Ay dios mio

Wow. Mexico is freaking amazing.

First of all, I taught my first class at UNILA last week, and it went really well. I had 13 kids, and we talked about using gerunds as objects and subjects, as opposed to verbs. It was a good brush-up of English grammar for me to teach it. We also learned vocabulary for talking about different jobs, and the personality styles that go with different jobs. My planning was right on, and we spent the whole 2 hours doing different activities and games. It was hard to plan that much, and I think mustering up that kind of creativity 2 times a week will be a challenge, but a good one. My students were very respectful, and all tried really hard, and hopefully learned something. The best part was when I asked them if they wanted a break halfway through, and they said they wanted to keep going. I felt very confident though as the class went on, and I am hoping it continues to go well. I really want them to learn a lot. Vamos a ver...

Next topic: this weekend!
So, we went to DF (Districto Federal, Mexico City) for the weekend. We left yesterday at 8 am, and took a bus to the city, and went straight to Frida Kahlo's house, which is now a museum. It was amazing. I appreciated it so much more after watching Frida last weekend, because I knew the history and had the visual image already planted in my head. It was incredible though, to be in the place where she was, and to be in the rooms that inspired so much great art. She has such a tumultuous life, and I just can't think of many people who put so much of themselves into their work and what they create. What a woman. From there, we went to our hotel where we hung out for awhile and ate some lunch. We met up again to go the Palacio Nacional, which is where a large number of Diego Rivera murals are located. Again, watching Frida was such a big help. The biggest mural there is a history of Mexico. I love his murals because you can tell exactly how he felt about all the characters by looking at their faces. He depicted kindness and "evil" very well, and it was fun to pick out the historical characters now that we've done history up until 1915-ish. Zapata, Villa, Benito Juarez, Porfirio Diaz, etc...I am actually soaking the history in, and enjoying it. Goyo is a great professor, and I'm learning a lot with him. After the palacio, we bummed around the Zocalo (main plaza) for awhile, watched some "Aztec" dancers, got some ice cream, and felt like a big group of gringo tourists. A good feeling to have every once in awhile. Then last night we had the night off. Norma (our program director) took us to a bar with live salsa music. It was so much fun! 4 guys asked me to dance, and all of them were very patient with me, teaching me how to salsa. But it was funny, because all of them told me to relax and let them be in charge. Caballeros. One of them was taller than me, which everyone in my group was very excited about. Everyone is always looking out for me!

This morning we woke up super early and headed to Teotihuacan, which was INCREDIBLE. The pyramids were amazing, and the view from the top was once-in-a-lifetime. They were a pain to climb up because the stairs were very steep, but worth the hike. We climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, and the Moon. So high. I am always amazed by the human capacity to build giant things....without backhoes or bulldozers. After Teotihuacan, we went back to DF (about half an hour on the bus) and ate at a restaurant, and went to the Museo de Bellas Artes to see some more art. Orozco, more Rivera, Siqueiros, etc. Amazing art. From there, we headed home and I am now rushing to get lots of homework done. But it was a great weekend overall, and I am ready for another week of sun, salsa, and Mexico!

21!

This was a big week. I finally feel very comfortable here. Things feel good with my family, and my Spanish is finally feeling comfortable. I think I'm understanding more everyday.

I turned 21 on Monday! Thanks to all for the wonderful birthday messages! My mom and my sister sang to me when I came downstairs, and we had a wonderful fruity cake for breakfast...the best time to have cake. They have this thing called "mordida" here which consists of the birthday girl/boy taking a bite out of his/her cake. Everyone chants "mordida" until you do it! It's sort of like blowing out the candles, but it's so awkward to have lots of people watch while you try to gracefully shove your face in a cake. It reminds me a lot of when the bride and groom put the cake in each others faces, which I never plan on doing. Then at school I got another cake during our break in the middle of the morning, which was delicious...it was strawberries and cream and vanilla cake. Mmm so much cake. The best part of the day was definitely when I got to talk to mom and dad on skype, and got to actually see them because of the camera on mom's computer! It was awesome! If anyone else wants to chat on skype, we can make a date to talk...

