fotos... finally!

here's my roomies at el tigre, the most popular antro (club) near campus. left to right: me, vero, wendy, malu, andrea, and krista (also from VU).

i think this is monte alban, in oaxaca.

also in oaxaca, here's a random street parade that kelly and i happened upon! it was lovely, with lots of singing and dancing - and we have no idea why!

mexico has the prettiest flowers!

climbing on the mangrove roots in veracruz with mel and jess.

incomodo, the baby duck i fell in love with on campus almost immediately. this picture was taken in mid-january, so by the time we left, he was MUCH bigger than this!

finally, a picture of TAXCO! my favorite city in mexico! this was the silver-mining town we visited near the pacific coast in february. this picture was taken from my hotel balcony around 8:00 in the morning.

la virgen of guadalupe, in a cathedral in mexico city. you can go behind the altar to look up at her without disturbing the mass going on, or you can sit in the pews and view her over the altar.

extremely famous diego rivera murals at the palacio nacional in mexico city. they're painted on almost every wall on one floor's balconies.

the stunning colors at the barrio del artista (artist's neighborhood) in puebla. this was by far one of my favorite parts of the city. nearby is el parian, the main artisan's market in town, and another smaller market as well. this area is filled with artists' studios and sculptures.

this is colegio cain-murray, where i lived on campus. the lake is the one i always talked about sitting near, outside the centro social. the lake was also home to the many ducks and geese living on campus!

a beautiful view of the pyramid of cholula from near campus. this is visible from most parts of the city.

one of the beautiful yellow-painted buildings that i fell in love with in puebla.

here's jess and mallory (both from valpo) enjoying the heaping plates of fruit at la jugueria conchita near the UDLA's campus. it was one of our favorite breakfast spots.

the pyramid of the sun at teotihuacan. it was by far the biggest one we climbed!

final mexico tidbits

after a late night of spiderman 3 (the midnight showing) and an early morning of studying for my business final that was at 11am, i´m wiped. i slept on and off for 4 hours last night. i think this unable-to-stay-asleep-through-the-night thing might be my way of stressing about going back to the states. my friends start to leave tomorrow, a fact that makes me very very bummed when i think too hard about it.

anyway, since i´ve officially stopped paper-journaling, i thought i´d write a bit about some norms of mexican life that are not so normal in the states...

1. every morning and multiple times throughout the day, mexican shopkeepers and restaurant owners sweep the sidewalk in front of their store / restaurant. however, it is unheard of to sweep without dumping a bucket of water on the sidewalk first, thus sweeping away the water along with the leaves and trash that have accumulated on the sidewalk. this causes alot of puddles and wet feet, since i´m always wearing flip flops. also, it seems rather wasteful to me, to use so much water for something so trivial, when mexico has such a water shortage!

2. public restrooms in mexico are horrific! oftentimes they don´t have toilet paper, toilet seats, soap, towels, or doors. sometimes they don´t flush. if you want a semi-decent public restroom, you have to pay anywhere from 2 to 5 pesos to ¨buy¨ the toilet paper, and then most of the time you still have nothing to actually sit down on anyway. and, as always, there´s no toilet-paper-flushing allowed.

3. in markets, the people selling things are constantly calling to you about how cheap and pretty and perfect-for-you their products are. talk about pressure!

4. mealtime takes ages and i love love love it! you order, get your food, sit around for a long time, and the waiters never bring you your check. no rushing! when you´re ready to go, you simply get the waiter´s attention, motion with your hand like you´re writing in the air, and say ¨la cuenta, por favor¨ and they bring it to you. they never separate checks, so we´ve all become pros at splitting things and owing each other money. it´s kind of like our own little tanda!

5. the bottom 5 feet of mexican trees are painted white. this is to ward of diseases, i think.

6. there are topes (speed humps / bumps) every 10 feet on the road. it makes north edgewood avenue look flat!

7. it´s common for a huge neighborhood full of families to exist behind storefronts where we shop and eat every day! these small communities are called vecindades, and if you pay close enough attention, you´ll catch an entrance open and be able to sneak a peek back into it. most of the time, the people living in the vecindad are the people who own the shops in front of it.

8. after mass, every church sets of fireworks. catholics here really know how to celebrate and you pretty much hear fireworks constantly every sunday!

9. traffic cops control traffic with chiflando (whistling). sometimes they´re just champion whistlers or sometimes they actually have to use the plastic kind, but they all have their own different melodies that they use to alert the drivers when they should move and when they should stop. i want this job when i grow up!

10. you are expected to stop and talk to everyone you see and might possibly know. you may have only met them once or they might just be the lady who works at the front desk in your building, but regardless, you stop and say hello and ask how their day is going and have a pretty involved conversation. otherwise you´re considered rude. and even if your conversation only lasted 1.5 minutes, you´re still expected to hug and kiss each person you talked to when you arrive and when you leave.

11. mexicans frequently add ¨ito¨ or ¨ita¨ onto words, which supposedly diminishes it. for instance, chica means girl and chiquita means little girl. recuerditos are souvenirs, diosito can be used to refer to god, a bolsita is what you carry your groceries home in regardless of it´s size, and piedritas are pebbles. i made that last one up last night when i had rocks in my shoes, but apparently it´s a real word. basically if you want to sound mexican, you have to use the diminuative every 5 words (palabritas) in conversation.

also, a few days ago, i made a list of a few things i´ll miss about mexico:

1. ¨ahorita¨ -- an excuse to be tardy
2. sitting outside the centro social -- people watching, duck harassing, eating, drinking coffee, reading, talking, generally doing nothing...
3. food prices -- i can feed myself on less than 40 USD a week
4. solero lime ice bars
5. guanábana -- the flavor in general
6. raspados with chamoy
7. mexican music & american remixes
8. being awkward (mmkay, maybe not. but i´ll miss having an excuse for being awkward!)
9. attention on the streets?
10. topes every 10 meters on almost every street
11. discovering random farm animals in a small yard in the middle of the city (mom, can we buy a horse?)
12. popcatepetl & ixti
13. random festivals, fiestas, and parades
14. poblano architecture & talavera tiles
15. hugs & kisses as greetings and goodbyes
16. molotes de papas
17. life without my cell phone or computer
18. the orphans, particularly pachenco, vanesa, miguelito, & lucia, my feisty baby girl who said her first word & took her first steps with me
19. mealtime that lasts for almost an hour (if not longer) and happens at 10am, 2pm, and 7-8pm
20. hearing peacocks and loud mexican music during class at the cholula house
21. neck braces? seriously, they´re trendy at the UDLA.
22. mexican hand gestures (watch out for those!)
23. soccer soccer soccer soccer
24. having an alberca right here on campus!
25. sally & enrique
26. manzanita, horchata, & agua de jamaica
27. shopping in markets
28. excitement upon discovering american food favorites in random small stores
29. fútbol rápido games
30. my roommates!!!
31. switching back and forth between english and spanish in conversations without even thinking about it
32. the street cops with their amazing whistle melodies
33. red and white cholula busses
34. ball courts / tons of archeological sites / climbing pyramids
35. toronja soda
36. sitting around a table with americans, mexicans, australians, and people from many other countries
37. motivation to stop being lazy and really become bi-lingual, in the form of meeting people who are fluent in 3 or 4 or 5 languages
38. daily fashion shows at the UDLA
39. the gas & water trucks that play obnoxious music so people know they´re coming
40. the following restaurants: jugería conchita, los antojos del gordo, la suprema salsa, la chollulan antigua, super cemita, karma bagels, baladna, nameless-molote-restaurant, ice & grill, arracheras, fonda christy, etc.
41. mexican flowers
42. the amazingly sweet and beautiful lack of rain here (until the rainy season began to rear it´s head last week!)
43. sunshine all day every day
44. oscar´s dress shop
45. cheap drinks


and a few things i´m looking forward to in the states: flushing toilet paper, drinking tap water, free water at restaurants bc it doesn´t have to be bottled, american fashion magazines that cost less than 75 pesos, a kitchen with a stove and oven you don´t have to light with a match, root beer and potato salad, my favorite restaurants, being understood is a given rather than an accomplishment worthy of celebration, running in winton place, seeing my fam & friends!

see yall soon!!! :)

have you all seen the movie ¨nacho libre?¨

because it´s important to know if everyone will know what i´m talking about when i say i went to a lucha libre last night.

see this picture if you don´t: http://www.wrestling-wfs.com/imagenes/newimages/22-oct-05/croni-22-oct-05_24.jpg

basically it´s mexican wrestling. horribly staged, horribly acted, utter chaos, and absolutely hilarious! men are dressed in next to nothing, most wearing luchador masks (http://www.beaucoupkevin.com/images/luchador.jpg), throwing themselves at other men, kicking other men, slapping half-naked men the in the chest, and definitely working the crowd. one sweaty fighter went out into the crowd for kisses after he ¨lost¨ a fight. (winners are obviously predetermined.) there are generally anywhere from 2 to 6 men in the ring at once, sometimes all of them fighting together, sometimes 1 on 1, sometimes 3 or 4 on 1.

the lucha libre was in a huge enclosed arena, filled to the brim with people - we were standing the whole time, on the top balcony. it started at 9pm and entire families came, including their infants or toddlers. there was plenty of cursing and yelling and whistling and chanting going on and i´m pretty sure they used quite a few soccer cheers for the fighters. there was one adorable kid right next to me sitting on his dad´s shoulders and he kept getting really excited and clapping with his hands above his head.

