So hey guys,
In case you didn’t know this about me, I really really suck at taking pictures. Like there was a 3 month period where I got really obsessed with documenting life in Templeton before I left it and it kind of carried over into freshman year of college… But these days I just sort of fail to photodocument. But here are some pictures of Mexico things that I have taken.
1) Tule. This tree is 2,000 years old!





2) Fireworks! These things put American ones to shame…







3) Graffiti. This is actually just a small sample—the street Marina and I walk down coming home from our favorite café. We took these pictures randomly one night and the next day a lot of it was cleaned up. But it will be back. There is “Palestina libre” everywhere, and I walk by an “apoya a Grecia (help Greece) and an anti-police brutality message everyday. One night we found ‘turn off tv, turn off your mind.’ Of course there is normal graffiti all over the place too, but I really, really like that it is a viable form of political expression not just an eyesore. And then there are flyers and things that are just cool to look at.








This week we had 2 days of class (starting early—8:00 am, gag!) and then we are off to another fiesta tomorrow! I am hoping to be a lot more cheerful for this one, and am on a quest for bottled coffee (it totally exists here but the market by my house has been out for a week. Tragic!). After that it is Spring Break! Ashley, Abby, Olivia, and I have hotel reservations in Puerto Escondido and I am looking forward to just relaxing. Lately school has been extremely stressful and I’ve been feeling frustrated with my Spanish. It will be really nice to chill on the beach and chat instead of trying to convey complex social/cultural/historical concepts in a foreign language.
Does anyone want to talk Grad School (dun dun dun!)? I have a really bad habit of dwelling on future things instead of just enjoying the here/now (hello, Mexico!) and life after graduation has been on my mind a lot. In Oaxaca I have met people who have been all over, seen and done so many cool things… It is really inspiring and intimidating! Like my Indian friend from a week ago—I am pretty sure he has lived in more places than I have visited. And while part of me just wants to curl up in some cob dwelling in the countryside, the idea of continuing my education (and maybe doing so somewhere exciting) has been sounding really, really appealing.

So my trip to Mexico has been pretty fun so far, and it's a learning experience and I'm seeing lots of great things. But if you want to read about a really intense, really moving study abroad experience you should check out my friend Ali's blog. She's been studying in Egypt since last fall and for National Women's Day she got to be part of a delegation to Gaza. It's a very controversial topic, but it is really necessary to see the human face of things.

WEEKEND

OMG this weekend!
It started really really early on Friday when we got on the camioneta from hell to drive out to San Pedro y Pablo de Whatsit-tec, a little town in the far north of the state. We were there to witness the festival de nuestro Señor del Perdon, which is the big local fiesta. Basically they have a Christ figurine there that grants miracles. Because in Mexican Catholicism there is no separating the statue from the actual God thing. Anyway, we had this crazy bus/van ride over super curvy hills and when we got there we were faced with the most unintelligible human being I have ever met. Like, I feel awful because she’s educated and doing great things for her community, but even when she was trying to talk slowly for us no one could understand what she was saying at all. There were some teeth at interesting angles and some slurring going on that just wasn’t working out. It was pretty depressing and kind of put a damper on most of the day, since Ramsay was getting annoyed that we weren’t being all involved and asking questions. Because we couldn’t understand what we should be asking questions about.
BUT that night we saw the most amazing fireworks ever! Like the huge ones at Fourth of July only super close—so close it was almost scary!—and then these crazy spinning ones that made pictures of the cross or flowers or whatever. The big finale was a giant tower of spinny-wheels at least 2 stories high! At the very end this angel/symbol for the eucharist/flower (we disagreed) started spinning around super fast and flew a couple hundred feet into the air!
We spent the night in the house of a super sweet lady who kept calling us “mi niñas” and generally being the opposite of bad-teeth lady, and after a brief stop at the community museum we were back in the camionetta. There were also religious processions and social observations… but basically the fireworks were the important part. For this blog at least.

