Los Ricos

Noted on April 16, 2009 by Natanya in

Once a week the organization, Feed the Hungry, in San Miguel de Allende organizes a trip to a rural Mexican school at Los Ricos de Abajo to teach English to the students there. Diane Hart, who heads the Feed the Hungry organization and is a former director of the IE3 program also set up an English book library for the kids there, filled with colorful interactive books that make up for what is lost in translation for the Spanish speaking students. The week before I came to Mexico, Diane recruited me to work as an interpreter and teacher’s aid in the fifth and sixth grade classroom. I’ve been helping at los Ricos school for the last three months. I work closely with a group of four Mexican sixth graders. The school is in the small town of los Ricos de Abajo, a half –an-hour from San Miguel. The drive to Los Ricos can be strange, as I am the only person under the age of forty-five to come along. I often hear about problems with maids, home construction and their careers as lawyers and teachers back in the states. Nonetheless everyone is very kind and friendly as well as being committed to helping the kids at Los Ricos. Now that the English course is coming to an end many of the volunteer teachers are planning on sponsoring the children’s secondary school education, something that would have been beyond the children’s means otherwise. When I started working at Los Ricos I was surprised at how well behaved and cooperative the kids there are. The English lessons were not a part of the regular school day so kids stayed late to attend class and in some cases came to school on regularly scheduled holidays to attend our classes. As I spent more time with the kids, I found that the children’s home life is sometimes so difficult that school can be a respite. One boy goes home to work in the fields with his eleven brothers and sisters who have had to pick up the slack for their father who was injured. One of the little girls was found in San Miguel de Allende when she was three-months old in the arms of her dead mother. She now lives with her Aunt and cousin. Her cousin is also in the class and now both girls are mourning the death of their Uncle and Father respectively and have missed several classes. Both the Mother and Uncle died after long struggles with alcoholism, a hazard of the difficult life in the Mexican countryside. Learning English is a way for the two girls to get good jobs and is a requirement for attending some high schools: both keys to a better future. The children recognize education as a means to a much better future and consequently their dedication doesn’t compare to what I’ve seen in American middle schools. The kids at Los Ricos have such tough lives that if they want to better themselves they can’t act like kids. They have to be on top of their studies at all times to win scholarships and many of them have to work double time to fulfill their familial responsibilities. Hopefully they’ve gotten some benefit from the English classes, but at the very least their interactions with the American teachers has meant that many more of them can go onto secondary school with the flush of scholarships that the Americans are awarding to students. My time there has at least has opened my eyes to the difference a small scholarship can make in the life of a student. As well as putting into question the inherent fairness of an American being able to make such a large difference by doing so little.