My last night in Oaxaca really did not have an end; it quickly faded into the next day with just a 1 hour nap from 4 to 5 am. Our entire group seemed to end up trickling into Elefante sooner or later that night, where we all drank and danced and danced and drank well into the morning. I finally danced salsa, kicking myself for not dancing like this sooner, and eventually had to turn down the tequila as the night wore on. At 4 am I decided it was time to say goodbye and head home; I believe only 3 of our group of 10 actually ended up sleeping that night, though I wouldn't call what I had much of a sleep. It was more of a nap that just ended up disorienting me rather than giving me energy.
At 6 am I'm fighting with my suitcase, trying to get it into the back of the car, while my mom is getting into the front seat. We pick up Olivia and I'm reminded of the first day we came to Oaxaca; squished into a car with our moms in the front and suitcases on our laps because there is absolutely no more room. I wouldn't have been surprised if we had things falling out the windows. As we make our way to the airport in the pre-dawn of the morning, I'm watching Mexico fly by me, thinking that in only a couple hours, this road will be just a line in the dirt, then nothing at all.
The airport signs don't seem to phase me as the did coming to Mexico. I don't think I actually believe we're going home, and am further reminded of this when I say goodbye to my mom; it was much easier than I thought it would be. An "Adios," a hug, a wave, and there me and Olivia are, standing on the sidewalk, alone with our luggage, as the women that took care of us for 3 months drive out of sight. We silently grab our things and head into the airport, there meeting the rest of our group.
Finally, after waiting for several hours, going through security, and doing a dance as I left the airport bathroom (No more paying pesos! No more missing toilet seats! No more bringing my own toilet paper and using buckets filled with water to flush! NO MORE THROWING AWAY MY TOILET PAPER!!! GOODBYE MEXICAN BATHROOMS!) we board the plane. As I'm sitting in my seat, the flight attendant comes around and starts asking what we would like to drink. In English. And though I register this, I catch myself almost speaking to him in Spanish... ?Puede darme un pepsi? NO! This man speaks ENGLISH ONLY! I pause, speak English, then wonder why the heck it was so hard to speak English to him... I speak it all the time to my classmates. And then I realize. I speak English to my CLASSMATES. Anyone outside our group, any stranger we met, we always spoke to in Spanish. Speaking to this stranger in English really threw me off. And it was then that I started the strange process of re-entry.
The next thing that tells me that yes, we really are returning to the United States, is that when the snacks come around, the words on the wrapper are in English. I hold my snack and simply stare at it for several seconds. It's a small thing, but these words in English almost shock me, because I still can not believe I'll be home soon. And then I break out into a smile as I eat every one of those bagel chip things. I'm actually headed to an English-speaking place. I'm going back to the US. I'm going home. Amazing.
We fly for several hours, and soon I look down and see neighborhoods. Suburbs. Which is another shock to my system. Where I was in Oaxaca, people live with concrete walls between their homes, not wooden fences. The houses aren't in neat little rows with driveways, they're all jumbled and squished and anywhere they can be; brightly colored and all very different. I look at those suburbs, with its curving roads with cookie-cutter houses in rows on either side, and actually smile. Here's the trademark of America, right in front of my face. It's not that I like suburbs, it's just so weird to see these neat little rows of wooden houses, something I haven't seen in months. Then, I see an interstate highway. I really am back in the US.
We get off the plane and walk into the airport. Airports are odd places; they all look the same, very industrial and cold and clean. They are like the in-between worlds of countries, like limbo. There is nothing special about any one of them; they all look almost exactly the same. Gates and baggage claims and security and customs. But I take in the cold neatness of the airport and sigh. Here it is, the world between the one I just left and the one I'm going to. I'm that much closer to being home. When we arrive at the bathrooms, I cheer. Yay!! American bathrooms! HOW I'VE MISSED YOU! I've never been so ecstatic to take a pee! I throw my toilet paper into the toilet with an emphasis not often seen during this particular task and relish the idea that I in fact did NOT have to pay money to use this bathroom!
My time in the airport is full of culture shocks all around. While walking around, we realize several very vital things. Firstly, people can actually understand us when we talk now. In Mexico, we would talk about inappropriate things in public with no guilt; no one could understand us, so why be discrete about it? In this airport, we seem to be catching ourselves, realizing that yes, people will be disturbed if we mention what Kieren's host brother did last night, or who said what while they were drunk. The second thing we have to realize is that people do NOT speak Spanish outside our group, something we had all realized already but still hadn't really got a grasp on. I start talking to the guy behind the Panda Express counter in rapid spanish, because I had mentioned that we were returning from Mexico, and he asked, Como estas? I eventually realize that this guy knows very little Spanish, can not understand me, and just let me go on and on just to be polite. Embarassed, I go sit down with my group, where Beau does not let up on the making-fun-of-me phase. But while we're sitting there, eating our first fast food we've had in months, someone makes a comment about how no one is staring at us. We look up, and realize they're right. NO ONE is making eye contact with us. We were so used to being stared at in Mexico, that this was almost weird, but mostly a huge relief. I found myself being extremely grateful for Americans sense of privacy and independence. No more staring! Or whistling! Or cat-calling, or words being said to us as we walk by... Thank God. I never could get used to that part of Mexico. We also realize that most of the people in here are white, and though I feel almost ashamed saying it, I am relieved to see them. We are no longer standing out. We blend right in. We are anonymous, nothing special. I sigh with more relief.
As we're waiting for our next plane, Abby comes over to me, laughing hystarically. I ask her what happened.
"Okay so I just bought a salad over there and it cost 4 dollars and 45 cents, so I got out my wallet and gave her the 4 dollars and then just stared at my change. And then I looked up and the woman was staring at me, so I told her, 'I haven't used American money for awhile...' I couldn't remember how much the coins were worth! So the lady just took my change purse and counted out 45 cents..."
"Oh my god Abby." I laugh and roll my eyes.
"I know! I know." She shakes her head. Funny joke, Mexico.
Later, I ask Abby if I can use her phone to call Tyler. The first time I've used a cell phone since the last time I was in an airport, and the first time I've used an actual phone in probably 2 months. It is so good to hear his voice on the other end, and I can't stop appreciating the fact that I just called him randomly, on a phone, without having to coordinate a time to talk in advance. His voice was right there, whenever I wanted it. No skype cutting out on me, no waiting for him to get online. Again, amazing.
We board the plane and this time I prepared myself for all the English I knew was going to come at me. The flight is longer than the last one, and I listen to my music and watch out the window. The further north we go, the cloudier it gets. Of course. And soon I can't even see the ground, only cloud cover. So I wait, and chat politely with the lady next to me, and wait some more. I watch part of the movie. I try to sleep. I listen to my music. And suddenly the pilot announces taht we will begin our descent into Portland, Oregon. My heart does a little flip. And within 20 minutes, we descend below the cloud cover, and I see Oregon for the first time in 3 months.
I dont know if words are appropriate for describing how I feel in this moment. Oregon spreads out below me and all I can see see green. Everywhere. As far as I can see. And the lazy river winding around through that green. It's fresh, and clean, and absolutely beautiful. I see it and instantly I feel completely happy, like I have been missing a part of my heart and there it is, right below me. That emerald beauty that stretches out forever, leaving nothing untouched. I feel lighter, and jittery with the passion I feel for my home. I bounce up and down in my seat involuntarily, saying, "Oh my god, look how green it is! It's so pretty. Look!" I swear the woman next to me is staring at me like I'm crazy. Yeah... it's green... get over it weirdo. But I ignore her and simply stare at it, feeling like maybe I sucked in some helium and am going to float away. So beautiful, so beautiful.
We finally land, and as I leave the plane, in that little moment where you can feel the air outside before you walk into that tube that will take you into the airport, I pause for just a second. The air is cool, and crisp. It's different than in Chiapas, where it was a muggy cool. It feels wonderful. I continue into the airport, not really bothering to say goodbye to my group, the people I've spent the last 3 months with, as I head towards baggage claim, where I hope my family will be waiting. My family! I move faster as I think about this, finally seeing them again. I get to the other side of security and look around, wondering where they are. Suddenly someone calls my name, and it's not my family but my friend Karen running at me, who is coincidentally is there to drop off her mom at the same time. We hug each other tightly and I almost start crying at the familiarity of it... We've gone to school together since we were in 1st grade. But she has to go say goodbye to her mom, and my family still isn't here yet, so I head towards the baggage claim area, hopeing that maybe they're waiting there.
Suddenly 2 blurs of color are flying towards me, and they almost pass by before they turn abruptly and slam into either side of me. And I start laughing as my sisters yell and scream and hug and laugh and hug some more. A chorus of, "Oh my god!"s and "You're here!!" and "I've missed you!!" are swirling around my head as I try to keep them as close to me as I can. Soon we get untangled and I look up to see Brayden running towards me, full throttle, feet moving in little blurs, and suddenly I'm hugging him too. "Ash! W-w-w-where have you been?" Giggle, giggle, giggle. His stuttering is enhanced because he's so excited. I give him one of my little wheeling bags to pull, and he gets really excited, because it means that he's a big boy, not just a little 3-year-old, and pulls it to baggage claim for me, where I see Laurie and Dad and hug them too. I feel so happy, surrounded by my family, telling Brayden to calm down, holding hands with my sisters. Like this is how it's supposed to be.
We drive home down the freeway, and as soon as I see Mary's Peak, the mountain I see every day when I'm home, I start crying. Just a little bit, but I'm surprised I didn't start sooner. I can't believe how happy I am to be back. Mexico was a great experience and a ton of fun, but nothing can really compare to my home. Within the next few weeks, I find myself sliding back into my life here pretty easily. Driving for the first time was wonderful... no more relying on taxis or busses! Making my own food sucks, but what can you do? I see clean water in the ditches and I stop and stare. I see people on the side of the road picking up garbage and I'm amazed. I go to my dads house and sit in awe at how beautiful it is through my new eyes. I love being home.
I drive up to see Tyler the next day, even though we were supposed to quarantine ourselves after we got home in case we had the swine flu. I don't care. I go anyways. I get to his door and knock, and I'm nervous. My heart is beating fast. This is the first time I'll have seen him for so long. The first time I'll be able to hug him and be in the same room as him in ages. It doesn't seem real. When he opens the door, I basically throw myself at him and hug him for about 10 whole minutes, taking deep breaths, feeling his hand stroking my back, lips kissing my forehead. I back up for about a second and realize my hands are shaking... alot. So I decide it's a good idea to just keep hugging. "You're actually here. I can actually touch you." I say, over and over again. It seems incredible that 3 months have gone by, but here I am.
I do miss Mexico sometimes. The food, the clubs, the beach, the colonial buildings and music and people. The warmth... winter will come soon and I know I'll miss it then. Then again, there are things that I definitely do not miss. But perhaps every place is like that. When you live somewhere, that place opens up and shows you its good AND bad sides, but it gives the place a life of it's own, with character and stories. Always with the good and the bad; a rule that applies everywhere. When you live somewhere, you're not a tourist; you dont just glance at the beautiful surface and move along. That will teach you nothing. It's when you allow yourself to see the darkness that you truly can appreciate the light. Because of Mexico, I have learned many things, but the one I will always remember is to never forget the light of home.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Influenza...
We found out about the stupid Swine Flu on Sunday morning, when we went out to the lobby to meet up with the group before going on another excursion. Our professor was hurriedly emailing people on her computer, apparently talking to the embassy, Linfield, and the Instituto. Not really knowing what was going on, Abby and I asked Charlotte what was happening, and she filled us in: Swine Flu. Alot of cases in Mexico City. Has killed people. Wonderful. But for the most part, we weren't really worried until we got back from our excursion that day and checked the news online. It started to sound worse and worse, with Obama declaring a state of emergency and raising the threat level to a 4, and then later to a 5. And although it's a curable influenza and at least 20,000 people die every year from the normal flu in the US, my biggest fear was getting sick in Mexico, because I have absolutely no faith in the Mexican health system. There were stories of ambulance drivers turning people away because the flu is contagious and they didn't want to get it... there's a joke at least in Oaxaca about the hospitals... If you go in, you won't come out. Hospitals are the last resort for many people, because disease circulates so much more in them. And I'm sure that the reason Mexico City has been hit so hard ("hard" could be debatable... it IS the 3rd largest city in the world, so the 506 cases, and only 19 deaths, that are there now really don't put a dent at ALL in their population) is because it's MEXICO CITY. It's one of the most polluted cities I've ever seen and the amount of people living in poverty is overwhelming; it's likely that most of the people who are sick just didn't get good health care.
But anyways, the point is that when we first found out about all these details on Sunday night, some of us were pretty worried about it. Our parents had been watching the news also, and of course they freaked out and called our school and demanded that we come home early, before we could get sick. We had to wear masks the next day, and the amout of people wearing them had doubled. So because we were stressed about this whole event, Kieren, Marina and I decided to go get comfort food for dinner, aka pasta drenched in cheese and olive oil, which was sooo good! Then the check came. And we had an argument about getting our change...
“Puede darme cambio?” Kieren asked the waiter. She wanted change.
“Si, cambio por favor?” I said, chiming in. I would also like to break my 200 peso bill.
“Si, claro.” He said, patiently waiting.
“Bueno,” Kieren said, “Un ciento, una cincuenta, dos veintes-“
“What??” I said, switching to English. The waiter looked at us, confused with the sudden switch of languages. “Kieren, you do NOT need 2 twenties and a 10 peso thing.”
“Yes I do. I want them.” She looked at the waiter and tried again, “Quisiera dos veintes-“
“KIEREN! You do not need that. Just get one one-hundred and 2 fifties.” I said.
“WHY.” She said, looking at me. The waiter was watching us as if we were playing a tennis game.
“Because that’s too much work! Just get the 2 fifties.”
“No I want my twenties! I need smaller change!”
“FINE.” I said. So the waiter went off and took our 200 pesos for change. Poor guy. I think it's hilarious to hear people arguing in another language, extremely quickly and with lots of hand motions and stuff, and then calmly turn to you and speak your language, then go off into an argument again in their language. It made me laugh thinking about how we probably looked to him.
When we arrived at the hotel, someone yelled at us from the balcony upstairs to come up. So with a sudden feeling of slight dread, we walked up the stairs, and the first thing we saw was Charlotte and Olivia with tears running down their face. I instantly felt like someone punched me in my stomach- the first thing I thought was Oh god Alli actually has the flu... She had been sick with what we believed was food poisioning for the entire day. But Ramsay told us, as the rest of the group looked on somberly, “We’re going home. The IPO has recalled us and they want us to come home in a week.”
I looked at her, stunned. I didn't think we'd actually get sent home. Yeah, I've been missing home and yeah it would be nice to see my family and Tyler again, but I never thought we'd actually go home early. I was still shocked when I told my family over Skype, who started freaking out with excitement. I could only sit there and stare at my computer screen. One week left in Mexico. I thought we had 3. I had prepared myself for 3. And now, BAM! It's one. It was crazy, because I didn't feel sad or excited... just shocked... for several hours.
In spite of this Swine Flu threat, we continued on our journey in Chiapas to Palenque. Palenque is WAY different than San Cristobal... it's actually IN the jungle. It's extremely hot and humid and the trees are definitely jungle trees... when we went on our excursion, I continually said, "Look! Real jungle vines! I gotta take a picture, we're in a REAL JUNGLE!! Because there are VINES! And REAL monkeys!" We went on a boat ride on the river that separates Guatemala and Mexico. I was basically in Guatemala at one point, because I was touching the water that was on Guatemalas side of the river! We rode on the boat up the river until we got to this archeological site, where we saw Mayan ruins and climbed more pyramids, of course! Then we went to more ruins, rode around in the van all day, and finally made it back to our hotel. The next day we WERE going to go to Palenque, some AMAZING mayan ruins that would have been wonderful to see, but it was closed because of the flu. DANGIT. My professor was so upset about it, because she's been wanting to see it for so long, and we were so close, but we couldn't go. We all felt pretty let down about it. But we had a 16 hour bus ride to look forward to later that day... we left Palenque at 5:30 pm and didn't get back to Oaxaca until 9:30 the next morning.
