Life is a strange thing sometimes. I seem to have moved to Russia in order to visit the U.S.A. Never in a million years did I expect to visit America, especially Texas and New Mexico.It was to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life and a trip I will never forget for many reasons.
The sunset over El Paso was a sight to hold in my memory forever, the colours of the sky above the desert and the mountains surrounding this fascinating city are probably not available in any painter's pallette.
El Paso is situated in the south of Texas right on the border with the neighbouring city of Ciadad Juarez. Which was at one time described as the most dangerous city on earth. The wall and border are unavoidable in EL Paso, driving to school on a morning we passed the border every day and drove alongside the wall looking over into a foreign country , that of Mexico.
This was probably the biggest suprise to me , in that I realsied that the majority of inhabitants of El Paso were of Mexican descent.
Texas for me, was in my mind the Texas of the cinema of my youth, John Wayne, cowboys and Indians, deserts. mountains and great rivers. The Lone star state. Cowboy hats and boots, stetsons, guns, ranches, steaks, loud people and horses tied up outside the saloon.
How naive I am!
And yet, I was not totally wrong, apart from the influence of Mexican culture and language in the town. This is easily explained by the description of the most amazing school I have ever had the pleasure to visit.
The Alicia R, Chacon International school of el Paso.
An amazing place with amazing people
In this school, first of all, all children will become bilingual with Spanish and English.
And yet, they will go on to study a third language chosen from Mandarin, Japanese, German or Russian.
It is just gobsmackingly bloody well fantastic! Not suprisingly , there is a waiting list to get into this school and the year 8 graduates are among the most successful students. always! when they get to high school and beyond. This is an American middle school , so the kids are often with their teachers from kinder to grade 8. From about 5/6 years old to 14/15.
The traditional iconic school bus that I have seen a thousand times in the cinema and on TV. I half expected the cast of Happy Days to get off, Potsy, Richie Cunningham and the Fonze!
A partnership with the city of Kostroma and El Paso has been active for more than 15 years. I was a volunteer teacher with Olga and group of 6 Russian students of English visiting El Paso. This is facilitated by Natalia who originates in the Rusian city of Kostroma. The american students will make a tour of russia in the Autumn as they did in 2018.
In the picture above I was delighted to help present an award to one of our Russian students for his participation on a poetry recital. reading in English, as the students of El Paso read in Russian and Spanish as well as in English.
The proud winners of the poetry recital awards.
Ruth is the Mandarin teacher at Alicia R. Chacon and we were treated on the last day of term with Chinese pancakes.
A Tigua indian performing the buffalo dance.
This had to be one of the highlights of my trip to the U.S.A.
My boyhood fascination with the western. TV and films were totally unavoidable as a kid in the late 50s and 60s. To see and meet a native American and learn something about his culture was a real honour and humbling experience.
Right in the heart of the city of El Paso is Ysleta sur pueblo, which is a community for the Tigua tribe with cultural information and self governing facilities.
We werer treated ot traditional dances and the group were invited to paint pots in Tigua style, I was however distracted buy the video explainging the history of this proud and intreging people and to be honest embarrased by my lack of knowledge of this ancient civilisation.
This was underlied with another visit to New Mexico in which we were to pass through Apache lands on the way to Ruidoso.
Ruidoso is Spanish for noisy, and el rio ruidoso which runs through the town. As the famous rio grande runs through El Paso. Well I can confirm two things, the noisy river is not noisy and the big river is not big, well not in the city anyway.
Ruidoso is a fascinating town in New Mexico and the journey through the desert did not dissapoint.
A twister in the desert on the way to Ruidoso, New Mexico. A little further on the route we came across the American army on maneuvers. Tanks and military vehicles kicking up a sandstorm.
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