The only bummer about this week was that there was so much homework. All the academic stuff picked up really quickly. Today, I had to hand in grammar homework, 2 1-page summaries for 2 different classes, I had to read lots of history, and I had 2 quizzes! I'm essentially taking 6/7 classes, which is way more than I would ever do at Earlham. I can do it, but it's hard to try to enjoy life here/spend time with family AND get all the work done.

On a positive note, my project is going wonderfully. I think I mentioned it, but I'm working at UNILA (La Universidad Latina) as an English teacher. Next week, I start with my own class of 15-ish students. The scary part is that I am the the teacher. I have to do a lot; I decide how to grade them, when to test them, what homework they get, etc etc. I'm a college professor! It's really daunting, but I also have a really complete teacher's guide to help me. They're pretty advanced, so we'll mostly be doing conversation, lots of reading and writing, etc. The grammar is stuff like future perfect, gerunds, the passive voice, etc. I think I will learn a lot of English grammar in the process, which I suppose it good. The students are great. This past week, Brian (another Earlham student), Nelly (professor at UNILA, also the dept. chair for languages), and I had all the intermediate and advanced students together, so I already got to know my students pretty well. I hope I am creative enough to make the class fun, but each class is 2 hours, so I need to plan a lot! Yikes! If anyone has any advice to offer me, please let me know! I'm a little terrified! Thankfully, it's only Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I will have time between to get stuff done (apart from all my Earlham classes!!!)

But it's the weekend, so I shouldn't worry! And Independence Day is Monday! So that will be fun! UNILA doesn't have class Tuesday, so I think I might go to a party Monday night at the house of a friend on the program. Tonight, a bunch of us are going to Pritsker to celebrate my birthday (on the weekend...) so hopefully that will be fun. I will try to write more than once next week, but it's so crazy here! The schedule is nuts, and I've also been going to aerobics every night, so there's not a lot of free time!

Crazy Day in Mexico

Yesterday was a day to remember. There were so many group-bonding moments that by the end, I felt like I would trust anyone in that group with my life! So we had to be at Casa Sol at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday, which was rough, but we all climbed into the combi, bleary eyed, to head to Hueyapan and other villages. The ride took forever. It's not that far away, but because of the mountains, you go up and down about 20 times in 10 minutes. We stopped in Tatela de Volcan to see the market there, which was really the most rural place we've been so far. From the street, you could perfectly see Popocatapetl, and since we were so high up in the mountains, the view was incredible. We could see all the snow on the top. It's such a beautiful volcano. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died 5 minutes into the drive, but I'm sure there will be more opportunities. Anyway, moving on wit the story, we parked the combi in the street. This was not allowed. You know when they say "take down your license plate number" when you do something illegal? Here in rural Mexico, they actually physically remove your license plate when you park illegally. We all came out of the market to find our combi driving chatting it up with the Tetela de Volcan police. It took forever to get it worked out, and we had to drive to the police station. About half an hour after waiting, we were finally on the road again. We stopped at a small campo to see an example of an indigenous family farm. They were growing corn, avocadoes, and beans. They also grown marigolds especially for Dia de Los Muertos, because that is the special flower for the holiday, and we got to see a cool brick oven where they bake lots of bread daily. The guy was really friendly, and also gave us some of the walnuts that he grew...it was the first time I had ever had a walnut straight from the shell.

After this visit, we continued on to Hueyapan, where we had a nice little lunch at the house of some indigenous weavers. They had beautiful bags, ponchos, blankets, and scarves, all made from the wool they had harvested from their sheep, carded, spun, naturally dyed, and woven. I didn't buy anything, but lots of people did. From this house, we continued on to meet our tour guide, Abraham, who was a funny little guy who took us around Hueyapan in our combi. This was where the adventure really began. That combi was not happy with the rural Mexican roads. There were a bunch of times when rubber was burned, the combi rolled downhill a little bit, and many times when we got out to push it out of a ditch. Needless to say, we were giving the driver a hard day. But it was definitely an experience. After pushing the combi up many hills, we reached the house where Abraham was born, which had a great view of the hillside, and Popo. We could see lots of terraced hillsides where people were growing corn. We also got to go on an incredibly scary rope-bridge. Mom, you would have *loved* it....we were hundreds of feet off the ground above a ravine. I was terrified. The bridge was shaking and we all had a nice adrenaline rush.

