Fran's Summer, 2016
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| Blast from the Past -- This photo is from 2014 from a visit to her village in the mountains |
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| Swimming lesson |
Hi Everyone,
Sorry it's been so long. Fran and I have had a busy and productive summer. She learned how to swim thanks to Sheela, one of her fans and supporters. Yesterday, her last official day of lessons, she swam the length of the pool, not with a boogie board either! She has discovered a real love for swimming, though she talks often about how afraid she was of water and drowning before. So this is a real breakthrough, and something she can hopefully enjoy for the rest of her life. Thank you, Sheela!
Two other supporters, Dean and Mary, bought her a violin (!) during their last trip to Oaxaca and are now paying for violin lessons. I got the music stand. She went to all the neighbors here and asked for permission to practice and all said yes!
Fran went every day to swimming, and every day to violin class during her 5-week summer vacation and discovered two things she loves just for herself. During the school year she is overwhelmed by homework, English class every Saturday, tons of homework, and working in the evenings for the Dentist, who is not an easy person for her to deal with, unfortunately. But the hours and location are convenient, so she tolerates his petulance. Enough said.
It took her a solid week of waiting fruitlessly in line for many hours, under the hot sun, to finally get signed up for classes. But finally, in order to do so, she had to go over the heads of the unhelpful and mean women at the desks to the director himself, to get signed up for morning classes (she must have morning classes so she can work for the dentist in the evening). The women folded their arms in front of them and and said "sorry, I can't help you," or "if you don't like it, maybe you should come back next year and try to sign up again." I get so furious when she tells me stories like this! She is not the only one to suffer -- all the students are treated like this, AND THEY DON'T PROTEST, so it continues.
But Fran protested. When she went to the director to make her case, he looked her up in the computer and was very impressed. "You are an excellent student!" he said, and promptly wrote a note ordering the women to give her the classes she wanted. Something similar happened last year, and Fran got the dentist to accompany her to school one day to help her get what she needed. As soon as a male professional showed up beside Fran, the idiots hopped up and did their job.
The miracle in all this, is that Fran always stands up for herself. That came from her father in the village, who told her when she was a small child, that when you take the rich people's clothes off, you see that they are no better than anyone else. We are all human beings, and no one is better than anyone else.
Unfortunately, and notably, all the people in Fran's life who have treated her like a second or third class citizen, treating her badly or denying her what she is entitled to, have been Mexican WOMEN. It constantly amazes and angers me to see it. The prejudice here against indigenous people is intense and constant, and absurd, since Oaxaca (next to Chiapas and Guerrero) is by far the most indigenous state in Mexico. Up north the prejudice is just as bad. The whiter, the taller, the more Spanish blood you have, the more you are treated with respect. The Spanish brought that racism with them, and it has never left.
On a brighter note -- and to return to Fran's summer, this year she discovered a lot about what she finds pleasurable, personally. That was a great gift, and something that can never be taken away from her. She will always be able to go to those things to enrich her life outside of work, if she can just find the time for them. And she is highly motivated to do this. We'll see how it goes once the school year gets underway -- Next Week!!!
Thank you for the small gifts you give that make Fran's life so much brighter.
