Week 6 and Climbing!

Hope everyone has had a really good week, especially those on Spring Break. It was a pretty typical week, not quite as busy as usual so that was nice. This week is our last week of Spanish, but next week I am taking another course, in which I will be the ONLY student, so that shall be interesting but I think I’ll learn a lot, especially because I’ll be able to talk a lot. I think it might be a little bit shorter too, not to mention we can hopefully be flexible about where we meet and can be outside.

We have a really crazy week coming up, but exciting also. It’s the last week of Spanish so we have our final composition due and our final test on Wednesday. It’s also almost the last week of our history test so we have a take home essay test due for that. We’re going to a maquila on Monday, so that should be interesting. And then… on Friday… we move into our homestays.

I’m really excited about homestays, but also getting really anxious. We mostly move as a group here and even though I go off from the group and go into town every once in a while it’s going to be realllly different to be living with a family because I’ll have to be so much more independent getting around town. That’s both exciting and scary. I really hope I’m not too far from the school (and the Spanish school, which is really close to CEMAL). I’m also a little nervous about not seeing everyone very often. The social work program is living in a whole different part of the city about 45 minutes by bus away and I think my group will be a little scattered around parts of the city. I’m also worried about having down time to myself. That kind of thing is really culturally different and it’s kind of weird to spend so much time alone. I get so exhausted speaking Spanish and paying so much attention to everything around me every once in a while I really need to just shut down for a bit. I’m trying to figure out how I can take an art class in Cuernavaca a few afternoons a week, so that would be really fun.

For this second half I’ll only have one class of Spanish, so I’m really looking forward to having some free time to explore the city a little more and to paint and write. We’ve been soooo busy it’s hard to find time lately! I’m also going to go to some of the speakers that we have for the other class even though I’m not technically taking it. I can go to whichever speakers of class sessions I want, so can be really flexible if something interests me.

So anyway, I’m way ahead of myself talking about the coming weeks with out even talking about what we’ve been up to this week, week 6. Everything is going so quickly. It’s hard to believe!

Monday we had a speaker from the Cuban embassy. It was really interesting to hear about relations between Cuba and the US from the other side since what we here in the US is so biased of course… It was really hard to understand him though because he spoke Spanish with a Cuban accent which made it seem like he was mumbling at the end of each phrase. He mostly told us about how successful Cuba (and Castro!) have been at a few things, specifically education and healthcare. All education, through college even, and all health care is completely free, so that is doing wonders for social advancement because people have that. The healthcare is also free for anyone in South America, so lots of people travel to Cuba because they can’t afford care where they are, but it’s free for them in Cuba. He also emphasized how they can survive just fine with out US trade, it is just much more expensive and difficult because they have to trade with places much further away. The extra burden is putting a lot of people in poverty and desperation so that they cannot sustain themselves and must look for work elsewhere, like the U.S. He said the US embargo is unfair and unreasonable and the US is not doing so much based on values as controlling trade and keeping themselves in power. The US actually does do some trade with Cuba, but only certain things are sold to them and the US does not buy anything from Cuba, which increases imports disproportionately with exports, which is basically bad for the economy.

That was very interesting and what was ever crazier was that Chris showed us an article that night about the speaker we had being in trouble for beating up some protestors in Washington DC who were protesting the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba. It was unclear whether he specifically was directly involved, but he was with the group of Cuban diplomats that did. They were all covered under diplomatic immunity though, so were never charged. It seems kind of ridiculous that they couldn’t be charged, but it makes sense because it protects diplomats from being arrested for doing nothing, just because they are diplomats in sketchy government operations. I was surprised I hadn’t heard about it in the US though, seems like something they would jump on.
Thursday we went to the “IFE”- the Insituto de Federal Electoral, which is the supposedly independent, unbiased organization that runs all of the elections on every level, from local to federal presidential elections. There’s been so much fraud, especially when the president appointed who the election organizer would be, that it was VERY necessary for this organization, independent of the governing party, to be founded. I was excited about this because there were a lot of allegations that there were fraud in this past election that had a very small differential between the two candidates, Obrador and Calderon. They told us all about how they register people to vote and how they monitor the elections through the whole process so there is no fraud. A representative from each party (there are eight even though there’s only three that are really competitive) is involved at every level of the elections to insure that everything is fair, they are directly responsible for seeing everything through so can’t accuse the commission later. We asked them whether they thought there was fraud in the last election. I was expecting them to deny it, but they actually admitted that the system still had flaws and it was possible, and with such a close election it wouldn’t have taken much.

