Rural Homestay Week

Disclaimer: I’ve been away from computers all week and experiencing some pretty amazing stuff, so…. this is undoubtly going to be a very long blog. I’m also exhausted and therefore in a slightly strange and goofy mood. I’m going to start writing tonight, but probably won’t finish. I’ll split it up into sections according to where we were… for your viewing pleasure of course! (and my writing)

I am going to once again affirm my love for this program and tell you how much I’m learning and thinking so I don’t have to say it about everything we did this week, because it was absolutely amazing…

So on Saturday morning we set out with Anne, the director of the programs here to Cortes’ palace which is in downtown Cuernavaca. The museum has a bunch of different things, but we were mainly there to see Diego Rivera’s mural which depicts the conquest and a little bit of the Mexican revolution. It’s a beautiful mural and gives a really great sense of the progression of the conquest and then a small part of the revolution of 1910.

HUITZILAC

After that we set off in the vans for Huitzilac, a small rural town with indigenous routes up in the mountains in the pass in between Mexico City and Cuernavaca. We were up at around 10,000 feet so it was a bit chilly, but very very beautiful. We first spoke to an elder of the village who told us the story of how Huitzilac was named (it means hummingbird). It was a really interesting story so I’ll get it up if I get a chance to type it up. He was a very cute and wise old man who also spoke to us about the concept of history. He has written two books where he goes to the source of the history, oral tradition or direct experience, and writes his books off of that history.

After that talk we went to the community center where we were to meet up with the host families we would be staying with for two nights. I was really nervous about my Spanish, the food, what my family would be like, their house and everything else, especially when we all got there and everyone was standing around awkwardly. The concept of time is much more relaxed here so not much starts right on time. It’s kind of nice though.

It ended up that I, and another girl in my program, Natalie were staying with the brother of the man we spoke with earlier in the afternoon. He was a very nice older man, but Natalie and I got very nervous when he didn’t know how long we were staying or what the disinfectant for fruits and veggies was for. He took us back to his house, which was pretty modest, but very comfortable. We all sat around the table for a while in silence which was very awkward. It was very hard for both Natalie and I to understand his Spanish so it was hard to carry on a conversation.

He never married and we were worried the whole two days was going to be like this. A little bit later his niece came home though and she lives in the same house with him with her family to take care of him. Her husband, 2 daughters and her grandson also lived in the same house. We were relieved when she came home and seemed to have a much better idea of what was going on. It was hard to understand her also, but not as difficult as before and she was very welcoming and friendly towards us. She made us dinner which were like deep fried quesadillas. They were really good, but it was a little bit of a guessing game because they all had different fillings in them. We talked a little more before Natalie and I were exhausted and retreated into our room at 8.

The next day we had a huge breakfast of tamales dulce (every meal was huge)and a hot drink made from corn called atolé. They make different flavors of it. We first had guayaba which is a small, sweet and a bit tart fruit I really like. Tamales Dulce are some sort of grain and sugar in corn husks and cooked. They were very good, though pink and I couldn’t figure out why.

We spent the morning with a group of students from a local high school, talking to them and then hiking up a super super steep path in the biological corridor. It was all loose dirt and a really wide path because it separated the two states of Mexico and Morelos (where Cuernavaca is) and also to stop a forest fire from spreading further. It was a short, but very difficult hike up, but we were rewarded with gorgeous views on all sides. Victor spoke to us about environmental issues and then we hurried down to make it back in time for lunch with our families. I pretty much ran the whole way down in switchbacks because if you tried to go slow it was like surfing in dirt and your shoes would fill with first.

COCK FIGHT

We had lunch with our families. Natalie and I went to a barbeque of lamb at Don Delfino’s house (the brother of our host), which was really delicious. After that our host mother was asking if we wanted to go somewhere and saying “muerto,” which I new meant death, “gallo,” which I didn’t know and “hijo,” which meant son. So we were very confused but nodded our heads in agreement anyway (we got really good at this). So we walk up and it’s like we’re walking into someone’s backyard and there are these two girls that say “15 pesos,” but my host mother said something really quick and we just went in. This is where the real shock was. There were mostly men, maybe a few women, all huddled around a large pen fenced in with wood. Inside the pen two men were pressing roosters faces together in the middle of the pen. One of the men was our host mother’s son. It was a really interesting atmosphere, everyone was very excited and eating and drinking and to the left there was a guy counting out money, and to the right a man announcing things threw a microphone. It was really crowded and Natalie and I sure stood out, being one of few women and also the only gringas.

The roosters (gallos!) wear these hooks around their legs and then they jump all over each other. It was really sad because they get really bloody from poking each other with the hooks. Everyone was cheering and I was trying really hard not to cringe and be that American who didn’t understand. We’ve talked a lot about being culturally relative and sensitive, but it’s hard to think about that in relation to something like animal cruelty.

Anyway, if one of the roosters gets too close to the other one’s neck then they separate them because if they get stabbed in the neck then they die right away. It’s like rounds in wrestling and in between one I saw them take a capful of Gatorade and poor it on the rooster’s head! Then they have it some to drink, which I thought was really hilarious. We asked about it later and they said, oh, it needs electrolytes. So I think Gatorade has a new commercial… Eventually the other rooster could no longer be made to stand up so they pronounced the son of my host mother the winner. He won a portion of the money that people had bet on his rooster winning. Before each rooster fight, the men show of their roosters and try to get everyone to bet on them. The next fight, the rooster’s neck got stepped on and it died right away, which was really bloody… then we left.

In the afternoon we had a lecture about environment from someone from the municipal government of the town. There’s basically two governments, the municipal which is what we would typically consider government and is more formal and then the communales, which is a group of leadership from the community that has been around for way longer than the formal government has. There is definitely a bit of a power struggle and tension between the two.