what an experience.

the rainy season in mexico has begun and last night it thunderstormed quite a bit! it´s been getting cloudy every evening and drizzling most days around 7 or 8. this makes getting to dinner a bit difficult. it should be noted that mexican restaurants don´t do ¨servicio a domicilio¨ (delivery) when it´s raining because they don´t want to get wet. our roommates cancelled their plans last night, too, for the very same reason. very interesting...

if we went about life that way in valpo, i´m pretty sure no one would ever get a chance to go outside.

and mexico isn´t mexico without one or two crazy cab driver stories, right? i hadn´t really been given a chance to tell any stories until last night, when our driver missed the exit for the UDLA and decided to back up on the highway for about a half a mile. i was in the seatbelt-less backseat praying that no one would slam into us from behind on the slippery roads for about the 5 whole minutes we were going in reverse in the left-hand lane. then, after he realized it would take something like 15 minutes of backing up to get to a sufficient exit, he went forward again, got off at the nearest exit (the recta), headed toward puebla for about 20 m and then turned around to get to the front entrance of the udla. now, was that so hard??

that´s about it. today we have no classes, tomorrow i have one class, thursday i have 2 exams, friday i have one, and i still need to write a paper for my VU class. then i´m done! this is rather bizarre. i think the taxco trip this weekend has been cancelled since it might be more of a hassle than it´s worth.

i need to start packing.

¿que onda, cholula?

i just woke up - extremely disoriented - from a really bizarre dream. here´s the set-up: instead of coming home from mexico and staying in the states, i moved immediately on to valpo´s cambridge, england program. i mean immediately. i went to cincinnati, unpacked my bags, repacked my bags (with gloves and a scarf!) and hopped on a plane to london, where i met my new british roommates, decided to go to ireland for st. patrick´s day, and fell asleep in my bed in england. and then i woke up in my real bed in mexico.

i think this is a sign that i´m worried about culture shock and the fact that i don´t know what´s going on with my life after i leave mexico. both of which are true. oy vey.

so, i leave mexico next monday. how did that happen??

this past week was our last full week of classes. i turned in a couple of final papers, did a few final presentations (2 of them on fair trade coffee!), and have a couple more papers to turn in. we have classes on monday and wednesday of this coming week, but tuesday is el primer día de mayo, which apparently means we don´t have classes. april 30th is mexican childrens day and may 5th is obviously cinco de mayo (which, btw, commemorates a battle fought right here in puebla! more on that later.), but may 1st we get off school. no entiendo. i have 2 finals on thursday, 1 on friday, and then i´m done.

next sunday (the day before we leave), 4 of the valpo girls and the 3 minnesota guys are making a return trip to taxco... just for a last hoorah in mexico. we´re spending less than 24 hours there, and taking a bus to the mex city airport early the next morning so we can make our flights. i love taxco, so i´m pretty sure it´s a good place to spend my last night in mexico!

this weekend is my last in the greater cholula / puebla area. most everyone else went off to tlaxcala for the weekend, but i stuck behind to get things done. leah and mel and i are making some good old american food (bbq chicken, apple pie, & pralines), but first today, our friend vero is making us mole oaxaqueño. she has as much pride in her traditional oaxacan food as i have in ¨traditional¨(?) cincinnati food! then we´re headed into cholula to do some market hopping and buying of last-minute presents. tonight, it´s out to bambuko´s for our friend jen´s birthday and the fin de año.

last weekend was our last VU trip, to the aztec town of cuetzalan in the northernmost part of puebla (it´s at the end of the paved highway). the trip takes about 3 -4 hours and we were in a huge tour bus with its own bathroom - thank goodness, because i had food poisoning or some weird stomach bug & spent the majority of the trip in the bathroom, giving myself the title of queen of the vom bomb squad. i couldn´t even keep down a couple of sips of liquids, which was pretty awful. i missed most of the destinations on the trip, just because i was sleeping on the bus, but i did get to go to our last archeological site! everyone else went to the market in town, where everyone does their daily shopping. apparently it was even more intense than the one in cholula and they definitaly stuck out more with their blatant gringo-ness there. we also stopped at a chicken and black bean restaurant on the way home (helloooo, heaven!), but i could only eat a tortilla or two.

i´ve been feeling rather ill & aztec two-stepping on and off all week since then, but i think my stomach´s getting back to normal finally. go figure i wouldn´t get sick like that at the beginning of the trip like a normal person, but in my last 2 weeks, when i thought i was in the clear. boo.

we´ve been listening to pat xm satellite radio alot lately to get re-caught-up on what music´s on the radio in the states these days. i´m pretty sure they´re not going to be playing ¨no me digo que no¨ back at home, eh? anyway, most of the current music in the states sounds kind of boring to me. even the song shakira and beyoncé do together! also, a few weeks ago, my roommate was listening to music on her computer and beyoncé´s song ¨irreplaceable,¨ that was pretty new when i came down here, came on and i got really homesick. maybe just because i hadn´t heard it in awhile or because i realized you can miss alot in 4 months, but i´m not sure. i hadn´t really gotten homesick before that! random.

yesterday was rachel´s 20th birthday and i discovered how to call the states from a pay phone - using a phone card with only TWO minutes on it. so i got to talk to anne martina for a couple of seconds and then leave rachel a voicemail on her cell phone. and today is deanna´s 21st birthday as well! i hate missing these things!

el tigre is still a haven for creepsters. my latest encounter was with an argentinian guy who told me all about his girlfriend back in argentina while dancing in an inappropriate manner with me. not cool.

and an update on my summer plans, if that´s at all possible: i´m in the market for some cheap housing in seattle (ha! that´s an oxymoron if i ever heard it!) and am hoping to take an internship with the washington fair trade coalition (www.washingtonfairtrade.com) / the community alliance for global justice (www.seattleglobaljustice.org). with some paid work on the side, probably with the seattle aquarium or the pacific science center gift shops. (10 points for event network hookups!) i recently received an email, though, about possible internships in columbus (ohio) and san francisco, so let´s be honest... i still have no idea where i´ll be or what i´ll be doing. cincinnati is still an option, too.

there´s a hummingbird right outside the window!

i´ll be back in valpo late on the night of may 7th, by the way, in case you want to plan accordingly...

and, now i´m off to the store with leah - to buy ingredients for the food we´re making this weekend and also probably some cranberry juice, too. we want vero to try root beer, as well, so i hope they have that!

xoxoxo.

(for my sister)

summer / fall 2007 booklist
(suggestions welcome! bolded takes priority.)

1. irresistible revolution, by shane claiborne
2. god´s politics, by jim wallis
3. the audacity of hope, by barack obama
4. it takes a village, by hilary clinton (i suppose i should give the woman a chance??)
5. how the garcia girls lost their accents, by julia alvarez
6. the white man´s burden, by william easterly
7. the house on mango street, by sandra cisneros
8. the awakening, by kate chopin (re-read)
9. the tortilla curtain, by t.c. boyle
10. in the walled gardens, by anahita firouz
11. the ornament of the world, by maria rosa menecal
12. reinventing the melting pot, by tamar jacoby
13. the year of yes, by m.d. headley (teach me something, maybe??)
14. like lives, by lorrie moore
15. even cowgirls get the blues, by tom robbins
16. memoirs of a geisha, by arthur golden
17. the poisonwood bible, by barbara kingsolver
18. the great gatsby, by f. scott fitzgerald (re-read)
19. beloved, by toni morrison
20. three cups of tea, by greg mortenson
21. grace (eventually), by anne lamott
22. eat, pray, love, by elizabeth gilbert
23. the difference a day makes, by karen m. jones
24. how to make the world a better place, by jeffrey hollander
25. the daring female´s guide to ecstatic living, by natasha kogan
26. the better world handbook, by ellis jones
27. a thousand splendid suns, by kalled husseini
28. the red tent, by anita diamant
29. the glass castle, by jeannette walls
30. palestine, by joe sacco (a graphic novel!)

miscelaneous-ness

this is going to be rather disjointed, i´m sure, because i´ve been busy lately & i´d like to write it all down. i´m sorry in advance.

to get back to campus from the cholula house, it´s necessary to take about a 2 minute busride down the recta [one of cholula´s main streets] right to the UDLA entrance. if walking back to campus, it takes about 20 minutes going to the back entrance. on tuesday, we accidentally got on a san andres bus going to the UDLA, which takes a 45 minute hike through the neighborhood of san andres [where the UDLA is; the cholula house is in san pedro] before getting back to campus. it was a pretty sweet ride, because i saw lots of parts of town i hadn´t seen before [for instance, most everything on the other side of the pyramid] - essentially, we got a bus tour of town for only 4 pesos!

one of the best parts of mexico is its randomness, so here is a list of some of the random things i saw on this busride:
1. a random mound of earth and bricks with trees on top [i later realized it is an unexcavated archeological site... i think]
2. fields filled with flowers on the 2 far sides of the pyramid
3. 234 of the 365 catholic churches cholula has to offer
4. one was white and turquoise and covered in small cherubs
5. celebration flags hanging across streets, leftover from easter
6. a place to go paintballing in someone´s backyard
7. animals: ostriches, cows, horses, chickens running down the street, some lambs
8. football practice at the UDLA, where 1/2 of the players were on their hands & knees and the other half were walking along behind them, kicking them in the rear end [???]
9. a kid who stood up in the back seat and waved at everyone we passed, saying it was his dad and brother
10. a pulquería

on thursday night there was an earthquake off mexico´s west coast. it rocked acapulco pretty bad [about 5-6 hours away], shook buildings pretty nicely in mex city, and some people here in puebla felt it. unfortunately, i was in bambuko´s and didn´t feel a thing... maybe because i was swaying a bit on my own or maybe because it´s essentially a bamboo hut and it probably moves in the wind anyway.