I feel better being back in Oaxaca. I spent the entire day yesterday with my host family and their friends. The kids played with me all day; we chased butterflies with nets for awhile, and then Santiago took my hand and led me around the yard and the garden for HOURS. One time when I tried to sit down with the adults and talk with them, Santiago got really upset and mad at me, and all he did was pout on his dads shoulder. I felt so bad that I got up and was like, "Do you want to fly again with me?" Earlier we had been swinging and he kept saying, "I'm flying! I'm flying!" And then his face lit up and we went and played more. My host dad later was talking to Santiago and asked him, "Is Ashley your girlfriend or mine?" and Santiago said, "Mine!" So all the adults there had the joke going that I was his little girlfriend... My host dad kept calling me "Nieta," which means "granddaughter". Oh ha ha people. But really, kids are the same everywhere. The girls all acted like movie stars and giggled together and liked to be dramatic, and Santiago just stumbled around like all 3-year-olds do, interested in everything. Poor Constanza started bawling when I had to leave, because she must have known that I'm going back to the United States soon, and she was devastated that she wouldn't see me again. "Te quiero, te quiero! No quiero que salgas!" Roughly translated to, "I love you, I love you! I don't want you to leave!" And all I could do was hug her and stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head, because what else could I do?? I did say that I'd see her again, but I dont know if that's true. It was the saddest goodbye I've had to say yet here in Mexico. I get pretty attached to kids, but who WOULDN'T just fall in love with Constanza?
So... now I have 4 more days left in Mexico, and I want to go out to the bars one last time but I dont want to get sick and have the people at the airport keep me from getting on the plane to go home. I feel like there is so much more I wanted to do before leaving, but now I can't, because all the things I want to do include crowds, like going to Hierve el Agua (the hot springs), watching a movie in theaters, going to the market again (which I will most likely do anyways because I LOVE the market), going to the bars and dancing... Stupid swine flu ruined everything. I'm getting a bit more excited to come home just so that I can see everyone again, but I'm going to try to enjoy these last few days in Mexico as much as I can!
But anyways, the point is that when we first found out about all these details on Sunday night, some of us were pretty worried about it. Our parents had been watching the news also, and of course they freaked out and called our school and demanded that we come home early, before we could get sick. We had to wear masks the next day, and the amout of people wearing them had doubled. So because we were stressed about this whole event, Kieren, Marina and I decided to go get comfort food for dinner, aka pasta drenched in cheese and olive oil, which was sooo good! Then the check came. And we had an argument about getting our change...
“Puede darme cambio?” Kieren asked the waiter. She wanted change.
“Si, cambio por favor?” I said, chiming in. I would also like to break my 200 peso bill.
“Si, claro.” He said, patiently waiting.
“Bueno,” Kieren said, “Un ciento, una cincuenta, dos veintes-“
“What??” I said, switching to English. The waiter looked at us, confused with the sudden switch of languages. “Kieren, you do NOT need 2 twenties and a 10 peso thing.”
“Yes I do. I want them.” She looked at the waiter and tried again, “Quisiera dos veintes-“
“KIEREN! You do not need that. Just get one one-hundred and 2 fifties.” I said.
“WHY.” She said, looking at me. The waiter was watching us as if we were playing a tennis game.
“Because that’s too much work! Just get the 2 fifties.”
“No I want my twenties! I need smaller change!”
“FINE.” I said. So the waiter went off and took our 200 pesos for change. Poor guy. I think it's hilarious to hear people arguing in another language, extremely quickly and with lots of hand motions and stuff, and then calmly turn to you and speak your language, then go off into an argument again in their language. It made me laugh thinking about how we probably looked to him.
When we arrived at the hotel, someone yelled at us from the balcony upstairs to come up. So with a sudden feeling of slight dread, we walked up the stairs, and the first thing we saw was Charlotte and Olivia with tears running down their face. I instantly felt like someone punched me in my stomach- the first thing I thought was Oh god Alli actually has the flu... She had been sick with what we believed was food poisioning for the entire day. But Ramsay told us, as the rest of the group looked on somberly, “We’re going home. The IPO has recalled us and they want us to come home in a week.”
I looked at her, stunned. I didn't think we'd actually get sent home. Yeah, I've been missing home and yeah it would be nice to see my family and Tyler again, but I never thought we'd actually go home early. I was still shocked when I told my family over Skype, who started freaking out with excitement. I could only sit there and stare at my computer screen. One week left in Mexico. I thought we had 3. I had prepared myself for 3. And now, BAM! It's one. It was crazy, because I didn't feel sad or excited... just shocked... for several hours.
In spite of this Swine Flu threat, we continued on our journey in Chiapas to Palenque. Palenque is WAY different than San Cristobal... it's actually IN the jungle. It's extremely hot and humid and the trees are definitely jungle trees... when we went on our excursion, I continually said, "Look! Real jungle vines! I gotta take a picture, we're in a REAL JUNGLE!! Because there are VINES! And REAL monkeys!" We went on a boat ride on the river that separates Guatemala and Mexico. I was basically in Guatemala at one point, because I was touching the water that was on Guatemalas side of the river! We rode on the boat up the river until we got to this archeological site, where we saw Mayan ruins and climbed more pyramids, of course! Then we went to more ruins, rode around in the van all day, and finally made it back to our hotel. The next day we WERE going to go to Palenque, some AMAZING mayan ruins that would have been wonderful to see, but it was closed because of the flu. DANGIT. My professor was so upset about it, because she's been wanting to see it for so long, and we were so close, but we couldn't go. We all felt pretty let down about it. But we had a 16 hour bus ride to look forward to later that day... we left Palenque at 5:30 pm and didn't get back to Oaxaca until 9:30 the next morning.
I feel better being back in Oaxaca. I spent the entire day yesterday with my host family and their friends. The kids played with me all day; we chased butterflies with nets for awhile, and then Santiago took my hand and led me around the yard and the garden for HOURS. One time when I tried to sit down with the adults and talk with them, Santiago got really upset and mad at me, and all he did was pout on his dads shoulder. I felt so bad that I got up and was like, "Do you want to fly again with me?" Earlier we had been swinging and he kept saying, "I'm flying! I'm flying!" And then his face lit up and we went and played more. My host dad later was talking to Santiago and asked him, "Is Ashley your girlfriend or mine?" and Santiago said, "Mine!" So all the adults there had the joke going that I was his little girlfriend... My host dad kept calling me "Nieta," which means "granddaughter". Oh ha ha people. But really, kids are the same everywhere. The girls all acted like movie stars and giggled together and liked to be dramatic, and Santiago just stumbled around like all 3-year-olds do, interested in everything. Poor Constanza started bawling when I had to leave, because she must have known that I'm going back to the United States soon, and she was devastated that she wouldn't see me again. "Te quiero, te quiero! No quiero que salgas!" Roughly translated to, "I love you, I love you! I don't want you to leave!" And all I could do was hug her and stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head, because what else could I do?? I did say that I'd see her again, but I dont know if that's true. It was the saddest goodbye I've had to say yet here in Mexico. I get pretty attached to kids, but who WOULDN'T just fall in love with Constanza?
So... now I have 4 more days left in Mexico, and I want to go out to the bars one last time but I dont want to get sick and have the people at the airport keep me from getting on the plane to go home. I feel like there is so much more I wanted to do before leaving, but now I can't, because all the things I want to do include crowds, like going to Hierve el Agua (the hot springs), watching a movie in theaters, going to the market again (which I will most likely do anyways because I LOVE the market), going to the bars and dancing... Stupid swine flu ruined everything. I'm getting a bit more excited to come home just so that I can see everyone again, but I'm going to try to enjoy these last few days in Mexico as much as I can!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
San Cristobal
We left for Chiapas yesterday morning at 7:00 am. We finally got to our hotel at 10:45 pm. It was a day filled with bus rides... 3 different busses, a total of 11.5 hours on the bus, with 2 "layovers". We're going to be in Chiapas (a different state) for a week, exploring this part of Mexico, which is much greener than Oaxaca. The city we're in right now, San Cristobal, is pretty high in altitude, which means COLDNESS. Which we really weren't expecting, even though our teachers and parents warned us about it. At night we actually NEED to use the blankets, and I wore sweatpants to bed yesterday, which was extremely weird. Also, it rains here. Every day around 3:00 pm. Today I was in my room when it happened, just sitting, when suddenly I heard it... Raindrops. RAINDROPS. It was RAINING. I'm sorry, I know that to most people who read this will be like, "You are dumb Ashley. Rain is nothing special." But honestly I hadn't heard rain in almost 3 months. It was like a little piece of home had come to me, and it made me extremely happy.
But anyways, after our excursion to an indigenous town today (where many of us spent our pesos on beautifully woven… indigenous… things) we came back and had a nap… okay I actually didn’t nap, I talked to Tyler for awhile and then tried to read some articles, because even though it’s a SATURDAY, we still had class. Dumb. Then Abby, my roomie for this trip, and I decided we wanted dinner early (which is normal time for people in the US- 6:00), and asked around if anyone wanted to come with us. They all said it was too early. OH WELL! So we went out and got some food at this cute little restaurant and then decided to go find a movie to buy, as they sell movies here for EXTREMELY CHEAP (10 pesos= less than $1), which turned out to be an adventure in itself. We walked around and followed the directions of our waiter from the restaurant gave us, and saw San Cristobal as the sun was setting… absolutely beautiful. There are colonial buildings everywhere painted bright colors and filled with all kinds of shops. We walked past the main plaza and saw gorgeous churches, as always. I still have a fascination with the churches, even though I’ve seen so many churches here, more than I’ve probably seen in my entire life, and even though I’m not really religious. Every single one is different and absolutely beautiful.
But anyways, so Abby and I finally found a market, and after walking around being distracted by pretty things, but not finding movies ANYWHERE, we finally had to ask someone. "Where are the movies?" “The market! They’re at the market, keep walking straight.” Umm, okay… as if THIS isn’t a market? So we head off in the direction of the RIGHT market, and finally find our treasure… in fact, they were selling 3-in-1 movies for 15 pesos… So I bought the one with Pearl Harbor, Poseidon, and Titanic. I have yet to discover if they’re in Spanish or English. Abby, of course, being the grown-up child that she is and teacher-in-training bought Finding Nemo and Sharks, and some other under-the-sea movies. Love that girl. So we were extremely happy with ourselves as we began to head back to our hotel, when we stopped by the fake market again and spent several minutes looking at presents for our dads. After amusing ourselves there for a while, we continued our walk through a Mexican town in the dark and the rain (SO WEIRD), completely and absolutely content with our lives, holding Spanish movies in one hand and our present in the other. We made it back to our hotel, and now we’re gonna get in our beds (queen sized!) and watch one of our movies. Queeeee perfecto :)
But anyways, after our excursion to an indigenous town today (where many of us spent our pesos on beautifully woven… indigenous… things) we came back and had a nap… okay I actually didn’t nap, I talked to Tyler for awhile and then tried to read some articles, because even though it’s a SATURDAY, we still had class. Dumb. Then Abby, my roomie for this trip, and I decided we wanted dinner early (which is normal time for people in the US- 6:00), and asked around if anyone wanted to come with us. They all said it was too early. OH WELL! So we went out and got some food at this cute little restaurant and then decided to go find a movie to buy, as they sell movies here for EXTREMELY CHEAP (10 pesos= less than $1), which turned out to be an adventure in itself. We walked around and followed the directions of our waiter from the restaurant gave us, and saw San Cristobal as the sun was setting… absolutely beautiful. There are colonial buildings everywhere painted bright colors and filled with all kinds of shops. We walked past the main plaza and saw gorgeous churches, as always. I still have a fascination with the churches, even though I’ve seen so many churches here, more than I’ve probably seen in my entire life, and even though I’m not really religious. Every single one is different and absolutely beautiful.
But anyways, so Abby and I finally found a market, and after walking around being distracted by pretty things, but not finding movies ANYWHERE, we finally had to ask someone. "Where are the movies?" “The market! They’re at the market, keep walking straight.” Umm, okay… as if THIS isn’t a market? So we head off in the direction of the RIGHT market, and finally find our treasure… in fact, they were selling 3-in-1 movies for 15 pesos… So I bought the one with Pearl Harbor, Poseidon, and Titanic. I have yet to discover if they’re in Spanish or English. Abby, of course, being the grown-up child that she is and teacher-in-training bought Finding Nemo and Sharks, and some other under-the-sea movies. Love that girl. So we were extremely happy with ourselves as we began to head back to our hotel, when we stopped by the fake market again and spent several minutes looking at presents for our dads. After amusing ourselves there for a while, we continued our walk through a Mexican town in the dark and the rain (SO WEIRD), completely and absolutely content with our lives, holding Spanish movies in one hand and our present in the other. We made it back to our hotel, and now we’re gonna get in our beds (queen sized!) and watch one of our movies. Queeeee perfecto :)
Friday, April 10, 2009
5 more weeks...
We went and watched 2 baseball games last week, which were extremely fun! I didn't realize how much I missed watching sports until we sat down and saw the players warming up. Sports are such a huge part of American culture, and yes it's been nice to have a break from watching them ALL THE TIME on ESPN (ooohhh boyfriends, haha), but I really do enjoy watching them live, and this was no exception. I've never been to a minor/major league baseball game in the United States, but I could still tell some differences between this game and ones in the US. Firstly, the food they were selling was different... Here they sold donuts with cream in them, nuts with lemon and chile, iced cappuccinos, tortas (a mexican sandwich), and even Dominos pizza, which was surprisingly home-like to me. All this they sold walking around, we never had to leave our seats. I assume that the beer they sold was the same as the US, though the only brand they were selling was Corona. Before the game, they played Spanish music videos up on the big screen, and during the breaks, they played "Funniest Home Videos". Between every pitch they played a 5-second segment of a song, and if we ever got up to go to the bathroom, we got several cat-calls. At the first game, I was so excited about the idea of pizza that I just had to buy one, as back in the US I probably ate pizza at least once a week, maybe twice. After I bought one, the guy who sold it to me walked by again later, "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza! Hola," staring right at me. "Pizza!" He continued on. Niiiice.
Our team is the Oaxaca Guerreros (Warriors). The score was 2-6 in the seventh inning, but in the 8th, the Guerreros came back and got 3 homeruns, scoring 6 more points, and leading the other team by 2. The final score to this belatedly exciting game was 8-6! We were stoked... every time they scored a run, the crowd yelled this little thing... We couldn't quite make it out, but at the end it goes, Guerreros, Guerreros, ya ya ya! (Or ra ra ra, still can't tell) So we just join in at the end, pretending like we know stuff.
I've been asked from people from the US how my Easter went, and honestly, Easter sunday was like any other day here. The big celebrations are the week before, Semana Santa, or Holy Week. All the kids in the schools get 2 weeks off for this holiday, and everyone goes on vacation, so Oaxaca was more packed that normal. There are parties all week, but there are also alot of religious processions and church stuff. Every night there was a religious (I'm assuming) concert up on the ampitheater on the hill overlooking the main part of Oaxaca, and it was so beautiful that one night when me and Olivia were walking around downtown, we assumed it was from a church so we started walking towards it, trying to find where this music was coming from. When we found out it was from the ampitheater, were rather disappointed, but then continued on our way to Cheap Beer (aka 10 pesos per beer) night at Elefante, no longer distracted by the angelic music, but excited for the un-holiness of the club. PS we didn't have to buy ONE DRINK that night, because within a couple minutes of sitting down, boys bought us drinks, and our friend Edgar the bartender also liked to give us free beer. It was a fantastic night. :)
Anyways, back to Semana Santa. Thursday there are 7 churches open with their beautiful alters, and everyone goes around and visits them all. On Friday, they can only eat fish (which almost killed me, I'll explain in a bit), and there is the Procession of Silence through the main streets of Oaxaca, with candles and banners and many life-size images of Christ and the Angel that people carry around on their shoulders. I believe that every day the churches conducted Mass. It's an entire week of prayer and sacrifice and celebration. And everything is closed on Friday, which was unfortunate for me, as I was completely out of vital pieces of clean clothing and had to wait until Saturday to take my laundry in, and until Monday to pick it up, which meant hand-washing in the sink. Wonderful. ;)
So, I have to bashfully admit that I had a tad bit too much to drink on Thursday night of Semana Santa, which I'll just quickly glaze over as too much fun at Elefante with our group and people we met there. The point is that I was hungover on Friday. Which was probably one of the worst choices I could have made, because as you already know, on Fridays they serve fish, which I have decided has got to be the worst hangover food IN THE WORLD. So the story goes, that I sit down for lunch with a rather big part of my host-parents family, and the first thing I do is gulp down a glass of juice, as I'm dehydrated from the night before and am afraid to enter the kitchen to get water because it's like this mysterious off-limits place for me, and plus there were alot of people here. So there I am sucking down the juice that I know somewhere contains some water, and my dad asks me if I would like a beer, and out of habit I say, Sure! As soon as he brings it out, I remember- I'm hungover. I do not WANT alcohol. NOW I HAVE TO DRINK IT ALL. My mom then brings out the first course, soup. This soup was like chili, but with shrimp. I already don't like shrimp, but I ate it anyways, hoping the next part of the meal would be better. But no. As you already know, my mom served me fish. Which is different than the fish at home. There was also this fish-flavored rice on the side, with of course, shrimp. I stared at this plate of food for about a minute, poked at it, took a little bite of each, and then stared at it some more, trying to settle my stomach. Because on top of all of this, they were also offering sardines around the table, and Constanza was eating worms. YES. WORMS. Like it was NORMAL. "Oooh! This one has eyes!" she squealed. "All animals have eyes." My host mom said off-handedly, and Constanza twirled the worm around her fingers and slurped it up anyways. Oh. God. I try to get some more of my beer down, but no such luck. My mom looks over at me. "Do you feel alright?" NO I DO NOT FEEL ALRIGHT! I'M HUNGOVER AND YOU'RE SERVING ME DEAD FISH AND WORMS!
