This has been a draining week! Each day it seems like something happened that was annoying or not what should have or would have happened if I was in Iowa.
On Monday we did not have electricity at school and it was a rough first day of school. Also, I found out that my grandpa had a heart attack and his appendix burst (he's 91).
On Tuesday we found a dead bird outside our house and ants and other rodants trying to eat it.
On Wednesday I went to the emergency room since they wouldn't let me go to a normal doctor and ended up spending a lot more money than I needed to.
On Thursday there was a cockroach in my shower. He was on his back and couldn't move so I had to kill him and then Senor Burbujas (Mr. Bubbles) my shower.
On Friday I found out that I was getting a new student and that my 3 students who are still yet to come may not come for another two weeks or so.
On Saturday we found a dead mouse in the bucket we have outside our house to wash our feet with. Plus we had a very creepy possibly drunk taxi driver drive us home.
On Sunday my roomate Emily got an email that her friends dead passed away and she took a bus to Monterry and was in tears and stressed out about everything. I took her to the bus station and waited with her until she got on the bus.
Okay...so not everything is bad here. We have had a lot of fun and gotten to do some fun things. On Monday we went out for lunch at a really nice Chineese restaurant and they gave us resh squeezed lime ade.
Tuesday night we went and found another street place that has really good ice cream-ish stuff that was close to home and cheap :-)
Wednesday night we went to watch our roomate Katie play soccer. She is playing on a womans league here in Torreon and has games twice a week.
Thursday I had a suprise meeting with our principal she said we'd have them every couple weeks or so (such a strict schedule :-p). She told us we don't have to come back in January until the 7th. We are also trying to get to leave earlier in December because the contract dates and the school dates don't match up so we'll have to see what we do there....
Friday night we had a cowboy and indian party at some of the other teachers house (casa e) and ended up talking to some Mexican friends until 4am. They told us all about places we should visit and things to make sure we do.
Saturday we went to 4 Galerias which was a giant mall full of clothing stores, a big food court, a little train that drives children around the mall instead of walkinig.
Saturday night the casas b girls came over and we played phase ten and just chatted.
This was a little rough! I got to school at 7:10 to find out that I did not have electricty. I found my principal who didn't believe me, but then had to find the man who is responsible for all these things, he did not arrive until 7:40 and I didn't have lights until 8.
So I had parents who were upset with me for not having lights and kids who were super scared to have to go to a dark classroom and leave their parents. The parents stayed at school until 8:30 so I just let the kids play and did introductions to let them ease into the day. I had 7 kids in tears and a child who switched during the day to the other classroom.
I have 3 students who have still not shown up and are on vacation "for awhile" for whom I'm supposed to be saving papers and work. I have 14 boys and 8 girls.
I used a lot of Spanish throughout the day because everything I said in English two times I then said in Spanish once. Plus, with the kids who were crying I spoke in Spanish to help them feel at ease and to be able to find their seats.
Later in the morning I took my kids to their special to be told that they weren't having specials today and might not have them this week yet. Would have been nice to know BEFORE I got my kids all lined up!
I also found out that my kids have no math books even though they told me they would. They have only one English book and a notebook for writing and a blank paper one for coloring. For the Spanish teacher they have two text books and 5 notebooks. A little miscommunication there!
Okay, I think those are all the random things I want to remember from my very first first day of teaching!! :-)
We went swimming on Saturday at a water park in the sububurb of Torreon called Laguna. It only cost us like 4.50 cents to go and one dollar for gas. We all went in a ford explorer, by all I mean 16 girls. We sat 7 in the truck, 6 in the middle seat, and 3 in the front. It is illegal to have more than two in the front otherwise we would have put more. We went with 3 of our Mexican friends from school who are super sweet! Here is the group: 
This water park was huge and very spread out. There were tons of places to sit and even places where one could make their own food or places where you could buy it.
The pictures of all of us in the car are on someone else's camera, but I will try and get them soon. When we all started climbing out of the ford explorer some people were laughing at us and completely impressed that we all fit there!
This is my desk! The bird my mom and I bought the day
I flew out of Des Moines at the Learning Post (an awesome teacher store!!). He is a puppet too. The two bookshelves behind my desk are where my teaching supplies are as well as all my curriculum the prize books, bulletin board things and inside the little boxes are the hand out to students things.