Saturday night started out as one of my best nights in Mexico so far! I was a little worried about being stranded because Marina had potential plans with her new novio, and the people I was going to meet up with don’t have cell phones/any other way of getting in touch with them. But miracles happened and Marina, Ashley, Olivia, Abby and I went downtown to watch this group of Flamenco dancers. So cool! They were on tour from Spain and were really, really good at what they did. Lots of foot stamping and pretty dresses.
We wandered about for a while afterwards, looking for somewhere to get deserts, and randomly stumbled across this group of amazingly talented breakdancers. We probably watched them for half an hour because it was so good—flips and spinny-things, and this guy who did the most amazing robot I have ever seen. So after basically two awesome dance shows, we got some cake to go and sat in the zocalo chatting and such. We’ve been having cold nights here despite the fact that this is México, but last Saturday was perfect weather.
Around ten Ashley, Marina and I headed over to Bar Central (aka my favorite place ever) expecting to meet up shortly with Marina’s Chicago housemate Bonnie and co, and much later with the novio. Bonnie didn’t show for a while, but right away we ran into this guy we met on Tuesday night. I’m not going to even try to spell his name because he is Indian of the India variety and my attempts would just be insulting. But anyway, last Tues Marina and I went to this café for a poetry slam and ended up running into our potential novios from my birthday (only mine was pretty much an asshat) BUT they had this born-in-India-lived-everywhere-else friend with them, and his older gentleman buddy of the UK-by-way-of-NZ persuasion. And India buddy was totally at Bar Central when we got there. For a while us girls just chilled and gossiped and Beau and Charlotte showed up and it was a Linfield party at our table. Then India friend got Marina and Ashley I to dance with him and his friend/boss from Colombia and some other bloke. Ashley and I sort of had planned at leaving around one or two, but there was all this really cool world music going on, and the guys were being so fun that we kept pushing it back, and didn’t even get in our taxi until quarter to three. So Ashley got dropped off fine and dandy, and as soon as I step onto my curb the taxi speeds away, and—are you ready for it—my gate is locked. From the inside. And I can’t get in.
After a mini panic attack (my cell phone is dead so I don’t even have it with me) I start walking down Juarez (which is a totally busy street). It takes me a couple blocks to flag a taxi, and for a while the driver mistakes “Bar Central” for “el centro” but I make back there okay. Lucky for me Bar Central doesn’t really close, so I can totally get in even though it’s after 3:00 am at this point… I just have to pay double cover to do so. The last of my money gone, I push through crowds of Mexicans and gringos (there were sooo many white people that night!!!) and luckily Marina is totally where I left her, making out with the boyf.
I go into the bathroom to hide out on the sweet red couch and try to wipe the omg-freaked-out off my face, when some woman comes out of a stall. Character sketch would be something like—gorgeous, Mexican, drunk. She comes right up to me and starts asking in Spanish why I am sad and if I am crying, while trying to fix me hair (umm it’s 3 am, the hair died a long time ago). Then she takes me by the hand and drags me out of the bathroom, across the dance floor, and up to the bar. To “make friends.” So I get introduced to her friends, who are pretty rough looking considering a lot of the Mexican men wear actual shirts and slacks/nice jeans when they go out—one’s about 6 feet tall, torn t-shirt, long curly hair and big muscles, the other is smaller with some interesting ponytail action going on. They do a good job of trying to cheer me up, but really I just want to a) go to sleep and b) not have another Bar Central run in with the assistant director, who is like 3 people away. After lots of “you can’t be sad—it’s Saturday night, there is beer and music, we’re your friends!” I slink away and find a corner to hide in… so I think.
But apparently it is cheer up/flirt with the sulky white girl day because three more men try to get me to dance, or laugh, or “smile, you look like an angel.” Bueno, no gracias. Four am comes around and Bonnie is ready to leave, but of course we have to find Bonnie’s friend, and find a taxi, and Marina needs to say goodbye to her novio…
At about 4:40 we got to Marina’s house. Of course when I got home the next morning the gate opened fine. My family was gone and I got really hungry so eventually I left them a note and went to coffee. So this mysterious gate situation didn’t really get addressed until Sunday night. As far as I can tell the dealio was that they thought I was already asleep (I guess a valid assumption—I had closed my door to keep them from seeing the mess—but I had told them I was going out that night).
Monday when I came home for comida there was a new statue where my missing angel used to be. A shepardess…which I take to mean a gesture for forgiveness, even if it’s not a full restoration of my angel privileges.