"Ehh, I think I'm sick." I say, looking at my plate. My dad looks at me for a second, then gives me that EYE. You know. The one that says, I know why you're not feeling well, I know how late you stayed out last night, and let me tell you, you weren't just playing cards! Whatever, like he can talk, he drinks alcohol every DAY with lunch! You keep drinking your coke and rum, Padre...
"How much did you drink last night?" My dads sister asked me, right out, startling me.
"Umm... some beer, some tequila..." I answer carefully.
"Did you have mezcal?" She asks sternly.
"Just a little bit..." I say. Who is this woman??
"Oh no. Mezcal. You should never mix mezcal and tequila!" She says, as if I've just commited some horrible error, which in her mind I guess I did.
"Yes. It's like an explosion in your stomach." My host mom says gravely.
"Well I only had a little bit..." I say in my defense. I look down at my food again. Oh jeez...
"You don't have to finish that." My mom says, watching me. "I can eat it, you're sick you should go rest!" And I don't wait for another push in the direction of my bed.
"Thank you." I say. "Buen provecho." Then I get into bed and go back to sleep. Oh the joy of siestas!
School right now is getting stressful. We have a test tomorrow, presentations next Tuesday, a decifering-zapoteca-writing assignment due on Wednesday, and then we leave for Chiapas for 10 days, and when we come back we have one 5-page paper due that week, and another 5-page paper (including research we have to conduct) due the week after that. So instead of staying here and working on these projects as we know we should, this weekend some of us are heading off to Puerto again, which makes me EXTREMELY HAPPY! We booked the hotel today, bought the bus tickets, and we're leaving tomorrow night at 11:00 pm again, so that we'll have 2 whole days there in paradise before coming back on Sunday. I figure it'll be the perfect way to get refreshed and relaxed before the shit hits the fan and we have to get down to business with all these projects. It's going to be WONDERFUL!!!! I recommend that everyone visit Puerto Escondido and stay at Hotel Ines at some point in their lives, okay? Do it. Or you will disappoint me. :)
We have 5 more weeks here, which sometimes seems like such a short time!! I really love Oaxaca and leaving will be RATHER upsetting, but what can you do? I'm excited to go home and see everyone I've been missing, but I also know that I'm going to miss this place so much, it means so much to me and I absolutely love it, just like I would love a sibling... It can get to me at times but I know that it will always have a wonderful place in my heart.
Our team is the Oaxaca Guerreros (Warriors). The score was 2-6 in the seventh inning, but in the 8th, the Guerreros came back and got 3 homeruns, scoring 6 more points, and leading the other team by 2. The final score to this belatedly exciting game was 8-6! We were stoked... every time they scored a run, the crowd yelled this little thing... We couldn't quite make it out, but at the end it goes, Guerreros, Guerreros, ya ya ya! (Or ra ra ra, still can't tell) So we just join in at the end, pretending like we know stuff.
I've been asked from people from the US how my Easter went, and honestly, Easter sunday was like any other day here. The big celebrations are the week before, Semana Santa, or Holy Week. All the kids in the schools get 2 weeks off for this holiday, and everyone goes on vacation, so Oaxaca was more packed that normal. There are parties all week, but there are also alot of religious processions and church stuff. Every night there was a religious (I'm assuming) concert up on the ampitheater on the hill overlooking the main part of Oaxaca, and it was so beautiful that one night when me and Olivia were walking around downtown, we assumed it was from a church so we started walking towards it, trying to find where this music was coming from. When we found out it was from the ampitheater, were rather disappointed, but then continued on our way to Cheap Beer (aka 10 pesos per beer) night at Elefante, no longer distracted by the angelic music, but excited for the un-holiness of the club. PS we didn't have to buy ONE DRINK that night, because within a couple minutes of sitting down, boys bought us drinks, and our friend Edgar the bartender also liked to give us free beer. It was a fantastic night. :)
Anyways, back to Semana Santa. Thursday there are 7 churches open with their beautiful alters, and everyone goes around and visits them all. On Friday, they can only eat fish (which almost killed me, I'll explain in a bit), and there is the Procession of Silence through the main streets of Oaxaca, with candles and banners and many life-size images of Christ and the Angel that people carry around on their shoulders. I believe that every day the churches conducted Mass. It's an entire week of prayer and sacrifice and celebration. And everything is closed on Friday, which was unfortunate for me, as I was completely out of vital pieces of clean clothing and had to wait until Saturday to take my laundry in, and until Monday to pick it up, which meant hand-washing in the sink. Wonderful. ;)
So, I have to bashfully admit that I had a tad bit too much to drink on Thursday night of Semana Santa, which I'll just quickly glaze over as too much fun at Elefante with our group and people we met there. The point is that I was hungover on Friday. Which was probably one of the worst choices I could have made, because as you already know, on Fridays they serve fish, which I have decided has got to be the worst hangover food IN THE WORLD. So the story goes, that I sit down for lunch with a rather big part of my host-parents family, and the first thing I do is gulp down a glass of juice, as I'm dehydrated from the night before and am afraid to enter the kitchen to get water because it's like this mysterious off-limits place for me, and plus there were alot of people here. So there I am sucking down the juice that I know somewhere contains some water, and my dad asks me if I would like a beer, and out of habit I say, Sure! As soon as he brings it out, I remember- I'm hungover. I do not WANT alcohol. NOW I HAVE TO DRINK IT ALL. My mom then brings out the first course, soup. This soup was like chili, but with shrimp. I already don't like shrimp, but I ate it anyways, hoping the next part of the meal would be better. But no. As you already know, my mom served me fish. Which is different than the fish at home. There was also this fish-flavored rice on the side, with of course, shrimp. I stared at this plate of food for about a minute, poked at it, took a little bite of each, and then stared at it some more, trying to settle my stomach. Because on top of all of this, they were also offering sardines around the table, and Constanza was eating worms. YES. WORMS. Like it was NORMAL. "Oooh! This one has eyes!" she squealed. "All animals have eyes." My host mom said off-handedly, and Constanza twirled the worm around her fingers and slurped it up anyways. Oh. God. I try to get some more of my beer down, but no such luck. My mom looks over at me. "Do you feel alright?" NO I DO NOT FEEL ALRIGHT! I'M HUNGOVER AND YOU'RE SERVING ME DEAD FISH AND WORMS!
"Ehh, I think I'm sick." I say, looking at my plate. My dad looks at me for a second, then gives me that EYE. You know. The one that says, I know why you're not feeling well, I know how late you stayed out last night, and let me tell you, you weren't just playing cards! Whatever, like he can talk, he drinks alcohol every DAY with lunch! You keep drinking your coke and rum, Padre...
"How much did you drink last night?" My dads sister asked me, right out, startling me.
"Umm... some beer, some tequila..." I answer carefully.
"Did you have mezcal?" She asks sternly.
"Just a little bit..." I say. Who is this woman??
"Oh no. Mezcal. You should never mix mezcal and tequila!" She says, as if I've just commited some horrible error, which in her mind I guess I did.
"Yes. It's like an explosion in your stomach." My host mom says gravely.
"Well I only had a little bit..." I say in my defense. I look down at my food again. Oh jeez...
"You don't have to finish that." My mom says, watching me. "I can eat it, you're sick you should go rest!" And I don't wait for another push in the direction of my bed.
"Thank you." I say. "Buen provecho." Then I get into bed and go back to sleep. Oh the joy of siestas!
School right now is getting stressful. We have a test tomorrow, presentations next Tuesday, a decifering-zapoteca-writing assignment due on Wednesday, and then we leave for Chiapas for 10 days, and when we come back we have one 5-page paper due that week, and another 5-page paper (including research we have to conduct) due the week after that. So instead of staying here and working on these projects as we know we should, this weekend some of us are heading off to Puerto again, which makes me EXTREMELY HAPPY! We booked the hotel today, bought the bus tickets, and we're leaving tomorrow night at 11:00 pm again, so that we'll have 2 whole days there in paradise before coming back on Sunday. I figure it'll be the perfect way to get refreshed and relaxed before the shit hits the fan and we have to get down to business with all these projects. It's going to be WONDERFUL!!!! I recommend that everyone visit Puerto Escondido and stay at Hotel Ines at some point in their lives, okay? Do it. Or you will disappoint me. :)
We have 5 more weeks here, which sometimes seems like such a short time!! I really love Oaxaca and leaving will be RATHER upsetting, but what can you do? I'm excited to go home and see everyone I've been missing, but I also know that I'm going to miss this place so much, it means so much to me and I absolutely love it, just like I would love a sibling... It can get to me at times but I know that it will always have a wonderful place in my heart.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Weather and Family
So the weather is really getting to me right now... I know that people back home at this moment are celebrating the break they're having from the rain. I remember this very well... the rain all winter, drizzling, cold, windy. The kind of rain that pushes in on you, and everyone gets irritable easily and seems to have less energy than usual. And then suddenly, the sun comes out for a few precious days, and everyone realizes that that sinking feeling that they didn't even realize they had was gone... you feel lighter and happier. Everyone goes outside for a walk, or sits on a blanket on the yard, or plays some outside sports because who knows when it'll be sunny like this again? Girls bust out their shorts and tank tops, even though everyone knows its a TAD bit cold for that... some of them even lay out on the lawn in their bikinis, to the extreme happiness of all the boys, who take this time to "play football" but you KNOW they're just stealing glances at the girls. And then suddenly, perhaps its half a day or even a few days later, the rain comes back, as you knew it would. And everyone feels sad but slightly energized from the few days of sun, though soon life becomes as it was... grey, cold, wet. And you hope and you PRAY for the clouds to part once again.
Being in Mexico, I must say that I feel differently about the sun right now. For the last week, I've slept in just my underclothes, with my ceiling fan on and no covers, and I still end up sweating. Each day is so hot that I don't WANT to go outside. And I feel extremely guilty complaining about this to anyone who's at home, because I know they're thinking in that sarcastic way, "Well at least you're not in the RAIN all day." And though I know that it's extremely hot, I also know that one day I'll be back in the United States, complaining about the rain and the cold, and wishing I were in Mexico. We always seem to want what we can't have.
Today my family returned from Switzerland. They traveled there for their nephews wedding and have been gone since I came back from Puerto Escondido. Olivia and I came back from classes today, knowing that they'd be back, and walked excitedly into my house. We were instantly covered in kisses on our cheeks and greeted over and over again, "Hola mi hijas! Como estan?? Hola!" And though we were only greeting 5 people, it felt like 10. After all the craziness, my mom went into her room and brought out chocolate (FROM SWITZERLAND OF COURSE)for me and Olivia... probably some of the BEST chocolate I've ever had! We basically scarfed down half of it in about 5 minutes, it was so great. Soon we all sat down for comida, and I instantly felt at home again... my dad with his coca-cola and alcohol mix, my mom warning us about our safety and health, my host sister smoking and saying, "buen-is-is-is-ISIMO" when she gets excited about something, Santiago playing with his planes, and Constanza coloring while sitting on the floor. Olivias mom and sister joined us, which just added to the craziness of the meal. There of course was tortillas and cheese and salsa and amazing soup that my mom makes which is fantastic. And Remigio of course constantly toasting to me and Olivia, calling us his loves, and that thing him and I say to each other all the time when passing things, "MY salsa, please?" "Can you hand me MY cheese, please?" and the other will say either, "Of course, YOUR salsa," or, "NOOOO, this is MY salsa." Basically we're dorks. I'm extremely happy that they're back though, as I feel much more at home with them here and of course, not so alone. I didn't realize how much I missed them until they came back.
I sent Tyler an email yesterday saying the following, because I seem to go back and forth between missing home and absolutely loving it here and never wanting to leave. In the moment that I sent this email, I was definitely in the missing home stage:
I'm ready to come home. I'm tired of homework and projects and hotness and walking around all the time and studying and people whistling and cat-calling and staring and saying things, and not being able to choose my food or how much I want of it and highlighters that dont work and stray dogs and the smell of sewage and crazy driving and crazy professors. I'm tired of not understanding and not being able to say what I want to say, and 2 hour classes and exams and the threat of palm leaves falling on my head and killing me, and ants in my room and piles of articles I have to read. I'm tired of only being able to see you through a webcam and not being able to touch you. I'm tired of missing Cassy's softball games and not being able to play with Brayden and watch him grow. I miss my North Face jacket and my jeans and rain and coffee with that really bad creamer that's so good, and my moms random style of cooking and dancing with Cassy and hearing Brittanys stories and Starbucks and Claire and my car and my phone and my dads hamburgers and the Oregon coast and shorts.
To which he could only reply:
It just shows that no matter how wonderful the place is, family and love still remain without question the things that people need the most.
To which I can only agree.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Puerto Escondido!
Puerto Escondido is basically the love of my LIFE. I couldn't really tell you exactly what has happened every day, as they all kindof run together now, but this is the basis of my week: laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, eating quesadillas, drinking on the beach, sunbathing, eating quesadillas, making new friends. Its absolutely beautiful all the time, our hotel is right on the beach and I can see the ocean from where I'm sitting right now... This beach has the 3rd best surf in the world, there are surf competitions here but unfortunately for the single girls of the group, not right now. And though the days do seem to run together, here are a few memories that stick out in my mind:
1. Our bus ride was 9.5 hours; we left at 11 pm and rode all night. I tried to sleep, but the road was so curvy that my head kept wipping around all the time and waking me up, so basically NO SLEEP for an entire night. we got into Puerto Escondido around 8:30, took a taxi to our hotel, dropped our stuff off and went to find some breakfast at one of the many thatched-roof huts on the side of the beach.
2. A guy walks up to us at sunset one evening and asks us if we would like to go on a boat tour the next morning, and we say our favorite catch phrase here, "Why not?" So the next morning we wake up with the sun and ride in the back of a truck to this beach, where we meet Jesus and Julio, our guides for the next few hours as we ride around on the ocean in a boat, looking at dolphins, sea turtles, and stingrays. Then the drop us off at a beautiful beach, where we get to chill for a few hours and of course drink margaritas and eat quesadillas. They came to pick us up a few hours later.
3. We have decided that the cheese here has some sort of crack in it, as the only thing we all CRAVE are quesadillas. There hasn't been one day where I haven't had them!
4. One restaurant gave us chips and salsa for an appetizer, and we all gasped when the waitress up them on the table in front of us... since we've been in Mexico, no one has served us chips and salsa. This basically made our entire day.
5. Sitting on the beach with everyone, holding a beer, and staring up at the stars, realizing that I haven't seen the southern half of the sky before. The big dipper was upside down and the North Star was almost on the horizon. It really makes me realize how far away I actually am from home.
6. Beau making fun of Abby and I, because we were talking about our Senior Projects. "I baked a cake!" Abby said. "I made a quilt!" I added. "Wow, nice to meet you Betsy and Marge." Beau snorted.
7. It is not possible for 8 girls to live together and spend almost every moment together and for there to not be girl drama. Impossible. ANNOYING.
