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.....