That night was better with the family because they both opened up more and it was quieter so we had more of a chance to just sit around and talk. After dinner we had quite an interesting shower experience. It was pouring rain, but we needed to go to her father’s house (Don Delfino’s) to take a shower because they didn’t have running water. The houses are neighbors.. kind of. Usually to get from on the other you need to walk around the block, but since it was raining we took a short cut… kind of. We went up stairs in the house and then out on the roof, across the roof, down a ladder, through a backyard and workshop and then finally into the house for a nice hot shower.

The next day we all loaded up into the back of a truck with a few of the students from the day before and a bunch of tools to do some community service project with the communales (the other sector of gov). We went higher up into the mountains where it was freeeezing. There was even ice on the ground!! All of the men we worked with were men that use the land, to farm, harvesting dirt, or in other ways so they have to work to give back to it in order to get a permit they need to use the land. Each has a certain amount of area they have to maintain each week, by digging fire trenches and planting trees. We dug out a wide path so if a fire starts, it won’t got far. It was really hard work, but interesting to hear from all the men and so beautiful.

We finished quicker than expected so went to this holy place with lakes in the mountains for a little bit, just to hang out. It was really cheap to ride horses so a bunch of us all went for a ride on paths around in the mountains for about forty-five minutes. It was so beautiful and I’d never really ridden a horse before! Only ponies…

Then we had a community lunch because it was the opening of a new community center/ theater of the communales. There was lots of live music and good food and almost the whole town came out. And lots of tequila of course… A priest also blessed the area with holy water.

AMATLAN

And then we were off to Amatlan which I think is probably my favorite place that we have been yet. It’s a little bit lower, but still in the mountains and really really beautiful, with reddish rocks kind of like the South West towering up from all the mountains that surround the small town. It’s a really gorgeous and supposedly sacred healing place. There aren’t really pictures because we were told it was considered somewhat offensive to take pictures since they consider it a real “taking” of something of the land and the people who live there. I saw this play out in mixed ways though, sometimes it really seemed so and other times people would say, take a picture, take a picture. The family Natalie and I were with was really nice and their Spanish was much easier to understand. They also had a really nice house with running water, which was quite a luxury. It all seemed fairly new so I think it was partly from money from working in the states. It was a woman named Lucina, her husband Antonio and her two son. Antonio had worked in Atlanta and in Canada and one of her sons had just gotten home for the Christmas season, but was about to go back to Los Angeles to work again.

Hearing stories about immigration and them walking through the desserts for three nights made it all hit really home. I knew it all happened before, but to have faces and names and stories makes me think about it all in such a different way.

We went to a party for a holiday that was that day at our host mother’s sister’s house. There was great live music, good food and it just a really great atmosphere. We stayed up pretty late talking with them about all different things. I felt much more at home there, which was a relief because I was so exhausted from the homestay before. Speaking Spanish either way is really tiring though, so we couldn’t stay up to late and were off to bed soon.

After I had been there for about three hours they started asking us what we were doing on Saturday. Natalie was going to Acapulco, but I wasn’t doing anything so I got invited to a wedding on Saturday. The culture here is very different. It’s only rude to bring uninvited guests if you bring more than five or so, other than that everyone just plans for a ton of people.

In the morning we talked with this man Nacho about indigenous rights and other issues facing the town, which was very interesting. Then we went to the fields on a women named Dona Irene who is very old and never married, but still plants her lands each year. After that we hiked up to the sacred spot in the mountains where two rocks meet. Nacho led us in a ceremony that was suppose to allow up to absorb all of the good energy of nature. I could really feel the tingling in my arms, it was so strange, comforting and relaxing all at the same time.

That night our host mother shower us how she makes money, which is by making boxes out of dried orange peels. They were beautiful, decorated with dried flowers. I painted a little bit, which they seemed interested in and then we talked about all different animals and I drew a few things to give her ideas for her boxes.

HACIENDA

We didn’t have much time in the morning, just enough to say goodbye and have breakfast (which is actually a huge meal) before setting off to Xoxicalco, which is an important archaeological site further South. It was beautiful and really impressive, especially the parts about the observatory and scientific calculations that they can’t even do today!

Then we were off to the hacienda, which was… finally… our break! The hacienda is huge and very very old. It kind of felt like something out of Disney world, like a colonial theme, but it wasn’t crowded and it was all actually realllly old. It was all built around the 1500s! After the revolution of 1910 many haciendas were sold because they were destroyed in the war and because the whole cause of the war was to take land ownership away from a small percent of the population that did not rightfully own in the first place. It was a bunch of old buildings and then behind sweeping fields of mostly sugar cane under the mountains. It was so gorgeous. We had sessions in the morning, but the afternoons were left for us to relax by the pool and do other activities. There was a climbing wall, so I got to do that a little bit which was fun.

Both mornings Betsy and I went on the most amazing run ever. I hadn’t exercised in a while, but it felt so great to run (helped it was flat too). I ran for like an hour and 15 minutes, which was probably about seven miles… and it felt so good. The sun was rising up over the mountains and everything was so beautiful.

It was nice to return back home to Cuernavaca and Casa CEMAL, which has really begun to feel like home. It was relaxing, though Betsy and I woke up early the next morning to take a bus to la boda (the wedding) in Amatlan.

Adventure to Tepotzlan

Uh oh… I have lots to say again! Katie and I have decided that it has been an excellent past twenty-four hours.

So last night all of the girls who love in my room (there are four of us all together) went out to eat for some roommate bonding time. We went to a beautiful little restaurant called “La India Bonita.” It was gorgeous, a garden all around lit by candle light. We sat out under the stars on the patio. Not only was it a beautiful setting… the food was delicious as well. We decided to try a traditional appetizer from the city of Tepotzlan because that’s where we were going to go exploring the next day. I have no idea what it was called or what was in it… but it was a really good sort of dip thing we ate with chips and tortillas. For my meal I got enchiladas con salsa verde which was also delicious. Oh yeah… and sangria!