8. Our many friends we've made: The surfer boys we met on the first day who asked us to hold their stuff while the surfed... "Hi, I'm Golden." You suuuure are buddy. "More like crispy burnt." Linnaea said when they walked away. The Guys Downstairs, who lived below us for the first part of the week and who we liked to go hang out with. Jesus and Julio, our boat guides, who invited us to a bar on monday night. We continue to see Julio everywhere, which is becoming a bit awkward as we tried to set up Linnaea with him and they didn't really work out (She decided that he probably dates all the tourist girls and likes to keep a tally of them). Tom the New Zealander, who likes to hit on me and Olivia, especially Olivia, because I've made it clear about the whole, "I have an American boyfriend" thing. He definitely gave Olivia a kiss or two on her hand, and likes to make jokes that you usually make with people you know better and not girls you just met. Eric and friends, boys from New York who didn't think they'd get burnt from the sun because they went tanning before they came. Riiiiight, nice try boys. The best part about these boys though was the fact that we got to give them advice about Mexico, as if we were locals! We recommended places to go, what bus to take, told them that yeah don't drink the water but you can probably still brush your teeth with it, and gave them the best news they had ever heard, "The peso is 13 to a dollar, not 7, morons."
1. Our bus ride was 9.5 hours; we left at 11 pm and rode all night. I tried to sleep, but the road was so curvy that my head kept wipping around all the time and waking me up, so basically NO SLEEP for an entire night. we got into Puerto Escondido around 8:30, took a taxi to our hotel, dropped our stuff off and went to find some breakfast at one of the many thatched-roof huts on the side of the beach.
2. A guy walks up to us at sunset one evening and asks us if we would like to go on a boat tour the next morning, and we say our favorite catch phrase here, "Why not?" So the next morning we wake up with the sun and ride in the back of a truck to this beach, where we meet Jesus and Julio, our guides for the next few hours as we ride around on the ocean in a boat, looking at dolphins, sea turtles, and stingrays. Then the drop us off at a beautiful beach, where we get to chill for a few hours and of course drink margaritas and eat quesadillas. They came to pick us up a few hours later.
3. We have decided that the cheese here has some sort of crack in it, as the only thing we all CRAVE are quesadillas. There hasn't been one day where I haven't had them!
4. One restaurant gave us chips and salsa for an appetizer, and we all gasped when the waitress up them on the table in front of us... since we've been in Mexico, no one has served us chips and salsa. This basically made our entire day.
5. Sitting on the beach with everyone, holding a beer, and staring up at the stars, realizing that I haven't seen the southern half of the sky before. The big dipper was upside down and the North Star was almost on the horizon. It really makes me realize how far away I actually am from home.
6. Beau making fun of Abby and I, because we were talking about our Senior Projects. "I baked a cake!" Abby said. "I made a quilt!" I added. "Wow, nice to meet you Betsy and Marge." Beau snorted.
7. It is not possible for 8 girls to live together and spend almost every moment together and for there to not be girl drama. Impossible. ANNOYING.
8. Our many friends we've made: The surfer boys we met on the first day who asked us to hold their stuff while the surfed... "Hi, I'm Golden." You suuuure are buddy. "More like crispy burnt." Linnaea said when they walked away. The Guys Downstairs, who lived below us for the first part of the week and who we liked to go hang out with. Jesus and Julio, our boat guides, who invited us to a bar on monday night. We continue to see Julio everywhere, which is becoming a bit awkward as we tried to set up Linnaea with him and they didn't really work out (She decided that he probably dates all the tourist girls and likes to keep a tally of them). Tom the New Zealander, who likes to hit on me and Olivia, especially Olivia, because I've made it clear about the whole, "I have an American boyfriend" thing. He definitely gave Olivia a kiss or two on her hand, and likes to make jokes that you usually make with people you know better and not girls you just met. Eric and friends, boys from New York who didn't think they'd get burnt from the sun because they went tanning before they came. Riiiiight, nice try boys. The best part about these boys though was the fact that we got to give them advice about Mexico, as if we were locals! We recommended places to go, what bus to take, told them that yeah don't drink the water but you can probably still brush your teeth with it, and gave them the best news they had ever heard, "The peso is 13 to a dollar, not 7, morons."
8. Tonight a little boy came up to us and tried to sell us muffins, and because he was so adorable, we bought some. "You look like movie stars," he said later, coming back to our table. "Awwww!" we exclaim. "Want a muffin?" Erm. No. We already hopped on that boat and we're not falling for your cuteness again. "No, but you have really good english!" We tell him, hoping that'll console him.
9. The decisions we have to make here are SO difficult... What dress should I buy? Which drink should I get? Should I get crepes or an omelet for breakfast? Should we go to this beach or that one? Should I tan or go swimming? Do I want to sit in a hammock or a chair? Do I want dessert? Our arguments are as equally hard... I think that tequila goes better with mango. Well I think RUM goes better, etc. We've got some life-changing decisions to make here, as well as monumental arguments to discuss. It feels great not to think about anything other than food, drinks, and beaches. I know that that can't last FOREVER, but for now it's perfect.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Fish Soup
Exactly 6 hours until our bus leaves for Puerto Escondido... we had to book our tickets for 11:00 pm tonight, because they didn't have any buses leaving tomorrow. I think the busride is about 7ish hours, so we'll be there sometime tomorrow morning...? I have no idea what we'll do before we check in to our hotel, perhaps drag our luggage to the beach and stay there and people-watch and maybe get a margarita until our check-in time! We are all extremely excited because today we finally got done with all the stuff we had to do; classes 2 days this week, then a festival for the other 2 days. We had 2 exams last week and that 5-page paper, which I believe all turned out alright! My debit card arrived on tuesday, and now my faith in the Mexican postal service has been renewed.
Yesterday we left for San Miguel Tequixtepec, an extremely small town somewhere north of Oaxaca City. We arrive by bus and there is absolutely NO ONE in the city square, which we think is extremely weird for a pueblo in Mexico... eventually we make it to a house thing that's shaped like a C, with a kitchen on one side, a church altar in the middle part of the C, and a place to sit and eat on the other side. In the middle open area is a band, who play basically throughout the ENTIRE fiesta. All we can see are men; apparently all the women are cooking outside, away from everything else. The ground is LITTERED with beer bottle caps! We sit down and wait for our comida... we're all starving from the trip and from walking around aimlessly all morning. First, they give us some fish soup in a styrofoam cup. I am a little unsure about this at first, but I see Abby put saltine crackers in hers, and so I do the same, and it actually turns out alright... By the end though I don't really want any more of the fishyness so I put the wrapper on top of the leftovers and hope that it wouldn't be noticed.
The next part of the meal is the soup. They bring it to me, and I simply stare at it for about 10 minutes before doing anything else. It's a sea-food soup. It's a redish-orange color, with some black things floating on the top. Firstly, there is a chunk of fish with the skin still on it... Okay I might be able to handle that. Then I see shrimp. I don't really like shrimp, but I decide to stir it and see maybe if I could eat it. BAD IDEA. I discover that there are infact 2 huge shrimp in my soup, with their HEADS still on, eyeballs, whiskers and all, staring up at me. Oh, except for one is missing one of it's eyeballs, but DONT WORRY, I find it floating among the black stuff on top. I also dig up some backbones of fish, among other iffy-looking pieces of stuff at the bottom. No. I'm sorry. But this is not Fear Factor and I cannot eat this. My profesora leans over to me, "Stop making faces, it's rude!" Aww crap. So I take a couple sips of the broth, which isn't THAT bad but still is too fishy for me. All I can do is hope that the next part of the meal will be better.
Which of course isn't the case. Next, we get served octopus with the suckers still on it. It's even a nice purpleish color. I try it, because I really can't believe that this meal is going the way that it's going... I have to FORCE it down my throat, it's extremely chewy and has a chicken/fishy taste... Abby tells me later that she spit hers out into a napkin. Smart. So for lunch I eat rice and tortillas. After lunch they have a small mass, at which about 5 of us are holding beer bottles still because these guys just LOVE giving us beer, even if we say, "No gracias!" They still pop it open and shove it into our hands. So guiltily we are holding our Sols, not hearing a word the priest says, and suddenly everyone is walking out and giving us these flower arrangements to hold, and everyone starts walking down the street, through out the town. The procession starts with the women holding about 25 of these flower arrangments (including Beau and Gordon), and then the men walking with candles, and the band playing at the back. We walk all the way to the church, gently place the flowers inside, and then sit and listen to Mass, which is basically like Mass in english back at home; stand up, sit down, cross yourself, stand up, say words in unison, sing, cross yourself again, sit down, say, "paz" (peace be with you) and shake everyones hands around you, smile at the cute kid sitting infront of you who is definitely NOT listening to the sermon but giggling with her sisters and looking at you, stand up, say a prayer, kneel, sit down, etc. The major difference is that the church is EXTREMELY elaborate and decorated, I couldn't understand half of what the priest said, and I didn't have to sit in the pews while everyone else gets up and takes the bread and wine, declaring to all that I'm a sinner who hasn't been baptised. That step was skipped all together in this Mass. When we leave, there's the band! Right outside of the church... how dutiful. They shoot off a couple of the noise fireworks and send us on our way to dinner.
While at dinner, we get served another soup, which I can't finish because they gave me a TON of it, and are also given beer and 2 shots of tequila throughout the night. The band is OF COURSE outside again, playing away, and the women are nowhere to be seen. Our profesora leans over after the meal and says to us girls, "It would be NICE if you danced with them," aka DANCE WITH THEM or I'll be mad. Soooo reluctantly, we all stand up and immediatly are jumped on and asked to dance, which basically consists of a guy holding you extremly close to him and bouncing around, or in Charlottes case, running around in circles with the guy leading her; I could NOT stop laughing watching it! She was simply OUT OF CONTROL and the guy was most likely drunk and didn't realize how crazily he was spinning her. At one point I look up and the guy playing the tuba was also holding up his phone and either texting or taking pictures, I couldn't tell. We try leaving after 2 dances, but NO we can NOT, the guys are DRAGGING us back out on the dance floor against our will, and so we all get roped into dancing one more time. After that song we hurriedly say goodbye, I give my partner a kiss on the cheek, and we SCRAMBLE out of there.
For our sleeping arrangements, we have 3 bunk beds in our room, but they are so unsteady that we are afraid for our lives of sleeping on them, so we drag the 3 top beds onto the floor and Charlotte, Alli and Olivia sleep on them while the rest of us take the bottom bunks. There are no pillows, so I attempt to use my bag, which basically is me sleeping on a piece of cloth for a pillow. I usually don't sleep with blankets over my head but tonight is an exception, because it's FREEZING. We're all sleeping in basically what we wore that day. In the morning at about 4, they set off another round of fireworks, and I feel like we're being attacked during a war. At exactly 6, the band starts playing again for about 15 minutes. "Mexico is never on time, but for THESE occasions, they're RIGHT ON THE BUTTON." Ally says. Then again at about 7:30, they start up the music again, and we're finally get out of bed and are DONE with this hostel. We shove the mattresses back up on the beds and go back to the C place for breakfast (which by this point I'm just AFRAID of), which is a loaf of bread and lamb soup. We then go to a museum and listen to the guy talk for about 2 hours straight, and finally get to get back on the bus and leave.
And NOW I'm gonna start packing! Yay for spring break!
Yesterday we left for San Miguel Tequixtepec, an extremely small town somewhere north of Oaxaca City. We arrive by bus and there is absolutely NO ONE in the city square, which we think is extremely weird for a pueblo in Mexico... eventually we make it to a house thing that's shaped like a C, with a kitchen on one side, a church altar in the middle part of the C, and a place to sit and eat on the other side. In the middle open area is a band, who play basically throughout the ENTIRE fiesta. All we can see are men; apparently all the women are cooking outside, away from everything else. The ground is LITTERED with beer bottle caps! We sit down and wait for our comida... we're all starving from the trip and from walking around aimlessly all morning. First, they give us some fish soup in a styrofoam cup. I am a little unsure about this at first, but I see Abby put saltine crackers in hers, and so I do the same, and it actually turns out alright... By the end though I don't really want any more of the fishyness so I put the wrapper on top of the leftovers and hope that it wouldn't be noticed.
The next part of the meal is the soup. They bring it to me, and I simply stare at it for about 10 minutes before doing anything else. It's a sea-food soup. It's a redish-orange color, with some black things floating on the top. Firstly, there is a chunk of fish with the skin still on it... Okay I might be able to handle that. Then I see shrimp. I don't really like shrimp, but I decide to stir it and see maybe if I could eat it. BAD IDEA. I discover that there are infact 2 huge shrimp in my soup, with their HEADS still on, eyeballs, whiskers and all, staring up at me. Oh, except for one is missing one of it's eyeballs, but DONT WORRY, I find it floating among the black stuff on top. I also dig up some backbones of fish, among other iffy-looking pieces of stuff at the bottom. No. I'm sorry. But this is not Fear Factor and I cannot eat this. My profesora leans over to me, "Stop making faces, it's rude!" Aww crap. So I take a couple sips of the broth, which isn't THAT bad but still is too fishy for me. All I can do is hope that the next part of the meal will be better.
Which of course isn't the case. Next, we get served octopus with the suckers still on it. It's even a nice purpleish color. I try it, because I really can't believe that this meal is going the way that it's going... I have to FORCE it down my throat, it's extremely chewy and has a chicken/fishy taste... Abby tells me later that she spit hers out into a napkin. Smart. So for lunch I eat rice and tortillas. After lunch they have a small mass, at which about 5 of us are holding beer bottles still because these guys just LOVE giving us beer, even if we say, "No gracias!" They still pop it open and shove it into our hands. So guiltily we are holding our Sols, not hearing a word the priest says, and suddenly everyone is walking out and giving us these flower arrangements to hold, and everyone starts walking down the street, through out the town. The procession starts with the women holding about 25 of these flower arrangments (including Beau and Gordon), and then the men walking with candles, and the band playing at the back. We walk all the way to the church, gently place the flowers inside, and then sit and listen to Mass, which is basically like Mass in english back at home; stand up, sit down, cross yourself, stand up, say words in unison, sing, cross yourself again, sit down, say, "paz" (peace be with you) and shake everyones hands around you, smile at the cute kid sitting infront of you who is definitely NOT listening to the sermon but giggling with her sisters and looking at you, stand up, say a prayer, kneel, sit down, etc. The major difference is that the church is EXTREMELY elaborate and decorated, I couldn't understand half of what the priest said, and I didn't have to sit in the pews while everyone else gets up and takes the bread and wine, declaring to all that I'm a sinner who hasn't been baptised. That step was skipped all together in this Mass. When we leave, there's the band! Right outside of the church... how dutiful. They shoot off a couple of the noise fireworks and send us on our way to dinner.
While at dinner, we get served another soup, which I can't finish because they gave me a TON of it, and are also given beer and 2 shots of tequila throughout the night. The band is OF COURSE outside again, playing away, and the women are nowhere to be seen. Our profesora leans over after the meal and says to us girls, "It would be NICE if you danced with them," aka DANCE WITH THEM or I'll be mad. Soooo reluctantly, we all stand up and immediatly are jumped on and asked to dance, which basically consists of a guy holding you extremly close to him and bouncing around, or in Charlottes case, running around in circles with the guy leading her; I could NOT stop laughing watching it! She was simply OUT OF CONTROL and the guy was most likely drunk and didn't realize how crazily he was spinning her. At one point I look up and the guy playing the tuba was also holding up his phone and either texting or taking pictures, I couldn't tell. We try leaving after 2 dances, but NO we can NOT, the guys are DRAGGING us back out on the dance floor against our will, and so we all get roped into dancing one more time. After that song we hurriedly say goodbye, I give my partner a kiss on the cheek, and we SCRAMBLE out of there.
For our sleeping arrangements, we have 3 bunk beds in our room, but they are so unsteady that we are afraid for our lives of sleeping on them, so we drag the 3 top beds onto the floor and Charlotte, Alli and Olivia sleep on them while the rest of us take the bottom bunks. There are no pillows, so I attempt to use my bag, which basically is me sleeping on a piece of cloth for a pillow. I usually don't sleep with blankets over my head but tonight is an exception, because it's FREEZING. We're all sleeping in basically what we wore that day. In the morning at about 4, they set off another round of fireworks, and I feel like we're being attacked during a war. At exactly 6, the band starts playing again for about 15 minutes. "Mexico is never on time, but for THESE occasions, they're RIGHT ON THE BUTTON." Ally says. Then again at about 7:30, they start up the music again, and we're finally get out of bed and are DONE with this hostel. We shove the mattresses back up on the beds and go back to the C place for breakfast (which by this point I'm just AFRAID of), which is a loaf of bread and lamb soup. We then go to a museum and listen to the guy talk for about 2 hours straight, and finally get to get back on the bus and leave.