Friday we talked to a woman named Cherie White who had had some amazing experiences throughout Latin America. She was born in Chile, grew up in Cuba during the revolution and was there when Fidel took over, then to the US, then back to Chile after she finished grad school and now she lives in Mexico! She told us stories about Fidel marching through her town after he won the elections and how happy people were because the dictator before made life very miserable for many people and had a very violent regime. She was in Chile and was accused of being a Communist by the government and witnessed some of the military regime there, though luckily not directly. She had some really great stories and was really good to hear a personal story from all the events and dates we had been reading though in books.

And the week was over… phew!

Betsy and I went to La Maga which is a very small, fun little bar on Friday night. They had live music which was really good so we stayed there for a while then came home.

On Saturday I went climbing! Outside… and guess where? Mexico City.. the largest city in the world and we went outdoor rock climbing. We took the bus to Mexico City, which takes a little over an hour and a half, then a bus for a while, then two metro trains. We met one of his friends before the bus and another right after. It was really neat because I’d heard a lot about the public transportation in Mexico, but hadn’t taken any when we were there. It was so incredibly crowded, like rush hour in Boston. Then Chris told me, this is not crowded at all. We got picked up by another climber friend of Chris and drove not to far to the park we would be climbing in. It was great, it was almost like it was put there for climbers. I was a little nervous about the ratings because the lowest was a 9, but the ratings here are a little bit higher than those in the us, about one grade so an 8 at home is a 9 here. I was fine, though it certainly took a little work to get up. It rained a little which was unfortunate because it hasn’t rained in a month and of course, the one day I get to go climbing outside it rains during the day (which is unusual, especially this time of year). We took cover for a bit and then climbed some more, and then it rained some more. I tried to lead a route (a yoyo in Spanish), but it got too slippery when I was about half way up and I got scared. I did it after on a top rope though.

After climbing and speaking Spanish all day, I was exhausted. We all drove back to Cuernavaca, got some dinner at a taco place and went to the movies at cine morelos (which was free for us girls since it’s women’s week). The movie was Whale Rider which I think is one of my new favorite movies. I was teary most of the time, it’s really sad, but really good. I highly recommend it. It was strange after being in Spanish mood all day because the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles. The English was a little hard to understand because it’s based in New Zealand and I couldn’t help but read the subtitles, so my mind was in a bit of a scramble translating all sorts of things. It’s really weird when English sounds more foreign than Spanish, but I guess that’s a good things also.

After that it was to bed and up early for a lazy Sunday of procrastinating homework. And that is week 6!

On to week 7 soon… Wow, time is flying. Soon we’ll be half way through.

Michoacan- Butterflies and an Ejido!

This week was a lot like last week, but also really different. We had class all week (Spanish in the morning and history or a lecture in the afternoons) as usual and then went away realllly early on Friday morning to Michoacan, which is another state in Mexico to the North West of Cuernavaca.

We had two really interesting lectures. The first was about the current Zapatista movement, which is mainly taking place in Oaxaca. It is a group of mainly indigenous people that are fighting for the right to govern their own lands, not to actually separate from Mexico, but to be in control of their children’s education, their healthcare, community resources etc instead of the Mexican government. The government has not/ does not take the individual needs of the people into account, especially of the indigenous people that have been pretty much pushed out of society, or at least the indigenous “part” of people because almost everyone is mestizo, meaning they have both indigenous and Spanish ancestry. It’s something we don’t hear a lot about in the U.S, but is a huge movement in Mexico right now. When we do hear about it in the U.S, my experience has been that it gets portrayed as a guerilla terrorist group when actually they believe in more peaceful actions.

The second speakers talked about the state of gender roles in Mexico today, specifically address machismo and marianismo which are the presiding gender roles. Machismo is… macho… just what you would imagine and holds very strong in Mexico today. Marianismo puts women in subservient, care taking and virgin like roles, following after the Virgin Mary. Religion is very important and has a huge influence on many areas of life here.