friday morning, a couple of us had to go to the bimbo bread factories [yes, isn´t bimbo a funny name for a company??] for our business class. it was pretty interesting to see how bread and tortillas and donuts and hot dog buns are made, and the factories actually were pretty clean and it didn´t look like the working conditions were too awful. it was funny, though, because i had toast when i woke up that morning [made with bimbo bread] and ironically re-joined the vom bomb squad right before leaving for their headquarters. hmmm... needless to say, i didn´t eat any of the free carb-filled treats they gave us in our goodie bags por gratis!

last night was jess´s 20th bday celebration, again at bambuko´s. i actually got dressed up last night, and go figure - on the way to the bar, i walked under a tree and some bird poop landed on my shirt. [the bird´s here are far too well fed. they poop on everyone!] my drink of choice last night was called a ronaldo... hoorah for brazil fútbol love!

speaking of soccer, krista and andrea and i had a lazy movie-filled afternoon and watched ¨goal 2¨ [xoxo david beckham!] and ¨the other side of the world.¨ i also climbed the pyramid again with mallory yesterday morning. picture taking and book reading ensued at the top. it was cool to actually be acquainted enough with the town to be able to point out things like the udla campus, the intersection of forjadores and the recta, the cholula house[´s whereabouts], and the zócalo. then mallory fell down the pyramid. don´t worry, she´s okay, and no, i didn´t push her. we ate some amazing guanábana popsicles on the top too.

today pat and jess and i had a pueblan adventure - the best kind! we were supposed to go to a couple of museums so we could give presentations about them in sally´s class on tuesday. unfortunately, pat was supposed to present on the natural history museum, which we discovered to be closed after we paid 8 USD to take a taxi there. instead, we ended up wandering around the battle of puebla forts [the reason for cinco de mayo - yes, it originates right here in puebla!], which involved bushes that had been pruned into the shape of a cannon and some illegal foto-taking.

i was supposed to check out the historic UAP building [the universidad autónoma de puebla], which was still standing, but definitely not open to the public. so we wandered awhile, looking for the contemporary art museum, but instead stumbled upon a parade of teenagers wearing traditional clothing from different parts of mexico and then into the ruins of what was apparently the first franciscan convent in puebla. they made bricks there and we saw what was left of the ovens. i suppose it was interesting, but definitely not what we needed for our projects.

we tried to go out for tamales yesterday, but were unsuccessful. if you ever come to mexico, you´ll have to be patient, because businesses have very erratic hours of being open. you may WANT something, but it´s pretty likely that it won´t be open when you want it. like the fair trade coffee shop that´s never open at 9 or 10 or 11 am when i desperately need some café. maybe it opens at noon? oh, and jess and i ate molotes the other night as well, which are basically fried quesadillas filled with whatever you want and covered in crema and salsas. mine were potato and cheese and - of course - i´m in love.

apparently we only have two weeks left of classes, 1 week of finals, and then it´s back to the USA. this is very bizarre for a couple of reasons:

1. i never really though about what it would be like to return home, just about what it would be like to come here
2. i´m going to have some severe culture shock
3. i´m going to have to change my habits, including how to answer a phone, how to dispose of tp, how to say ¨excuse me¨ when passing someone in a crowd, how to signal that i agree with someone in conversation, how to signal that i disagree with someone in conversation, how to tell someone to ¨come here¨, how to bless someone when they sneeze, how to eat my food, and ... many other things. you guys are going to have to bear with me!
4. i have no idea what i´m doing this summer or where i´ll be
5. i will be tanner than you :D
6. i have no substantial travel plans after this, which is very very weird
7. i will no longer be in the minority / everyone around me will be speaking english / be able to understand what i say
8. my life will seriously be lacking in soccer. i wish this summer was the world cup instead of last summer so it´d be on all the time like here! boo.



next weekend is our last VU trip -- we´re going to a market in a town that starts with a Q about 4 hours away, but still in the state of puebla for just one day. jess and kelly and i are talking about heading to san miguel de allende, this really artsy town north of mex city, one of these weekends as well. other than that, i think i´m pretty much done travelling in mexico, which is shocking! i´m going to have to come back sometime and hit up the state of chiapas [in the south] and the yucatán area, among other things.


and then i have to pack up my room and lug it back north of the border in only 2 suitcases... ay yi yi.

los mercados mexicanos

remember when i tried to describe what markets are like here, but failed miserably to give a description that did them justice? well, if you were curious to know more, you are in luck. the other day, i was re-reading the mexico section of a book called tales of a female nomad [that i originally read on the plane ride down here] and came upon a brilliant description of a mexican market. this might be a little botched [the keyboard i am using is rather dodgy] and its a bit long, but its wonderful and i have to share...


entering the market through a side entrance, i am immediately surrounded by pinatas: mickey mouse, goofy, donald duck, and an assortment of animals and aliens dressed in their colorful paper mache skins. they are standing on the floor and hanging over my head, hundreds of donkeys and dinosaurs, cats and dragons, boys and girls, hogs and bugs. all the colors of the rainbow are swirling in front of me, swinging to the salsa music that is blasting out of unseen speakers. i am swinging, too. the brassy, percussive sound of the caribbean is contagious.

then i am out of pinatas and into avocados, shades of brown and green in massive piles on flowered oilcloth. then mounds of sweet smelling mangos fight for my attention with the pineapples. there are booths of papayas, red, yellow, and green. bananas, big and small, thin and fat. dozens of varieties of peppers and chiles fresh and dried and mounded in cubicles. tomatillos, jicama, carrots, tomatoes, and bunches of green leaves. for awhile, cilantro dominates the air, until i pass a table full of oregano. seconds later, i stop next to a table covered with yellow squash blossoms and wonder what they taste like.

there are children in the booths, babies swinging in tiny hammocks, nine year olds wooing customers, "senora, buy my watermelon. good taste. sweet."

i pass through mountains of green and red and brown and rust colored pastes, three feet high, the essence of mole sauces, redolent of cloves and garlic, oregano and cinnamon. nothing is wrapped in plastic or sealed in containers. it is all there to be smelled and seen and tasted and bought. i am surrounded by the colors, the smells, the sounds of a culture that lives life full out.

there are brains and stomachs and kidneys and tongues, feet and tails and intestines. butchers are slapping and smashing meet on huge wooden blocks, beating red blobs into tenderness. they are scissoring and chopping up yellow chickens that have been fed marigolds so their skin and flesh are gold. heads here, feet there. innards sorted.

the butchers are mincing beef and hacking pork, sharpening knives and chopping slabs. cleaving, slapping, scissoring, beating. its a spectacular percussion band, with its own peculiar instruments.

the shoppers, thick in the aisles, are carrying string and plastic and cloth bags full of newspaper wrapped packages of their purchases.

i wriggle through the crowd to peer into waist high vats of thick white cream and barrells of white ground corn dough called masa. i cannot stop smiling at the explosion of joy i have felt since i passed under the canopy of pinatas. its exciting to be exploring a world i know nothing about, discovering new smells, and moving through a scene where i am a barely noticed minority of one, swallowed up by the crowd.

- rita golden gelman

basically she said it better than i ever could. and i promise there really are that many things to see and smell and enjoy in every market ive visited. enjoy!

welcome back to cholula, where the weather is actually rather chilly sometimes. (yes, i´m aware that it´s currently snowing in most of the midwest.) compared to the blazing hot sunshine i left in puerto escondido yesterday afternoon, the cholulan weather was rather refreshing - i was glad i decided to wear pants on the bus even though i had been regretting it while still on the coast! (i´m pretty sure the sentence ¨long pants were invented by the devil¨ was used. and frequently.)

however, before i recap my week, first things first: while on break, i had to schedule my classes for the fall, so for anyone who may have classes with me (or for my roommates, who are probably wondering when i´ll be around), here´s the rundown...

econ 326A: international economics (with shankar raman! weee!!)
ieca 493A: ieca senior seminar
socw 330EV: vulnerable populations
fls 220A: hispanic literature (con carlos!)
gs 200EVA: study circle on race relations

this leaves mondays free until 7pm and fridays end at 9:55am, which = weekend trips? yay!


so how was my beach vacation? fabulous, of course! it was hot as blazes most of the time (okay, all the time), which made sunbathing uncomfortable, but sure gave the guys who owned beach umbrellas quite a bit of business! i read two and a half books (¨another roadside attraction¨ by tom robbins, ¨five familes¨ by some anthropologist whose name i forget, and ¨dancing for cuba¨ by alma guillermoprieto).

we spent lots of time at three of the beaches that puerto has to offer: playa carazillo, a small cove about 2 blocks from our house, playa principal (crowded), and playa zicatela, the surfer beach, which was my favorite and not because of the surfers. the water is lovely, the waves are huge (copacabana beach style!), and at the cove by our house the sand is not so fine, so it makes removal rather easy and convenient. there were small restaurants up and down the beaches, which made it easy to order guacamole and piña coladas as often as i liked! at one point, i forgot to take will ferrell´s advice that milk is the bad choice when it´s hot outside, and ordered a milkshake. no, but seriously. BAD choice.

