Week 2

We started our language classes this week at UNIVERSAL, I am taking a class called Contemporary Latin American Women: Texts and Voices. There are four other students in my class and we have two teachers - Flor and Mahua. We have class monday through thursday from 8 AM to 10:50 AM for four weeks. The amount of time we spend in the class in four weeks is equal to what we would do in a whole 16 week semester.

We left Thursday to go to Hacienda Santa Cruz and Xochicalco, another ancient ruins site.

We spent Thursday night at the Hacienda after going to Xochicalco.

Xochicalco is amazing. It is very high up and you can see the land and mountains all around at the top of it. These ruins were created by three different groups of Mesoamerican peoples who came together to create one calendar. On the side of one of the biggest pyramids there is actually a carving showing how the three different calendars of three different peoples came together to create one calendar. This is represented by a hand pulling in one calendar, another hand pushing another away and certain numbers represented by bars and circles pushed off to the side and below. I am including this as the first picture because it is a little confusing to explain.

We drove to the Hacienda after this. I didn't really know what kind of place this hacienda thing was going to be. We were driving along a highway when I saw a very old looking building with a wall surrounding it and towers sticking up behind the walls. I made a comment to the peple around me saying how beautiful that was and as I said this our car turned right towards a set of huge wooden doors. We were going in! The doors opened for our car and I was completely caught off guard. There was bougainvilla everywhere and colonial style buildings with fountains, mosaic benches and pristine pools. One of my professors, Antonio, his partner who happens to be the great great great grandson of Benito Juarez owns part of this hacienda which used to be a sugar cane plantation.

We ate dinner in an outside room with a view of the valley and fields beyond. Dinner in Mexico is not at all like dinner in the United States. It is really just a snack. We were served agua pina or pineapple water which is made by blending water, pineapple, and sugar. It is very refreshing. Then they served us things that look like quesadillas but are called synchronizadas. There were ones with ham and oaxaca cheese and I ate the vegetarian ones with I believe manchego cheese and some lemony tasting herb. I ate this with salsa verde. Then they brought out pan dulce and coffee and I ate a lot of pan dulce. We had a bonfire after that and had s'mores! The graham crackers here are very different and so is Hershey's chocolate. But I loved how it was different. The graham crackers weren't as sweet but had more of a nutty flavor.

I went to be early after that because I was tired but me and a few other people decided to get up to walk up a hill to a church to see the sun rise. I woke up around 6 AM and we started to walk up a steep hill across the street from the Hacienda. That was kind of disappointing because the sun didn't rise in front of us above the toy house looking hacienda but behind us halfway hidden by a hill. But it was still beautiful in its own way. Then we met Antonio for a run. He took us to a dirt path that led to a plant nursery. I think we ran about five miles in a valley surrounded by moutains. A man was herding some goats while we were running and we ran with the goats!

The breakfasts that I have been served in Mexico are very different compared with the United States. There are a lot more savory items and vew few sweet items. A very popular dish is chilaquiles which is pretty much a way to use up stale corn tortillas. The corn tortillas are refried and layered in a pot with salsa and cream and cooked till soft. We also had some sort of scrambled eggs with tomatoes as well as beans! I love beans, I eat them at least twice a day here. There was also papaya and cantaloupe as well as yogurt and granola. And I can't forget the fresh squeezed orange juice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhh I get a little too excited about food sometimes.

We had a day of discussions of readings and "bonding" in small groups. We discussed some articles such as Peggy McIntosh's Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: White Privilege and some other ones about identity and power as well as the uses of Tu and Usted in Mexican Spanish.

We had a snack of cucumber and jicama in lemon juice with chili powder on top, so good!

For lunch/comida at 1:30 we were served a lentil soup with plantains in it. Then we had a plate of beans, rice, and grilled cactus with tomatoes and onions. I really like cactus. The Spanish word for cactus is nopal. They served us dessert too that was a gelatin made of a fruit. I am having a hard time here with the desserts because they pretty much consist of gelatins and puddings that are very light. I am seriously craving something heavy and decadent like chococolate cake with ganache and vanilla ice cream! I can't really find that here. I did buy something really good from the bakery though called La Piedra, or rock. It was not airy and light like most pan dulce but dense, which was exactly what I wanted. And it was covered in sugar. I ate it with tea, it was so good!!!!!!!!!!

