Interesting student names - 2

Facundo!  According to the baby name sites, "Facundo" means "expressive," "loquacious."

Facundo was a very serious man, not prone to smiling.  ( In fact, I don't recall him smiling once in the two months he studied with me.)   I became aware within two days that he was not an ordinary student.  He came in the end of the year and, despite not knowing a word of English, could use logic and pattern recognition to follow instructions and figure out correct responses.  He had told me he was some kind of a laborer in his home country, but when I commented on his work, he came back the next day and confessed that in fact he was an elementary school teacher in Oaxaca. 

He told me a bit of his history, which was that he came from the mountains of Oaxaca-- in fact the family home was built in a cave on the side of the mountain-- and he had had to walk two hours to school as a child.  He persisted and became a teacher.

He had been invited here by his nephew, who was documented, and he was working as a dishwasher at a big restaurant.  The work was physically really heavy and tiring and he hated it.  At some point after class, I told him that it made me a bit sad that Mexico was losing people like him.  Who is going to teach poor Oaxacan children, if the teachers leave?  In the morning, he came to school and said, "I've considered what you said, and I think you are right."  He had already called his school and they hadn't found anyone to replace him and he could have his job back.   He left the next week.