We will be back in Tucson in less than two weeks. All four of us feel differently about this. We have been talking about things we will miss, things we will not miss, and things we are looking forward to. The list below is mostly my own.
Things we will miss
- Our friends and colleagues. Veronica, Celia, Daniel, Erica, Letty. . . It will be so sad to say goodbye.
- Work. The goal of my Fulbright project was to help strengthen the English teaching (specifically of writing) at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. I have loved the work because the English teaching here is already strong, and the students are smart, motivated, and thoughtful. I’ve been teaching, creating materials, and working with individuals without the usual administrative work. I love it.
- Colleagues not acting hurried. My colleagues at work publish, teach, advise students, work in national and international organizations. But they sit down and have coffee together. When I asked them why they never talked about being busy, they said, “that would be so rude! That would mean I didn’t have time for you.”
- Social niceties. I will miss that everyone greets one another. At work, we give one another a hug and kiss on the cheek. Even at my exercise class, everyone greets one another, at least with a “good afternoon” or often a hug and kiss. After the exercise class, everyone claps and individually thanks the teacher. It is nice.
- Fruit. Have I mentioned the pineapple? “Would you like me to take off the peel?” The fruit seller asks. The sweet, pungent smell wafts up from the bag as I bring it home. “Oh. Thanks for buying that, Mom!” Simone says, “do you want me to cut it up?” I do. And we sit down to enjoy it, the bright, yellow juice like music in our mouths.
- “Where are you from?” conversations. While I am looking forward to returning to familiarity, I love the inroads that being a foreigner provides. “¿De dónde nos visitas?” a shopkeeper asks. “Los Estados Unidos,” I respond. She answers in a familiar litany that leads us to a new place, a new connection, and a surprising, although brief, intimacy.
- Walking the kids to school. We walk a quarter of a mile to school together in the cool mornings. We say good morning to the juice man. A used paper bag flies in the breeze under a purple bougainvillea.
“It is just,” Marie continues her conversation about one of her classmates, “we don’t like each other. Common misconceptions about teenage girls, they like everyone.”
Simone chuckles, “Common misconceptions about teenage girls,” she repeats. “They know their mother is always right.”
That was one morning. Another morning one child was angry that we weren’t walking fast enough, and another child was furious that we always walk way too fast.
- Not having a car. We walk miles in a day. Without a car, all the kids have to grocery shop with me so we can carry things home. We buy from stores near our house. Although we haven’t gotten to know much of this huge city or the outskirts, we know every piece of our square half mile.
- The bread. Our favorite panderia is Flor de Puebla. Simone and I walk there most Saturday mornings.
- Families walking around together. I love seeing mothers and daughters walking arm in arm, sweet little baby legs hanging near a mother’s chest or toddling rapidly to keep up with grandpa, or a young boy walking with grandma down the sidewalk.
- So many more things. Colorful streets, wooden doors, paletas, the weather, art in the Zocalo, flowers, free workshops at the Amparo Museum. . .
Things we will not miss
- Noise. We live near the center of Puebla, and it is always noisy. At night the bars thump music. Some nights, a small group of Aztec drummers plays in the plaza near our house; if that sounds charming, it is not. Even early in the morning, shops will sometimes play music as they open. Why so loud?
- The water pump. We can’t drink the water here. It has to be delivered. Let’s say that I am in the middle of cooking and need water. One bottle of water is empty, so I must open a new bottle, tip out enough water so that it won’t overflow when I put the pump in, put in the pump, try to get water but the pump pops off, try again, and it pops off again. Now there is water on the floor. I try again to fasten the pump before going to get a rag.
- The kids’ complaining about school. The kids have learned a lot in school, lessons that they may not appreciate now, but I hope will later – kindness and cruelty, all kinds of words in Spanish, managing the fact that their lunch sometimes disappears from their backpacks, teachers not showing up, a blurring between break and class time, a frequently meandering approach to lessons. The story below is not representative of their experience but does illustrate some of the things they experienced. I asked Simone and Marie to retell the story of water day:
“We all brought water balloons and sponges for water day. We went out to the basketball courts and the teacher put out buckets of water and water guns. She said not to spray water into the computer lab and said to start.
Marie and Simone
“’H’ ‘E’ ‘double-hocky sticks’ broke loose, and everyone went crazy. Valentina tackled Oswaldo. There were some pressure washer kind of water guns and people got sprayed in the face. Someone slid on the concrete.
“The teacher was on a dating app the whole time. It was crazy and kind of fun to be in a water day with teachers watching or being like, ‘only throw water balloons below the waist.’ Or saying, ‘Be sure to get consent before hitting anyone with a water balloon.’”
- Toilet paper in the waste basket.
- Having to soak fruits and vegetables if we don’t peel them.
Things we are looking forward to:
- Friends and family, especially Mark and our dog, Samson.
- Walks with friends.
- The Pima County Library.
- Understanding all the conversations around us.
- Our pots and pans designed to accommodate three teenage appetites.
There will be more that we will be happy to return to. For me, this transition feels like more of an end than a beginning. But transitions are always both. Mark arrives soon to help us move, and, once he does, it will probably be easier to see what is ahead rather than what is behind us.
