Author: Eleanor Nations | Major: English | Semester: Summer 2024

Smiling after scaling Monte Albán, a Zapotec archaeological site in the Mexican state of Oaxaca

Before I got appendicitis, I thought I had Mexico all figured out. Making morning runs to the Oxxo, grabbing tacos al pastor in the street between classes, and furiously diagramming conjugations at night, I thought I knew what it meant to live in this country that had been just south of me my entire life. But, only two weeks into my program in Puebla – a large city of about six million in central Mexico – I had no idea just how much I had left to learn.

I was originally drawn to the Puebla, Mexico service learning and immersion program because I spent my Junior year as the Development Coordinator for the Passionate About Literacy (PAL) board, a volunteer program that pairs college students with elementary students in the Northwest Arkansas area to foster mentorship and a love of reading. PAL recently added an ESL program in which Spanish-speaking students at the University of Arkansas can be paired with an ESL student at Jones Elementary in Springdale to work on bilingual literacy mentorship. The program was so incredibly rewarding to watch – our mentors and mentees had great experiences – and I enjoyed working with our ESL Coordinator, Valeria Patino, so much. In January, I realized I wanted to continue all of the creativity and understanding and love and excitement in the ESL branch of PAL during my following year as Chair, but I had one problem: I didn’t speak Spanish.

Four months later, I packed my bags and flew to Mexico with my friends in the Puebla program, having just finished my Intermediate II Spanish course just a couple weeks before. I was excited but nervous, and I thought I was ready to put my Spanish skills to the test. I learned very quickly that those “Spanish skills” were in fact quite minimal. As my host mother, Teresa, picked my roommate and me up from the Paseo Destino bus station and started pointing at every skyscraper and every sign and giving us a mini tour of Puebla in Spanish on our drive home, I struggled to respond to her basic questions about who I was, where I came from, what I was studying, and why I was there. “They don’t understand us at all, do they?” Teresa turned and said to her daughter in Spanish at one point during the conversation. I was so frustrated I almost wanted to cry; I knew these words! I knew what I wanted to say! But, all of a sudden, I had lost everything. It was in that moment that I truly empathized with the students in the PAL program and any person who lives in the United States and speaks English as a second language. It was in that moment that I realized just how much work I had ahead if I truly wanted to speak Spanish.

The next few days, I attended classes at UPAEP, my university in Puebla for the program, that were taught entirely in Spanish and were specific to my education placement. We talked deeply about real issues, like the government’s involvement in education, teen pregnancy in schools, the rise of technology and AI in education, and how to improve nutritional education across age groups. Common questions, requiring a response in Spanish, included “Is it possible to solve childhood obesity in Mexico through the education system, and how?” or “When AI replaces educators, what new role will educators have?” I felt completely inadequate in my responses, but that was okay; my teacher was understanding, and he encouraged us to think and say as much as we could. That was where I learned my first lesson from Mexico: Vulnerability is the fastest road to growth.

The week following, I started going to my service placement at a nearby elementary school. My first day, I walked into a first-grade classroom during an English lesson and watched in awe as the kids recited the English alphabet and spelled vocabulary words such as “wasp” and “crib” in their notebooks as the teacher recited each letter aloud. In between lessons and during work times, I asked the teacher about the Mexican education system and the structure of the school: How many planning periods did teachers have during the day? (none), How many students are in a typical class in Mexico? (fifteen at hers, but sometimes thirty or even forty, depending on the school), How often did these first graders study English? (two to three hours every day). I would go on to spend four weeks at the school, but even on that first day, I was completely astounded by the work ethic, the optimism, and the resilience of both the students and the teachers. This is where I learned my second lesson from Mexico: Never underestimate the power of hard work.

Two weeks into the program, I felt like I was in a groove. I was going to school and the university every day, and I felt myself growing and my conversational skills expanding with every dinner conversation I had with my host mom and every tough question I fielded in class. I started to think to myself that maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all – maybe those first two weeks were just products of culture shock – and then I returned home from a weekend excursion to Mexico City, and all of a sudden, I was in the emergency room of Christus Muguerza Hospital UPAEP.

Around two in the morning on that Monday, I got an official diagnosis of appendicitis. As my professor worked with the front desk for the next three hours trying to figure out my insurance, a nurse came and put in an IV while my host mom, Teresa, cried next to my bed. I received several documents from the hospital in Spanish that I relayed to my now very distressed and sleep-deprived parents. As the nurses flitted in and out of my room asking me questions in Spanish, it became clearer that I was about to have an appendectomy in Mexico. This experience, as it turned out, taught me some of the greatest lessons of all. For one, everyone is capable of so much more than they know; I went into that hospital with doubts about my Spanish, about my ability to recover, and about whether I should stay in the country afterward, and I left with a greater command of the language and increased gratefulness for my time in Mexico. I also left knowing just how kind and compassionate the people of Mexico are. I will always carry a very specific moment with me from after my surgery when an UPAEP nursing student, who was my age, was helping me get out of the shower. It was an awkward and difficult situation, and all I could think to say in Spanish when looking down at my post-surgery self was “I don’t like my body.” The nursing student wrapped me in a towel, stood and looked me in the eyes, and responded in English, “You are beautiful.”

A week after my surgery, I was back up and walking, and I was determined to live the last two weeks of the program to the fullest. I learned the names of all the kids in my first-grade class. I tried every new food I could. I went on morning walks in my host mom’s neighborhood to say good morning to the purple-brown mountain peaks silhouetted against the horizon. I spoke Spanish with my friends in the park, I went bowling and realized I have a different shoe size in Mexico (cinco), and I had two-hour conversations with my host mom over dinner about world religions. Two weeks later, when the time came to leave Mexico for home, my first-graders tackled me to the ground in hugs, and my host mother gave me her recipe for pozole to bring with me. I left Mexico knowing that one day I will return and knowing that this study abroad program has forever changed me.