First day of "classes"

Well, classes started today at the BUAP (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla), or rather, today was the first day that classes were scheduled to start. Before I go into the long narrative, I should probably explain a little about how the university functions:

First of all, it is HUGE!!! I don't know how many thousands of students go there, but I remember that it is bigger than the town of Berea and maybe even bigger than Northampton. The university is divided into Facultades, which are like schools within the university. There is the Falcultad of Arts, of Physics and Math, of Law, of Business, of International Relations, of Letters and Philosophy, of Psychology, etc. Each Facultad functions pretty much on its own. Each one has its own rules, library, and eccentricities. The students here study "careras," or careers. They study only in one facultad and they don't have many choices in the classes that they take; their classes depend on their carera.

Within each Facultad, there are "colegios." These colegios are like smaller schools within the facultad. For example, within the Facultad of Arts are the colegios of music, drama, and dance, and within the Facultad of Letters and Philosophy are the colegios of Philosophy, History, and Literature. Sometimes these colegios are in the same building and sometimes they are in separate buildings.
The university is also divided into two campuses, the old campus in the center of the city and the new one a little further out. The buildings in the old campus are in amongst all the other buildings in the center of town. They are mostly old houses that weren't built for the university. They are built in the typical Spanish style with a patio in the middle surrounded by at least two stories of rooms with doors out onto the balconies around the patio. They are oddly shaped, some are connected patio to patio (but not balcony to balcony) and have multiple staircases by which you access the various balconies, and some are not.

The new part of the university, called the Ciudad Universitaria (University City) or the CU, is more like a huge American university. All the academic buildings are close together and are separate from the rest of the town. There are green lawns and trees, cafeterias, and athletic facilities.

Ok, now for my experience of the first day:
I was signed up for a theater class at noon and a literature class at 3:00 pm. Charlotte, another girl from the program, had the theater class with me so we went together to look for the class. We arrived in the facultad of arts and asked for the theater professor we needed (the number of the classroom wasn't printed in the schedule of classes). The secretary informed us that the professor for which we were looking wasn't going to come in until tomorrow and also, that he doesn't have a class on Monday. She gave us three times during which he teaches on Tuesday and Thursday. We asked if they were three times for the same class (as in one would come to all three classes), or three sections of the same class, or if they were all different classes. She didn't seem to understand. We tried asking if we needed to come to all the class hours, and she said that depended on which material we wanted to take. When we asked which class was theater, she said she didn't have the schedule yet for the theater classes. We decided this lady wasn't very helpful, or didn't understand us, or we didn't understand her (though I don't think the last was true) so we left. We went back to the program office and asked our secretary to call and see if she could find out what was going on. After calling two numbers and talking to I don't know how many different people, she figured out that we went to the wrong building. There are two buildings for the arts school and the professor we wanted teaches in the other. Apparently the two buildings don't communicate very well about when the professors have class. The fact that it took our Mexican secretary so long to figure out where we needed to be made us feel better about our difficulty understanding the other secretary ourselves.

Thinking we were going to be 40 minutes late, we hurried back 5 blocks to the other building. We asked the secretary there and learned that the professor hadn't yet arrived. We were a bit relieved not to have to walk in on a class in session on our first day. We waited another 20 minutes or so and then I began to ask the other students who were waiting if they were waiting for theater. They weren't very helpful, saying that some of them were waiting for the same class, but then no one admitted to being the ones who were waiting. I went back to sitting with Charlotte. About five minutes later, two students, a guy and a girl, came up to us. The girl very sweetly asked if we were waiting for theater. When we said we were, she told us that she had just gone to the other building to ask about the professor and learned that he isn't going to come in until the next week. She was very sweet and said she hoped she'd see us next Monday. I don't know how she got that information out of the secretary in the other building! Maybe the secretary had just learned or maybe the girl spoke with a different person.

This was our first experience with the Mexican education system. Fortunately we had been warned that this often happens (the professors don’t show until the second or even third week of classes), so though it sounds like a stressful series of events, I actually felt pretty relaxed. I figured if we were in a country where professors could arrive late, our being late because we are new and were confused wouldn’t be a big deal. Then when the professor didn’t show, my thoughts were simply affirmed.

Charlotte and I were both scheduled for a second class today, I at 3 and she at 4. We went to the zócalo and sat on a bench for a while watching the huge number of pigeons and fewer number of people. There were balloon vendors with a mass of helium balloons all connected to a stick they hold. Each vendor’s mass of balloons is about 10 feet high (at least twice the height of the person) and so, including the height of the person, the top balloon is at least 15 feet above the ground. The masses must also be at least 5 feet in diameter. We wondered how one buys the top balloon. We imagined ourselves going up and saying, “Excuse me ma’am, I’d like the monkey balloon please” “Yes, that’s right, that one, way up there on the top. How much does it cost?” Maybe we’ll do it one day to see if you really can buy the top balloons.

At about 2:45 I went looking for my second class. By asking various secretaries I found the right building. The classroom number had changed; good thing I talked to the secretary instead of just going to the class. I climbed the stairs, dodged a couple poles the filled most of the balcony, and found my classroom. It was locked and there was a note on the door informing that the class won’t begin until next Monday. I already like that professor for leaving a note!

So, I returned to my house two hours before I’d expected, without managing to go to a single class. I got to eat lunch earlier than expected, at 4:30 instead of 5:30, and I don’t have any homework. ☺

I do hope to have class tomorrow, however. I should at least have one because I have my folkloric dance class tomorrow. They have been having classes during the summer and it is a special arrangement through the program that we get to take these classes and dance with the folkloric dance group throughout the semester. The chances are also good that I will have the second class as well because it is a physics class and from what I hear, the science classes are a bit more formal with their schedules.