On the way home, we had some issues with the brakes of the combi (no surprise after the roads it drove on), so we had to stop at a garage, where we waited for half an hour until another combi could come pick us up. It was great. All day, people started at us more than usual, a big group of gringos, walking around with backpacks and cameras. Needless to say, it was quite the "excursion", and there were many moments when we would look at each other and be like, "wow, we're really in Mexico".

Last night, a bunch of us went to a disco. It was super fun, and better than the other places we've been, because there was actually a dance floor. Next weekend I think I'm going to go out with my sisters, which should be really fun because I haven't really hung out with them that much, and my older sister Andrea will be home, so my little sister Camila can come out (she's usually not allowed to, since she's only 17, but Rita lets her go when Andrea's home). And tomorrow, I turn 21! Hooray! Life is really good.

Wow, this week has been crazy. More emotionally tiring than the first week, but I guess I should have known it was coming. The realization that I've had in the past few days is that while my Spanish is decent, I'm still not speaking enough. When we're at home, I listen a lot because my family loves to talk, but I'm not actually spending enough time talking. And I hit a major road bump yesterday when my dad was here. Like I mentioned, he works in Acapulco and comes home once in awhile (he is here now, and it's the first time since May). And although I can tell he has good intentions, he's just not really a part of this family anymore. He hasn't lived here for 4 years, and a lot has changed in that time. But anyway, we had a really hard time understanding each other yesterday, and I said "sorry my Spanish isn't that great" and he replied, "I noticed." It was just pretty rough. And thankfully, Rita came to the rescue and assured me that I was doing really well, but it finally felt like things were getting normal around here and then Ruben Sr. rolled into town to shake things up. And you can feel the difference in the kids; they're more tense, and Rita is also less relaxed. Hopefully this will be his only visit here while I'm here, and I think he's leaving tomorrow or the next day. But it's just sad that he is so distant from his family. I don't know how they make this work.

Anyway, this week has been pretty good, but my body has been mad at me on a number of occasions. I knew it would happen, but it's not fun. Aerobics has been really good though, and walking so much everyday. I feel really healthy here, and although I am eating a lot, the schedule and the food are very different, so I feel pretty good. I started my field study project today. I am going to be working 8 hours a week at UNILA, thre Universidad Latina, here in Cuautla. It's pretty small, and has prepa and universidad, so the students are between Gretta's age and college students, more or less. I am going to be actually teaching English classes, which should be really cool. It's intimidating to me, the idea of being a minority in front of a huge class of people my age, trying to teach them something, but it's also a good challenge. There are also a lot of people in Cuautla who lived in the US for a long time, and either got deported or finally saved enough to come home, so there are plenty of people here who speak English as well as I do. It will be interesting to see how things go, but I am looking forward to the project. And Brian, another guy from the program, is going too, so we can take the combi together and talk about it together.

I'm really looking forward to another weekend. Tomorrow night is Laura's birthday, so her family is throwing a party for her at her house for the whole group, which should be a blast. Then Saturday we're taking an excursion to the indigenous community of Hueyepan to see firsthand what it's like to struggle with the clash of indigenous and modern life. From what we've been reading, there seems to be a lot of internalized shame about being Indian in Mexico, so I hope we don't intimidate people when we roll up to watch "how they live." I really have been wanting to take pictures here, but I feel like a tourist everytime I break out my camera. It's a tough balance, because I'm not trying to pretend I'm not a tourist, but I also don't want to broadcast it to the world.

Saturday I think we're going out to celebrate my birthday. Who knows....

But in conclusion, I am still very happy in Mexico. I am starting to feel a bit more settled in, but also starting to feel some conflicts within myself, and some frustration with how I can be independent here, while still being a white American blonde girl, who's Spanish is imperfect. Quien sabe.....