We also had a really interesting lab group discussion about how men treat women who are strangers to them here. It’s a little different that the U.S because it’s more part of the cultural and therefore a little more expected/accepted. It’s pretty much impossible to walk down the street with out getting whistled at and have men say something. We’ve heard all sorts of funny things and have racked up quite a few marriage proposals as well. At first I think we were all a little offended by most of it, but we’re getting used to it. We’ve talked to a few Mexican women about this and also women who have lived here for a long time. It seems there’s an important distinction to make. One is called “piropo” which is more of a complement. It usually has sexual undertones but it’s not gross or offensive. For the most part, these are accepted by women who have lived here a long time. The other is basically sexual harassment which is when guys says something just nasty and violating. More and more women are encouraging each other to speak back to these sorts of comments which starts making a difference and giving that power back to the women. It was good to talk about it as it’s certainly something (both kinds) that we’ve all had to put up with here. We also got into a discussion about home and when guys “protect” girls that guys say nasty things too. We were somewhat divided on whether that was productive. On one hand it takes even more power away from the woman, on the other, the guys saying that it’s not cool is undercutting that system and can have an effect on the guy that said something. Not sure where I stand on that one… I think it really depends on the situation because I can see both.

It’s really strange here because there’s this very rigid sort of “gentleman” expectation where guys have to open car doors and close car doors and women never carry anything and things like that, for every girl too, not just for girlfriends. It’s kind of patronizing and I’m kind of torn between saying, “I can do it myself,” and accepting that as a cultural difference that I have to get used to. It’s a tricky balance. I almost slammed a guys fingers in the car door the other day because I closed it… Either way it’s hard to get used to.

So Friday morning we woke up super early to be ready to leave at 7 am for Michoacan, a state NE of D.F . It was a five or six hour drive.. bleh. We had to pick up a woman named Friné Lopez who organized the whole weekend trip for us. She is a great women who works a lot with rural development. We finally got there around one-thirty and settled in a little and had some lunch. We stayed at a little rustic hotel in Senguio, which is a really small beautiful town that reminded me of Huitzilac a little bit. After lunch we went to an ejido called El Calobozo, which is a shared kind of co-op sort of farm. I talked a little bit about it before. One of the farmers of the land, who had been the head of the ejido also, showed us around his farm and talked a little about how it worked. It was really interesting and beautiful.

After that we went to meet a group of women that were doing all sorts of little projects to bring income into their families and sustain the community. They had a group that did silk screening, one that made jewelry, one that sold organic vegetables and one that worked with making sure there was enough clean water to sustain the community. When we first got out of the car a very old woman kept touching Natalie and asking her for her shoes, her shirt and everything, but then we finally went inside to hear all the groups speak.

The next morning Betsy and I woke up a bit early to go for a short walk with Friné before breakfast. We walked up past an old church and into the mountains a bit and then came back. After b-fast we drove about an hour and a half to the butterfly sanctuary which was just incredible. The whole time I felt like I was dreaming.

When we arrived there were all these little kids running along the car asking if we wanted a guide or someone to watch our car while we were gone. Then a bunch of women came over and were asking us if we were hungry and telling us about their food stand and all the kinds of food they sold. Then we started our hike which ended up being about two hours each way. It was really dirty and dusty because some people could rent horses to walk down and since it’s been so dry, they horses just kick up all the dirt. We could feel it in our noses and it was in our teeth and just about everywhere. When we blew our noses afterwards it was all dirty and grossss.

When we first started walking we saw a bunch of butterflies fluttering all around and it was dreamy enough, but as we walked further and further there were just more and more even though we kept not being able to imagine anymore. It was like a fall say when it’s really windy and all the leaves are twirling off the tress constantly… it was like that, but butterflies instead of trees. I never imagined there could be so many in one place. I kept expected to wake up and have to go, realizing it was all a dream. When we got to our final spot it was where all the butterflies were hibernating and the whole tree looking like it was covered in orange flowers, but it was all butterflies. I put pictures on facebook, but they really don’t do what it was like justice. Any part where it looks like your computer screen is messed up or my lens was dirty.. that’s a butterfly. Imagine more butterflies than you could ever imagine!