We had made a plan to meet a few of the other girls downtown at 9 to go out for a few drinks and just hang out. The city was bustling with families and couples and a mariachi band also. All of the historic buildings get lit up so it is just beautiful and so alive at night. We went to a bar which has an inside part that is all open to a patio part that is bigger than the inside part. It’s called “Los Arcos” and is right off of the square. They had live music and a few people were dancing salsa. There were so many different kinds of people there, which was very interesting, from young kids out with their friends to families to older couples. We didn’t even know it, but we just barley caught happy hour which ended at 10. I had margaritas which were delicious. There weren’t a lot of people dancing, but a few of us danced salsa when some guys asked us. I’m not so graceful since I’ve barley done it, and am not sure I would be if I had, but they were really good about it, telling us what to do and being encouraging. Salsa is entirely led by the male, so most of it was easy, they just spin you which is so so fun and makes me feel like I’m five again. Some songs or beats have more spins than others though I can’t figure out the rhyme or reason. We all had a really good time and I got to hang out with some people in the program I hadn’t gotten very close to yet. It was great too because two of them, Aimee and Elyn decided to come hiking with us the next day!

We went to bed around one, joking the whole time about us being the old folk of the group. A bunch of the other people stay out a lot later and are just much more into the party scene than the bunch I was with. It was a good time and we laughed about it though, all of us light weights swaying a little bit while walking home. It was easy to get up earlyish this morning to start our adventure which was key!

Today is a special Mexican holiday which I can’t remember the name of, but it’s the end of the Christmas season. Everyone was going to mass today with there baby Jesus dolls that are dressed for god and then left to be blessed and then brought back home and sat up in a little chair to signify Jesus’ growing up. It is a really interesting tradition because all around town adults were carrying these little baby dolls dressed up in fancy clothes around like they were babies- in their arms of in baskets. I had to get really close most of the time to realize they weren’t real children, or in a few cases… that they were real children. Walking through the streets we saw lots of what Lisane, one of the program coordinator, calls “jesui.”

Anyway, that was what we saw both in Cuernavaca and in Tepotzlan where we went on our day trip. Tepotzlan is a city about 40 minutes from Cuernavaca by bus. We walked to the mercado (same place we did the market survey) and then somehow found the right bus. The buses that go city to city are mostly like greyhound buses, but no A/C or bathrooms. It wasn’t crowded at all, so we just hopped on. When we got to the city, the bus backed into this little alley and they told us this was it. We were going to hike up to a pyramid on top of a mountain that is now a national park. It’s a bit of a tourist destination, so we expected it to be easy to find, but there were noooo hints of it.

Eventually we asked a guy for directions. He was very nice and told us to go up two streets and take a right towards the church. We did find a beautiful old church (picture on webshots,) but is, it wasn’t at all the pyramids. The thing is… it’s culturally wrong to say no to someone, so even if you don’t know where they’re asking directions to, you just make it up to be nice. It’s hard to get used to coming from the rushed, one destination mind of home, but I’m learning to relax and go with the flow a little more.

Eventually someone told us to just walk down any street as far as you can towards the mountains. This ended up actually working and along the way we found a really nice dog friend! It was as if he knew we were a little lost and chose to guide the way. We hiked in two groups and he would stay in between the two, making sure everything was ok with everyone. There were lots of other people on the trail and he stayed with us when we took breaks (a lot of them… it was realllly steep). It was really funny. It reminded me of my boyfriend’s family’s dog, Cy who was also always a great leader when hiking.

The hike was pretty tough, but we ended up doing it in about an hour and a half. The view from the top was well worth it. The pyramid was neat, but nothing too exciting, but we could see lots of mountains around us and both cities below. It was beautiful.

On the way down there were some stairs that our dog friend was scared to go down. We decided to keep on moving because it was taking so long and we knew he would go down eventually. It was sad to leave and we all felt a little guilty. A few minutes later though, he came running down smiling… I think I want to write a children’s book about a Mexican dog that runs the town and takes people hiking to the pyramid. He was so funny, never stopping to bark at the other dogs.

We caught the bus back to Cuernavaca, walked home and had a nice relaxing afternoon because we were all exhausted.

Tomorrow we leave for a week of rural homestays (two rural homestays and then a retreat to an ex-hacienda). I’m really excited and I think I will learn a lot. I’m a little anxious, especially because they scared us about scorpions, but I think I’ll be ok…

Adios hasta Viernes!

A Short One!

Pool at Universal

So today, another short one. They’ll be short from now on I think, well except when I get back from a long trip of not writing much… thank god! It won’t take an hour to read this one (or a few hours to write!) This is good because I have homework and I’m already so exhausted!

So this morning we had another class session of the history class. We talked about the ancient civilizations of Mexico and the way its taught in schools (about as much if not less than the US) and other things like that. It was interesting and reminded me of all the archaeological sites I’ve been to in the past few years.

After that we had a little break. I laid out in the sun in the hammock studying Spanish a little. It was so beautiful and relaxing even though I was a little bit nervous for our Spanish placement test, especially the oral part. It didn’t help that Rose and Brooke were talking about how intimidating the lady could be.

Then we were off to the Spanish school which was absolutely gorgeous. Pretty much everything here is behind walls and gates which is nice because it’s like a little secret garden behind. There’s flowers everywhere and everything is so green and clean and fresh. All the classes are outside under little overhangs so it won’t be so painful to be in class on a beautiful day, which there are many of. We have class for three hours in the mornings four days a week, from 8-10:50 with a few small breaks. The school is also another hang out spot or place to go and study so that is very nice. They have a pool, a ping pong table and a racquetball court and just nice places to sit out and read. There’s even a view!

After lunch we watched a movie about feminism and then walked over to a better space for all of us to have a discussion… for three hours. It was broken up into little discussions though and was all very interesting, so it wasn’t bad.

And that is my day! I think I’m going to start writing every few says now that there isn’t so much going on and school’s started up. More soon!

Day 5, First Day of Class

Cortes' Palace

Well, today was another long day, but not quite so crazy. Classes started up so that is putting us into more of a routine and taking up blocks of time. The house is much quieter! Everyone is a little overwhelmed. It’s hard to go from our days of exploring in such a pretty sunny city to doing real work all day (well I guess we haven’t’ really found out what real work is and can’t complain. Anyway, it’s like coming back from vacation but still being in the same place! I’m sure we’ll all get into the swing of it soon enough.)