our most frequent restaurant stops were along the short strip right by our house: los vaqueros (that means ¨the cowboys¨ so basically everyone ate hamburgers or chicken nuggets) and los tugas (the portuguese restaurant that served curries and caipirinhas!). also, on the strip by the playa principal, there was an amazing pizza restaurant called mario´s, and we loved it so much that we ordered 3 pizzas to go and took them on the busride home. amazing.

our house was fabulous and the woman who owned it was super helpful and amazingly nice. we had the place to ourselves. she lives upstairs and we had to the two downstairs rooms, an indoor bathroom, and an outdoor bathroom at our disposal. in the morning, she set out good coffee, some fruit, and pan dulce for breakfast, and we ate at the picnic table outside in the front yard. the house isn´t air conditioned, so we basically wore the bare minimum of clothes that is socially acceptable in mixed company so we didn´t die of heat exhaustion. nights weren´t so bad, though, with the fan on and the windows open. we spent alot of our evenings just hanging out around the picnic table, watching movies and drinking boones farm and talking.

one night we decided we couldn´t tolerate the heat anymore, so we went to cinemar, a very very small movie theatre near the playa zicatela, that shows movies for really cheap in air conditioning. there are only 12 seats and we shared the place with some british guys. the movie was ¨the prestige¨ which wasn´t all that good, but the power on the whole block went out right at the climax of the movie so i have no idea how it ends. must go to the fayuca and buy it soon....

another night included partying on the rooftop of a bar. it´s too hot to be inside!

on our last morning (yesterday?), we got up at 6:30 and went on a boatride to go watch seaturtles and dolphins do their thing. it was fabulous! did you know sea turtles mate for up to 10 hours?! and we followed a family of dolphins around for a good half hour, just getting kicks watching them jump out of the water. the turtles were more spaced out and we´d randomly happen upon one or two and our guide would go ¨otra tortuga...¨ and then we´d move on. toward the end of the ride, sam and dan got to catch fish, which were immediately beat over the head with a huge wooden stick, splattering blood everywhere and making me thankful i hadn´t eaten breakfast before i went out. urrrgh.

the pacific coast doesn´t believe in white meat, by the way. i ate TONS of quesadillas and even more guacamole. good food, but it got repetitive.

by the way, did you notice up above where i said we took 3 pizzas on the busride home with us?

the busrides were fair. our bus there left 2 hours late, but we somehow managed to get to puerto around noon on saturday anyway. i basically slept most of the time, but woke up in the morning in time to watch some awful movies: one was about some ridiculously angsty teenagers who like to blow stuff up, do drugs, and have sex when they´re only 13. i slept 15 hours on the way home, thanks to dramamine. i woke up long enough to watch 50 first dates, and literally slept the entire rest of the trip. apparently we almost drove off the sides of mountains a couple times and randomly stopped on the side of the road for an hour around 2 am, so i´m kind of glad i was asleep for that...


today, we celebrated easter cholula-house-style. mel and i cooked for people (7 valpies & 2 MNers), breaded herb chicken and grandpa´s potatoes, with a recipe mel and i kind of threw together from memory. i´m happy to report that everything turned out fabulous & i can now cross ¨learn how to make grandpa´s potatoes¨ off of my life goals list. easter cholula-house-style also involved us running out of gas to light the stove / oven / hot water heater right before the chicken had to go in the oven and in the middle of the potatoes boiling, then running out of water entirely right when we needed to do dishes. go figure. we were troopers, though, and solved the problems. this celebration also included sam & pat praying to ¨8 pound 6 ounce baby jesus...¨ yesssssssss.

my easter present to myself was buying 2 books off amazon so i have something to keep myself occupied this summer. i´m going to have to rediscover the library when i come back, because i can´t keep spending this much money on books!

and tonight, we went to see el tirador (i think it´s called shooter in the states?), the new mark wahlberg movie. it´s really good and i definitely recommend everyone see it - unless you don´t like violent movies. then you should for sure avoid it. it had some really interesting social commentary and, of course, great shots of marky mark´s biceps. and a good car chase. good movie. it was bizarre, however, to walk out of the theatre and see a man holding a huge gun right after watching a movie filled with gunfights. it was just a guard, but still...


and so. now it´s crunch time, as yesterday signified that i only have a month left in mexico. i guess that means i´m down to something like 30 days now? goodness, how time flies!

this brings thoughts about summer (who knows what i´ll be doing or where i´ll be?! the options are seattle - where i´ve been offered a really great internship, toronto - where i´m hoping to be offered an even better internship, or cincinnati - where i´d spend summer #4 in the zooshops) and then senior year and then the rest of my life, which is rather terrifying. i´m weighing my options for what to do after i graduate as well (grad school? peace corps? backpacking through europe?), but i suppose we´ll discuss that later, because it´s definitely time for bed...

spring break

i´m here in beautiful (humid!) puerto escondido. i´m currently at an outdoor internet cafe (sweating, of course), watching espn´s news ALL about the yankees (boo). i sat down here just in time to see the bucks lose to florida. :(

the red sox are on!! unfortunately, it looks as if this season started off with a 7-1 to the kansas city royals. yet another boo. not a good sports day for me!

i´m tanner, un poco más sunburned, and we have an outdoor shower at our house, so that´s absolutely fabulous after a long day at the beach.

i just had dinner at a portuguese restaurant, where i was served the most amazing likeness to an indian curry that i´ll probably ever have in mexico. considering i´ve had about 5 dreams involving ambar india in the past month, this was basically the most exciting thing to happen to me. the owner enjoyed me and amanda alot, and gave us chocolate cake on the house. and i had a mojito. goodness. happy stomach.

i think tomorrow i´m going to try to hit up the organic coffee co-op near town, since coffee growers are muy cerca de mi corazón (to use an eric-ism). waking up late and sitting outside drinking coffee and eating bananas has been the life, as well.

i also think we´re going to check out the surfers´ beach sometime soon. you know, check out guys and all that fun stuff. sam & dan will surely enjoy that too, eh?

i might go now, so i dont have to pay a whole dollar for this internet use! (it´s about 50 cents for a half hour)

landon donovan is on tv now. goodness. i guess i´ll watch him for awhile.....

i´m sad to report that i´ve had one of those days.

the kind where everything goes wrong? yeah. it´s important to note, however, that this is definitely the first time that´s happened since getting to mexico.

it started with lots of homework way too early this morning and moved on to the discovery of $120 (US) missing from my possession. that ... kind of sucks.

it continued to involve a bus that stopped working and then being herded onto a different bus. that busride was 45 minutes longer than necessary and took us way out of our way - out to the farthest outskirts of puebla. after i asked our bus driver if we were ever going to get back to the main bus station, he was kind enough to flag down another bus for us to get back. i´m thinking we probably weren´t in the safest neighborhood for just getting off and getting our own bus, so that was super nice of him.

i had to give a presentation on the lady of guadalupe for sally´s class this afternoon and i didn´t finish it until about 20 minutes before i had to present. the long busride didn´t make this any less stressful. i almost had to interview some random person on the long busride because i needed more opiniones to talk about. but i wasn´t sure if that was rude or socially acceptable, so i didn´t. oy vey.

i also stepped in gum twice.


however: tomorrow at 8:50 pm, the spring break adventure to puerto escondido begins! i´m going with 5 valpo girls (krista, amanda, mel, kelly, & leah) and 2 minnesota guys (sam & dan). our busride is 15 hours (let´s be honest, it will probably be more like 16 or 17, if it´s anything like transportation in the states), so we won´t get to puerto until noon or later on saturday. we´re staying in a private bed & breakfast with two bedroomss, so we have the whole place to ourselves! i´m super excited because it has a hammock area and an outside barbecue, so we can grill fish and pineapple and whatever else we want all week long. hoorah!


the babies were fun this week, but pretty fussy. i think they basically all had colds, which explains the crabbiness. miguel slept most of the time and when he was awake, just cried and cried and cried. victor was super huggy and leo was the most content baby i´d ever seen, until poleta felt the need to fall over on top of him & knock him over, causing him to cry too. HOWEVER. poleta took her first steps while i was there! (i´m assuming...) she had only been walking around while holding on to me before, but i let go for a second and she walked to me all by herself! pretty much it was really exciting, except i felt bad because i was the only one there & i feel like maybe i should´ve gotten more excited for a milestone like that?

yesterday we all went out to celebrate amanda´s birthday at ice + grill (mongolian barbecue restaurant up the street) and then to bambuko´s for drinks (also up the street, just in the other direction). i realized it´s probably a good thing my birthday´s not while i´m down here, because we wouldn´t be able to fit everyone in the lebanese restaurant!

also: i get to eat curries AND cajun food this week! and there´s a store in puerto that sells havaianas, so i can buy some new sandals.

i bought a dress earlier this week. it´s gorgeous and was only about 25 dollars. we´re friends with the shop owner -- his name´s oscar and his shop´s right around the corner from the cholula house, so we stop to chat with him pretty frequently. we´re going to have to find a place to go where (somewhat) formal dress is required while we´re on the coast!

so that´s it. pacific coast, here i come!!!

