Mexico trip- Day 2

Another beautiful day greets us.  We walk to the school in the cool morning air but the sun already feels warm on our skins. Our students spend the first part of the morning taking their placement interview.  Afterwards they have time to talk, lay in the sun or read  while the rest of the group has their interview.   
 By 11: OO everyone has been placed in a group according to how well they did and they head to their new classes. Each class has 5 students or less. After an hour the students take their break.  With few exceptions, most seem happy with their group.  The staff of the school is flexible and allow students to change level  if they feel the material being covered is beyond or below their  ability. 


One of the highlights of the Cuauhnahuac  school is the restaurant operated by a lovely woman named  Estela and her able assistant Cecilia.  They make delicious, quesadillas, tacos, tortas (sandwiches)  and other Mexican specialties which they sell at reasonable  prices.  And you can wash them down with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.   It quickly becomes a favorite place for our students to hang out during  their break  between classes.

Today we’re in for a special treat. Our friend, colleague and the founder of the trip to Cuernavaca, Pat Herrington, comes to visit.  She’s traveling in Mexico but makes time to stop by and see us  She distributes hugs and kisses all around.  All the staff from the school comes to greet Doña Pati as she’s known in Cuernavaca.
At 2: 30 the first day ends and we all head back to our homes to eat  “el almuerzo,  the main meal of the day in Mexico.  Our hostess, Doña Delia has prepared for us  chicken fricase,  yellow rice with vegetables, and what else can you do after a meal like that but to take a siesta. 

 At 6: 00 we reconvene at the school for a lecture on the history of the Cuernacava  region led by Alejandra  one of the teachers who’s also a historian.  She gives us a wealth of information but it’s a little too much to take in all 
at once.  Some of the main points:

1. The  city of   Cuernavaca is  located  in mountain valley which has been fought over  since pre-Columbian times because of its fertile land that produces corn, beans, cotton  and several other crops.  The original settlers of the valley,  the Tlahuicas  were forced by the stronger Aztecs to pay tribute in food and bird feathers.

 2.  When the Spaniards under Cortes conquer the Aztecs, the entire Valley of Cuernavaca is given to the conqueror as his private domain.  The Spaniards introduce the cultivation of sugar cane and subdivide the land into Haciendas where the indigenous people are forced to work .

3.  This system endures until the beginning of the 19th century when two priests Hidalgo and Morelos lead the fight for independence from Spain. They are both captured and executed by the Spanish troops but the fight goes on until Mexico finally gains its independence in 1821.

4.  The Mexican Republic has a turbulent history in the 19th century. The new republic is  occupied by the  Americans in 1847  during the Mexican – American war and then by  French army in  the 1860’s  under  the command Maximilian, who crowned himself emperor.  After a hard fought  war,   the Mexicans regain their independence under  the leadership  of  Benito Juarez.   After the defeat of the French, an era of   industrialization begins.  The sugar industry   grows in the Cuernavaca   region. By then the area is renamed the state of Morelos, after one of the martyrs of Mexican  independence. 

5.  But the unfair Hacienda system survives almost intact into the 20th century until Emiliano Zapata, an agrarian leader from the Cuernavaca region leads a revolt against the wealthy hacienda owners .  Zapata’s program calls for “bread, land and liberty” and for a while his peasant soldiers gain control of the land. But Zapata is betrayed and murdered and the wealthy hacendados reclaim their holdings.

6.  But the change that  Zapata fought for is finally realized under the presidency of Lázaro  Cardenas in the 1930’s. He institutes a program of land reform and rural development. Change comes to Cuernavaca.   The formerly sleepy rural city begins to grow when a new road is built from Mexico City.  Many “chilangos” (residents of Mexico City) begin to buy weekend houses in Cuernavaca. And others move permanently  to Cuernavaca from the capital  after the devastating earthquake of 1985.  Today Cuernavaca is a bustling city of  three hundred fifty thousand inhabitants  and it  boasts some  new  industries like the enormous  Nissan plant  that produces  cars for the Mexico, The USA and the rest of Latin America.