We had time to just relax at the hacienda and some people went in the pool. They set up hammocks for us and I sat by the pool and read and took a nap. We left at 6 PM and arrived in Cuernavaca around 7:30 where Don Victor had dinner waiting for us! He is a great cook.

Teotihuacan

I went to Teotihuacan last Sunday with the art professor from UNIVERSAL, the language school that I go to. He was our tour guide.

Teotihuacan is the first ancient ceremonial site in Mesoamerica that was used by various groups of Pre Hispanic peoples.

The major parts of Teotihuacan are the two temples, the temple of the moon and the temple of the sun. There is a very long road over 4 miles long connecting a series of smaller temple after smaller temple and the two bigger temples. It is estimated that only 25 percent of Teotihuacan has been excavated. As you walk among the ruins you see huge hills where ruins are hiding but have not been dug up yet. Maybe a job for Eric! hahaha. I climbed up both pyramids and a lot in between. There are not a lot of trees and foliage around, it is mostly dirt and you can see a lot of mountains all around in the distance.

All of the temples and buldings at Teotihuacan were orignally frescoed, or in other words, covered with plaster and adobe to create a smooth finish. Today however all that can be seen are the rocks that encompassed the original buildings without the stucco on top of it. There are a few places where rebuilding was necessary and a few other places where the orignal stucco can still be seen.

It is not known exactly what group of people built this ceremonial center. It is a site of debate but most people just say that the Teotihuacan people built it; easy enough.

Teotihuacan is a two and a half hour bus ride from Cuernavaca. After visiting the ruins we went to a building where this guy dressed in a poncho and sombrero showed us only a few of the hundred or so uses for a special type of cactus from Mexico that is called like maga or something like that. It was the original parchment paper. You could use the milk from the center of it supposedly as an aphrodisiac. The crazy poncho guy made us try the milk from it by the way. It is also what the fibers of the poncho and blankets they were selling were made of. The end of one of the leaves could be used as a needle and thread. There were a ton of uses. Then the guy gathered us around in a circle, all the while making stereotypical Mexican jokes that I really didn't think were funny at all even though some people were laughing. This is when we tried the nectar of the cactus and also he made us all try some type of tequila that had something special about it. I was pretty confused because he kept calling all of us baby and talking really fast.

Friday and Saturday

On Friday a couple of fun and interesting things happened.

Artesans from the Artesan cooperative came to CEMAL (the house where we live) and set up their wares in the front yard. Many of the artesans are known personally by the CGE (center for global education) staff. We were introduced to each of the artesans and they shared a little about themselves and their history. The prices of their goods are non-negotiable because they have set them at what they think are a fair price for their work. I bought a pair of earrings for 50 pesos and a present for Rick, my stepdad, but I won't say what it is here in case he reads this!

After this I went to the pool at Universal, the language school where we begin classes on Monday.

Then, that night we went to La Comuna, a liberal community activist cafe about a 15 minute walk away from our house on H. Preciado in Colonia San Anton. The cafe is a wonderful wonderful place. The man who gave the talk to us on Mexico the other day is one of the main workers of La Comuna. We arrived before dark at about 6:40 and waited for everyone from our group to arrive. The purpose of this was an intercambio or a get together of people. So, Mexican students that CGE staff knew were invited to come to La Comuna. A guy named Jesus showed up but sat at a different table from me. We were served jamaica, or hibiscus water, which is a pure red/pink color. Then, another guy came and sat down at our table. He introduced himself and everyone at our table began conversing while we waited for our dinner. David, the name of the guy who came to sit down with us is a 26 year old musician getting his master's degree here in Cuernavaca in psychology. He came to La Comuna to play some music for us but he ate dinner with us before he played. We had tortas, or sandwiches. I chose a chicken sandwich. I am not quite sure what was on the sandwich but I know it had sprouts, chicken, avocado, and a lot of other things. I also put some kindly provided hot peppers on my sandwich.

At about 8:30 David sat down in the middle of the restaurant to play his guitar and sing for us. He sang about 10 or more songs from 8:30to 9:30. Anita, one of my professors told us afterwards that he sang a lot of traditional protest songs that were just new when she was in college. He had an incredible voice and was excellent at the guitar, I was enrapture for the whole hour trying to figure out what the words he was singing meant.