babies, the beach, & seafood

remember the toddlers at the orphanage who had hepatitis (A)? well, they still have it and are expected to be quarantined until at least april 2nd. it´s kind of disheartening to begin to get close to these kids and then suddenly just get cut off and have to work with a different group of kids every week (disheartening as in i didnt even really have any enthusiasm for going for awhile there).

but then, on thursday, they let me play with babies for 4 hours! oh my goodness, did i fall in love. i was put in a ¨(makeshift) playpen¨ with three babies who were teething and learning how to walk and falling over and making cooing noises and the little girl named camila even looked up at me and said ¨... mamá.¨ (then i realized that she hadn´t said anything coherent in the 2 hours i´d been with her and that none of the other babies had said real words and i hoped to god it wasn´t her first word because i definitely should´ve gotten more excited than i did!) normally i´d be completely overwhelmed by being alone with 3 dependent babies, but it was a blast! we played with balls and sang barney songs (in spanish, i rock) and played patty cake and did tons of other fun things. when i laid 2 of them down for naps, i was given two more babies to care for (these ones with obvious developmental delays, but they were muuuuch younger). i had to feed them and give them medicine (apologizing profusely - cough medicine tastes awful!) and was totally mommy-like.

i read the case summary of one of the little boys, miguel, and it broke my heart. he was put into the orphanage for protection (& he´s only 13 months old) and is in serious need of hug therapy and has a lot of development delays. he´s amazingly happy, refuses to go down for naps, and yes, he loves hugs. if you hold your arms out to him, he´ll crawl slowly over to you and then crawl up into your lap and put his arms around your neck and then you can hold him. basically i made sure that every baby got at least 20 minutes of hug / hold time while i was there. when i left, miguelito cried forever (forever as in i laid him down and then tried to comfort him for 20 minutes before leaving). this was also heartbreaking, because i feel like i´m going to be abandoning them in may. oy. anyway, i go back tomorrow and i´m super thrilled about playing with them again!

i´m currently reading about baby care on wikipedia (because i can´t seem to remember anything i´ve ever learned about this stuff!). any tips, mothers?

moving on to the weekend...

veracruz was estupendo! i slept a good chunk of the drive there (we left the udla at 6am!), but when i woke up we were driving through coffee country. big smiles! mountains upon mountains covered in banana trees with coffee beans being shade-grown beneath them. i wanted so badly to ask sally if we could pull the bus over, have every person pick a random house, and then go drink coffee with the campesinos and get to know them. in our VU sociology class, we´re reading a book about rural poverty, but we don´t actually get to have any interactions with the rural poor of mexico really. in that way, this is a very different experience than my other travels to latin america. oh and i forgot to mention that the final 40 minutes of driving there was right up the coastline. b-e-a-utiful!!!

our first stop was at the ruins of el tajín, which have tons of asian features. the ruins are very unique from anything else in mexico, but that´s what i was expecting: i´ve always been told that the structures on the gulf coast are very different than those we´re used to in central mexico. in tajín, we realized we were on the coast and were shocked by the wall of humidity and heat as soon as we exited the bus. it was fabulous and my hair curled ... a bit too much.

the first day / night was spent in the small fishing town of tecontlutla (i think?), where our hotel overlooked the beautiful beautiful gulf of mexico. i forgot to bring my bob marley cd, which was very disheartening. this was the first time i´d ever had a view from my hotel overlooking the water and it was superb! we slept with the windows open, por supuesto, and listened to the waves crashing in all night long. if i would´ve been smart, i would have set my alarm much earlier than i did to see the sun rise. no importa, i still got to sit outside and let my hair dry in the ocean air (read: curl lots) and read my book that morning. breakfast involved veracruz´s famous corn patties with salsa and cheese on top (yum + healthy) and cajun spiced beans! oh, i still love this food.

lunch was at a restaurant on the rio tecontlutla. (about 25 meters away, it ran into the ocean.) as an appetizer, they served us seafood salad with totopos (taco chips). it was divine - especially with lime squeezed on top, which is the only way i eat anything anymore. my meal was disappointing (except for the black beans and rice!!!), so i mainly ate the seafood salad.

after lunch we went on a boatride on the river to see all the native wildlife. this included seagulls (welcome to valpo?), blue herons, big seaturtles, regular-sized homer-turtles, crabs (causing us to sing ¨under the sea¨ from little mermaid), and sharks (they had already been fished and were laying in the back of a truck). then we went into a grove of mangroves, which was something straight out of ¨the notebook¨ or ¨the little mermaid.¨ our capitán let us climb around on the mangrove roots for awhile. in flipflops? yeah, fue una aventura!

beachtime came in the evening. kelly and i went for a run / beachcombing for shells. the water was un poco chilly but amazing nonetheless. then the sun went down and we headed back to the hotel pool for awhile.

dinner was comida corrida, from a vendor on the zócalo. the place we went had nothing but beef and pork (seriously?!), so i had to go to another place, get a quesadilla (always made from scratch), and bring it back to eat at the other stand. awkward. the food was amazing, though. the green salsa here is so much richer than in the states. (except i think javier has it right.) i love it!

saturday we drove 2 more hours down the coast and saw a ton of historical sites, including the first indigenous town that cortes´s men interacted with. from the top (well, top #1) of this huge mountain, we could look out over the gulf and see where cortes´s ships docked when he first arrived. the mountain we were on looked almost exactly like the highest peak of sugarloaf mountain in rio de janeiro. lovely lovely.

the city of veracruz seemed very american to me. the materials the buildings are made of are very mexican, but the structure of the city (the streets, the tall buildings) seemed very US american. it was also swarming with tourists (aka i saw like 20 other white people), which was weird. i´m pretty sure the restaurant owners and shopkeepers appreciated us a bit, since we were gringos who actually spoke spanish. lunch was on the zócalo, where we ate at a seafood restaurant. i had crab tostadas, which were absolutely delicious. i´ve never been a seafood person but i enjoyed the experience this trip!

we spent the late afternoon (lunch was at 4. did i mention the different eating hours here? lunch is 2 or 3 or 4 and dinner is 7 or 8 or 9 or maybe 10:30 like last night...) wandering around the boardwalk and eating shaved ice covered in syrup and chili powder. mine was guanábana flavor... a very yummy amazing tropical fruit. i´m in love with everything coastal and i absolutely must live on a coast in the near future.

while i´m thinking about it, veracruz reminded me alot of saint augustine, FL, probably because it´s so colonial. the boardwalk area reminded me of beirut (syriana-style), however, because of all the oil tankers docked there. it´s definitely an oil town, and the pemex headquarters are right there on the coast. i´m sure there´s a beach somewhere, but the entire coastline by our hotel was filled with oil oil and more oil. very different. (and it reminded me of matt weber, of course, with his plot involving oil ships and what he considers to be ¨ghandian¨ methods of conflict resolution...)

leah and i slept 11 hours on saturday night on accident. what started as a nap at 8:30 pm continued until 7:45 am. whoops!i had some really random dreams involving the red hot chili peppers and leah leaving for breakfast without me. however, i made it to breakfast, which was at a famous restaurant that serves the richest cafe con leche you can ever imagine. pre-sugared, which reminded me of nica. they are also famous for their black bean / scrambled eggs. yummy!!!!

the rest of the day was spent at small historical sites (forts and old jails and looking at gold that was found in shipwrecks off the coast and whatnot) and then we headed back to puebla, where it was chilly. boo. it was amanda´s 20th birthday, so we went out to dinner to celebrate. i´m going back to the coast (the pacific coast) on sometime early saturday. we have a very long 15 hour busride from puebla to get there.

oooooh, the fun times! :)

families & familias (and food)

this weeked was filled to the brim with families! i hadn´t realized how much i´ve missed families since i´ve been here. i suppose the valpo group is like a family (with 10 sisters and 1 brother? ay yi yi.), since enrique always herds us together by yelling ¨¡vamonoooos, familia!¨ but that doesn´t change the fact that i´ve missed families who have long histories together.

the family-ness started on friday night when we went out for pizza on the zócalo with dan´s family, who was visiting from minnesota. let me just tell you that he has the cutest family ever. if you put his mom in a line of my mom´s cousins mary, pinky, and chris, and you wouldn´t even be able to tell that she wasn´t one of their sisters. she´s adorable. she used to teach in puebla, so she´s semi-familiar with the area and speaks impeccable spanish, definitely putting me to shame. his stepdad gave mallory tons of advice for going into peace work in the future, which was really interesting to hear about. and he has 3 younger brothers, all of whom are hilarious. i taught them all about how to put spicy sauce on their pizza and they made me miss pete a ton. it was a good time!

saturday was st. patrick´s day... another reason to miss my family! this place is seriously lacking in all things irish. krista and i woke up and danced around the room to the boondock saints music for awhile (and we tried to watch the movie, but it was from the fayuca and didn´t work out so well), then went to breakfast, where we wanted potatoes, but ended up with quesadillas and chilaquiles instead. flavorful, spicy food on ireland-day? oh no no no. they didn´t even have irish cream for my coffee! we were pretty depressed.

then we went into mexico city to stay with our suitemate andrea´s family. (on the busride there, we watched ¨walk the line¨ dubbed in spanish. it was a little bit awkward - lacking southern accents! - but still good as ever. love johnny cash!) we had chinese food for dinner (the lights went out so we ate it partly by candlelight) and listened to bagpipe music in the car on the way there. we were pretty amazed at the globalization: irish music, chinese food, & gringas in mexico city...