On Tuesday we got the keys to our classroom. I am in room F in the kindergarten wing of school. With me is the nursery, the toddler, the preschool 1, preschool 2, and kindergarten. However, they are called backwards here. Here's the explanation: I am teaching preprimaria (preschool), but there is a kinder 1 (4 year olds) and kinder 2 (5 year olds).
This is what it looks like now. Keep in mind that everything that is in here was done in three days and the majority of it was brought in my suitcases from Iowa. I had awesome cooperating teachers while I did my student teaching and I have used a lot of their ideas or things that I made or did in their classrooms in mine as well!
The kids will also take home a calendar to their parents with the appropriate color for each day on it. Over in the corner is our jobs chart, the yellow board has three special student rewards which I will change each week. The big red one will have student work displayed on it once we create some :-) The bookshelves have some of my manipulatives including really old puzzles, some fun art materials, math counters, and a big book :-)
A lot has happened in this last week which has been strange, overwhelming, exciting additions to the adventure. There's lots to say so this will probably sound random so I hope you make it through.
* Tuesday we had meetings at school and then we came home and took naps. This seemed like such a great idea, but then I was awake until 3:30 in the morning and that was not helpful! I ended up watching a Monk episode and went to sleep that night with stickynotes full of questions, things to do, and places to go.
* Wednesday mid-morning we met with the kindergarten principal and talked about what we had learned and which things we needed to know more about. Also during this meeting we got our class books which was overwhelming! And since that wasn't overwhelming enough she also told us that we needed to turn in our plan books by 2:30 on Thursday every week including this week. So I planned 9 subjects for five days in 24 hours :-)
* Wednesday evening we went grocery shopping and got the Soriana card so that we could earn points and get free things. I spent 700 pesos on groceries which seems like a ton, but I bought things like spices and condements and all the beginning things. I also bought goggles so that added up! To go shopping we walk to the store and then take a taxi close to our home (we never let them take us to the house) and carry our stuff inside. This picture was after we had unpacked some of the food. 
* Thursday morning one of the girls forgot her keys so she borrowed mine and said she was going to bring them back. She never brought them to me so I walked home after school and was able to get in the gate, but could not get into the house so I went to the ice cream place and got an iced coffee because I had been out of water for 2.5 hours and was incredibly thirsty. Thankfully the girls came home 40 minutes later.
* Thursday when we all got home from school for the second time and were standing in the kitchen talking we lost power. We had no idea what had happened or why, but we were not the only ones. The whole block was without it for about 45 minutes.
* Also Thursday night the two male American teachers invited us to a fiesta Saturday night with all the Am. teachers, some of the Mexican teachers and some of their Mexican friends.
Alicia Herman
Colegio Ingles Torreon
Division del Norte No. 1915
Col. Rincon de la Hacienda
Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico
C.P. 27271
* Da me mas gasolina (remember that one from Spain girls???)...So apparently the reason our stove/oven hasn't worked since we got here AND the reason we haven't had water is because our gas was out. So we have been eatting out/on the street since Thursday because we haven't been able to cook anything...We have a microwave but there are limited things we can cook with it because we bought our groceries for an oven!
* They told us today at our school meeting that if we go to the hospital to make sure we stay at least 24 hours so that insurance pays for it. I thought the idea was to get out of the hospital right away, but apparently not...
* All the DVD's I brought from home don't seem to be working in our DVD player..something about it being a different zone, I'm not sure the mechanic is coming again tomorrow.
* Today we had a list with many problems with our house. For example, my shower drips, another girls sink drips, one girls ceiling leaks, we didn't have hot water, the oven/stove didn't work, we were missing 6 light bulbs throughout the house, our outside lights don't work, the mailbox is facing the wrong direction, our plant hook is no longer in the wall....also known as rediculous amount of problems for one house!
* We have been on our own in the city until this morning when we had a 5 hour information overload information covering topics as our new Mexican social security card, tour of the school, how we need to be fingerprinted, classroom management/discipline rules, where to buy chocolate cake, how we pay our bills, when to get more gas for the house, getting our own router, where to go to buy stamps, and many other random things! Tomorrow we get to go school and get fingerprinted, our social security card, fill out more paper for our working visa and we get to settle into and decorate our classroom a little! I'm super excited to be doing something and not just wandering around for days on end with no idea what to do or where to eat or how to tip or anything like that!