Every year they migrate to this forest because they especially like the kind of tree that is there. There’s some other areas in other places they also go to, but where we were is the biggest one. It takes four generations to complete the migration from way down here all the way over different parts of the U.S and up into Canada. They’re mostly only in Mexico from November to March when they come to reproduce and hibernate.

When we got back from our hike everyone was a little cranky from being dirty and tired, but we sat down for lunch at a very rustic little restaurant and a few of the women who each own smaller restaurants worked together to prepare all the food for us, which was mostly different types of quesadillas and sopes (which are like thick tortillas which an edge, topped with salsa, beans, salsa, cheese and cilantro).

After that it was back in the car for the long ride home…

Saturday night I went out with Katie, Katie and Kate (that’s not a joke) to a Mexican friend of their’s really gorgeous house in a suburb of Cuernavaca. It had a gorgeous view of the lights of the city and we hang out for a while… I got to practice my Spanish for sure which is always fun.

And it is today! This week won’t be as exciting because we don’t have a weekend trip planned, but a few of us might take a little day trip, maybe to Taxco or somewhere else. Well… I think I’ve written enough and I’ve got homework to do. Have a good week everyone (especially everyone on Spring break! )

D.F- Mexico City

So… I haven’t written in a week… again. There’s just too much to do around here! It’s super exhausting, but in an amazing sort of way. Last week really drained me because there was so much going on. It got to a point I really just needed some time to myself alone. I’m having a good time with everyone here, but I realized I hadn’t been alone in almost a month so it was needed…

Anyway, we had classes Mon-Thurs as usual… pretty typical stuff. I had to miss class on Monday though because Anna and I had to go to immigration to get our visas renewed earlier than everyone else because when I asked for 180 days on my visa the guy gave me 30 instead of the normal 90 like everyone else got. It was a lot of waiting, a lot of paperwork and a lot of just running around. Everyone else will have to go soon anyway though, so its nto really a big deal… probably easier actually because then there was only two of us instead of the humungo group.

Monday afternoon we had a really great speaker about US intervention in Latin America. He started his talk with Sept. 11 was a very important and sad day. And America was entirely responsible for what happened on that day… Of course we were all thinking of the twin tours, but he was actually talking about a US financed and organized (proven be declassified documents) coup in 1973 of a Chilean democratically elected leader to put in place a dictator that ended up being one of the most opressive dictators of all of Latin America. The US wanted this leader because the current leader was implementing nationalist policies that would affect a huge US copper mining company… lovely huh?

It was hard to listen to all the things that the US has done, completely dominating weaker countries. It made me feel guilty and helpless. It was also hard ot hear about things that have happened concerning our government that I’ve never heard of in the least bit. In class that week we also watched a movie about the School of the Americas (which is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). It was all from the point of view of veterans who were coming from information within the military. So basically at this school they train scoldiers from other governements. Right now they label it “anti-terrorist,” but it really is training soldiers in corrupt governments to put down social movements that are taking place because people don’t have basic human rights. The amount of civiliians that graduates have killed is disgusting, most of them doing humanitarian work! So.. that was really depressing and I was almost crying. Its all to keep the US in power over the whole hemisphere…. read more here: http://www.soaw.org/new/type.php?type=8 “Consistently the countries with the worst human rights records have sent the most students to the SOA during the peaks of repression.”

So, on a more upbeat note… On Thursday we took off for Mexico City right after Spanish was over. I was a little bit terrified of Mexico City because… it’s only the biggest city in the world, and I’d read a lot about how dangerous it is. Nothing happened to anyone the whole time we were there, though I’d say there were definitely times I felt a bit sketched out.

The first thing we did when we got there was to have a talk with Patria Jimenez who was Mexico’s first openly lesbian congresswoman. She talked about the GLBT movement in Mexico which is pretty similar to that of the United States, except there is less freedom in most rural areas of Mexico when gender expectations are especially strong. We were in a neighberhood of Mexico city called Cayoacan that used to be its own city, but got absorbed my Mexico City’s expansion. We wandered around for a while afterwards and went to the Frida Kahlo museum which is her house. It was really neat.