And NOW I'm gonna start packing! Yay for spring break!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
El cajero
Yesterday we canceled our intercambios because we have a 5 page paper due tomorrow along with two exams the day after tomorrow, so we figured this would be beneficial for our studying. Also, Livey decides that it's a good day for a walk, and that we should start walking every day! So we leave at the usual time we leave for intercambios and decide to walk to the Zocalo to find the elusive market where Marina found a foot scrubber, and also Livey needs to see if these pharmacys down here have some medicine she needs, and I need to withdraw more money, as at the moment I only have 11 pesos to my name. So we begin our usual walk to the Zocalo, trying to practice our spanish, and arrive at a pharmacy, where LUCKY US! there's a cajero (ATM) right there inside! Two birds with one stone. Excellent.
So I put my card in, put in my pin number, and tell them I want 1500 pesos (100 US dollars). "Do you want a reciept?" It asks me. Why yes I do. I press the button, and suddenly it goes back to the main screen, "Please insert your card." I was distracted at first and didn't notice what had happened. "Did you get your card back?" Livey asks me. I stare at the machine. No. No I did not. And no money came out either. I look around me, then look back at the machine. Then I look at Livey, and then back at the machine. What? I bang a little bit on the machine. Nothing. Confused, I walk up to the person behind the counter. "Mi tarjeta esta a dentro de la caja." (My card is inside the box) I'm not sure if she understood me, because who even knows if that's correct spanish, so she turns around to leave and then about 10 seconds later I see her taking inventory of a little fridge filled with soda. Ummm... okay.... I walk over to her again, feeling stupid. "Umm, tengo un problema." She looks up. "Digame." (Tell me) I again tried to explain to her my problem, and finally she gets it. She walks over to the machine, inspects it for a bit, says some spanish words to us in which we understood that we had to call the bank to find out what to do. Frustrated, I take the paper and me and Livey head off to find a public telephone. I'm saying small cuss words at this moment, like "damnit, I just want my stupid card back. Just open the dang ATM and get it back to me. Ugh. ITS IN THERE, I KNOW IT IS." and others among those lines.
We finally find a phone and I call the number, trying to understand all the options for all the numbers, which I pretty much fail at, so I just start pressing random numbers and hoping it'll get me to an operator. No such luck. So Livey tries, and she succeeds in getting a ring tone, and hands the phone to me. A lady answers and say some stuff in spanish, and when I think it's my turn to talk, I say, "Hola, soy Ashley, y tengo un problema... mi tarjeta esta a dentro de un cajero." And then she says something very quickly in spanish, and I say, "Otra vez?" (Again?) and she says it again, and I make confused noises, and then the line goes silent, and then dead. Wonderful, she hung up on me. Livey gets back on the line, and I look desperately around for someone to help. There's a guy standing in a store doorway about 20 feet away, thank God for mexican store workers who like to stand in doorways and help shoppers as soon as they even glance at the entryway...
"Senor? Puede ayudarme?" (Can you help me?) He nods and while we're walking the couple steps back to the phone, I explain to him my problem. Livey gives him the phone, which is apparently on hold, and then he totally takes over. He explains everything, says, "ah-huh, ah-huh, si..." several times, talks a little more, asks us where we're from, then suddenly looks at me and says, "la tarjeta esta destruida," and it's then that I start crying uncontrollably while trying to hold it in, which doesn't work very well at all. My card is DESTROYED? WHAT?!? I have no money! I'm in Mexico and I have no money! I didn't even bring my credit card because WHO KNEW something like this would happen?! I HAVE 11 PESOS. THATS LIKE LESS THAN 50 CENTS. I'm stranded. It'll take months to get me a new card. WHAT THE HELL?? Why would the stupid machine destroy my card?! "WHAT the F***" I say out loud (Sorry Mom), and the guy on the phone for us looks at me kinda nervously, and then continues his conversation with the lady on the phone. Livey is trying to calm me down, which isn't working very well. Finally the guy gets off the phone, talks to us for a bit and tells us that we need to call Visa and they can get me a temporary card, but I can't withdraw money from it, and I should call my bank at home and do something... We thank him profusely and start walking home, letting out a string of cuss words, and for once I'm glad that most of the people here don't understand english.
We get back to my house, explain to my mom, and call my profesora. "You need to go down to the bank and demand that they open the ATM and GIVE you at least the pieces of the card that are left, so we KNOW it's destroyed and your bank can send you another one. Go talk to them, you should even SCREAM, DEMAND that you get that card back. You're American, they can't touch you!" I decide that I'm not really comfortable with this, so we decide to meet her at the bank that owns the ATM machine in 15 minutes. When we arrive, the bank has already closed, and my profesora has to yell through two glass doors to be able to talk to the security guy who's on the other side... Eventually we find another public phone and she calls the bank and talks to them for about 10 minutes, in which we figure out that if a card isn't returned from a machine, the bank automatically closes the account. So our profesora hangs up, gives me a calling card, and I call my parents so that they can call my bank and have them close the account and send me a new card, which SHOULD get here within a week, and in the meantime I'll just have to borrown money from Olivia. So today Livey got her walk that she wanted plus some, and we spent 3 hours running around Oaxaca figuring this out rather than writing our 5 page paper and studying. Great.
But of course, whenever something bad happens, something good always seems to follow, no matter how small the good. I came home and finally started working on my paper, and then Constanza, the 6 year old, came into my room and started talking to me. The kids are staying here for the week while their mom is on vacation... The dad also comes over for lunch and dinner and before bed, so that he can say goodnight to the kids and eat the food that my host mom cooks. It's like, when a mom leaves, another mom has to come and take care of the family, because the dad obviously can't cook or take care of the children like a mom can. Anyways, Constanza is SUPER outgoing and energetic, and honestly I feel much more comfortable talking to her than to an adult.
"I have to do homework!" I say, exasperated. In spanish of course.
"Me too! I have 20 math problems and I've only done 1!" She replies, throwing her arms in the air.
"Oh no! That sucks!"
"Yeahhhh!!"
"I have to write a 5 page paper!"
"OOOH NOOOO!!!!"
And so she sits there and watches me write my paper, and I ask her, "Bloquear? Es una palabra, si?" (Thats a word, right?)
"SIIII!!!"
"Y saliera?"
"Pues... SII!! ES UNA PALABRA!" And so on.
Also, we finally succeeded in booking a hotel for Spring Break, at a beach town that's a 6 hour bus ride away, Puerto Escondido. Its right on the beach, has 4 beds so we all get our own, and I looked at the pictures and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL. We are SO excited to get a week off just to lay around on the beach, eat whatever we want, go to bars, go swimming, go adventuring... My host brother-in-law reccommended the place to me yesterday; when he heard that we were going to Puerto Escondid, he wipped out his cell phone and called a friend for a recommendation of a good hotel. Then when he got one, we looked it up online and he actually CALLED the place and got prices for us, which I thought was just extremely nice and generous of him! So tonight when he came over I told him that that was the hotel we wanted, and he again got out his cell phone and called the place and made the reservations for us, which was amazing because I was going to have pay for the call either to my host mom, because it's expensive to call long distance, or buy a calling card to use on a public phone. I would also have had to talk to the people in spanish, which I'm always a little nervous about over the phone because it's just more difficult than in person. So despite the fact that I still haven't finished that paper, the day had a weird mix of horrible and exciting... adventures don't really have rules.
So I put my card in, put in my pin number, and tell them I want 1500 pesos (100 US dollars). "Do you want a reciept?" It asks me. Why yes I do. I press the button, and suddenly it goes back to the main screen, "Please insert your card." I was distracted at first and didn't notice what had happened. "Did you get your card back?" Livey asks me. I stare at the machine. No. No I did not. And no money came out either. I look around me, then look back at the machine. Then I look at Livey, and then back at the machine. What? I bang a little bit on the machine. Nothing. Confused, I walk up to the person behind the counter. "Mi tarjeta esta a dentro de la caja." (My card is inside the box) I'm not sure if she understood me, because who even knows if that's correct spanish, so she turns around to leave and then about 10 seconds later I see her taking inventory of a little fridge filled with soda. Ummm... okay.... I walk over to her again, feeling stupid. "Umm, tengo un problema." She looks up. "Digame." (Tell me) I again tried to explain to her my problem, and finally she gets it. She walks over to the machine, inspects it for a bit, says some spanish words to us in which we understood that we had to call the bank to find out what to do. Frustrated, I take the paper and me and Livey head off to find a public telephone. I'm saying small cuss words at this moment, like "damnit, I just want my stupid card back. Just open the dang ATM and get it back to me. Ugh. ITS IN THERE, I KNOW IT IS." and others among those lines.
We finally find a phone and I call the number, trying to understand all the options for all the numbers, which I pretty much fail at, so I just start pressing random numbers and hoping it'll get me to an operator. No such luck. So Livey tries, and she succeeds in getting a ring tone, and hands the phone to me. A lady answers and say some stuff in spanish, and when I think it's my turn to talk, I say, "Hola, soy Ashley, y tengo un problema... mi tarjeta esta a dentro de un cajero." And then she says something very quickly in spanish, and I say, "Otra vez?" (Again?) and she says it again, and I make confused noises, and then the line goes silent, and then dead. Wonderful, she hung up on me. Livey gets back on the line, and I look desperately around for someone to help. There's a guy standing in a store doorway about 20 feet away, thank God for mexican store workers who like to stand in doorways and help shoppers as soon as they even glance at the entryway...
"Senor? Puede ayudarme?" (Can you help me?) He nods and while we're walking the couple steps back to the phone, I explain to him my problem. Livey gives him the phone, which is apparently on hold, and then he totally takes over. He explains everything, says, "ah-huh, ah-huh, si..." several times, talks a little more, asks us where we're from, then suddenly looks at me and says, "la tarjeta esta destruida," and it's then that I start crying uncontrollably while trying to hold it in, which doesn't work very well at all. My card is DESTROYED? WHAT?!? I have no money! I'm in Mexico and I have no money! I didn't even bring my credit card because WHO KNEW something like this would happen?! I HAVE 11 PESOS. THATS LIKE LESS THAN 50 CENTS. I'm stranded. It'll take months to get me a new card. WHAT THE HELL?? Why would the stupid machine destroy my card?! "WHAT the F***" I say out loud (Sorry Mom), and the guy on the phone for us looks at me kinda nervously, and then continues his conversation with the lady on the phone. Livey is trying to calm me down, which isn't working very well. Finally the guy gets off the phone, talks to us for a bit and tells us that we need to call Visa and they can get me a temporary card, but I can't withdraw money from it, and I should call my bank at home and do something... We thank him profusely and start walking home, letting out a string of cuss words, and for once I'm glad that most of the people here don't understand english.
We get back to my house, explain to my mom, and call my profesora. "You need to go down to the bank and demand that they open the ATM and GIVE you at least the pieces of the card that are left, so we KNOW it's destroyed and your bank can send you another one. Go talk to them, you should even SCREAM, DEMAND that you get that card back. You're American, they can't touch you!" I decide that I'm not really comfortable with this, so we decide to meet her at the bank that owns the ATM machine in 15 minutes. When we arrive, the bank has already closed, and my profesora has to yell through two glass doors to be able to talk to the security guy who's on the other side... Eventually we find another public phone and she calls the bank and talks to them for about 10 minutes, in which we figure out that if a card isn't returned from a machine, the bank automatically closes the account. So our profesora hangs up, gives me a calling card, and I call my parents so that they can call my bank and have them close the account and send me a new card, which SHOULD get here within a week, and in the meantime I'll just have to borrown money from Olivia. So today Livey got her walk that she wanted plus some, and we spent 3 hours running around Oaxaca figuring this out rather than writing our 5 page paper and studying. Great.
But of course, whenever something bad happens, something good always seems to follow, no matter how small the good. I came home and finally started working on my paper, and then Constanza, the 6 year old, came into my room and started talking to me. The kids are staying here for the week while their mom is on vacation... The dad also comes over for lunch and dinner and before bed, so that he can say goodnight to the kids and eat the food that my host mom cooks. It's like, when a mom leaves, another mom has to come and take care of the family, because the dad obviously can't cook or take care of the children like a mom can. Anyways, Constanza is SUPER outgoing and energetic, and honestly I feel much more comfortable talking to her than to an adult.
"I have to do homework!" I say, exasperated. In spanish of course.
"Me too! I have 20 math problems and I've only done 1!" She replies, throwing her arms in the air.
"Oh no! That sucks!"
"Yeahhhh!!"
"I have to write a 5 page paper!"
"OOOH NOOOO!!!!"
And so she sits there and watches me write my paper, and I ask her, "Bloquear? Es una palabra, si?" (Thats a word, right?)
"SIIII!!!"
"Y saliera?"
"Pues... SII!! ES UNA PALABRA!" And so on.
Also, we finally succeeded in booking a hotel for Spring Break, at a beach town that's a 6 hour bus ride away, Puerto Escondido. Its right on the beach, has 4 beds so we all get our own, and I looked at the pictures and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL. We are SO excited to get a week off just to lay around on the beach, eat whatever we want, go to bars, go swimming, go adventuring... My host brother-in-law reccommended the place to me yesterday; when he heard that we were going to Puerto Escondid, he wipped out his cell phone and called a friend for a recommendation of a good hotel. Then when he got one, we looked it up online and he actually CALLED the place and got prices for us, which I thought was just extremely nice and generous of him! So tonight when he came over I told him that that was the hotel we wanted, and he again got out his cell phone and called the place and made the reservations for us, which was amazing because I was going to have pay for the call either to my host mom, because it's expensive to call long distance, or buy a calling card to use on a public phone. I would also have had to talk to the people in spanish, which I'm always a little nervous about over the phone because it's just more difficult than in person. So despite the fact that I still haven't finished that paper, the day had a weird mix of horrible and exciting... adventures don't really have rules.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fiestas and Clowns
I finally had a breakdown on Thursday... It just all hit me the moment I turned in this spanish quiz and KNEW I had failed it. On top of feeling extremely and utterly stupid, we had just had a TON of homework assigned for the next week. I had also been feeling trapped in my house since the moment we got here with all the homework we had to do, and I wanted to go out and do something fun, but I didn't know where or how to do it! So I had a freak out to Tyler online, who tried to help me calm down but you know how unreasonable girls can be when they're freaking out... I just didn't want to be stuck here on my bed forever doing homework when all I really wanted to do was to be out and DOING stuff and LIVING in the culture rather than reading about it in a book! Eventually I talked to Livey and she suggested having a date that night, out to dinner and dessert. The moment she said it I immediately calmed down, wiped the makeup stains off of my face, and went and ate food, of course. :)
Our date starts out with us walking to this restaurant Liveys sister recommended to us, which ended up being perfect! We get quesadillas and soup, and order some margaritas, which turned out to be rather strong, so by the end of the meal I was feeling pretty good! The ceiling was open so we could see the moon and the stars and there was a band playing and I was just WAITING for people to get up and dance! But they didnt... sad. Next we walk to the Zocalo, and decide to do a lap, which basically means walking around the outside of it and try not to notice all the stares, continually having to say, "No gracias" to all the people walking around trying to sell us stuff, and watching all the kids run around with balloons and light-up toys. We get to this group gathered around one of those human statue things, and suddenly I feel someone squeeze my sides and go, "Boo!" I simply look around. Olivia screams. We both turn and what do we see behind us? A clown. With bright orange hair, a painted face, and huge shoes. But he is a very friendly clown, as clowns should be, and we start laughing and then talking to him. We soon find out that he is a clown learning english, so we get to hear him practice. "Hallo! I practice thee eenglish, whar you from?" and so we begin a long conversation that ends up with these words, "You want to learn salsa? I teach you." And suddenly the clown is grabbing my hand and teaching me how to dance, right there in the middle of the Zocalo. Livey shrinks away, embarassed. People are staring, as they usually are, so I think, what the hell, they're gonna stare even if I DON'T dance and humor the clown. So I'm laughing and the clown is leading me and I'm afraid his huge feet are gonna step on mine, but surprisingly they don't. And I can see some mexican boys looking at us, smirking... I'm sure they were thinking, "Oh jeez, look at that gringa dancing with the clown. Typical. Why does the clown get all the action?" Or something along those lines. "Livey!" I call. She looks at me. "Why don't you come dance with us?" I say, smiling. She shoots me a straignt, "No." and shakes her head. Somehow I get the clown to let me go, and we start talking some more.
