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!!! :)