then andrea took us to an irish pub to celebrate st. patty´s day!!! it was basically the best ever. krista and i split 2 pints of guiness (beer? yes, sometimes that happens on special occasions.) and some bailey´s and we watched live music. the waiters were all wearing green hats with shamrocks and i talked one of them into letting me wear his for awhile. then i got one to take home at the end of the night. it was a good, good time.

i should mention that now that i´ve seen mexico city from the perspective of someone who lives there, instead of only speeding through tourist sites, i don´t dislike the city as much.

sunday was the puma´s (soccer) game. we bought shirts and learned lots of the cheers and i finally saw someone get red carded! very exciting. the game ended in a tie, but it was really exciting toward the end, because the pumas had been losing 3-1 at the half and came back to tie it in the last 10 or so minutes. after the game, we stood around in a mob of screaming, cheering, singing fans for about a half hour and i learned more of the songs / cheers. it was a glorious time. i miss having a team i care about within an hour of me.

immediately after the game, we (sweat and beer stained clothes and all) went to andrea´s grandparents´ house for sunday lunch / dinner with the family. basically, her family is a smaller (with 5 less uncles and 16 less cousins) version of the metzes who speak spanish. they were so amusing! everyone was talking a mile a minute and we were attempting to stutter out answers to all of their questions (and not really succeeding) and i´m pretty sure they were all making fun of our horrible spanish the entire time. for lunch they served carnitas (pork) and barbacoa (lamb). i swallowed my pride and tried the lamb (blech?), but mainly stuck to bean quesadillas and guacamole in fresh tortillas. dessert consisted of strawberries with vanilla ice cream (!!!!!!!!), some tequila, and a huge mug of coffee. i love the way mexicans eat.

sunday night, the clásico (yes, another soccer game) was in mexico city, so we watched that on tv. it was between the chivas (a chiva is a goat, btw. talk about a good mascot!) and club america, two huge teams here. CA´s goalie was beyond phenomenal, so it was a really fun game to watch. chiva´s lost by 1.

i forgot to mention that for breakfast on sunday, andrea´s mom took us to a huge market in the middle of the city and we ate at a ¨quesadilla bar,¨where you pick your fillings and they whip you up a quesadilla (make with fresh tortillas!) really fast. mine were filled with cheese and potatoes. heaven!


wednesday is market day in cholula, so krista and i got up early this morning to go buy food. we had quesadillas again (this time only with cheese) and bought beans, rice, lentils, and garbanzo beans to make hummus. we´re going to start cooking more, it seems.

i love the market. seeing all those people, buying fresh produce, fresh meat (ew), fresh veggies, and flowers to fill their vases just makes me very happy about life. everyone is doing their own thing, the same way they´ve done it every week for years, and i wish i had routines like that. i can´t wait to come back to the states and shop at farmer´s markets, where i won´t have to soak the produce in water and a cleaning solution for 10 minutes before i can eat it! i wish i could describe the market better, but i can´t. just picture stand after stand after stand piled high with colorful fruit, or vegetables, or baskets full of chili peppers and spices, or dead de-feathered chickens piled high on countertops (not my favorite part at all). my favorite section is the flower stands, where you can buy so many different kinds of colorful flowers! tomorrow i´m going to pick up some daisies on my way back from the orphanage. i´ll go back to the market with my camera some day and try to capture it in pictures.

last night, krista, sam, dan, and i sat outside until 2 am on the terrace outside the centro social, watching indiana jones on sam´s laptop. it was cold, but very very fun.

homework abounds this week, but i´m slowly working my way through it. we were off monday for benito juarez´s birthday (look him up, he´s a pretty cool guy) and on friday morning at 6am, we leave for veracruz, so this is only a 3 day week for me.

veracruz is on the gulf coast (body of water #1 i´ve never seen, except from above). it´s filled with freshwater and saltwater seafood and is the first place hernán cortes (the conquistador) stepped foot on mexican soil. i am super-emocionada about going there!

next friday begins spring break, a week of sun and fun in puerto escondido (on the pacific coast - body of water #2 i´ve not yet seen). i can´t wait for a week of 100% relaxation! on the ¨best of puerto escondido¨ website, it says there are amazing restaurants with curries and cajun chicken! excited!!

yesterday evening, i got to talk to my sister on the phone for a half hour. this was basically the highlight of my life, since we hadn´t talked since i´ve been here. i missed you, elizabugs!

aaaand i´ve run out of news to report. however, i really want graeters. please go eat some for me. that´s all.

a weekend in oaxaca & más

what to say about this weekend?

oaxaca is the state directly to our south, but the roadtrip took us more than 4 hours through winding mountain roads. at times we were winding through mountains covered in stick straight green cactuses (toothpick-like). at other times, i felt like i was in utah because of the beautiful rock formations (i believe i saw some hoodoos!) and the red dirt. these were some of the most bizarre mountains i have ever seen, with rocky cliffs climbing out of their peaks. it was pretty much the most beautiful drive ever.

we stayed in oaxaca city, the state´s capital, where there were widespread strikes (beginning with the teachers, then i think they spread) and rioting earlier this year. the city thrives on tourism, so their local economy plummeted over the past few months because they lost so much revenue. i´m happy to report, however, that it seems as if the city has rebounded greatly and is crawling with tourists again. on saturday night, the zócalo was swarming with people, tourists mixed in with the locals, listening to live music in the central gazebo, watching a performance of local dances, and there were tons of children running around playing with balloons. sidenote: i am completely weirded out by hearing english spoken in the streets and this makes me rather worried for the reverse culture shock i´m going to experience when i fly back to chicago in may...

we visited FOUR archeological sites this weekend, the largest and most well-known being monte alban and mitla. monte alban is HUGE and reminds me somewhat of teotihuacan, just because of how extensive the site is. every time you climb up and over or around another pyramid, there´s an entire new part of the site to discovere! and at dainzú, a smaller site we went to see, there were no guards and no fences and ¨no toque¨ signs, which means we could climb all over it and discover tunnels and have the time of our lives! i wore a skirt on sunday, which apparently makes me want to climb things even more. i think i did the most exploring i´ve done yet. it was grand. i might want to do that forever.

oaxaca has a largely indigenous population, which means it is famous for its arts and crafts! one of the most unique crafts is its so-called black pottery, which is ... obviously ... black in color. it´s created without a pottery wheel (the mexica and zapotec indians living in the area didn´t use the wheel), but instead two plates are placed on top of each other (back to back) and spun around. we saw a demonstration, and the potter created a pitcher in under 20 minutes. it was pretty impressive. (i took a video for you to see, leah reynolds!) once it´s baked in the oven, they allow it to set for about 3 days, then rub a quartz stone over it and this somehow produces the black hue. it´s pretty intense. there´s a huge market at this site, so we all went shopping.

speaking of shopping, kelly and i discovered an english language bookstore that took credit cards and let´s just say i managed to spend $40 on books. there are worse things, right? while we were in there, a huge parade of dancers and large (10 feet tall) body puppets passed, so we followed that for awhile. i love the spontenaity! and for dinner, some people ate chapulines (toasted / spiced crickets), but i didn´t partake in the fun. later, alan (mel´s boyfriend visiting from valpo) watched me put together my taco (chicken, cheese, onion, peppers, guacamole, 2 types of green salsa, cilantro ... in that order!) and mentioned that it´s like watching an artist at work. hmmm, i suppose you could look at it that way.

while we were in a museum, we suddenly heard a ruckus (if you will) outside near the church, so we rushed to the patio to see what the fuss was about: it was the procession at the end of a wedding. there were dancers and musicians and those huge puppets again, and the bride and the groom were standing at the exit of the church greeting people. it looked like so much fun! again, with the loveliness of all the random music and dancing here...

there´s still quite a bit of graffiti on the buildings further away from the centro from the strikes and riots. downtown, they´ve mainly covered it all with more paint, so it´s not unlikely to see 5 buildings in a row with the first level covered in random patches of white or red paint. it´s a really posh city though! so posh, in fact, that they have a gelato shop on the zócalo. i ate el sabor de guayaba (guava flavor), which flashed me back to brazil. marvelous.

pat bought a bottle of mezcal, oaxaca´s famous liquor, on saturday. it comes from the agave cactus and is similar to tequila, with a stronger flavor and a higher alcohol content. i tried some and it definitely tastes like what you´d think the inside of a cactus would taste like if you let it ferment. very ... interesting. something you should try if you´re in oaxaca, but otherwise, i wouldn´t make it a priority. (unless you feel like tequila lacks flavor?)



looking ahead, it seems as if i have quite a bit of homework this week. there´s a business test on thursday, a paper due for my VU class on thursday about cultural homonyms, a paper about animal rights activists and the zoo due for my comm class sometime, and a research proposal for my final community service paper due ... today? i´m doing the service but not taking it as a class for credit, yet somehow i still have to write all the papers for the class. basically there´s no motivation because a grade doesn´t matter in a not-for-credit class. either way, the research on education in orphanages should be fun, i just have no incentive to turn anything in on time. i wouldn´t complain about that measly amount of homework, but valpo´s on spring break so i feel like i have a right, eh?

tomorrow´s back to the orphanage for some soccer + mathematics fun (the chiquitos are still hep-ish, pienso). this weekend is 3 days long and i´m headed into mex city for a pumas game (i´m in hooligan training this week to prepare for this life-changing event), and then the weekend after that, we´re going to veracruz for 3 days as well. the next weekend begins spring break in puerto excondido! after that, i only have a month left here. ooooh, how the time flies.