We stayed in a really nice hostel right in the historic zocalo (center) of Mexico City, behing the main cathedral. The first night we set out on a mission to find some reggae bar called roots that Ashely had been to the last time she was in Mexico City. We walked around for a bit and couldn’t find it, but it was a nice walk. The historic area is so beautiful. It reminded me of Rome a little bit (pictures on webshots soon).

The next day we talked with a woman about the feminist movement in Mexico. It was also really interesting to see the parallels there with the US and hearing how the movement is in conjunction with many of the other Latin American countries.

Then we walked around Mexico’s largest public University- UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonomous de Mexico). It’s HUGE. It has 250,000 students and tutition is FREE (though it’s really hard to get in). It’s the center of a lot of the liberal thinking and social movements in Mexico. We went to this strange circle that showed all the volcanic rick that the school is built on and it has these strange cement triangle around the perimeter. I can’t explain it very well, but there’s a picture on facebook.

In the afternoon we talked with two young women that are part of an organization called Catholics for free choice. It was really interesting to hear how they were working for rights for young people and especially women within the bounds of rigid Catholicism. The majority of the country is Catholic. They said a lot of people have been exiled from the church though and that it is a very radical topic.

That night we went to the bar on top of the roof of our hostel. It was gorgeous, though a little disturbing to see how huggge Mexico city is. In every direction is just sprawled out as far as I could see. Then we went to the sketchiest place I have ever been. We found that reggae bar… it was like behind a cillard club through a little ally. It was very very creepy. When we got there everyone was smoking pot and this really sketchy group of guys kept trying to get close to us. It wasn’t crowded at all and we’d just move away, but they wouldn’t get the hint at all. There was also pretty much porn playing on a big screen in the front. It was scary so we only stayed a little while.. good music but super creepy place, not fun at all. So we went to bed…

The next day we took a tour of the National Palace, which is more of a symbolic, tourist spot then an actual government function building, though some still goes on there. We got a tour and got to see the huge Diego Rivera mural of Mexican history. Pictures on webshots… It was grogeous and then we just had time to explore around Mexico City which is gorgeous, but so so crowded. We wandered around and went to the art museum which was also really interesting, then back to Cuernavaca….

I relaxed a little in Cuernavaca and just bummed around listening to music. This was the point I really needed time to myself, so it was nice to be home.

That night I went out with a few of the girls here and a bunch of Mexican guys they have been hanging out. The first bar we went to wasn’t letting anyone in even though it was pretty much empty. So we went to another place called Red Blue Lounge which was really fun. It was like a big blacony and it had all these beds around with lots of pillows to sit on. We hung out, talked a bunch and danced a little. It was fun to speak Spanish so much. I think I’m better when I’ve had a drink…

Sunday I surprisingly woke up to go hiking despite being out until past 2. I was glad I did though. We went to Zempoala (the same place we rode horses for the first time). It was really gorgeous and I felt so free being outside.

So, that was my week!

Pie de La Cuesta

So… I haven’t written in a while! Last week was pretty mellow, just a lot of class and stuff like that. I went into town with Kate and Katie one afternoon and we did a little bit of shopping and went out for a drink, so that was really nice. It’s always nice to get out of the house for a little bit. It’s really fun to be in a big group, but can also be overwhelming.

We started our Spanish classes last Monday. They’re all going really well. My teacher’s name is Elia and she is really nice and funny. There’s only five of us in my class so it makes it much easier to learn than like in the huge Spanish classes that I’ve had before in school. It’s mostly conversation based which is good too, thought I hope my writing doesn’t get too behind. The class is three 50-minute sessions (10 min breaks in between) four days a week. It’s about 2/3 just having conversations, so it’s like chit chat time. My Spanish has certainly gotten way better since I’ve been here. I think a lot of it has to do with confidence and it’s really been a lot of fun since I started feeling brace enough to speak (which was surprisingly quick!) I’m really excited for my homestay because I feel like my Spanish will reallllly improve then.

Oh yeah… I learned something fun in Spanish the other day! We learn a lot about Mexican culture in our conversations.