We had out first class session this morning. The class is called “Mexican History, Culture and Cosmovision.” For all those that don’t know what cosmovision is, like I didn’t, it’s the way one looks at the world. Broad enough topic for you? I have no idea how we are suppose to cover all that in I think 10 weeks. We have two 2-hr class sessions a week and 2 excursions or speakers. We have two teaches. The main one is Antonio, who seems great so far. The other’s name is Stephanie and she is really nice in a sort of comforting, mothering way also. There’s something about her voice. Then there’s also Chris, the TA. There’s eleven of us students, so it’s nice and small and even from that we break into 3 groups for discussion sometimes. We just talked about the concept of history a little today.

It was really interesting and engaging. I found myself using a lot of things I have done in classes last semester too, especially Carib. Women’s lit and Lit Theory (which was really more like life theory). It’s great to be able to make use of that stuff in a completely different context and have something to say. It made me want to take the other class which I’m not signed up for right now so I decided I’m going to audit it. It’s a small group so I feel like I’ll get left out of a lot and feel lost if I don’t take the class. All I have to do is go to class, but I think I’ll do some of the reading also though. I won’t have to do the work work though.

The rest of the day we just had some sort of workshops about how we think about things, especially about thought processes and then about community building. They try really hard to make this a really healthy, safe space and I think it is really working. We got to talk about a lot of things that people were worried about which made me feel much better. We’re just all starting to really understand each other better.

Then Betsy, the Katie who doesn’t live with me, and I went downtown and ran around for a while. We got back just in time for a speaker that talked to us about the Mexican political system. It was all really interesting and I didn’t know much about it before so was trying really hard to concentrate despite it being confusing and a long session.

Then dinner… lots of good conversation after dinner. We’ve already had so many great conversations that I’ve learned so much from.

Then… lots of homework… and… now I am SO ready for bed.

Ah… finally a short blog huh? Sorry they’ve been so long, just a lot to say. I think they’ll start getting shorter now.

Day 4

So yesterday afternoon I pretty much spent all the time blogging, e-mailing and hanging out with the girls around here. Everyone has really interesting ideas and experiences so there’s always a good conversation to be had… usually at least one that is about something tough to talk about, but it feels good to think.

After dinner we watched a movie about globalization, mostly about NGO’s using cheap labor in foreign countries. The whole concept of the movie was that third world countries (it’s PC to say that here, or so they say) are now “racing to the bottom” in order to attract foreign investment. This includes very low wage standards and also very lenient environmental standards. It was so sad to hear about the ways that these countries were being destroyed, basically by capitalism that really only benefited the occupying NGO. It was so depressing to watch and think about the ways the richest countries are basically taking advantage of the poor country’s helplessness. It made me feel so lost. There are so many little things that I can do, but there’s so much that is such a larger issue that I feel I could never have any influence on. Some things would be so easy to change, just be being human and giving people basic human rights, but the big cat (it was literally an animated cat in the movie which was strange) would loose a few cents so won’t think of it. It’s like sitting and watching something and just letting it happen because I can’t do anything.

I’m hoping that we will talk about this feeling of helplessness a little bit later. So much of what we talk about and who we talk to is so encouraging and empowering, yet so many of the facts are also so disheartening that I feel discouraged and helpless. We also talked about this after we did the market survey and just realize how bad things really are. We all had really similar feelings about feeling helpless. It was good to talk about it and I started thinking about how you really just have to accept that you can’t completely change things, but that little “tryings” can have a little bit of difference. Even that is sometimes hard though. We’ve talked a lot about sweat shops and foreign made products. It’s almost impossible not to depend on imports from places where people are being treated inhumanely. It makes me feel guilty. Hopefully all these feelings will sort themselves out as we talk about it more.

Being here is making me think about being a teacher a lot more also. There’s so much that I’ve never learned about things going on in different countries, and I don’t mean to be a downer and only mean the terrible things, though there are plenty of them. There is also really great things going on everywhere that never really get talked about, especially when talking about a “poor, suffering, terrible” third world country. That was the other thing we talked about a lot… the fact that the superpowers and all their tourists exercise even more power by making these countries insufficient and in desperate need of our help to teach them how to be like us, because that is obviously better.

We read a poem about the idea of taking photographs as a sort of exercising of that power because it does the same “oh poor people” or “oh, happy Mexicans wearing bright clothing,” basically just stereotyping of cultures. I had never thought of taking a photograph as something that could mean so much, as so much of a responsibility. So many pictures that people take, myself included, are actually for such self centered purposes… a sort of look what an adventure this is, look how brave I am, look how I am “helping.” They just affirm that power differential and play into those stereotypes. When people take pictures they may be looking for something especially interesting of unusual, but I think a lot of the time, they have an idea of a picture in their head and are just waiting to find it. I am totally guilty and it really made me think about how I want to take pictures. This is not to say not to take them, but to make sure that they tell the whole story, whether through the diversity of images or an actual written or verbal story.

So, all that made me think about teaching and how that can be my little difference. I’ve been doing much too much thinking here and though it is confusing and depressing and tiring, it is also thrilling in some ways and exciting! I am thrilled with how the program really encourages us to do so, and pushes us.

So where did I really leave off? Right… the depressing movie.

So after that I was about ready for bed. My brain had enough and was ready to shut down. Then someone brought over the Sound of Music, which I had watched a bazillion times when I was little. I also talked to Chris for a bit, who had come back from climbing. He said we should be able to go climbing sometime soon, so I’m really excited for that. He also said that a few of the people that he goes climbing with are girls so wa hoo! I watched a little more of the movie and then was off to bed.

Today was an insanely busy day and my head is just filled with new knowledge and thoughts and experiences.