and i believe that´s all. miss stenzel is ill, so i´m going to fix her a peanut butter & nutella tortilla. oh, and if you ever get a chance, you should buy a bottle of salsa valentina (or just some hot sauce from taco bell if you feel like being a poser) and put it on cheese pizza. i´m telling you, everything is better when it´s spiced!

otro día en el orfanato...

and what fun it was!

i did things that are completely un-anni-like ... for instance, i taught kids math and played soccer with them for a really long time. you know how they say that studying abroad will take you out of your comfort zone? i´m pretty sure that i reached the height of that today when these 10 year old boys who have played soccer for 9 years longer than me (i kid you not) made me be goalie. very surprisingly, i held my own.

since the chiquitos are still infected with hepatitis, i ended up working with a group of ten to fifteen boys, probably between the ages of 10 and 13. i wasn´t really looking forward to it (because i don´t like kids when they have a mind of their own and don´t like authority figures), but it was actually really fun! i had to stretch my spanish limits to explain multiplication (¨no, you need to carry the one, you can´t just pretend it doesn´t exist!¨) and i even beat 3 boys at a jump roping contest. (yessssssssss!) i´ve been pretty impressed with my comprehension skills of late... case in point being when one boy was drawing a picture of some trucks and drew speed bumps on the road, and i knew exactly what he was talking about when he used that word. later, when miguel didn´t want to play soccer anymore (and i decided that i´d played for long enough), we talked about what happens when the balls go over the walls (¨over that way, it´s where the police are, so they give them back to us. but behind that fence, that´s where the people who smoke, steal, and drink live. they they don´t give back our balls.¨) and about how he wants to go to university to become a police officer. then alejandro bit my shirt when i was leaving. apparently that means he wanted me to stay longer?

oh! and i was wearing my red sox shirt today and i had to explain to them that the red sox are a baseball team in the united states (¡el mejor equipo, por supuesto!) and that nomar garciaparra was their shortstop. so maybe they´ll all grow up now to be sox fans...

i took a different way back today, since it´s kind of a waste to take 3 busses to get to the cholula house instead of just 1 (i had been taking bus #1 to get to my bus station, then taking an udla bus to campus, then taking a local bus to get to the house). i got to walk back the way i came, so i stopped at a restaurant called habibi´s (where i´d been wanting to go since the day i first saw it) and got falafel. then i stopped at a flower booth on the corner and bought myself a big orange and yellow daisy. pretty sure i´m going to make the falafel and flower stops a weekly tradition.

mel´s boyfriend alan came to visit from the states last night and he brought me a package that my parents had sent to him. this marvelous present included the book divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood and my hip hop cd. so now my life is complete! (and i definitely enjoyed the pictures of the metz family mardi gras celebration as well, along with the not-so-subtle hints that i should be a reds fan... thanks joe!)

annnnnd that´s about all for my day. it was grand. :)

¿que he hecho en días recientes?

well well well. deanna and leah and mi sonrisa hermana will appreciate this one: saturday morning i woke up at 9 and cleaned my room until 1pm. yes, 5 hours of cleaning. our floor hadn´t been swept since i moved in (nasty!) and i did 4 loads of laundry, along with finally decorating my wall. i decided to create a pseudo-map of mexico out of postcards from places i´ve been (aka placing them in their geographic locations in relation to the mexico city postcard i hung up in the middle... because i´m a nerd) and i also put up barack obama´s ¨i´m running for president¨ speech. complete with highlighter on parts i particularly enjoy.

saturday afternoon was expoUDLA, this enormous international fair on campus on the quad (?) between the centro social and the auditorio. there were tons of tents and booths set up and students could sample (for a very small fee) the handicrafts and food from various states inside mexico and from countries represented by estudiantes extranjeros this semester. the USA booth was manned by notre dame student and they were definitely rocking the irish pride. (mad love to erin and emily!!) at the booth for oaxaca (pronounced wah-ha-kah, it´s the state directly south of here), i was handed a small cupful of a tremendously lovely and somewhat spicy coconut liquor and then i got to eat a grilled quesadilla of sorts, made with a flour tortilla, oaxaca cheese (it´s white, it´s the best), refried beans, and onions. yummmmm!! when i proceeded to drench it in green salsa, the man at the booth stopped me and told me that the green salsa was very spicy and i might want to eat it with the less-spicy red salsa instead. obviously he didn´t know who he was talking to. gringa? yes. fan of spicy food? of course! gracias, but i can handle myself, señor.

last night leah and i went back to the lebanese restaurant for the second time in 5 days. it´s basically a small slice of non-mexican-food heaven in the middle of mexican-food-mecca. and i adore it. we´ve planned to visit it at least twice a week from now on, especially since one platter is enough to feed both of us and costs only $40 (4 USD).
this morning, we had breakfast at a place called ¨los antojitos del gordo¨ (¨the cravings of the fat man,¨ i kid you not). they serve their coffee black with cinnamon in it! and their chilaquiles were fabulous.

in mexico, it´s a common practice to sprinkle some sort of sweet chili powder on top of your fruit. it´s AMAZING. i hope they sell it in the states. because i´ll eat fruit 98348237 times a day if they do.

and at karma bagels, they serve fruit and nutella bagels. so far i´ve tried strawberry and apple with cinnamon, but i´m intrigued by the idea of a nutella and kiwi bagel. haven´t tried it yet. someday i´ll be brave and probarlo.

the fair trade coffee shop on camino real (on the way to the cholula house) serves iced coffee. it´s amazing when it´s hot out ... which it is basically every day until 6pm, when the temperature drops drastically rather rapidly.

next to the fair trade coffee shop is a restaurant called ice + grill (sam calls it ice T grill), which serves mongolian barbecue (HUGE AMOUNTS OF IT) and all you can eat soup and salad. my nueva sauce of choice includes equal parts peanut and teriyaki with a (little more than a) smidge of spicy chipotle. that´s where we go when we feel like stuffing our faces.

so basically all i did this weekend was eat. and clean!

and today, a few of us took an adventure to the barrio del artista, which is a city block in puebla full of art studios and wonderful sculptures. there´s a large market nearby, where i shopped for my mother and my sister. we also took a pitstop at the fayuca, where kelly and leah felt the need to be posers and buy fake glasses. now they look smart? (leah´s exact quote was, ¨oh, good! now i can work at starbucks because i look intelligent!¨) after the temperature pulled that not-so-fun drastic temperature drop around 6pm, we took a cab to suburbia (a large department store whose clothes remind me of urban outfitters´ ... which is rather ironic, since it´s called suburbia) and i bought a sweater to keep me warm. i should probably start thinking more about the evening´s weather when i get dressed in the morning, since i always seem to be underprepared for the cold.

that´s about it. spring break plans are coming together: 6 of us girls (and some of the minnesota guys, i think, along with molly!!) are going to puerto escondido, in the state of oaxaca on the pacific coast. i´ve never seen the pacific, so i´m super thrilled. we´re staying in a private bed and breakfast for SUPERbarrato and it has ocean views and seems lovely. puerto escondido is a surfer´s mecca, so i might take a lesson or two. then again, i might just lay on the beach and check out the super hot guys who already know how to do it... i´m thinking the latter is more than likely going to be what happens.

¡hasta luego! everyone from valpo should enjoy the next two weeks off!

ps: hinna ¡ven a visitaaaarme!

i´ve noticed a trend in my life toward rarely blogging and even more rarely journaling on paper (sorry mom, it´s been like a month), but i also think it´s because this is becoming less and less like a vacation and more like real life. which is a good thing! it´s not so much that new and amazing things aren´t happening, but more that i´m just becoming really very comfortable here.

on friday night, we watched the movie ¨babel¨ (it´s by a mexican director and received a large amount of the 16 oscar nominations for mexican movies this year - more on that later). in case you haven´t seen this movie, i should explain that it takes place in morocco, southern california, japan, and in a border town in mexico. the movie starts in morocco and we had to read subtitles since the dialogue was in arabic. the second part is about a mexican woman in california, and the second she came on speaking spanish, we all breathed a sigh of relief because it was finally a language we understood. also, at one point in the movie, she crosses the border to mexico and it shows her driving through tijuana with some americans and pat leans over to me and says, ¨you know, they´re trying to make mexico look so foreign to americans, but i see that and i think that it´s home!¨ so true.

our last weekend in mexico city was a good time, as always. i have to admit that i´m not really a fan of that city. it´s very crowded, polluted, and lacks any water (like a coast or a lake or a river), so i´m not the biggest fan. however, it´s impossible to come to mexico without experiencing all that mexico city has to offer, so i enjoy my visits there. i just don´t think i´d like prolonged stays - like 3 weeks or 3 months or 3 years.

the last time, we visited the basilica of the lady of guadalupe (on tepeyac hill - hellooo flashbacks to comfy hammocks and loud roosters and playwrighting in albuquerque!). the original basilica is still standing, but has shifted greatly and is kind of like the leaning tower of piza only not so extreme. now the actual image of the virgin mary is housed in a very 1960´s-style modern church and you can ride on moving sidewalks behind the alter while church is moving (without disturbing the mass) to see her up close and personal. another highlight was visiting the remains of tenochtitlan, the aztec city that was located in mexico city´s current location before the conquest. i´m a huge nerd and i´ve read a thousand books about the aztecs and the conquest, so it was pretty amazing to actually be standing where everything important happened. also, on sunday morning, we went to the chapultepec zoo (located in chapultepec park, which is coincidentally where the first mexican film was made - random fact from last semester´s spanish class that i´m sure you didn´t need to know!). i love zoos and instead of gushing about how much i love them (prompting you to scroll down to the next paragraph), i´ll just end this paragraph here.