The only other exciting thing that happened during the week last week was that we went out for Jessie’s 21st birthday on Thursday. It’s not as big a deal here because we can all already drink, but it was a good time. It started out with just like seven of us at Los Arcos, which I’ve talked about before. Then almost everyone in the program came and we took up three tables and everyone was looking at us funny, but it was a good time…

On Friday morning we had a lecture about the Virgin of Guadeloupe and then Betsy, Jessie and I took off for a beach called Pie de La Cuesta (Foot of the Hill), which is just a little bit North of Acapulco! After a week of more school like activities we were certainly ready for a break/ an adventure.

I learned a lot about buses also… mostly that they do fill up so you have to be really early or by tickets ahead of time. We ended up spending more than two hours at the bus station waiting for the bus. We finally got on the bus for a long ride at 4:30. The trip takes like 4.5 hours. We drove through some gorgeous mountains and saw the sun set over them which was so beautiful. There was almost nothing for a long time, just kind of dry, arid mountains, some low shrubbery and lots of cactuses… huggge cacti.

We stopped a few times on the way there and finally got there a little after 9. The bus actually goes to Acapulco and then we had to get a taxi to take us to Pie de La Cuesta, which is about a half hour ride. While we were waiting in the bus station we called the hotel and made a reservation so everything was pretty much all set when we finally got into Pie de La Cuesta. Our hotel was called Cabanas Maria Christie and was run by a nice man named Enrique who spoke a fair amount of English. We were starving, having not eaten since lunch time. He sent us to a restaurant just a bit down called Coyuca 2000. It was good food and Betsy and I had really good enormous drinks we were a bit tipsy after.

We called it a night and went to bed to the sound of crashing waves and the smell of sea salt which made me extremely happy.

When I woke up in the morning I was nervous that it was cloudy, but actually the sun hadn’t come up over the mountains on the other side quite yet. The sky was perfectly blue, with not one single cloud. We went right out to the beach to lie in the sun and play in the huge waves. After a little breakfast we brought from the little store next door we went for a walk down the beach to a shipwreck of a whale watch kind of type of boat. It was really cool because when there was an especially big boat it would wash through the deck and come flying out the other side. We lounged for a little longer on the beach and in hammocks that were right out in front of our room under a little cabana. The waves were huge and there’s a really dangerous under toe so we didn’t really go swimming, just a lot of playing in the waves.

There’s also a really gorgeous lagoon on the other side with lots of islands and bird life, but we didn’t really have time to explore both so we spent most of our time on the ocean. We’ll just have to go back to explore the lagoon…

After lunch Betsy and I went horseback riding on the beach. for the first half we just walked down the beach on the horses for a little bit, maybe a little bit of trotting. Then one of the guys we rented the horses from came on my horse with me to make it go really fast. We went so fast, it was such a rush and so scary! The horse was really runnnnning on the beach. It was so fun.

More lounging until dinner, a little homework and bed with the waves again!

The next day was pretty much the same… lots of lounging and walking on the beach. We headed back to the bus station at one for a 2:40 bus we had already bought tickets for (we learned our lesson after going there). This time we got the “plus” bus which is a lot nicer and also doesn’t make any stops along the way so takes a little less time. We were in the front row and I spent the whole time trying to figure out what the signals the bus drivers were giving the other passing buses were. He would wave in several different ways or wave a piece of paper. Needless to say… I never figured it out.

So that was my last week! I hear there’s lots of snow up North, it’s so strange to think about. Whenever I think about home it’s like the weather here… like mid June, but I guess that’s quite wrong… Whenever I sign onto the e-mail the Clark webcam shows me how snowy it is up there. Hope all is well with everyone! Let me know how you are!

La Boda (Wedding)

So last weekend I went to a crazy wedding in Amatlan, the second town that we had homestays in. After I had been there for like three hours the family asked what I was doing and said to come because it would be a lot of fun with “mucho baila, comida mexicana, musica and cerveza!” (dancing, Mexican food, music, beer). They said to bring a friend so I invited Betsy.

