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 :)

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.

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.