all of last week, i was sick with a nasty cold, so i couldn´t go to the orphanage to play with the adorable little ones. i´m still hacking and sneezing a bit, but i found piña colada flavored cough drops today (why do they not sell this amazingness in the states?!?), so i´m doing a bit better. also today, i found out that the chiquitos at the orfanato have all come down with hepatitis (A or B or C? i´m not really sure.), so i doubt i´ll get to play with them tomorrow or at any time this week. regardless, i get to ride busses tomorrow and try to get my credencial so they´ll let me into the place next time i come. oy vey. does anyone know how long hepatitis lasts for?

it´s beginning to feel alot like summer here (sorry guys, i know you´re freezing up there in the north!), but my life is seriously lacking lots of my summer staples: the zoo, my friends, and graeters ice cream 4 times a week, to name a few. i miss them all, just not in that order.

this weekend was courtney´s birthday, so we went out on thursday night for drinks at bambuko´s and then to a soccer game that christopher, one of our friends here on campus, was playing in. let´s just say we were probably a large embarrassment to him. then on saturday, we went out for italian food (italian food : courtney :: indian food : anni), where i didn´t actually eat any italian food, just the most divine chocolate cake and also drank some amazing white wine. i got all dressed up in my black dress and felt oh so classy! then we went dancing at a club called barZelona, which basically reminded me of the scene in bend it like beckham, when they go to a club in germany. they played wonderful american 90´s music, a very creepy remixed version of ¨crazy¨ by gnarls barkley (don´t they know it´s danceable already?!?), and some mexican dance tunes that we´ve gotten used to hearing by now. by the way, the version of shakira´s ¨hips don´t lie¨ that they play down here is so much better than the american version. don´t worry, shakira fans, i´ll bring it back with me.

also this weekend, leah and krista and i crashed at the cholula house and made my sister´s famous guacamole and my famous pineapple salsa. we went to the market (finally discovered where it is in relation to the zócalo without wandering around for 45 minutes first!) and bought all of the fresh veggies for only $5 (2 grocery bags worth). this place is marvelous. and i´m going to shop for produce at farmers markets from now on. in the process of slicing the jalapeños for the guacamole, however, i managed to splash on itty bitty drop of juice in my eye. pretty sure that was the most painful thing i have ever experienced. basically, think about how it tastes when you put straight jalapeño in your mouth. now think about how sensitive your eyes are when you squeeze a bit of lemon juice in them. it hurts. alot. the salsa and guacamole were divine, though, especially on top of the quesadillas we made with oaxaca cheese and fresh corn tortillas.

a kilo of tortillas (a stack of about 30) costs 8 pesos (80 cents US). if you´ve been paying attention to the news, you might have heard that corn prices in mexico have skyrocketed in the past few months, making it hard for poor families to purchase tortillas, which is a staple of the mexican diet. this means that a kilo of tortillas used to be around 30 cents and now that it´s gone up 50 cents, it´s a hardship. just something to think about.

last night was the academy awards and, although mexico didn´t take home as many awards as we´d hoped, 5 of us from the valpo group dressed up as the spice girls for a party. and pat joined us, on posh´s arm, dressed as david beckham. i was ginger, since apparently i have the most ginger - like hair (it´s gotten rather bleached out in the sun and kind of glows sometimes...). definitely a fun time, and i was overall pleased with the awards, since i´d actually seen most of the movies this year. thanks, fayuca!

and on a final note, i love the food here. maybe in a few days i´ll blog just about the restaurants i´ve been to. (like the restaurant in mexico city where frida and diego rivera got married. that was pretty cool.)

why i love life:

it's very chill.

today, i had my morning class at 11.
then i had time to go do my homework for my afternoon class (write a cover letter for a place i want to work... easy + fun).
then i had plenty of free time, which i filled with going to la suprema salsa for lunch with the boys and we watched the barcelona - liverpool game on the big screen there. i was mighty sad that barcelona lost and ronaldinho was not playing so amazingly, but it didn't put a damper on my beautifully mellow day.
and then it was time for my afternoon class.
then i boarded a bus that didn't end up going to the market like i'd hoped (where i was planning on purchasing ingredients to make guacamole), so i ended up at the cholula house with leah and cold leftover soup and a kevin costner movie about baseball. i'll make guacamole another day.



......i really really like this laidback lifestyle.

if i don´t update this soon, i´ll forget everything i´ve done (so this is going to be really long)

new experiences i´ve had recently:

last friday i spent the night on a couch in a hospital in puebla. brenda had been in the hospital for almost a week at that point with stomach bugs that had caused an ulcerated colon (actually she´d already had that without knowing it and the other problems exacerbated it to the point that she realized she had it). mel and i stayed overnight and watched a couple of hours of grey´s anatomy with her. in an update on that situation, brenda was released from the hospital yesterday and then this morning, she took a 9am flight back to chicago, so she can recuperate at home. we´ll miss her!!!!!!

also on friday, i went to the fayuca for the first time. that´s spanish for black market. brenda´s a big beyonce fan, so we bought the movie dreamgirls (yes, it´s still in theaters. yes, it´s bootlegged.) to cheer her up. pretty much, at the fayuca, you can buy pumas for $30 and louis vuitton watches for $40. they´re all probably fake and/or stolen, but whatevs.

saturday was dubbed international barack obama day, as that was the day he announced that he´s running for president. to celebrate, some of us went to the cholula house, cooked lunch (leah made thai peanut soup and i made coconut curried lentils - it was all delish!) and we toasted him with $2 apple wine. we were torn between toasting him with champagne because he´s classy or beer because he´s a man of the people, so we settled on cheap wine.

sunday, i laid out by the pool for awhile and got my first mexican sunburn ... on the backs of my legs. nothing to complain about. i read the book ¨the bookseller of kabul¨ almost in its entirety that day, and i´d recommend it to anyone i normally recommend books to. yesterday i read magazines outside for 20 minutes and managed to burn my back... which leads me to believe that the back 1/2 of my body must not get enough sun and that i should do something about that soon. with sunscreen on, of course.

and on sunday night, leah and kelly and i walked to the centro and went to a catholic church on the zócalo. it was a franciscan church and the priest´s preaching reminded me somewhat of the way joe nuxhall announced baseball (lots of long pauses, just long enough for you to forget someone was ever talking, and just short enough that you´re startled when he starts talking again). it was a cool experience overall, though. catholic church here is pretty different (aka more laid back) than in the states.

nutella is super cheap here, so we keep buying lots of it. at karma bagels they serve it on a bagel with strawberry slices and it pretty much tastes like heaven. you can also eat it with peanut butter on a tortilla or on top of saltines with chocolate chips, or you can use peanut butter for that, too. if you go to nutellaUSA.com you can even find tons of recipes! i never knew that spreadable food was so amazing!!!

while i´m on the topic of food, i should mention that i ate kiwi ice cream (really it was more like icy sorbet) when we went to morelos a few weeks ago and it was fabulous. if anyone finds kiwi ice cream in the states, buy it, eat it, then tell me where you found it so i can do the same when i get back. also, i´ve discovered that i have a love for tostadas de pollo, which is basically a mountain of goodness on top of a crispy tortilla. this mountain involves chicken and beans and lettuce and avocados and sour cream and when you mix red and green salsa on top, it´s basically the best. and 3 of them only cost $2.50 (US).

two days ago i got bitten by a peacock and yesterday a bird flew at my head and i had to duck and cover, sufficiently looking like a huge loser. i was pretty annoyed with the peacock, seeing as i´m the only person who actually likes them here, and then it has to go a take a bite out of my foot while i´m sitting innocently at lunch. oy vey.

aaaaand i gave leah a haircut earlier this week. she now has 4 different layers and i´m not gonna lie, i did a pretty good job. but now i need a haircut...

and krista had her first intramural fútbol rápido game this week, so i now know what people yell at soccer games here. (¨go krista yeah!¨ didn´t suffice.) the game was basically like indoor only ... outside. and since it was at night, it was pretty chilly, which was the perfect weather for a soccer game. fun times were had by all (even us lamers in the stands).

there was a chance that i could see the red hot chili peppers in mexico city for only 350 pesos (that´s only $35!!!!!), but we´re going to be in oaxaca the weekend of the show. this is the greatest tragedy in my life right now. however, speaking of the chili peppers: they definitely cleaned up at the grammies last weekend, which was a-maz-ing! now if only i could see them live.


as for the future:

this weekend, we´re travelling back to mexico city, this time to see the lady of guadalupe, THE ZOO, la plaza de tres culturas (the three cultures being the aztecs, the spanish conquistadores, and the people who live in mexico city now), and diego rivera´s most famous murals in the palacio nacional. the weekend after that, i think i´m going back to the city to go to a soccer game with krista and one of our suitemates (the one who was a hooligan!). it´s pumas v. chivas, and apparently that´s a mighty large rivalry. should be an amazing time. and also, we´re in the process of planning a spring break trip to puerto escondido. more info to come on that soon. :) life is good.