We set of on the bus for Tepotzlan, a town a little bigger near Amatlan earlyish in the morning. From Tepotzlan we got on a little bus called a “kombe” which is like a van mixed with a bus because it looks like a van and is the same size, but it has seats around the edges like a bus, handles and a sliding door that connects to a lever by the driver like a bus. It was about a fifteen minute ride.

I had called the family we were going to be staying with (which was also my host family) the night before, and I think I left a message, but I wasn’t exactly sure. It was a little awkward to just walk up and say “we’re here!,” but a lot less awkward than you would think because the “mi es su case” truly applies every place that I’ve been. They are very welcoming and everyone goes in and out of their friend’s and family’s homes with out announcement.

We had a little breakfast, of course, with the families all we do is eat! Then we went with our host mom back to Tepotzlan in a kombe again with bags filled up high with orange peel boxes, decorated with dried flower petals and with candles inside. We went to a few little stores or stands and she sold her boxes to the vendors who would then sell them to the tourists. In only about half an hour, she sold probably about 30 or 40 boxes, so it was neat to see her business in action.

After we returned back to Amatlan on the kombe we heard lots of music. They asked if we wanted to go see and we went out. First the band, which was made up of nine men playing all sorts of brass instruments and drums played behind the groom and his whole family walking to the church. We somehow ended up walking with them, which seemed fine though we felt a bit awkward at first. Then we did the same with the bride, who was dressed in a crisp white dress with a long train that two adorable little kids carried. Most of the men were wearing cowboy dress up attire (creased wrangler pants, button up shirts and crisp hats). Only a few other people were dressed up and then almost everyone else was just wearing day clothes.

We didn’t stay for the mass since it is a very tiny little church and we already felt like outsiders enough. I have never really felt tall, but many of the people of Amatlan are quite a bit shorter than me, and then that included with being a gringa and Betsy (who is quite a bit taller than me) sure did stand out!

Back at the party spot a lot of the women from town were working away making beans, meat, rice and of course fresh tortillas for the party. There were two cooking stations set up. They had probably been cooking since about 8 or 9. We got there around 12:30.

The groom’s house, where the party was at, is a very modest cinder block house with just two rooms and a non-flushing toilet out to the side, but it had sure been set up for a party! There were 6 or 7 tarps of different sizes and colors patch worked to form a large pavilion, lots of sort of tacky “nuestro boda” and “mi baptismo” (it was also a baptism) decorations which had pictures that looked like they had been cut out of wedding dress catalogs. Lots of pink and frills. There was also these beautiful garlands of flowers and pin wheels hand made out of paper that spun in the wind. There were a bunch of long tables set up all over. When anyone can bring guests you can imagine how hard it is to plan!

After a little while we heard the music again and the bride and groom came up, followed by everyone who was at the mass. Everyone sat down and ate the food that many of the women had been working for all day. They also brought in two ginormous 4-tier cakes, one for the wedding and one a little smaller for the baptism. Everyone was talking and drinking… lots of beer and tequila of course. I thought that was a stereotype that Mexicans drink a lot of Corona and tequila, but it is pretty true… lots of Victoria beer though, but that’s made by the same company as Corona and tastes pretty similar… just a little darker and heavier.

We met two little kids, Armarosa and Vincente, who Betsy had met during her homestay in Amatlan. They became our guides and entertainers for the afternoon, which was really nice because we felt a bit awkward and our host family was busy conversing and cooking. They were so cute, bringing us chairs, telling us what is appropriate to do at a certain time, getting us drinks and teaching us Spanish. Eventually it started raining and we were getting a little wet, so Vincente sent us under a little overhang and then dried off our chairs when it stopped. I taught him how to make a paper crane out of a paper napkin, which he seemed to really enjoy. After a while of paper cranes and some magic tricks, they said that there was going to be bull riding!

Vincente brought us chairs right in front of a fenced in circle that had one tiny corral on one side with a big gate and then a larger corral filled with bulls on the other side. They put one bull in the little pen and got him all ready to ride (putting a rope for the rider to hold on, covers on the horns and basically making him really mad). Well that was going on, a, interesting dance started up back under the tarps (which was about 20 feet from the bull pen). At first there was just a man dancing with a live turkey on his head, but then everyone else started joining in by picking up a piece of food, a drink or a beer (or case of beer in some cases). They all danced around in a circle in sync with the music (that was being played by the same nine-man band). Arma and Vincente dragged us in and gave us drinks to dance around with which was really fun though a bit strange because we weren’t sure why. We asked one of our teachers who lives there later and she said it is a giving of dowry to the wife and her family.