"You 'ave boyfriends?" the clown asks.
"Yes." We both say, though in actuality, Livey is lying.
"Wall, eet es hokay, because here in Mexico, cheating is okay! Hey you, woman (he grabs this womans arm thats walking past), It's okay to cheat? (In spanish)" The woman just waves her hand at him. "Yoo see? Es okay!"
"Noooo..." We both say, laughing.
"Wall, I marry yoo. Yoo be my wife." He says to me, chuckling. "I lofe you." Eventually we persuade our new friend to let us get on with our night, and he pulls us close and kisses us on the cheek, and we spend the next half an hour trying to get the makeup off of our faces. We go find a place to eat dessert, then walk back to our houses and go to bed.
The next day we meet at the school at 7 because we have an excursion to a town in the north, where we will be watching a local fiesta. After a 4 hour car ride, we end up in a very small town that has vendors on all the streets, a place where there were mini-carnival rides for the kids, and a church adorned with colorful decorations. We walk into this store, which through a door actually becomes a house, and sit down at a table, waiting to find out what we were doing next. Suddenly a short, friendly woman comes out, jabbering away in spanish, with a 5 gallon gasoline tank in her hand. And she starts filling up cups with the gasoline. Soon we find out it's NOT actually gasoline, but an alcoholic drink. "It will cure anything!" She says as she hands out the cups to us all. We look nervously at the liquid... this is from a gasoline tank. We could die. But not wanting to be disrespectful we reluctantly raise the drink to our mouths and taste it, and surprisingly it's not that bad! Not hint of gasoline! Next we are shown to our rooms... Alli, Charlotte, Olivia and I are sharing a room with two queen beds. Two queen beds that are about 2 inches apart from each other, we soon find out. Nice...
Next we go out and walk around the town, which probably consists of 5 streets. There were people selling things everywhere. This festival has been planned a year in advance. One of the wealthier families of the town volunteer to be the Mayordomo, and throughout the year, the Mayordomo is in charge of cleaning the church, making offerings, and planning for this fiesta. This fiesta celebrates "El Senor de Perdon." In other words, Jesus Christ. Pilgrims come from all over the state to attend. ALL DAY there are fireworks going off, but only the kind that make super loud noises; we were all randomly jumping because of them throughout the entire day, making us look even cooler than we alread did.
We go and see the place where the women are making the food for the celebration... These women have been working for a month before this festival to make the food, and a WEEK before, the start cooking 24/7. But not the kind of cooking we have in the US, obviously. They use these HUGE ceramic pots over fires to make the food... there were about 8 of them in the cooking area, and 40 women working on this project. We walk in and start chatting with the Mayordomos wife, who talks to us about the process of cooking all the food. As we're standing there, the smoke from the fire really starts getting to my eyes; they're watering and I'm continually blinking to stop the pain. Suddenly I look up and there are these two indigenous women sitting next to a pot, watching me, and giggling to themselves. I see them and start laughing too, apologetically, and they just giggle a bit more and make sympathetic gestures my way. I missed most of the Wife's talk, because of this particular distraction.
After this, it's time for Mass, which is held outside of the church. Its hot and we're all sweating, but we have to stand and listen, respectfully. The priest is going on in spanish about Jesus and his importance, and people would randomly say things in unison, which is usual in a catholic mass. I'm just distracted by all the decorations that are hanging in the trees and on the church. I look over at the group, and Charlotte is saying that she feels dizzy, so her and Alli start walking away when suddenly Charlotte is falling, and Alli quickly reaches out to catch her. There was some confusion just then when we realized that Charlotte had fainted. This man gets up and gives her his chair, and this woman starts fanning her off, and our teachers are asking her whats wrong, and Alli is getting her water. After about 10 minutes of this, she says that she feels better and they send her off to rest. Later she says that she didn't remember anything after she said she was dizzy. We were all a little unsettled, and our profesora rushes us off to the shade and to eat, before another one of us drops.
We spend a little time watching the basketball game after lunch (one team totally dominated the other), and this guy came up and asked if he could get a picture with one of us. Abby said no. Alli said no. I said, well, what the hell. Why not. Thats a brave thing to ask of the white foreigners. So one of his little friends came over and took a picture of the two of us, which made me feel a little bit like a celebrity. After the game we went to rest in our rooms, and I could NOT SLEEP because there was a MASSIVE wasp in our room, flying around the window, right over where I was supposed to be sleeping! I usually don't get all that freaked out about bees in general, but seriously this was like 2 inches long. I opened the window and just kept PRAYING that it would fly through it, but NO, the wasp was stupid and kept flying away from it. Please please please stupid huge wasp thing, GO OUT THE WINDOW. I kept twitching every time it would fly, and I'm sure Livey was just SUPER annoyed with me because I kept moving the bed. Finally, after probably a half an hour of me being extremely paranoid, it flew out the window and I slammed it shut, unfortunately waking up the girls sleeping in the room.
After our nap we went and had interviews with some of the people who lived there, then went and watched the procession through the city, which was the most somber experience of the festival. It was getting dark, and we were waiting alongside one of the roads for the procession to pass. They came slowly, each representative of the surrounding towns holding a banner made of cloth, with an image of Jesus on it. The Priest was singing a really slow, almost creepy tune into a microphone, projecting it all up and down the street. There was a huge crowd walking with these banners and statues of Jesus, some of them were holding candles, and all of them were singing with the Priest. It was the most serious I'd seen these people all day. We quitely watched them slowly come, and then slowly continue down the road. We then walked off and had dinner basically in this womans house, there was just a big table in the first room we walked into. They brought us quesadillas and these thick tortillas with beans and cheese on them... they made them right outside of their house and they were really good! They also didn't accept any payment, as it was a festival and it was in the act of giving.
Later that night we were waiting for the fireworks to start, and these guys shoved beer into mine and Olivias hands... Livey was freaked out, but I thought it was great! Seriously all the people I've met here are generally friendly and nice people. Everyone then gathered in front of the church to watch the fireworks which were AMAZING. They started out by lighting them off right above our heads, which I didn't think was even ALLOWED in the world, but nothing caught on fire so maybe they have something right. Then they brought out this big wheel thing, hooked it up to this stand, and lit the fireworks. The fireworks were attached to the wheel, and they lit up an image; a horse, lilies, a dolphin, etc. Random images. Then the fireworks were positioned on the sides of the wheel so that it would spin in circles. So this went on for awhile, switching between exploding fire over our heads, to spinning fire on the ground, and then the FINALE started; a huge tower filled with these spinning image wheels. At the end, there was the biggest wheel of all, with an image of Jesus on it. Then at the very top of the tower, there was this image of what Abby and I thought was ice cream, which seemed very weird but not that crazy... It wiggled with the fireworks, and then suddenly BANG!! The ice cream image shot off of the top of the tower, made a huge arc, and then landed somewhere among the vendors. Everyone cheered. "OMG flying ice cream!!" Me and Abby shouted. "Guys. Thats supposed to be Communion." Alli said. Oh... Oops.
We go to bed and seriously the party doesn't stop until around 4 in the morning... the music is playing all night, and dogs decide it's fun to bark at it. We get up the next day and basicall put on the same clothes we were wearing the day before, we're all disgusting and dirty from everything, and all we want to do is get home, but no. We have to go look at a museum. Which was fine except for none of us were really listening because we were so tired and spanished-out. We drive home the 4 hours it takes to get there, and I walk into my house, take a shower, eat la comida, and then pass out for about 2 hours. Then we go out dancing, which is always an adventure in itself, meeting new people, the bartender giving me a free shot because he knows Beau, having the boys we're dancing with buy us beers... I always bum of the ones who get a little more hands-on than I'd prefer to my friends who DON'T have boyfriends waiting for them at home. It's weird dancing with people who aren't my boyfriend, and sometimes I feel bad about it, but Tyler says that I should have fun... just be careful. And I always AM. I choose the boys who dance NICE and fun, not the over-exhuberant ones, haha.
Tyler pointed out today that I seem very conflicted in my feelings about Oaxaca. Some days I'm just simply loving it and am excited to go out, others I'm stressed and having a bad day. I'm in a routine here, it's not like I'm on a vacation where I'm supposed to have fun all the time. It's hard work, but I'm living real life, not a tourist life. And real life always has the ups and downs, especially when you're separated from the ones you love.
Our date starts out with us walking to this restaurant Liveys sister recommended to us, which ended up being perfect! We get quesadillas and soup, and order some margaritas, which turned out to be rather strong, so by the end of the meal I was feeling pretty good! The ceiling was open so we could see the moon and the stars and there was a band playing and I was just WAITING for people to get up and dance! But they didnt... sad. Next we walk to the Zocalo, and decide to do a lap, which basically means walking around the outside of it and try not to notice all the stares, continually having to say, "No gracias" to all the people walking around trying to sell us stuff, and watching all the kids run around with balloons and light-up toys. We get to this group gathered around one of those human statue things, and suddenly I feel someone squeeze my sides and go, "Boo!" I simply look around. Olivia screams. We both turn and what do we see behind us? A clown. With bright orange hair, a painted face, and huge shoes. But he is a very friendly clown, as clowns should be, and we start laughing and then talking to him. We soon find out that he is a clown learning english, so we get to hear him practice. "Hallo! I practice thee eenglish, whar you from?" and so we begin a long conversation that ends up with these words, "You want to learn salsa? I teach you." And suddenly the clown is grabbing my hand and teaching me how to dance, right there in the middle of the Zocalo. Livey shrinks away, embarassed. People are staring, as they usually are, so I think, what the hell, they're gonna stare even if I DON'T dance and humor the clown. So I'm laughing and the clown is leading me and I'm afraid his huge feet are gonna step on mine, but surprisingly they don't. And I can see some mexican boys looking at us, smirking... I'm sure they were thinking, "Oh jeez, look at that gringa dancing with the clown. Typical. Why does the clown get all the action?" Or something along those lines. "Livey!" I call. She looks at me. "Why don't you come dance with us?" I say, smiling. She shoots me a straignt, "No." and shakes her head. Somehow I get the clown to let me go, and we start talking some more.
"You 'ave boyfriends?" the clown asks.
"Yes." We both say, though in actuality, Livey is lying.
"Wall, eet es hokay, because here in Mexico, cheating is okay! Hey you, woman (he grabs this womans arm thats walking past), It's okay to cheat? (In spanish)" The woman just waves her hand at him. "Yoo see? Es okay!"
"Noooo..." We both say, laughing.
"Wall, I marry yoo. Yoo be my wife." He says to me, chuckling. "I lofe you." Eventually we persuade our new friend to let us get on with our night, and he pulls us close and kisses us on the cheek, and we spend the next half an hour trying to get the makeup off of our faces. We go find a place to eat dessert, then walk back to our houses and go to bed.
The next day we meet at the school at 7 because we have an excursion to a town in the north, where we will be watching a local fiesta. After a 4 hour car ride, we end up in a very small town that has vendors on all the streets, a place where there were mini-carnival rides for the kids, and a church adorned with colorful decorations. We walk into this store, which through a door actually becomes a house, and sit down at a table, waiting to find out what we were doing next. Suddenly a short, friendly woman comes out, jabbering away in spanish, with a 5 gallon gasoline tank in her hand. And she starts filling up cups with the gasoline. Soon we find out it's NOT actually gasoline, but an alcoholic drink. "It will cure anything!" She says as she hands out the cups to us all. We look nervously at the liquid... this is from a gasoline tank. We could die. But not wanting to be disrespectful we reluctantly raise the drink to our mouths and taste it, and surprisingly it's not that bad! Not hint of gasoline! Next we are shown to our rooms... Alli, Charlotte, Olivia and I are sharing a room with two queen beds. Two queen beds that are about 2 inches apart from each other, we soon find out. Nice...
Next we go out and walk around the town, which probably consists of 5 streets. There were people selling things everywhere. This festival has been planned a year in advance. One of the wealthier families of the town volunteer to be the Mayordomo, and throughout the year, the Mayordomo is in charge of cleaning the church, making offerings, and planning for this fiesta. This fiesta celebrates "El Senor de Perdon." In other words, Jesus Christ. Pilgrims come from all over the state to attend. ALL DAY there are fireworks going off, but only the kind that make super loud noises; we were all randomly jumping because of them throughout the entire day, making us look even cooler than we alread did.
We go and see the place where the women are making the food for the celebration... These women have been working for a month before this festival to make the food, and a WEEK before, the start cooking 24/7. But not the kind of cooking we have in the US, obviously. They use these HUGE ceramic pots over fires to make the food... there were about 8 of them in the cooking area, and 40 women working on this project. We walk in and start chatting with the Mayordomos wife, who talks to us about the process of cooking all the food. As we're standing there, the smoke from the fire really starts getting to my eyes; they're watering and I'm continually blinking to stop the pain. Suddenly I look up and there are these two indigenous women sitting next to a pot, watching me, and giggling to themselves. I see them and start laughing too, apologetically, and they just giggle a bit more and make sympathetic gestures my way. I missed most of the Wife's talk, because of this particular distraction.
After this, it's time for Mass, which is held outside of the church. Its hot and we're all sweating, but we have to stand and listen, respectfully. The priest is going on in spanish about Jesus and his importance, and people would randomly say things in unison, which is usual in a catholic mass. I'm just distracted by all the decorations that are hanging in the trees and on the church. I look over at the group, and Charlotte is saying that she feels dizzy, so her and Alli start walking away when suddenly Charlotte is falling, and Alli quickly reaches out to catch her. There was some confusion just then when we realized that Charlotte had fainted. This man gets up and gives her his chair, and this woman starts fanning her off, and our teachers are asking her whats wrong, and Alli is getting her water. After about 10 minutes of this, she says that she feels better and they send her off to rest. Later she says that she didn't remember anything after she said she was dizzy. We were all a little unsettled, and our profesora rushes us off to the shade and to eat, before another one of us drops.
We spend a little time watching the basketball game after lunch (one team totally dominated the other), and this guy came up and asked if he could get a picture with one of us. Abby said no. Alli said no. I said, well, what the hell. Why not. Thats a brave thing to ask of the white foreigners. So one of his little friends came over and took a picture of the two of us, which made me feel a little bit like a celebrity. After the game we went to rest in our rooms, and I could NOT SLEEP because there was a MASSIVE wasp in our room, flying around the window, right over where I was supposed to be sleeping! I usually don't get all that freaked out about bees in general, but seriously this was like 2 inches long. I opened the window and just kept PRAYING that it would fly through it, but NO, the wasp was stupid and kept flying away from it. Please please please stupid huge wasp thing, GO OUT THE WINDOW. I kept twitching every time it would fly, and I'm sure Livey was just SUPER annoyed with me because I kept moving the bed. Finally, after probably a half an hour of me being extremely paranoid, it flew out the window and I slammed it shut, unfortunately waking up the girls sleeping in the room.
After our nap we went and had interviews with some of the people who lived there, then went and watched the procession through the city, which was the most somber experience of the festival. It was getting dark, and we were waiting alongside one of the roads for the procession to pass. They came slowly, each representative of the surrounding towns holding a banner made of cloth, with an image of Jesus on it. The Priest was singing a really slow, almost creepy tune into a microphone, projecting it all up and down the street. There was a huge crowd walking with these banners and statues of Jesus, some of them were holding candles, and all of them were singing with the Priest. It was the most serious I'd seen these people all day. We quitely watched them slowly come, and then slowly continue down the road. We then walked off and had dinner basically in this womans house, there was just a big table in the first room we walked into. They brought us quesadillas and these thick tortillas with beans and cheese on them... they made them right outside of their house and they were really good! They also didn't accept any payment, as it was a festival and it was in the act of giving.
