motos, mongols, y música

I can't believe it, but more than two months have passed since I arrived in Uruguay, and I now have less than one month left here in Salto.

The past week has been a whirlwind of events and experiences. Unfortunately, it seems as if I'm just now finding my role as a teacher at the university--over the past couple months there have been occasional cancellations of classes, frequent teacher strikes, and, additionally, it has taken some time for the professors at the university to discover and decide how to best use Holly, Liz, and myself in the classroom. But, now that they have, I've been endlessly (but happily) busy preparing lesson plans on immigration in the US, Transcendentalism and education, diversity in the US, and the US Civil War.

Over the past three days I have given four lectures at the university on immigration (with Liz and Holly) and Emerson. The immigration lesson was complete with images of the border, songs from Mexico's Los Tigres del Norte (such as "Orgullo Mexicano" about a man who illegally immigrates to the US, finds a job, but will always have a red, white, and green heart), and real-life stories from individuals who have attempted to cross the border.



I also led a handful of classes in Spanish on the cultural and geographic diversity of the United States at a couple of high schools in the area. Once given the opportunity to teach on the topic, I asked myself, "what better way to portray this diversity than through my experience riding the motorcycle around the country?" The presentation was an instant hit. The kids especially loved the pictures of California's coast, the redwood forest, and 1200cc's of raw power cruising the wide-open road. The presentation was spiced up by my inability to express certain feelings and emotions in Spanish, which came out in such expressions as "Después del viaje, no podía sentir el culo." And they absolutely couldn't believe me when I told them the motorcycle I ride could go from a stop to 60 mph in 3 seconds. After class, they led me outside and started pointing to the 50cc scooters parked nearby, and claimed each one as their own. Then they begged me to send to Uruguay the motorcycle I rode in order to trade it for their scooter. The teachers, on the other hand, just asked me to send my dad to Uruguay.



In one high school class--which lasted a full two hours--after lecturing on how to tame the curves in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I gave a presentation on living in Mongolia. The kids (and teacher) especially liked seeing the Mongolians in their traditional clothing--which they related to gaucho clothes--and the small huts and teepee I lived in. I think the presentation made them appreciate how developed Uruguay is. In a moment of inspiration, unable to resist, I shared with them my experience watching the castration of a sheep. They loved it.

In the past, before coming to Uruguay, I had never thought I had a special ability to teach. The experiences and feedback I've had here, though, have been so encouraging and inspiring that I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should take advantage of any opportunities I have to teach in the future, including being a teaching assistant for some law school courses. On many occasions teachers who are overseeing my lectures here have pulled me aside after class and told me I have a unique ability to lead a classroom and teach--an ability some teachers feel even they and many of their fellow teachers lack. In one of the most touching moments I've experienced in the classroom, a class of my oldest students at the university applauded me once I finished a lecture on Emerson's philosophy toward education. After class they told me that the lecture, which (in a very watered-down summary) emphasized the importance of each student and the teacher as the culminator of creativity and self-reliance, arrived at the perfect moment, when many of the individuals in the class were struggling academically and second-guessing their purpose as teachers.

On a slightly unrelated note, the university celebrated its 10-year anniversary last Saturday with a semi-formal dinner, concert, and dance party. The dinner was nice, the concert entertaining, and the dance, which drew students and professors alike, an all-out rave. My inability to dance with any one girl for more than five minutes earned me the name "picaflor," and the director of the university, who I also danced with, said, at the end of the dance (6am), that it is clear that I have Colombian blood in me. I call that a successful night.