(when the internet is less lame there will be firework pictures. maybe even a movie. also to come: graffiti and politics)

One of the hardest things for me to adjust to here was Mexican time. I’m definitely not the most punctual person in the world, and I’ve been known to show up at work after the belltower has stopped chiming or be the girl who stumbles into class clutching a cup of coffee seconds before the lecture begins. I was even looking forward to things being a little more lax on the time front. But for the first week it absolutely drove me mad! At my first house they told me they would eat around 8:00 am, 3:00 pm, and 8:00 pm. Which is a typical Mexican schedule, and fits into the way the program designers made our schedules. Only they actually ate at about 8:45, 3:30, 8:40, give or take 20 minutes depending on god only knows. Now time at home is much more manageable but things still tend to start 5-15 minutes later than they would at home. I’m slowly adjusting, and I’m sure that by the time I come home I will be totally unfit to function on prompt U.S. time, but I definitely felt like this weird uptight person for a while there.

So, anyway. This new house business pretty much rocks. It is super classy and big, I live in the same general area as other people in my group, Marina and I can walk to school together now, and the family is nice to me even though I am always leaving to study with internet. But there are definitely some idiosyncrasies. First there are the angels. They are everywhere!!! Above the doors, on every shelf and table top. Tamara, my housemate from Chicago, has about 15 in her room. Because my room used to be the daughter’s, and she just moved out 2 weeks before I moved in, it’s a little barren. I only had 5 angels to begin with—4 on the walls and one on the vanity. Only one day last week the one on the vanity disappeared. Tamara had mentioned that when Omar (the son) moved back in, the mom moved a painting of two angels from her room into Omar’s, and then Tamara got a one angel painting, and we had been joking about how angels were how affection was measured. So my initial reaction was definitely “oh my god I’ve been demoted.” But then they made me a cake and sang happy birthday, so I’m pretty sure she was just… redecorating?

Idiosyncrasy number two is the complete inability to cook a meal without meat. Because I moved in really rushed they really didn’t get the vegetarian memo, so I thought I would just eat chicken to make it easier. Well I’ve basically had meat everyday for over a week now, and have totally eaten ham and beef and all the things I said I would never eat again. I was kind of upset about it at first, but it’s just something to adapt to. Cooking is such a huge part of female identity here; I figure I can handle 3 months of meat. At least we’ve established a no ham rule now.

So the first Friday here we went on a totally awesome/life-threatening excursion. To CUEVAS (caves, for the nonhispanohablantes). Basically our archeology prof and his French buddy excavated some Lithic period sites, and we went out to see them. Really, really cool right? Because not only were we seeing these neat places where people used to live (mind bending for sure) but the guys who know all about their discovery were showing us around.

However, there was a bit of a downside. Basically these cuevas were halfway up various cliff-like hillsides. We are talking steep zig-zagging trails broken up by an occasional steep bit with footholds carved into the rocks. Cheers, right? Of course the French bloke is scrambling up the mountain like it’s nothing, a cigarette dangling from his lips like he’s just strolling through the zocalo, and our prof is lending an arm to professor Ramsay and trotting along blithely. And Olivia, Abby, and I all stand roughly at 5’2” and are trying to figure out how to get our feet into the next foot hole when it is nearly level with our waists. There were some pretty scary moments! And just when we thought we were home free, taking a much more leisurely route back to the van, we hit a stretch of not very steep but incredibly slippery hill. I fell twice, and I was most definitely not alone. But I was lucky enough to avoid a cactus run in, unlike some members of the group

.

