worse than if I didn't this year.

I don't need the $100 a month or whatever it would be.  But I also don't need the headache of fighting bus traffic twice a day and so on.

The bigger picture is that I really like this program.  I think it is important and I think the city wants to prove that it is important.  Marielos thought maybe I could cut some of my classes at school and they could get another teacher to teach those.  But in that event, they should just pay me a little instead of hiring a new teacher.  I really want to do both, but as I write this, I think I'm realizing that it can't happen.  I was all set to do my unit on Tennessee in the spring and on being an American.

I know that Marielos was going to look into it.  And I think that the way school is valued here, they would rather everyone be exposed to an hour of my than one group a whole year.  But I disagree.  I'm all about the relationships.  I don't know that I could give up any of my groups.  Some of them bug me to high heavens, but I know them and love them already.

It will be interesting to see what happens, because I'm guessing by tomorrow they'll have a proposition for me.

Knowing that I could say I won't do it feels like I'll sound like a baby.  But knowing that otherwise I'd be working for free feels like I'm being taken advantage of.

More than that, I don't want to disappoint anyone.

Hmm....