Later that night we were waiting for the fireworks to start, and these guys shoved beer into mine and Olivias hands... Livey was freaked out, but I thought it was great! Seriously all the people I've met here are generally friendly and nice people. Everyone then gathered in front of the church to watch the fireworks which were AMAZING. They started out by lighting them off right above our heads, which I didn't think was even ALLOWED in the world, but nothing caught on fire so maybe they have something right. Then they brought out this big wheel thing, hooked it up to this stand, and lit the fireworks. The fireworks were attached to the wheel, and they lit up an image; a horse, lilies, a dolphin, etc. Random images. Then the fireworks were positioned on the sides of the wheel so that it would spin in circles. So this went on for awhile, switching between exploding fire over our heads, to spinning fire on the ground, and then the FINALE started; a huge tower filled with these spinning image wheels. At the end, there was the biggest wheel of all, with an image of Jesus on it. Then at the very top of the tower, there was this image of what Abby and I thought was ice cream, which seemed very weird but not that crazy... It wiggled with the fireworks, and then suddenly BANG!! The ice cream image shot off of the top of the tower, made a huge arc, and then landed somewhere among the vendors. Everyone cheered. "OMG flying ice cream!!" Me and Abby shouted. "Guys. Thats supposed to be Communion." Alli said. Oh... Oops.
We go to bed and seriously the party doesn't stop until around 4 in the morning... the music is playing all night, and dogs decide it's fun to bark at it. We get up the next day and basicall put on the same clothes we were wearing the day before, we're all disgusting and dirty from everything, and all we want to do is get home, but no. We have to go look at a museum. Which was fine except for none of us were really listening because we were so tired and spanished-out. We drive home the 4 hours it takes to get there, and I walk into my house, take a shower, eat la comida, and then pass out for about 2 hours. Then we go out dancing, which is always an adventure in itself, meeting new people, the bartender giving me a free shot because he knows Beau, having the boys we're dancing with buy us beers... I always bum of the ones who get a little more hands-on than I'd prefer to my friends who DON'T have boyfriends waiting for them at home. It's weird dancing with people who aren't my boyfriend, and sometimes I feel bad about it, but Tyler says that I should have fun... just be careful. And I always AM. I choose the boys who dance NICE and fun, not the over-exhuberant ones, haha.
Tyler pointed out today that I seem very conflicted in my feelings about Oaxaca. Some days I'm just simply loving it and am excited to go out, others I'm stressed and having a bad day. I'm in a routine here, it's not like I'm on a vacation where I'm supposed to have fun all the time. It's hard work, but I'm living real life, not a tourist life. And real life always has the ups and downs, especially when you're separated from the ones you love.
Monday, March 2, 2009
"Zapatacion"
I feel like I need to add pictures of my school and my home.
This is Mayra, my intercambio! She's 17 and super adorable, last week she brought me a chocolate-covered apple, and this week she brought me dried bananas with sugar on them from her parents! She goes to prepatory school right now and is thinking she might want to be a stewardess when she goes to University because she wants to travel. We take our intercambios to get ice cream every thursday... or whenever we want ice cream! One time we were talking with them about how, when we're learning spanish and we dont know a word, we just add an "0" to the end of the verb, like, "bago" or "signo". Olivias intercambio, Norma, told us that when learning english, they add "cion" to the end. If they don't know the word for shoe, they just say, "Zapatacion," which definitely made us laugh!
My school, El Instituto Cultural Oaxaca... We like to sit under those palm trees right there and do homework in the afternoons! Its usually really warm and sunny, but the weather here likes to change alot this time of year... Like my host mom says, "Febrero es loco, y marzo otro poco." (February is crazy, and March a little less) There's alot of wind and sometimes it gets cloudy and down to 70 degrees during the day, and we have to wear jackets... We are extremely spoiled here!
This is my home from the front... it's surrounded by white concrete walls, and I have to open a gate every time I come home. It's small but very comfortable... oh and Nala, their dog, greets me whenever I walk up to the door. :)
This is the market that's on the way to the Zocalo that I LOVE... I have to refrain from entering it sometimes because if I do, I WILL buy something!
This is Mayra, my intercambio! She's 17 and super adorable, last week she brought me a chocolate-covered apple, and this week she brought me dried bananas with sugar on them from her parents! She goes to prepatory school right now and is thinking she might want to be a stewardess when she goes to University because she wants to travel. We take our intercambios to get ice cream every thursday... or whenever we want ice cream! One time we were talking with them about how, when we're learning spanish and we dont know a word, we just add an "0" to the end of the verb, like, "bago" or "signo". Olivias intercambio, Norma, told us that when learning english, they add "cion" to the end. If they don't know the word for shoe, they just say, "Zapatacion," which definitely made us laugh!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
"THE FOOD"
Something that we have to get used to here is the extreme difference of our role in the house. At home as Americans we are expected to help make or clean up after dinner, sometimes even make it ourselves. We are expected to do chores and help out around the house and just generally be very independent people; we've been trained since childhood to be self-sufficient, girls these days are encouraged to grow up and go to school and get jobs so that they CAN support themselves if they're not married.
Mexico, on the other hand, is different. Here, we sit down at the table, and our host mom brings us the first part of our meal, usually soup or salad. We eat it, and then she takes the plate of food away and gives us another one. And then we eat that, and again she takes the plate away, we excuse ourselves, then usually go take a nap. We couldn't help clean up afterwards even if we asked... I don't think I'm even allowed in the kitchen. I know we all feel a bit gulity for the way we're treated here, because we have all been taught to help out. "No no no no! Esta bien!" our host moms would tell us (It's fine!). Here, for women, many of them get their self-worth from the meals they make; its an honor to make great food and serve it to her family. She wants everyone to feel comfortable and fulfilled, and the best way to do that is to cook. So because of this, we are forced to NOT help, which though at first was a bit unsettling, now is pretty nice. So see Dad, all that stuff you taught me about helping out and not being so self-absorbed doesn't even apply here! I'm not lazy, I just grew up in the wrong culture! Haha ;)
Also, my host mom, and I know that some other moms in our group do this too, doesn't like me to eat alone. So she'll get up when it's my breakfast time, serve me the breakfast, then sit there with me while I eat it. Which can make me feel a bit awkward sometimes when we're not talking. I keep thinking of random things to say, but then I'm like, no that's stupid, don't say that moron. I don't even know how to say that in spanish...
We went out again last night and Livey had her very first shot of alcohol, I was so proud. And today, to avoid doing our homework, we went on a search for pan dulce (pastries) -which we found in abundance down the road from our houses- and coffee, which we didnt. We just discovered the other day that our host families have been giving us decaffinated coffee in the mornings, which was kind of a big let down... but I think the fact that they make amazing lunches makes up for that problem. Oooh lunch... The translation for the word "lunch" here is "la comida" which, translated back into english, is The Food. So their meals here consist of- breakfast, THE FOOD, and dinner. Perfect.
Last night the group and some of our intercambios went out for dinner together; we were an even bigger group that usual (there were 16 of us I think), but I considered it much more legit as there were 6 mexicans with us so we didnt seem like such white american tourist losers. Oddly enough (not) our intercambios added salsa to their pizza... with every meal there is always salsa on the table, no matter what we're eating. And I swear, when our group of white Americans go out to dinner together, the servers like to put ketchup on our table, no matter what we're eating. Because we're Americans, and Americans like ketchup with everything. We also continue to take our intercambios out for ice cream at the zocalo, which I know is unhealthy for us, but the ice cream here is SOOO GOOD. I want to ship everyone I know from the US here, so that everyone can have the pure joy of eating all the food. I'm still not tired of it at all, and I've been here for 3 weeks!
Mexico, on the other hand, is different. Here, we sit down at the table, and our host mom brings us the first part of our meal, usually soup or salad. We eat it, and then she takes the plate of food away and gives us another one. And then we eat that, and again she takes the plate away, we excuse ourselves, then usually go take a nap. We couldn't help clean up afterwards even if we asked... I don't think I'm even allowed in the kitchen. I know we all feel a bit gulity for the way we're treated here, because we have all been taught to help out. "No no no no! Esta bien!" our host moms would tell us (It's fine!). Here, for women, many of them get their self-worth from the meals they make; its an honor to make great food and serve it to her family. She wants everyone to feel comfortable and fulfilled, and the best way to do that is to cook. So because of this, we are forced to NOT help, which though at first was a bit unsettling, now is pretty nice. So see Dad, all that stuff you taught me about helping out and not being so self-absorbed doesn't even apply here! I'm not lazy, I just grew up in the wrong culture! Haha ;)
Also, my host mom, and I know that some other moms in our group do this too, doesn't like me to eat alone. So she'll get up when it's my breakfast time, serve me the breakfast, then sit there with me while I eat it. Which can make me feel a bit awkward sometimes when we're not talking. I keep thinking of random things to say, but then I'm like, no that's stupid, don't say that moron. I don't even know how to say that in spanish...
We went out again last night and Livey had her very first shot of alcohol, I was so proud. And today, to avoid doing our homework, we went on a search for pan dulce (pastries) -which we found in abundance down the road from our houses- and coffee, which we didnt. We just discovered the other day that our host families have been giving us decaffinated coffee in the mornings, which was kind of a big let down... but I think the fact that they make amazing lunches makes up for that problem. Oooh lunch... The translation for the word "lunch" here is "la comida" which, translated back into english, is The Food. So their meals here consist of- breakfast, THE FOOD, and dinner. Perfect.
Last night the group and some of our intercambios went out for dinner together; we were an even bigger group that usual (there were 16 of us I think), but I considered it much more legit as there were 6 mexicans with us so we didnt seem like such white american tourist losers. Oddly enough (not) our intercambios added salsa to their pizza... with every meal there is always salsa on the table, no matter what we're eating. And I swear, when our group of white Americans go out to dinner together, the servers like to put ketchup on our table, no matter what we're eating. Because we're Americans, and Americans like ketchup with everything. We also continue to take our intercambios out for ice cream at the zocalo, which I know is unhealthy for us, but the ice cream here is SOOO GOOD. I want to ship everyone I know from the US here, so that everyone can have the pure joy of eating all the food. I'm still not tired of it at all, and I've been here for 3 weeks!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
"She said 9:30... in Mexico time."
So I've finally started getting into a routine here, which helps me alot because I feel like I'm starting to know how to LIVE in this culture. I wake up and open the blinds, knowing full well that it's sunny outside... it's so different from home, where I wake up and look outside to judge how the day's weather will go and what I should wear. Here, I could get dressed without even looking outside and know that it's going to be nice. We're starting to get into our classes now, with quizes coming up, and presentation and papers. I'm still excited for lunch every day, and I think this will remain the same no matter how long I'm in Mexico.
With our intercambios, we're starting to talk about other things than just surface topics... the language barrier we have to get over every day just makes it that much more interesting. Yesterday I was listening to a story Mayra was telling me, "Our teacher was hungry, so she gave us more homework." And I COULD NOT figure out what she meant by the teacher being hungry... and then it hit me! Her teacher was ANGRY, not hungry, and I laughed and had to explain to her why I was laughing... Also for a homework assignment, we had to ask our intercambios for a joke to tell to our class. I always feel ridiculous when someone here obviously says a joke, because they do the pause at the end waiting for you to laugh, and we just stare at them. Or when I say something and Mayra laughs, but I can tell she's hesitating, and I say, "Do you understand?" and she says, "Umm, no?" We also attempted to explain "thats what she said," jokes to Olivias intercambio, but that really didn't turn out right. The only thing we could say was, "Americans can be very sexual. Its a sex joke." But we couldn't really explain WHY or HOW to use the joke... so we had to let that one go. Yesterday Mayra says to me, "Owr teachar sayd that we have to stop watching the tele and read more, because that is wat Americans do." I laughed!! And she continued, "But I wanted to tell her, umm, no, that is not!"
Olivia and I went on a walk yesterday around our neighborhood. In mexico, there are concrete walls surrounding almost all the houses, so when you walk around, all you see are these different-colored walls and gates and sometimes the houses behind them. Its a very rustic, dirty kind of beauty, because although there are not gorgeous houses and flowering gardens, it is in a way still beautiful. I could make it sound greater than it is, with cobblestone streets and flowers of all colors hanging over the walls along the sidewalks. Though what I said is true, that description leaves out the graffitied walls and the dirty roads and the polluted water in the ditch. In mexico we live in an extreme contrast of beauty and poverty, that makes it very easy for us to appreciate the fact that we live in America, where you can drink the tap water, live in safe neighborhoods in houses that dont have to be behind concrete walls, and can swim in the rivers. We also realize how lucky we are to be spending a semester in Mexico: all the food is fresh from markets, the sun is warm every day, we do our homework under palm trees sitting on the grass, and we eat some of the best food in the world. It seriously is an experience of two extreme contrasts of life at one time.
With our intercambios, we're starting to talk about other things than just surface topics... the language barrier we have to get over every day just makes it that much more interesting. Yesterday I was listening to a story Mayra was telling me, "Our teacher was hungry, so she gave us more homework." And I COULD NOT figure out what she meant by the teacher being hungry... and then it hit me! Her teacher was ANGRY, not hungry, and I laughed and had to explain to her why I was laughing... Also for a homework assignment, we had to ask our intercambios for a joke to tell to our class. I always feel ridiculous when someone here obviously says a joke, because they do the pause at the end waiting for you to laugh, and we just stare at them. Or when I say something and Mayra laughs, but I can tell she's hesitating, and I say, "Do you understand?" and she says, "Umm, no?" We also attempted to explain "thats what she said," jokes to Olivias intercambio, but that really didn't turn out right. The only thing we could say was, "Americans can be very sexual. Its a sex joke." But we couldn't really explain WHY or HOW to use the joke... so we had to let that one go. Yesterday Mayra says to me, "Owr teachar sayd that we have to stop watching the tele and read more, because that is wat Americans do." I laughed!! And she continued, "But I wanted to tell her, umm, no, that is not!"
Olivia and I went on a walk yesterday around our neighborhood. In mexico, there are concrete walls surrounding almost all the houses, so when you walk around, all you see are these different-colored walls and gates and sometimes the houses behind them. Its a very rustic, dirty kind of beauty, because although there are not gorgeous houses and flowering gardens, it is in a way still beautiful. I could make it sound greater than it is, with cobblestone streets and flowers of all colors hanging over the walls along the sidewalks. Though what I said is true, that description leaves out the graffitied walls and the dirty roads and the polluted water in the ditch. In mexico we live in an extreme contrast of beauty and poverty, that makes it very easy for us to appreciate the fact that we live in America, where you can drink the tap water, live in safe neighborhoods in houses that dont have to be behind concrete walls, and can swim in the rivers. We also realize how lucky we are to be spending a semester in Mexico: all the food is fresh from markets, the sun is warm every day, we do our homework under palm trees sitting on the grass, and we eat some of the best food in the world. It seriously is an experience of two extreme contrasts of life at one time.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Cochinillas!
Okay. So today is definitely flashback to the United States day... This morning Olivia and Abby and I took a taxi to Office Depot, which although had many things from the US, still felt like Mexico because of the crazy things they like to put on the front of their notebooks here... I found notebooks with cartoons of cows, hippos, paintings, and other random things on their covers.
Then we walk across the street to Sears. As soon as we walk in, I feel like I'm back in Oregon, in a mall. It even SMELLS like a mall in the US, which is weird because most things here don't smell like they do at home; the air's different, the detergents for the clothes are different, the food is different... but SEARS is the exact same. It's probably because of this whole feeling-like-I'm-home syndrome that makes me forget about bathrooms in Mexico... I walk into the bathroom and spend about 10 minutes in confusion, because there usually isnt toilet paper in the stalls, you have to get it from the lady that's ALWAYS in the bathroom, or you have to get paper towels, and you have to throw your toilet paper away in a bin rather than flush it, and you have to tip the awkward bathroom lady... I really don't like mexican bathrooms.
When I get home my mom is sitting in her kitchen and Santiago, the grandson, is watching Spongebob while eating lunch... another flashback to Brayden watching Spongebob and my sisters singing the song. Spongebob calls Patrick PATRICIO, "Ayyy, Patricio!", which is what I always call MY friend Patrick... and ON TOP OF IT ALL it's CLOUDY right now. Just like Oregon.