On our next excursion we went to some ex-convento that now houses the national whatsit of archeology and history. Lots and lots of potter shards, and also the location where Presidente Guerrerro was killed. BUT we totally also saw a MASTRODON jaw. My love of megafauna lives to embarrass me another day. (p.s., megafauna in Spanish is ‘megafauna’)

After I made my last post I went home for comida with the now familiar apprehension of another adventure in meat eating land. BUT it was totally awesome. My family was all hugging me all of a sudden and then they gave me a PASTEL (cake) with number candles and everything. They sang this ridiculous Spanish song that ends with something like “bim bam bom” and chanting the person’s name over and over. Soooo cute.

It really is bizarre to be 21. The other day I was talking to Lauren about Pajama Jam and I said something like “Yeah, well I went in normal clothes freshman year, and then Nate Epling sat on me because of it. I think that sums up our entire relationship actually.” Which besides from being a little funny, is something sooo weird to think about. I know that college has changed me so much, and that I am a much more capable person than when I left home, that I have learned so much about life and book-y stuff. But sometimes I feel like the same girl I was skulking around the Delta house at Pajama Jam (or insert any other memory from freshman year here). We always pass a bunch of high school aged kids walking from school to our houses, and it really trips me out to think that I am 4 or 5 years older than some of them. I’ve been in college for almost 3 years now. Seriously? When did that happen?

I was really afraid that I would be super bummed out on my birthday. Since my first semester at Linfield I had kind of pictured spending my 21^st at the Blue Moon, finally getting to go out with my older friends and such. Being able to act on my love of sketch places and not be the only young one stuck on campus were definitely much more important than being legal to drink. And besides for Marina, none of our group are people I would ever plan on spending a birthday with. But it was really a good time. I did have my “I wish Laura and Jessica and Tess and Matt and Marianne and… were here” moment, but was really really pleasantly surprised by how much fun we had.

CUMPLEANOSSSS

So dude, I just turned 21 in Mexico!

(and at this point I should probably apologize to any parents reading this for writing about their baby in a bar)

Anyway, we celebrated last night because Sunday is official Do Homework Until Your Eyes Bleed day here in Mexico-land. So after a busy Saturday of poking at journal entries and wandering the market-y streets looking for movies, I met up with most of my group and went to an OMG vegetarian restaurant. Fake soy meat? Sooo much better than the real thing.

From there we were trying to go to a really good salsa club locals kept telling us about. But when we followed the directions we discovered that the road it was on was completely dug up (like a 3 foot ditch—they’re doing lots of road repairs here). We sort of wandered nearby where there were lots of bars, and eenie meenie minie moed our way into one. Immediately they sort of shunted us into the corner, and it wasn’t really the best place. Dark and loud bad music and only couples dancing. I don’t even know what it was called, but I don’t think I’ll be back. Some of us tried to have fun with it, but other, unnamed, people were kind of sulky.

The four sulkiest left for home around midnight and the rest of us went to BAR CENTRAL!!! We have heard sooo many raves about this place, but when we went in last week it was pretty dead. Last night, however, proved that it really is AMAZING! There was really good, really alternative music, lots of people dancing, lots of craziness. Us four girls (Marina, Abby, Ashley, and myself) kind of made a little huddle of ourselves around Beau to ward off any sketchier men, and started grooving to, among other things, that really awesome song from Triplet’s of Belleville. Towards the end of the evening we got danced with by locals. Marina, lucky girl, got a guapo one the first time round, but Abby and I got glommed by a creeper. It got so we were dancing together and completely blocking him out before he took the hint. Then I met my new novio. I am pretty sure he is amigos with Marina’s guapo friend, and I couldn’t really understand his name, but he was a “súper” dancer and very very guapo. Maybe someday we will meet him and his friend again.

My 21 total was 3 shots of tequila and 2 beers by the time we left at like 2:30. The moment that best sums up this birthday is walking into Bar Central, posing near the bar with Abby and Ashley for a picture, and when my eyes cleared from the flash I finding myself smiling at a rather buzzed looking assistant director of the Instituto. Oh México! We will always be so awkward here!

Cafés close early on Sundays, so coming soon: Cuevas, Graffiti, eating la carne, y the mystery of the disappearing angels. Or something like that. Maybe even pictures from last night?