First thing after breakfast we had a meeting with all of the staff that work around the house. That’s one thing that is really nice, they encourage everyone to really get to know each other and integrate the cooks and cleaning women and administrative people and maintenance people and the door man (only on thurs, fri, sat nights) and the teachers into the whole community. The people who work here are amazing people with so much more than I realized going on outside. I think they purposefully hire people that are making differences in everything we study around here.

We broke off into small groups at one point to have a conversation with one of the staff members to get to know them better personally and ask them anything we wanted about them or the area or Mexico in general. I was in a group with a woman, whose name I don’t remember, who works in the kitchen. Religion and family were very very close to her heart, in ways both good and bad so she wanted to talk about that. She told us how more than 30 years ago she became very involved in the church and how she read the bible to give her and her children rights. At that time she and her children only ate beans and didn’t have any rights in the house while her husband would go out drinking to the cantina. She started demanding rights and money to support the family as well as getting more involved in base Christian communities for a liberalization of women’s roles. Her husband told her that she could choose him or the church. Her children saw her standing up for herself and for them and told her they would support her in all ways, with money and personal support. She chose to leave her husband, a radical move at the time! Now she works getting women’s rights in a base Christian community.

It helped me feel better about feeling helpless to hear about how much she had stood up for herself and for change.

After that we learned a little about how the school’s pedagogy and such. Then we were put into groups of 6 and sent off with 100 pesos and a shopping list to a market on the other side of downtown. It took us a while to get there walking, and we certainly got a little lost. I got to speak and ask for directions and things like that a little bit which was very exciting. The market was so crazy once we got there. There was so many different things going on and so many different people. They sell everything there, from shoes to dog food to spices to batteries to Jesus dolls. It was crazy. Our mission was to buy tomatoes, black beans and a newspaper and then to check the prices for tampons and a tube of toothpaste. It took a while to find what we needed, and a lot of walking by a lot of rare meet and chicken feet and everything you could imagine, those were just the most memorable. Every few feet there was a new smell, smells that were sweet and made me thirsty, smells of chamomile that reminded me of tea on the Inca trail, smells of meat, and dog food, and newspapers, and new sneakers. It was so strange and so overwhelming to have all of my senses constantly registering new things.

It was quite an experience, with quite a purpose. We were given 100 pesos, which is about ten dollars. We bought a kilo of tomatoes and a ½ a kilo of black beans for 8 pesos (about 80 cents) each and then a newspaper for 10 pesos (about a dollar). Everything seems really cheap huh? That’s what we thought and was the whole point in having us do this exercise. The minimum wage (but only half the population works in the formal economic system where it even applies) is about 47.6 pesos A DAY.. which is about 6 pesos or 60 cents an hour. So we calculated how many hours someone would have to work for each item. For tomatoes or beans it was 1.3 hours, for the paper, 1.6 hours, for tampons, 4.5 hours, for toothpaste, 2.5 hours. Then we figured out what the US price would be is a minimum wage worker in the US had to work the same amount of hours for the item. The cost of tomatoes was $8.18/ kilo as well as for ½ kilo of beans. The paper cost $10.21. The tampons $27.86, the toothpaste $15.38! It was certainly a rude awakening to how insubstantial the minimum wage is, leaving people desperate for anything they need to sustain themselves. It makes the need to immigrate just to be able to live seem much more pressing.

All of the groups had the same sort of assignment with different items. The craziest was diapers, which cost 54.90 pesos (5.50) for a package. That is about 9.5 hours of work, and the equivalent of 53.80 in the US were a minimum wage worker there to work as much as one here would have to in order to buy them.

I’m just in complete shock about all of this… just puts things in perspective for sure! Be careful when you say something is cheap… .

So, that was the long exhaustttting day. We had a good dinner and talked about all of the exciting places around here where we want to go. There’s so much to do and even though I know that I have a lot of time left, I feel like it can’t possibly be enough already!

I’m sitting here watching a movie with little Kevin. He’s actually five. He has so much energy. It’s 9 o’clock and he’s out swinging. The other night when I went out I came back at 1:30 and he was up watching a movie with Fransisco, the night guard for weekends. I don’t know how he does it…

Well, hope everyone is keeping warm up there. It sounds like it’s been a bit chilly. I’ve been thinking of everyone! Sorry these are so long, I hope everyone is finding at least parts of them interesting. It’s been a good way to unpack everything I’ve done and stop and think about it because there’s usually not time of energy when it’s first happening. There’s just so much going on! Hopefully they will get a little shorter as time goes on because there’s no way I can spend this much time writing each day… there’s too much to do. A viscious, but fabulous circle….

Buenos Noches!

Day 3

It’s always hard to remember where I left off. Our days are so full and I’ve spent any free time that I have talking to everyone who I’m living with or exploring the city. I’m surprised how comfortable I feel here. I thought it would be much harder to come to such a different place with a new language and customs and so many people I’ve never met, but I feel surprisingly calm… exhausted, yes, but very relaxed.

So, I left off with salsa lessons. I have never been a big dancer, especially the dancing that most people my age do in the states (which really isn’t dancing). I don’t have much rhythm and am always pretty shy about it. I’m trying hard to keep trying new things though. I haven’t really been giving myself any options about doing something that pushes me a little bit and it’s working out well. The teacher of the salsa class was a woman from the Spanish class where we will be taking classes. She taught the class mostly in Spanish, but it was ok because I understood almost everything she said. It was a lot of fun despite being a little crowded and reallllly hot in the living room we were in. I danced with a girl named Katie (there’s only two guys in the whole program and one of them chose not to take the class). It was so much fun, lots of spinning and swinging around and around. I was wearing a very swirly skirt and it just made me feel like I was a little girl again.

After the dance class we had dinner. A bunch of the girls from my program and our RA/TA, Chris, sat outside and some really great conversations about all sorts of things. It’s fun to be with new people because there are so many new stories to tell and hear.

