The Teacher – Brenda
This story is about a young Mexican girl who taught school in a remote Mexican village.
Like the United States was, over a century ago, Mexico is primarily an agricultural nation. I don`t know what percentage, but a lot of villages have little contact with the outside world. A large number only have trails leading in. All must be brought in by mule, burro or on the backsides of the villagers. A very few have airstrips.
The remoteness has prevented the advancement of education in Mexico. By education, I am not just talking about “book learning”, I am talking about modern ways. Proper cleanliness, preventative medicine, better agricultural practices, creating a democratic society (voting), this goes on.
To this end, the government has created many programs. It is not reasonable to expect a small village to send their children to a school that is many hours away by foot or horseback. Also keep in mind that, unlike our schools in the U.S.A. and Canada, there is a limited school busing program, and not available to most Mexican kids. It must also be understood that it is difficult to find teachers who are willing to live in remote areas. The pay is very little. Right here in La Peñita many of the teachers live in Tepic, two hours drive away. The pay is insufficient to pay for transportation and every afternoon there is a group of teachers down on the highway hitchhiking back home.
One of the programs is for students, 15 years of age and older and with good grades, to become teachers in these remote areas. They must agree to serve at least one year and they are paid $1200 pesos (about $130 U.S.), or more, depending on where they serve. Board and room is included. The government furnishes the teachers and the village furnishes the board and room. Again, this goes back to the over a century ago up north, when teachers were passed from family to family and paid little or nothing. It is impossible for the teachers to live better than the families with whom they live, so you see that if the village is very poor, life is marginal for the teacher.
When the students finish their
one year of teaching, they are paid the basic salary for two additional years, (they can serve longer if they wish) providing they continue to attend school, and providing they show evidence that they have attained grades of 90% or more. In other words they have to be A students. No slacking off here.
Brenda is the daughter of my friend and traveling companion, Vicky Flores. Last August Brenda, who was then 15 years old and an A student, applied for and was accepted into the program. She had to wait several months and was required to attend an indoctrination course for a few weeks at Ixtlan del Rio. After that she was assigned to the village of El Torreon. This village is located off of the free road between Tepic and Ixtlan del Rio, and is a small, poor pueblo, which is undergoing hard times. Most of the able bodied men and many unmarried women have fled to the cities or become illegals up north in order to find work and send money home. In El Torreon, Brenda is assigned to a differen`t family each month. They provide her with a place to sleep and meals each day. There is a small schoolhouse and here she teaches kindergarten. In her classes she teaches many things to her students such as deportment, hygiene, games, making things, etc. The village is small. There is one very small Tienda (store), and a basketball court. Soon she blends in with the community. Vicky, Brenda`s mother, and I visited there a couple of times. Access from the highway was easy.
Last January she was reassigned. Her new school was located in Palmillas. She catches a bus to San Antonio, a few miles down the road from Ixtlan del Rio, and in the direction of Guadalajara. From there a sometimes bus goes to Las Mesquitas, the end of the line. There are no accommodations here. From there she will go by pickup, horseback or mule to La Playa, which is on the river Santiago. Crossing the river by a small boat or canoe, she must wait on the other side for them to contact Palmillas by radio, during the daily 6 p.m. radio contacts with the remote villages, and assuming the radio is working, which it wasn`t when we were there. (there is a remote chance that a vehicle may be going up the hill.) Palmillas sends down transport (mules or burros). She spends several hours on the mountain road, which is little better than a trail. She takes with her, two large duffel bags of teaching materials, a heavy jacket, boots and sleeping bag that the government issued, along with some clothes and a few personal items.
Palmillas is small village of 15 families and about 100 people.
There are 2 small one room schools and one other teacher. One for the younger kids and one for the older ones.
Palmillas has no electric or water system. Water is available at a series of 3 wells, all close together. When we were there, one was dried up, another was little more than a mud hole and the remaining one had a marginal supply. There were a couple of very small solar electric systems that provided limited amounts of electricity and only for the building to which it was attached.
In Palmillas the boarding situation is a bit different than in
El Torreon. The teachers stay with the same family for one year at a time. This is a very poor pueblo and the diet is restricted to a few things. The main staple is corn. Most meals consist of tortillas and beans. Brenda lives with the family Villalobos Gonzalez. There are 10 members in the family. The home is a small adobe with two bedrooms and a kitchen. There is a clay cooking stove in the kitchen and is fueled by wood. Before each meal, corn is soaked in water and then ground into a “masa”, or dough. This is then flattened and cooked on the stove as tortillas, gorditas, sopes, etc.
Here is a typical day for Brenda.
She gets up at 6 a.m. Cleans up as best as she can, and depending on the water supply. Goes to the kitchen and helps prepare the breakfast. This might include turning the hand grinder for corn or kneading the masa on a metate (a flat stone used for rolling out the masa with a round stone), or cooking on the clay stove. Normal breakfast is tortillas and beans.
At 8:30 or so, she goes to the class room and prepares for the students arrival at 9:00. When class starts, she gives each student an assignment. In addition, the day will consist of verbal instruction, crafts and singing. At 12:30 classes end. She then grades papers, prepares assignments for the next day and completes a government report – how many, and which students reported for the day, what she taught that day, the health and condition of the children, etc. She then returns to the home for the usual lunch of Tortillas and beans. During the rainy season, and after, as long as the good grass lasts, they have milk and cheese, but now it is very dry and feed is in short supply. They normally only butcher during the winter, so no meat now.
At 3:00, all of the able bodied
women go for a walk, or visit outside of the homes. They do this until 6:00. Brenda also does this and it gives her a chance to visit parents. Dinner goes at about 7:00 and normally consists of (you guessed it) tortillas and beans. I noticed a few chickens outside of all the homes but at no time did I see eggs on the stove or chicken in a pot. When I asked about this they said that they only cooked these on special occasions and that normally the eggs were used to make more chickens, and that a lot of chickens were needed to keep the insects and scorpions under control. SCORPIONS! and we were sleeping on the school house floor.
Lights out at about 9:00. The finish of another day at Palmillas.
Two weekends a month the teachers meet to discuss problems, redistribute supplies, and as a diversion. They alternate villages. The family has provided Brenda with a mule to ride whenever she wants. Each three months or so, the teachers are allowed to come down out of the mountains for a few days. They are only paid at that time. The school year ends in August and they all have about a month vacation.
