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!