I want to be better about informing you, and I want Fran to have a more complete record of her life in these important years. Her birthday is September 13th, one day after my daughter. She is 23 years old, still a few years older than most of her college mates who started right after high school.
As you may remember, she taught elementary school in remote pueblos for two years straight out of high school, then worked for about a year as a virtual slave here in Oaxaca. I am not dramatizing! She made about 400 pesos, then $25 a week, and worked 6 or 7 days a week for 11 hours/day. And then I met her, and all of you opened your hearts, and she started the life she was meant to live! Thank you!
I got an interesting insight about a week ago, talking to a retired lawyer from Canada whose retirement income is far beyond mine. He is spending 10,000 pesos a month (about $665) to send his "goddaughter" through medical school and paying all her expenses. We are spending much, much less than that, about ¼.
But,
Fran must start English classes, and attend them for 2 years so that she can pass her English requirement. This class, unfortunately, is not offered at her school and must be taken separately. It costs 900 pesos per month, about $60. For 2 years, that's $1,440. If you can donate all or any portion of this per month, please let me know. Maybe you know someone who would love to make a contribution to this young woman's future, in which case I encourage you to reach out.
Donations can be sent to:
http://franciscaeducationfund.weebly.com/donate.html
Now, a progress report.
Fran is in her second year of agronomy, and it has been an amazing transition from Computer Engineering! She is doing some heavy lifting of plants and animals, and seems much more absorbed in her work. As a computer engineering student, she sat at the dining room table with her computer for hour after hour tackling the challenge of math and programming, but it was more like a war than a vocation. Now she spends equal time, but I can tell you that she is genuinely interested in what she is doing. She definitely made a good decision to change her major!
I still worry about her, of course. Not about her skills or commitment, but about the realities in Mexico. She is an indigenous woman. The economy sucks. That pretty much says it all. She will sink or swim not only on the basis of the skills she will gain in school, but on her ability to network with her peers, to make a place for herself in the professional, competitive world of agriculture. More and more women are going into agronomy, I hear, so hopefully my concerns are not as dire as I sometimes believe they are.
But then I look at the bright side!
The joy of all this is what she is learning! She is now aware of genetically modified foods and their effect on nutrition and the environment, how agronomy connects to feeding the world, plant and animal nutrition, care of animals (goats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, etc) for food and byproducts, the anatomy of plants and animals, and things she hasn't told me about yet!
She is awaiting approval for her penultimate project, on granadas (pomegranates) which grow wild in her village. She thought she was going to do chickens, but that topic had already been claimed by other students.
Fran is not only learning at school. She now has a regular part time job with Luis Rene, El Dentista, as his dental assistant. It is a job she is doing without a degree, but he finds her up to it, and very professional. She has learned a lot about her capabilities, and enjoyed the challenge. The job pays for her braces and a little cash on top of that for expenses. She comes home from school, takes a quick shower, dresses up very professionally and sweet smelling, and comes back between 9 and 10pm exhausted but satisfied. This girl does not have a spare moment in her life. Thank God for her youth and vitality!
In conclusion --