Well, unlike in Oregon, last night we went to a bar! The group got together after our excursion (we were rather impressed with ourselves, as we all started out as tired, exhausted, and dirty from the long day we had climbing up mountains to look at caves and tasting mezcal and eating worms and looking at the most massive tree in the world... and we ended up looking pretty and dressed up and proud of our great attempts we made to hide how tired we were) and we went out to dinner. It was a place that was a bit more expensive than we thought it would be, but it didn't matter because they had a great band playing... well I can't really say band and have it have the same conotations that it does in the US, because it was a group of mexican men and one woman all dressed up and playing guitars and singing songs in Spanish. Then they came and surrounded our table, counted, "Uno, dos, tres!" and then they all cat-called at us, to which we just laughed, embarassed. Then they all played their guitars and sang a song about love (like always), and moved on to the next table.
The first bar we went to wasn't really what I would call exciting... it was more of a bar where you sit with sophistocated people and drink wine and talk about things such as politics or literature or the French... although there were some pretty funny attempts at drunken salsa dancing. Soon we moved on to a bar we had heard alot about, "El elefante", which was MUCH more of what I thought a bar here would be like! It had great music playing, and the atmosphere is more... young and hip, I guess you could say. It was also two drinks for one night... we bought 2 shots and 2 mai tais for 100 pesos, which is less than 10 dollars. We also danced. The mexican boys here are pretty great dancers, but being a bit intoxicated I couldn't really understand what my dance partner was saying to me over all the music and the language barrier problems... the only thing I understood was "me amas? me amas?" (do you love me?) Thank god for Beau, one of the guys in our group, who likes to cut in and dance with us when he thinks that we want a break, and then lead us off the dance floor.
Today is saturday, which means that we have the lunch with their daughter and her family... including Santiago! Today for our little adventure after lunch, Remigio, Santiago and I went looking for cochinillas (potato bugs) in the garden, so that Santiago could play with them. "Cochinillas! Cochinillas! Donde estan?" he kept saying, with his child accent that all children have, no matter what language they speak.
Already I'm starting to slightly miss living in a culture where I dont constantly have to THINK about the culture... Where I can just talk without having to think about every word I say and listen without making an effort, where I can eat whatever I want whenever I want however MUCH I want, where I can watch movies, understand the jokes, cuddle with my boyfriend, call and text with my phone, walk around town without being stared at, BELONG. Where I dont have to pay a lady in the bathroom to give me the damn toilet paper. But then I remember that I'm in MEXICO for only 3 months. And that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I can learn so much from! I really am truly happy to be here, its just so different, and a bit difficult to get used to. And I feel blessed to have one of my best friends, Olivia, here with me... it makes things so much easier, to know that I do have at least one of my loved ones here with me, and that we can go through this together. We both miss the same things and most of the same people, but we both know that this is a great time and that we'll enjoy it. Being a part of another culture and learning about it from WITHIN it is an amazing experience for me, no matter the tiny setbacks of comfort.
Then we walk across the street to Sears. As soon as we walk in, I feel like I'm back in Oregon, in a mall. It even SMELLS like a mall in the US, which is weird because most things here don't smell like they do at home; the air's different, the detergents for the clothes are different, the food is different... but SEARS is the exact same. It's probably because of this whole feeling-like-I'm-home syndrome that makes me forget about bathrooms in Mexico... I walk into the bathroom and spend about 10 minutes in confusion, because there usually isnt toilet paper in the stalls, you have to get it from the lady that's ALWAYS in the bathroom, or you have to get paper towels, and you have to throw your toilet paper away in a bin rather than flush it, and you have to tip the awkward bathroom lady... I really don't like mexican bathrooms.
When I get home my mom is sitting in her kitchen and Santiago, the grandson, is watching Spongebob while eating lunch... another flashback to Brayden watching Spongebob and my sisters singing the song. Spongebob calls Patrick PATRICIO, "Ayyy, Patricio!", which is what I always call MY friend Patrick... and ON TOP OF IT ALL it's CLOUDY right now. Just like Oregon.
Well, unlike in Oregon, last night we went to a bar! The group got together after our excursion (we were rather impressed with ourselves, as we all started out as tired, exhausted, and dirty from the long day we had climbing up mountains to look at caves and tasting mezcal and eating worms and looking at the most massive tree in the world... and we ended up looking pretty and dressed up and proud of our great attempts we made to hide how tired we were) and we went out to dinner. It was a place that was a bit more expensive than we thought it would be, but it didn't matter because they had a great band playing... well I can't really say band and have it have the same conotations that it does in the US, because it was a group of mexican men and one woman all dressed up and playing guitars and singing songs in Spanish. Then they came and surrounded our table, counted, "Uno, dos, tres!" and then they all cat-called at us, to which we just laughed, embarassed. Then they all played their guitars and sang a song about love (like always), and moved on to the next table.
The first bar we went to wasn't really what I would call exciting... it was more of a bar where you sit with sophistocated people and drink wine and talk about things such as politics or literature or the French... although there were some pretty funny attempts at drunken salsa dancing. Soon we moved on to a bar we had heard alot about, "El elefante", which was MUCH more of what I thought a bar here would be like! It had great music playing, and the atmosphere is more... young and hip, I guess you could say. It was also two drinks for one night... we bought 2 shots and 2 mai tais for 100 pesos, which is less than 10 dollars. We also danced. The mexican boys here are pretty great dancers, but being a bit intoxicated I couldn't really understand what my dance partner was saying to me over all the music and the language barrier problems... the only thing I understood was "me amas? me amas?" (do you love me?) Thank god for Beau, one of the guys in our group, who likes to cut in and dance with us when he thinks that we want a break, and then lead us off the dance floor.
Today is saturday, which means that we have the lunch with their daughter and her family... including Santiago! Today for our little adventure after lunch, Remigio, Santiago and I went looking for cochinillas (potato bugs) in the garden, so that Santiago could play with them. "Cochinillas! Cochinillas! Donde estan?" he kept saying, with his child accent that all children have, no matter what language they speak.
Already I'm starting to slightly miss living in a culture where I dont constantly have to THINK about the culture... Where I can just talk without having to think about every word I say and listen without making an effort, where I can eat whatever I want whenever I want however MUCH I want, where I can watch movies, understand the jokes, cuddle with my boyfriend, call and text with my phone, walk around town without being stared at, BELONG. Where I dont have to pay a lady in the bathroom to give me the damn toilet paper. But then I remember that I'm in MEXICO for only 3 months. And that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I can learn so much from! I really am truly happy to be here, its just so different, and a bit difficult to get used to. And I feel blessed to have one of my best friends, Olivia, here with me... it makes things so much easier, to know that I do have at least one of my loved ones here with me, and that we can go through this together. We both miss the same things and most of the same people, but we both know that this is a great time and that we'll enjoy it. Being a part of another culture and learning about it from WITHIN it is an amazing experience for me, no matter the tiny setbacks of comfort.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Classes and such...
We now find ourselves learning spanish, and forgetting english. The other day, Alli said, "Not so quite." and Charlotte, "I want my water without gas." We have started pronouncing each others names with spanish accents, a-BEE, a-LI, char-LOTE, gor-DON, and say okay like ho-KAY. I was watching a telenovela last night with my housekeeper (SOOO DRAMATIC, these telenovelas! I'm starting to get addicted to at least one of them...) and Cassy called me on Skype, and I started out speaking in spanish! We have also discovered that we dont really realize when our profesora switches from english to spanish anymore. Its WEIRD to realize that our language skills are starting to change the way we think.
Classes started yesterday. At 9 we have either an anthropology class, taught by an intelligent man who is from Canada but married a Oaxacan woman and obviously speaks spanish with an accent, or instead of the anthropology class, a Mexican Identity class taught by our very own Profesora. We get a half an hour break after that, then at 11:30 our spanish classes start... the group is split in half with a more advanced class and a less advanced one. My class, the higher level one, is taught by a Mexican man in his mid 20's named Saul. Every day we start out the day by playing games! I know the rest of the group, who has their class right next door, is jealous of us because we never hear any laughter coming from THEIR room... ;) which is rather sad for them. Anyways, the games we play are vocabulary games... today we played Muerte Subito (Sudden Death), where the rounds consisted of each team naming "places to go when you skip school," or "parts of the body that are NOT usually complimented," etc. The way he teaches the rest of the class is actually really constructive, I've never had a spanish class that I've liked more!
After class, at 1:30, we all head back to our houses for lunch. At 2:30 we eat the biggest meal of the day, la comida, which consists of a small salad, soup, and a main dish... With this amount of food I'm usually never hungry for dinner, which is served around 8, and is usually just something small like cereal or fruit. Anyways, after lunch I take a little nap until 3:45 when I have to go back to the school for intercambios at 4... we meet up with a student from here in Oaxaca and we practice speaking spanish, for our benefit, and english for theirs.
I met my intercambio today... her name is Mayra, shes 17 years old, a little bit timid, but so sweet! And we managed to talk for the entire hour about random things, the weather in Oregon, our families, our boyfriends... she doesn't seem like it, but this girl is pretty much a bad ass... She's been dating this guy for a year tomorrow and her parents dont even KNOW because they say that she can't have a boyfriend until she's 18 and she's been sly enough to keep it from them! I'm rooting for her, she still has about a year to go before she can come out and tell them about this boy of hers... she says " He es not vary cuute but he es a vary goood man." Which made me laugh. At the end of our time up, we did the weird awkward hug thing, and she did the awkward try to kiss me on the cheek thing and so finally had to stop the dance of awkwardness that we were doing and ask how we should do it and she said just one kiss on the cheek then bye. Haha.
Quick side note, I MUST tell the story of Alli's intercambio... The first thing she says when our group slowly starts to meet up after intercambios is, "Well, mine was DRUNK." Apparently, her intercambio had gone to a bar before this with her cousin, because her boyfriend was acting weird... Alli decided to give this the benefit of the doubt, thinking possibly this was a relationship of several years and they were going through a rough patch... but no. 17 days. A relationship of 17 days, and the girls is already freaking out. Her eyes were completely glazed over the entire hour they were talking. In Alli's words: "She said, 'This is my first boyfriend,' and I thought, 'Well this is your LAST intercambio." I kind of feel sorry for the girl, but come on honey. Pull it together.
After the intercambio I work on some homework... today I stayed at El Instituto and just sat down at one of the many tables they have on the patios outside every bright yellow colonial style building... there was music in the background because someone was teaching a dance class outside, and there are these bright redish-pink flowers and a large trellis covering this sitting area, and a courtyard with green grass and big trees and kids playing in the shade... It's so relaxing. It was weird to me to think that, so far away, all the people I love are under the same sun, that the same sunlight thats glowing on my skin is also on theirs... Which makes me feel like we're much closer than we actually are.
In the evenings, I like to talk to people on Skype before bed, and I usually keep my door open unless I'm changing my clothes or having a private conversation. My host dad finds it quite amusing to come in and see who I'm talking to and wave at them and make funny comments, which I and the person who he's waving find freaking hilarious. When he found out I had a boyfriend he got super excited and just HAD to talk to him, even though Tyler still doesn't have a camera. "Hallo Ty-LAR!" When he met Brittany, he asked me if we were twins, and said to Brittany, "Estas muy guapa!" You're very pretty! Brittany just laughed without comprehending, and I had to translate for her. My host family is basically AWESOME, haha. :)
I've only had brief glimpses of homesickness so far, little things like the bus that took us to Oaxaca was playing Milo and Ottis, and it reminded me so much of Brittany and Cassy, when we use to watch that when we were little, or on the news when they showed an american football game which reminded me of Tyler, or when its dark outside and I think about having to use my mase, reminding me of my Dad... I'm sure he'd like that, haha. Or yesterday when I was listening to my iPod and country music came on and I thought of the fair in the summertime and then my mind went off on all the great things about summer in Oregon, or how I was talking about the rain today with Mayra, and how it has a smell. Its weird all the things I dont realize have an impact on me when I'm at home until I'm away from them. I guess it's just a process of knowing yourself a little bit more than you did before you left.
Classes started yesterday. At 9 we have either an anthropology class, taught by an intelligent man who is from Canada but married a Oaxacan woman and obviously speaks spanish with an accent, or instead of the anthropology class, a Mexican Identity class taught by our very own Profesora. We get a half an hour break after that, then at 11:30 our spanish classes start... the group is split in half with a more advanced class and a less advanced one. My class, the higher level one, is taught by a Mexican man in his mid 20's named Saul. Every day we start out the day by playing games! I know the rest of the group, who has their class right next door, is jealous of us because we never hear any laughter coming from THEIR room... ;) which is rather sad for them. Anyways, the games we play are vocabulary games... today we played Muerte Subito (Sudden Death), where the rounds consisted of each team naming "places to go when you skip school," or "parts of the body that are NOT usually complimented," etc. The way he teaches the rest of the class is actually really constructive, I've never had a spanish class that I've liked more!
After class, at 1:30, we all head back to our houses for lunch. At 2:30 we eat the biggest meal of the day, la comida, which consists of a small salad, soup, and a main dish... With this amount of food I'm usually never hungry for dinner, which is served around 8, and is usually just something small like cereal or fruit. Anyways, after lunch I take a little nap until 3:45 when I have to go back to the school for intercambios at 4... we meet up with a student from here in Oaxaca and we practice speaking spanish, for our benefit, and english for theirs.
I met my intercambio today... her name is Mayra, shes 17 years old, a little bit timid, but so sweet! And we managed to talk for the entire hour about random things, the weather in Oregon, our families, our boyfriends... she doesn't seem like it, but this girl is pretty much a bad ass... She's been dating this guy for a year tomorrow and her parents dont even KNOW because they say that she can't have a boyfriend until she's 18 and she's been sly enough to keep it from them! I'm rooting for her, she still has about a year to go before she can come out and tell them about this boy of hers... she says " He es not vary cuute but he es a vary goood man." Which made me laugh. At the end of our time up, we did the weird awkward hug thing, and she did the awkward try to kiss me on the cheek thing and so finally had to stop the dance of awkwardness that we were doing and ask how we should do it and she said just one kiss on the cheek then bye. Haha.
Quick side note, I MUST tell the story of Alli's intercambio... The first thing she says when our group slowly starts to meet up after intercambios is, "Well, mine was DRUNK." Apparently, her intercambio had gone to a bar before this with her cousin, because her boyfriend was acting weird... Alli decided to give this the benefit of the doubt, thinking possibly this was a relationship of several years and they were going through a rough patch... but no. 17 days. A relationship of 17 days, and the girls is already freaking out. Her eyes were completely glazed over the entire hour they were talking. In Alli's words: "She said, 'This is my first boyfriend,' and I thought, 'Well this is your LAST intercambio." I kind of feel sorry for the girl, but come on honey. Pull it together.
After the intercambio I work on some homework... today I stayed at El Instituto and just sat down at one of the many tables they have on the patios outside every bright yellow colonial style building... there was music in the background because someone was teaching a dance class outside, and there are these bright redish-pink flowers and a large trellis covering this sitting area, and a courtyard with green grass and big trees and kids playing in the shade... It's so relaxing. It was weird to me to think that, so far away, all the people I love are under the same sun, that the same sunlight thats glowing on my skin is also on theirs... Which makes me feel like we're much closer than we actually are.
In the evenings, I like to talk to people on Skype before bed, and I usually keep my door open unless I'm changing my clothes or having a private conversation. My host dad finds it quite amusing to come in and see who I'm talking to and wave at them and make funny comments, which I and the person who he's waving find freaking hilarious. When he found out I had a boyfriend he got super excited and just HAD to talk to him, even though Tyler still doesn't have a camera. "Hallo Ty-LAR!" When he met Brittany, he asked me if we were twins, and said to Brittany, "Estas muy guapa!" You're very pretty! Brittany just laughed without comprehending, and I had to translate for her. My host family is basically AWESOME, haha. :)
I've only had brief glimpses of homesickness so far, little things like the bus that took us to Oaxaca was playing Milo and Ottis, and it reminded me so much of Brittany and Cassy, when we use to watch that when we were little, or on the news when they showed an american football game which reminded me of Tyler, or when its dark outside and I think about having to use my mase, reminding me of my Dad... I'm sure he'd like that, haha. Or yesterday when I was listening to my iPod and country music came on and I thought of the fair in the summertime and then my mind went off on all the great things about summer in Oregon, or how I was talking about the rain today with Mayra, and how it has a smell. Its weird all the things I dont realize have an impact on me when I'm at home until I'm away from them. I guess it's just a process of knowing yourself a little bit more than you did before you left.
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