I hope you are all well!
where we have watched Finding Nemo in Spanish as well as gotten really frustrated with the internet together! 
We told Erendia in the morning that some of us would go with her to the airport to pick up the other girls who were flying in so I stayed at our house while the other four girls (one more came in during the morning) went to wal-mart to pick up a few more things. As I was waiting I decided to unpack and re-arrange everything, it took about two hours, but I had everything where it needed to be for now and it feels like my house. I wish that I had brought pictures, but it said we couldn’t put anything on the walls so I just have my laptop full of photos, but now there is a bulletin board we could have used so someone will have to mail me some ;-)
For dinner, seven of us girls went to a café that is across from the Casa A y Casa B. I ordered quesadillas that were really good and didn’t eat the lettuce or tomatoes. We were really tired by the end of dinner, but we came home and the other girls unpacked and I labeled some of the things I brought. In the process I found a coloring book from a friend (heather) with a sweet note in it that made me so happy. Once again I had a hard time falling asleep, but I think with time I will fall asleep easier at night.
We were met at 11am by the woman who is in charge of housing and making sure we have everything correct in the houses in order to see if we were interested in another house or if we were happy staying in casa a y casa b. We went to Casa D to look at a 5 person house which would hold all of us and would allow us to just be together and give us time to get settled in instead of having to wait longer and live out of suitcases for two days. We chose casa d which has some pluses and some negatives. A major draw was the fact that we have better air conditioning and we have a real table and chairs instead of just plastic ones. One drawback is the fact that our desks are just these wire crates with a painted white board across the top and a green plastic lawn chair.
After we got our suitcases we decided we were starving and headed out looking for a restaurant. We had no idea what was around or where good food would be. Along the way we stopped and wandered around the school after we were let in by a guard! The school is huge and has an awesome open courtyard and it also has a stadium seated soccer field on the high school side of the school. At school the curriculum director directed us to the mall where we could find a place to eat. We tried to cut through a parking lot, but security guys told us we weren’t allowed to and needed to walk all around the giant hospital (nice and close if we get sick). We walked through the mall and ended up at a restaurant that advertized tacos and other food, but after receiving a menu we discovered it was only seafood. We talked about getting up and walking out, but couldn’t because people were looking at us and talking about us. Luckily, there was a little box on the back that had non seafood things on it. We could not figure out how we were supposed to tip the waiter or ask for the bill.
After lunch we asked a security guy how to get to Soriana which is like a grocery store that has everything in it such as pillows, sheets, towels, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and school supplies. The problem with this is that whatever we buy we have to carry back and we had tons of things we were interested in having/needed in order to unpack our bags and move in.
Once we have boarded the plane and are airborne the pilot comes on and says that the Torreon airport is staying open in order for us to land, but otherwise they would be closed. We filled out our customs forms on this flight which was only in Spanish there were no English copies available. It was a smooth flight and only about an hour and twenty minutes. When we got to the airport we had to walk from the tarmac into the airport and then a 25 foot baggage claim circle went around with all our luggage. We were the last ones to leave the airport and we had the most stuff, it was ridiculous! There was a huge crowd of people waiting for people, but by the time we were ready to send our bags through there seemed to be no one left waiting. We theorized about getting a hotel or taking a taxi to the school and worst case scenarios, but then we saw three sweet ladies who were there to pick us up! They came in a suburban and a jeep which we packed full with our luggage and bodies. They dropped us off at casa a & b and told us that we had a meeting on Monday at 10 am, but nothing we had to do before then. We all ended up staying in one house together instead of the two houses. We didn’t go to bed until 2 am and then all had an awful time sleeping because the beds were hard, the fans were loud, the noises were too much, we thought someone was sneaking in, the dogs outside, etc.
