Escuela para los Estudiantes Extranjeros (EEE)

In Xalapa, I’m a student of the University of Veracruz, but only taking classes from the school for foreign students, or the EEE. This seems like an awful idea, right? How am I supposed to get a true Mexican student experience? Good question.

One possible answer is that I’m assigned a Mexican “cultural assistant” to hang out with me three times a week for the first four or five weeks. That’s right, someone is getting paid to be my friend. This isn't the only solution to this problem. I get around town.

The other students in the EEE are mostly from the U.S. or Canada, but there are a few from other countries like Italy and England. I’m really grateful for the month I was here before attending the University, and not only because I got to meet some people before being thrown into this environment, but also because the stress of so many classes would have been overwhelming AND because my Spanish has improved enough in the last month to make me feel like my classes are possible.

Classes? Yes. I’m taking four. Intensive Spanish, Contemporary Mexican Literature, Translation, and a culture class. My favorite so far is Translation, which I realize sounds pretty weak, but our one exercise in translating text was something I could have continued doing for hours. The lit. class might kill me, and I haven’t definitively decided on which culture class I’m going to take. I don’t have to decide, in fact, until the 25^th of February. I guess this first part of the semester is just kind of a time for people to try out different classes and see what fits each person best.

In that respect, this school is really laid back. Other words for that: Disorganized, unprepared, stressful. All of my classes were PACKED the first day. This isn’t because I picked all the best classes to attend. It’s because there are way more students in the EEE this semester than there have been in the past. This is something I would normally expect a school to anticipate before the first day of class, but, alas, this was not the case. So there’s still some adjusting going on, schedule-wise. I realize that I need to accept this kind of lifestyle (High-context? Oh, the Ed. Department would be so proud of me.), and let it be part of the experience. We’re working on that.

Some people (those unfortunate enough to be around me that day) may remember me taking a placement test over the internet one Saturday morning in November. When I got to Cuernavaca and had to take another, I was slightly annoyed. But it turns out that my internet test was for the EEE. So that terrible day was not entirely in vain.