So then we were back to the bull riding. It was a little strange because someone would get on a bull, do the cowboy bull riding thing well it bucked it’s way across the pen (about 10 feet) and then the bull put its front legs down and but up in the air. Then the cowboy got up and they dragged the bull in the big pen and got a new bull to ride, which once again did the same thing which took about a minute and a half. There was only one I saw that went a little longer, running in a circle. That went on until they went through all the bulls. Betsy and I suspected that it was B.Y.O.B- Bring Your Own Bull.

We spent some more time just hanging out, the band was playing the whole time and a new band set up on a big stage that had speakers stacked all over like a huge concert. Once the next band started playing lots of people started salsa dancing. They moved a bunch of tables out of the way to make a big dirt dance floor. At first we just kind of watched. I really like dancing here, which is funny because I don’t at all at home. It’s really different dancing and I also don’t mind so much making a fool of myself because I just blame it on being American. I like it, but I must say that I am a TERRIBLE dancer. I think they laugh at us!

I danced with my host father once and then from then on I was dancing almost every dance! Betsy was too! We just kept being asked which actually got quite annoying. As the night went on people got drunker and drunker. We drank a tad, but not much at all. There were some older men that had to be hobbled out hanging on other people’s shoulders because they couldn’t walk. It was crazy. There was one guy who really creeped me out because he kept asking me to dance and wouldn’t take no or I need a break for an answer. When we were dancing I could barley hear but he kept testing my Spanish and at one point said, “Do you understand the word “amor”(love)? So now you know why I didn’t want to dance with him anymore. I sat down and Vincente said, “love at first site!” They all thought it was funny and supported be “no.” My host father finally came up and took me to dance while the other guy was asking, so that was a relief. After that I danced with my host brother for a while and then the guy came back and he said something to him and the guy left. It was nice feeling protected like that by people I wasn’t even really close yet. Everyone certainly watches out for each other in all situations.

We danced and danced and danced, which was fun… I was getting so tired but every time I tried to sit down for a little rest I would get pulled out of my chair for more dancing. At one point there was a big fight which was a tad bit scary because I saw one of the guys almost get strangled. It seemed to be between the bride’s family (her brothers) and some guys from Amatlan. It was a full out fist fight brawl. The band singer kept saying “Have respect. Please for the family, have respect.” Eventually they all got pulled apart by others around and it all calmed down. I think most of them left. The bride was from Santa Cruz and the groom from Amatlan so we were wondering if there was some rift between the two regions. We asked one of our professors and he said people from Santa Cruz have a reputation for using bad language and being more sexually loose, but he didn’t think anything beyond that.

Eventually Betsy and I couldn’t dance anymore, nor hear much because the music was so loud! We told out host family we were very tired and needed to go to bed. Then we waited around for a while because nothing moves very quick in Mexico, which is nice. Of course waiting meant more dancing… Eventually, after saying bye to everyone we finally walked back home more exhausted than I think I’ve ever been. That was at midnight! So we were at the party for just about 12 hours.

Our house wasn’t far from the party and we heard the music at a volume I would listen to it to dance to there! We also had the first band staying in the room next to us, so they were quite loud. But none of that mattered because we were fasssst asleep…

The next morning we had a little breakfast of hot milk and pan dulce (sweet bread), then they said we were going to “almorzar” which is the big breakfast meal- there’s four meals usually, a small desayuno early, a big almorzar at about 10, comida at 2 which is the biggest and then cena at around 8 or so. So right after a little desayuno we went back to where the party was to eat some more… leftovers! Betsy and I shared a plate which was already too much food.

We said our goodbyes before heading off to Tepotzlan for a little bit of shopping. One of our host brothers decided to come with us to show us around and hang out a bit (he’s the one who is going back to LA soon). It was really nice and we just walked around for a while before taking the bus back to Amatlan.