After dinner we watched a documentary about immigration from Latin America to the US called “Wetbacks”. Mostly it followed people from Nicaragua trying to get all the way up to the United States, which means crossing three borders where they could potentially be sent back home or suffer other things much worst. It really made me think about the whole immigration issue from a personal sense, rather than the politics behind it which is what everyone is always thinking about at home. None of the people that were immigrating were going because they wanted to be American so bad or because they were greedy or anything like that. They really just had no choice. There was a man talking about how dangerous it was and how many people die or are killed along the way, but at the end he said he would rather die trying and have a chance than die of starvation because he had no money and there were no jobs available. It was so sad and made me so mad to hear these Texan cowboys who patrol the border for fun talk about how all the Latin American immigrants are terrorist, when in fact they were just trying to get here to eat and are usually the most law abiding of anyone because they can get deported so easily. And they just want to build a wall? Putting more money into keeping them out instead of helping their economies or just stopping taking advantage of their economic system would stop the whole chain instead of just making it worst and worst. Another thing that really surprised me is how hard it was to cross through Mexico. Many of the police and immigration officers make minimum wage, which is not nearly enough to live on. Give someone who can’t afford to live on their wages a gun and authority and what do you think is going to happen? There is a ton of corruption and violent crimes perpetrated by the police! Sorry, just a little rant…

We were talking in orientation about what to do if you feel unsafe in a situation. They said the police is probably not the best resource, but that people around will almost always be willing to help you out. I have not had too much interaction with people around here yet, but every single time I have they have gone out of their way to help us. On our scavenger hunt, everyone we asked for directions was happy to give them to us and one woman even kept guiding us in the wrong direction, walking with us until she had to go her own way. Also today we were trying to cross a fairly busy street and a man stopped the traffic for us, made sure we were all the way across and then finished crossing himself. The TA/RAs told us about how the community really looks out for each other since the police is not as reliable and so far I have found that to be true. It is so comforting to see people smiling, greeting and looking out for each other like everyone should. It’s so different than in the U.S, and I think part of what makes me feel like this home, at least for a little bit.

So that’s my anti-American rant… On with my day.

After the movie a bunch of people were already all dressed up to go out dancing. I had been brave enough salsa dancing and wasn’t exactly ready to try it out on my own. I was also really tired and dirty and sweaty from the long day. I passed on that, but then Rose, a really sweet girl from Chapel Hill, who was also hear last semester, invited Betsy and I to go out for a much more mellow, low key night with the TA/RA of the social work program, Hillary. The four of us walked downtown to a gay bar, not sure of the name, to meet one of her friends. It was a really interesting scene. Everyone here goes out much later because the bars pretty much don’t close until the sun comes up. we were told we didn’t really need IDs so didn’t bring them since we weren’t bringing purses but then we got there they asked for IDs. It was the first time that I could have been IDed and I missed it! They finally let us in after we told them how old we were and that we were in college. It wasn’t every crowded when we first got there, but then it got really crowded all of the sudden. Especially when the drag queen came out and started singing. I ordered my first drink… Corona, like a typical northerner in Mexico. It felt strange, but was fun. We talked for a while there about all different things before heading home.

This morning we woke up and it was a beautiful day, warm and sunny. I ate breakfast and talked to some other girls for an hour and a half. Then we set out for a little exploration of the city. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from our house and fine to do during the day or at night with a bunch of people. We just walked around a lot and went in a bunch of different stores. They have everything, especially a lot of shoe stores for some reason. Today was especially busy in town because it is Sunday. The weekends fill the city with tourists and vacationers from Mexico City. A lot of wealthy people from Mexico city have weekend homes here amidst a lot of poverty. We also stopped at some of the tourist sites along the way, but didn’t spend much time there because we will be going on tours of many of them soon.

On the way home we walked by Jardín Borda, which is this beautiful garden on the edge of the city. On Sundays admission is free (usually only 15 pesos, which is about 1.50) so it was very crowded, but still gorgeous. There were lots of families going for little walks after going to church or having lunch and kids running around playing. It felt like a dream, there were fountains and flowers everywhere tucked in these secluded spots by tropical greenery. The smell and the air was wonderful. We walked around for a bit, but then decided to head back to the house for lunch.

There is a little boy named Kevin who also lives in the house. I’m not exactly sure how old he is, somewhere between 6 and 9 probably. He is deaf, which was funny because nobody told us that for a while and everyone was trying to talk to him and assuming their Spanish was terrible. He is the cutest little kid and quite a character. He certainly finds ways to communicate and make himself heard despite being deaf. He is always sliding around the floors, running around making funny faces and pointing for us to play with him. Katie showed him her camera and he was enamored, taking pictures of everything from us to dirt and the view. He is quite the little photographer, lining things up and getting in crazy positions for the best shots. He enjoyed taking our portraits very much and lined us up for a group shot, telling us to put our hands up in the peace sign. The picture of the house from the last post has him taking a picture in it.

I’m about ready for a siesta, more later…

A Very Long Day 1

It seems like forever since this morning… well I guess it has been. Forgive me if this makes no sense at all. I’m in a strange daze after waking up at 3:45 in Charlotte, NC, then to Mexico City and then finally here in Cuernavaca. It doesn’t seem real quite yet. I know I’m here, but it doesn’t feel like I’m going to be here for four months. We haven’t really explored at all yet so that also feels a little strange.

Anyway, let me start from the beginning….

The drive down to Charlotte was gorgeous. There were lots and lots of mountains. It seems to be a theme of this trip. Avi and I stayed in Charlotte at the Super 8 in a quite sketchy part of Charlotte. When we got there the woman was behind bullet proof glass and one of those things that you put the money in and slide the drawer through and vice versa, like at a bank or a jail. We got our room ok though and it was fine, typical enough. We were both exhausted after not getting much sleep the night before because of homework for Avi and Spanish studying for me. We were at the library until 11 and then still had more to do at home. So… sidetracked again, sorry… slightly traveled out and border line delusional.