I only had an hour and twenty minute layover in Huston which I was excited about, just enough time to get some food, read a little bit, and be ready for the plane again. I was also hoping to meet some of the girls who were flying into Torreon. I knew that there would be five of us, but I did not know what any of them looked like. About 30 minutes before we were supposed to board I saw a girl named Emily who I met at the UNI job fair where we got this job! Her and I found a seat and were talking just waiting, by this time we knew that our flight was delayed about 40 minutes. About 20 minutes into talking we hear this girl say that the flight has changed gates and been moved up, she looked kind of like a teacher and we were hesitant and so we decided to check the monitor and sure enough that was the flight to Torreon. So they moved the flight to a gate that was on another long hallway plus they moved the time up 25 minutes. After we got downstairs (we carried our 40 pound carry-ons down the steps because the escalator was broken) they continued to delay our flight because the plane wasn’t in or the crew was missing . By this time all 5 of us are talking and getting to know one another which was nice. Three of them graduated from Luther College in Iowa but are all from the Minneapolis area, another is from Green Bay Wisconsin.
My mom drove me to the Des Moines airport on Wednesday. I wanted to get there early in order to move stuff around in my bags so they all were an okay weight since I added a few things. As I was checking in I found out that there was an embargo for Mexico until August 30th. This means that you are allowed to take only TWO fifty pound bags. At this point I have 4 bags, two that weigh 50 pounds and two that weigh 70. However, my mom was the one who was told this because I helped this Spanish speaking woman find her missing bags since no one else spoke Spanish we walked to the other end of the airport and talked to some very rude unhelpful officials.
So, I moved to a wall and opened up all 4 of my bags and began the process of unpacking/repacking/leaving behind a ton of stuff. At this point I’m sitting on the airport floor crying and getting a lot of strange looks from business men who walk by with their black suits and little carry-ons! We only had about an hour to do all of this and the ladies said that we could have 70 pounds instead of just fifty. Kathy was a very helpful lady while the other women were rude and unsympathetic. So basically I had no idea what was actually in my suitcase or if I was missing anything important as well as I had things all over the place and nothing was as neatly organized. But, thank God all of my luggage made it and almost everything I need is here!
Sorry I did not update before leaving, but I am in Torreon, Mexico now living in Casa D de dedo with 4 other girls. Our house is huge and would be awesome if we could decorate or paint the walls, but we can’t! So we are going to buy some plants and things to put on all of our end tables and on top of the fridge and other places as well! Each of us have our own room which includes a walk-in closet, a bathroom with a toilet and shower inside it and a sink on the outside with a mirror. Also there is a twin size bed, a four shelve book shelf, a desk, and a bulletin board. There are two bedrooms on the main level and three upstairs also with our laundry room. Our living room has a huge entertainment center with nine (I think) squares you can put things on a dvd player, vcr, and a television. The living room has two couches, 2 end tables and opens up right into the kitchen. The kitchen is very nicely furnished. We have a wood table with 8 chairs around it, a little island, and a lot of cupboards, a pantry, a fridge/freezer, microwave, coffee pot, blender, dishes, pots and pans. Outside the front door is our courtyard which is shaded with trees along one side.
The house is situated between two other school houses- the returning teacher’s house and the male teacher house. It is only two blocks away from school. On the opposite side of school is an internet café. Two blocks the other direction is casa a & b which is other female teachers. On the corner of our street there is an ice cream store called bips where we got iced coffee. Across the street from bips is a OXXO gas station, a pharmacy, and a little restaurant. About 5-6 blocks away is a Soriana and 12 blocks away a Wal-mart which we visited to buy cleaning supplies, groceries, and better pillows!
Such an overwhelming daunting task. I am blessed to have a mother who has spent a lot of time packing and knows the best way to fit 50 pounds in a suitcase....After five hours and a bit of frustration and lots of moving things around I have 4 packed suitcases and a partially packed carry-on. My bags weigh 49.8 pounds, 48.9 pounds, 69.4 pounds and 70.0 pounds. Unfortunately two of those are going to require excess baggage charges, but I am moving myself and my future classroom to Mexico! As my dad reminded me tonight it's not just a plane trip it's a moving process which unfortunately has to be done through an airplane.
I take off Weds. afternoon at 4 something from Des Moines so we are going to leave home around 11. I still want to stop at a teacher store and buy a puppet (where it will fit, I know not. lol) Off to bed, but I will update soon!