I have asked my friend and fellow ESL teacher Kary Vannice to write a post for me. Its a great read I’m sure you will enjoy. Its great when community, culture, & language exchange come together.
There are few things in life that offer us the opportunity to engage in several of our passions at the same time. Most of us are lucky if we get to engage in one passion at a time, every now and again.
For me, I consider myself extra lucky here in Huatulco, Mexico to be able to bring together several of my passions and talents every first and third Saturday of the month.
Six years ago, when I had just moved to Huatulco to begin, in earnest, my life as an expat, I began writing for a local English language magazine that is distributed along the coast of Oaxaca and in the state’s capital city, Oaxaca City. I was 
looking for ways to integrate myself into my new community and meet new people. A few months after I started, the magazine’s editor asked me if I would like to write an article about a new organic market that was being started by some likeminded locals and expats. She figured I’d be the perfect person to write the article since she knew I was “into that sort of thing”, meaning organic agriculture, sustainability and environmentalism.
I jumped at the chance to get to know the people behind this grassroots project. By the end of my first meeting, I found myself fully integrated into the organizational team and had signed on to teach a free yoga class at each edition of the market.
Huatulco is actually a very young city, having been created only about 30 years ago by the tourism arm of the Mexican government as a destination resort along the remarkable coast of Oaxaca. As such, it is lacking in one very fundamental and integral element of the Latin culture, the local market, where you can find everything from fruits and vegetables to handicrafts, and much more. 
This helped to make the organic market an instant and natural gathering place for our local community. Each edition would feature live music and cultural performances. When the winter months brought the usual influx of Canadian “snow birds” south to escape the cold north, the organic market was in full swing. Always eager to experience something new, they flocked to the market to absorb the energy of the local culture. However, the organizers quickly noticed that they weren’t buying the fruits and vegetables that the locals had to offer. Most of the locally grown products were unknown to them, and while they were curious, they didn’t have any idea what the items were. Nor did they have the Spanish skills to find out from the vendors how the locals prepared them.
At the time, I was the only native English speaker on the board of directors, so I volunteered to begin giving tours of the market in English to familiarize foreigners with the local names of unknown items and to act as a translator to encourage expats to begin buying and supporting the producers. The skills I picked up as a park ranger back in the USA came in handy and my talks were entertaining and informative. I do love an audience. ☺ It also gave me a platform to educate people on how to make more sustainable choices and give them a better understanding of how local people in the area lived. 
I soon realized that I could use this same concept in reverse with the English students I was tutoring at the time. The organic market offered them a unique opportunity to interact with a lot of native English speakers within a very short period of time and on a consistent basis. I would spend the first half of the market teaching English speakers how to say the names of the products in Spanish and the second half teaching my Spanish speakers how to say them in English. And this gave me a great opportunity to encourage the two groups to interact with one another, having authentic conversations. For any language learner one of the most difficult challenges is having the opportunity to practice with a native speaker, so community gatherings like this, where both groups are represented represent fantastic opportunities to enhance learning and build friendships across cultures.
I am very happy to write that our little organic market just celebrated it’s 6-year anniversary and now offers this opportunity every weekend of the month during the “snow bird” season. I still see the same familiar faces every time I return, and I’ve watched many beautiful friendships bloom over the years. And I still wake up eager and excited on “market day”.