So we decided to go out to eat at an Indian restaurant we found in some tourist book. We kind of had no idea where we were going though when we set out driving. We drove around for what seemed what forever, making like three giant circles that we figured out were so close to where we were trying to get in the first place. Ay ay ay. We were both at our ends because we were so tired when we finally got to the restaurant. I was getting nervous about Mexico and combined with being tired, hungry and lost, it was not a good combination. We had a good dinner though and I felt better afterwards. We called it a night with a little bit of TV and set our alarms for 3:45.

At 3:45 we rolled out of bed, into the car and off to the Charlotte airport. It was hard to say goodbye, but it helped that I was getting really excited for my trip and so tired I didn’t really realize what was going on. The first flight was just from Charlotte to Atlanta and took about 45 minutes. It was dark and the lights kept playing tricks on me. Some were all even, forming the perfect curves of cole de sacks and gated communities, evenly placed on evenly placed driveways, with evenly placed houses. But then there were the random patches with just black and little points like stars. It reminded me of those magic eye books because I could look at it one way and it would look like a city rising up, and then another and it would be woods with a few street lights again. The sun was rising on the other side too, but it was like a perfect gradient of a tequila sunrise, fitting… a sunrise with out the sun.

Then I had a long change over in Atlanta where I called my parents and it hit me that I was on my way. It was a strange feeling, both good and bad. I was excited, but it felt like I was leaving for good. A little water and reminding myself that I would be home in 4 months and I was on my way! It was interesting to see everyone going into Mexico City. There were definitely more Mexicans than anything else. I was hoping to practice my Spanish and being brave speaking it on the plane, but the seat next to me was empty and the one all the way over had a Mexican businessman who had earphones on most of the time.

I got more and more excited as we got closer and less overwhelmed. More than ever I just wanted to be there and have all these strange feelings of anticipation over with. Once we got into Mexico we flew over the mountains neat Mexico City and it was so beautiful. They seem sharper, crisper than the old mountains in the North East and there were so many different kinds of land… mountains and then a patchwork of fields that looked like a quilt then little cluster towns and finally, Mexico City, sweeping out for what seemed live forever.

The overwhelming feeling came back on as soon as I left the customs gate in Mexico City and everywhere I looked there were people. We had directions to go to the food court by going up some escalator, but I was so confused and it was hard to maneuver my giant suitcases through lunch time food court traffic. Then I finally saw a group of girls sitting there looking just as exhausted as I was.

It seemed that everyone had the same anxieties about the trip as I did… about their Spanish, about being somewhere for four months. We were all overwhelmed by the busyness of the airport. I also started speaking to one of the drivers and that made me feel much better about my Spanish and much more confident about speaking it.

Mexico City reminds me of when I was in Lima, which was also quite overwhelming. There’s cars and people and signs all over, many of them American brands too. They had Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts in the airport, but there seemed to be less of that outside of the airport and more little stores, though I did see a sign for a Wal Mart. We were all pretty quiet on the drive… or completely asleep. There were gorgeous mountain views as we got closer to Cuernavaca. They’re hard to describe… lots of different shapes and lush and desert like at the same time. I kept trying to take pictures out of the window and I got one or two good ones of the view.

When we arrived in Cuernavaca we met the RA/TAs of both programs. They are both incredibly nice and helpful as well as just fun and cool people. They told us which of the two houses we would be staying in- Casa CEMAL or Casa Verde, which is also caused Casa Augsburg. I was assigned to Casa CEMAL. I have three roommates and it seems like it’s all going to work out really well. Two of the girls, Emily and Katie, are from the Social Work program which goes on at the same time and we do a lot of activities with and the other girl, Betsy, is also in my program and from Boston as well! We are the only ones from the Northeast.

Our house is beautiful. You enter through a gate from the street. There is the main house and then a garage that has the offices above it with a gorgeous little tropical garden in between. It has a swing and a hammock and just feels very homey already. Then there’s a little overhang and a patio with chairs and a table on one side and then some hang out seating space on the other. The door is right in the middle and opens into the main living room. Our bedroom and another one that also has four girls is right off of the living room. It has a nice view of the garden and its own bathroom off of one side.

Through the living room is the dining room and kitchen, which has all windows on one side looking out over Cuernavaca. It’s a really nice environment where everyone helps out and is very respectful. There’s also a lot of focus on being environmentally friendly, which I also like. There is a dry season in Cuernavaca so it is especially important not to waste water. We all wash our own dishes except during meal times when whomever’s job it is does the dishes. We all have little jobs around the house. My job is with computers, which I guess I’m ok at, or at least can usually figure out fairly well. I kind of ended up with it at the end, but I think it will be good actually because they’re going to teach us about what to do in terms of fixing the internet or unjamming the printer etc. The internet is really inconsistent so posts might be a few days behind when I wrote them, but I’m going to write in word when it’s down.

I forgot the best part about the kitchen… we all have our own little rings hanging on the wall with our names above them. And guess what they are for?! Cloth napkins. We all have one for the week which we hang on our ring when we aren’t using it. Then at the end of the week, or earlier if it’s a messy week, they get washed and we get a new one to hang in our ring. It reminds me on Parent’s Nursery School where we all had those red cups with a piece of masking tape and our name on them and then there was a whole wall of hooks where we would hang it under our name, also in masking tape.

We were all so exhausted at night that we just unpacked a little bit, tried unsuccessfully to get on the internet, and then crashed. I slept so well and I am glad that I am in this house because someone said the other house is really loud. It rained, which I guess what very strange since it is the dry season and hasn’t rained in 2 months. It added to the tropical feeling though and I love the smell of warm rain. It was so crisp and organic. It was so real, like all of the earth was saying, “I’m here.” I can’t really think of any other way to explain it.

We woke up this morning, had breakfast and went over some orientation stuff. It still felt so strange to be here, especially because we still hadn’t been really out in the town so it felt even less real. I got to meet some of the other girls I hadn’t yet and got to talk to a few of the ones I had before even more. Everyone is really nice and excited to be here. Most of them are from Minnesota, from a few different schools. There’s also a girl from Tennessee, one from Kansas, a few from California, a girl from North Dakota and a few other places I’m forgetting.

After we went over the orientation stuff like how to take a taxi and some cultural things and stuff like that, some doctors came to talk to us about a study they were doing about stomach bugs that travelers get. Almost all of us signed up. All we had to do was give a little bit of blood and then keep track of how we felt for two weeks. Then if we get sick they give us special antibiotics and come to the house to help and stuff like that.

After that we went on a scavenger hunt in Cuernavaca. My group spent most of the time looking for the admission price of somewhere that didn’t even have an admission price! Then we went down to the center and looked around Cortés’ palace for a while. It was neat to be out in the city. We had to keep asking for directions to find the things we were looking for and everyone was so incredibly nice despite us asking strange questions and our Spanish not being wonderful. It was really fun, a little overwhelming, but really great and welcoming despite being a bit overwhelming again.

Well… time for Salsa lessons!

South, but not South of the Border

I've been spending the past two weeks in Asheville, North Carolina taking in some Southern charm before I head South of the border. I'll be leaving for Mexico from Charlotte on Friday morning, so I guess this is just a little mini trip with the rest of my big trip.

Leaving home was hard and it finally hit me that I'll be spending the whole semester in a whole new country. I packed up all my stuff just like I was getting on the airplane so it was a bit strange to sit in the car for 15 hours and end up down here. I said goodbye to my family which was a bit strange as well because it was like I was leaving, but not really. It helped postpone the reality of it for a little longer. That's not to say that I'm not excited, I am! But I'm also nervous and anxious and all of that which comes along with a new and different experience. I just have to keep telling myself to be brave, especially with speaking Spanish.

The drive down sure was interesting. It's really strange to be on the road ALL day. We left around 9 and got in here at about 12:30. It's kind of liberating actually, traveling like that with nothing to do and nowhere to be. It feels like nobody knows where you are and you are in complete control (although Avi was driving so I guess he was). It was also really interesting to see the transformation from up North down here to the South. There's a lot of nothing in between, I'll tell you that much.

We passed through a few notables, but mostly it was just highways, some with pretty views. I stuck my head out the window as we passed Hershey, PA, but all I smelt was cow manure like the rest of the way. We played the alphabet game a few times and mostly just talked and listened to music.

We were on a bit of a mission to find a TGI Fridays the whole way because they have a salad bar. We passed a bunch, but it was a little too early to eat and then there was nothing and nothing and nothing and our stomachs were growling because it was like 2:30 and we had only had a few snacks since breakfast. Finally we found one down in good old West Virginia, which ended up being quite a cultural experience, especially since it was the first time getting out of the car for anything except gas since being up North.

We were both in a bit of a daze from staring at the road the whole time so it all seemed even stranger... for me, at least. Avi's a little more used to it. Everyone says hi and they say y'all and they all had very strong Southern accents. It was like 4:30 so the restaurant was packed with early bird good Southern seniors. They were both incredibly nice and polite or very grumpy like I'm more used to. To be honest, I don't remember much more expect laughing at all the very Southern things around like mullets and big trucks... and waffle house. Oh the trucks! Next time we do the drive we're counting eighteen wheelers the whole time down. It's row after row of big roaring trucks and of course all the road side amenities to cater to them... a lot of cracker barrel and such.

We got into the town where Avi lives, Swannanoa, which is just outside Asheville, at about 12:30 and were we ready for bed or what...

I visited once before in October so I knew a little about where he lived, but we spent most of our time camping in the Smokey Mountains so didn't get much of a chance to explore around here. I also forgot how the roosters sometimes wake you up, and how there's a train that whistles also. It's strangely familiar and comforting though, like something I've imagined to be comforting but never actually experienced.

There are lots of trailer homes... we've been running around the neighborhood and seeing everything that's going on. Most of the trailers are more like permanent homes though so they look more like pre-maid houses than trailers. There's also lots of churches.... and lots of dogs. We keep doing the same running root and have learned which ones are where, which bark a lot, which are just plain annoying squeaky barking. There's a sign at the intersection by his house pointing the way to all the different churches in the neighborhood... probably about fifteen in like a mile radius. And we're not even very far into the Bible belt... I haven't noticed much more religiousness than the sheer amount of churches and various bumper stickers, though it is quiet on Sunday mornings, but that doesn’t mean much.


The mountains here are absolutely beautiful. It makes me want to go to school down here. It's like a city nestled into a whole mountain range so everywhere you look they grow up around you. When we're bored and feel like getting out we go drive up on the windy roads up in the mountains and just take in the views and look at all the great houses with great views. Avi's dreaming about winning power ball and living in one of the houses up on that ridge... and I guess I am a little too. We went for a really nice walk along the French Broad River the other day. It was on the Biltmore's land and there was a big fence, but there were a lot of people going through so we figured it was ok, and was it a nice walk.

We've also been running up on the Parkway where the road is closed. It's some rough running up and down hills, but wow is it worth it in the end. We've gone three times now. The first time almost all of it was closed so we ran straight up two miles to a look out where there were mountains fading in all different shades of blue in a sort of misty rain. Running up was tough, but we got down in less than fifteen minutes. After that day the road was open to a further point again and we were disappointed at first, but then it ended up being an even nicer spot with more up and downs than just up then down. We went 5.5 miles and through a mountain (there was a long dark tunnel). Once again there were views everywhere (we were up around 3K feet). If ever a run I love it is definitely there....

It's been a great two weeks in Asheville and I think it will have been a good way to transition way down South to Mexico. I leave tomorrow! I'm spending today re-packing everything I already packed, but for real this time. It is very exciting, but I'm of course a little nervous as well. I have no idea what to expect of the city, my classes, the people I'll be with. That's also what makes it exciting too though. I have a hard time when I am expecting something and it turns out different, but I'm going with a clean slate, ready for anything... or so I like to think. I hope I will be able to establish my little niche there where I feel comfortable and am able to relax. Well, time to get packing... I'll post again from way down South when I get a chance, but it might be a few days. I think our schedule is pretty packed the first few days and I'll need time to settle in and of course go exploring...