We returned a little late because we had to wait for a taxi to get home.

Today, Saturday.

My friends Lisa, Rebecca, Sarah, and I went to the Robert Brady Museum that I mentioned in my last post. I will post some pictures so everyone can see the crazy eclecticness of the museum. This museum used to be the house of Robert Brady, an American art collector and artist from Iowa. When he died he asked that his house be made into a museum. The house and arrangement of art is exactly how he left it. There is art from everywhere around the world in this house. Every surface is covered, some times more often than not bordering on cluttered. I think the bathrooms and the dining room/kitchen were my favorite rooms.

Then then went to eat lunch at a place at La Maga. This is a restaurant that has a buffet for lunch for 82 pesos. The buffet was amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I have never seen a bigger and more complete salad bar in my life. There were three different types of greens, guava, orange, papaya, plantains, sesame seeds, granola, carrots, jicama, radishes, carrots, beets, sprouts, cilantro, peppers, cabbage, everything you can imagine!

Then there was also other food besides salad. There were black beans, two different kinds of chicken in green and red sauces, rice, fried plantains, flautas, chimichangas, potato salad, pasta, two different types of soup, apple salad, cooked cactus, steamed cauliflower, steamed green beans, so so much!!!!!!

After that we went to a book fair/artesan market in a pedestrian walkway that operates every Saturday. Sarah and I had a good conversation with a man named Jesus who made ornate journals out of recycled wood which is chiseled and painted.

Then we started walking back to H. Preciado and on our way stopped at La Bodega, a popular supermarket.

Tonight I am not doing much but maybe babysitting a boy named Coltin who is the son of a woman in my program. One of the pictures I added is of him and me last night.

Then tomorrow we are leaving at 8:30 AM to Teotihuacan!

The Rest of Week 1

Everything is going great here!

Tuesday night was the Latin dance class.
The dance instructor came to the house, her name is Karla Vargas.
We started off with some stuff that was pretty much like Zumba! It was a lot of fun and a good workout.
On Wednesday my group of 9 students went to the house of a couple named Serafin and Lydia.
They were host parents to a girl who is now one of the interns for the Social Work program that is going on at the same time as my program.
We drove to their house and it took about 40 minutes because there was so much traffic.
They lived down the side of a ravine. We had to walk about 400 meters down the side of the ravine to get to their house. The weather was beautiful, about 86 degrees fahrenheit and we sat outside in their backyard.
In Mexico, when you go to visit someone or are listening to a speaker manners and thank yous are much more important than in the United States. One of us had to do an introduction which thanked them for having us and letting us into their home. But this cannot be just a one or two sentence introduction, it must be quite thorough. I volunteered to do the introduction and although I could have done it in English and had it translated, I did it in Spanish. It went a lot better than I thought and I was pretty proud of myself hahaha.

We then asked them questions and told them about our interests. They told us about what it was like moving to Cuernavaca from Guerrero because there were no jobs in Guerrero. They could not find jobs in Cuernavaca either. They have been married for 42 years and have three children. Their son migrated to the United States to find a job in Los Angeles but returned after 6 months because he could not find a job. They told us of the difficulties of poverty and having to work for wealthy families and live in the wealthy family's homes. In one home, Serafin was not allowed to have Lydia there so she would hide in the bathroom all day so that she would not be found out. They are now part of an artesan cooperative here in Cuernavaca that we are visiting tomorrow night for dinner and an intercambio with Mexican university students. Serafin learned how to make things out of silver because he was an apprentice from age 10 in Taxco, a great silver town in Guerrero.

Today, Thursday, we had a talk by a member of the Human Right Commission here in Cuernavaca named Jose. He is a member of the coop that Lydia and Serafin are part of. He spoke a lot about what has happened and what is going on in the country including governmental fraud in the elections and governmental violence against resistors. It was quite informative.

On Saturday we have a free day and some of us are going to the Robert Brady Museum which used to be this man, Robert Brady's house. He was an art collector so there is a lot of famous art in his house include Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. And then on Sunday we are going to Teotihuacan, which are ancient ruins.

So long for now!

Day 4 - Market Basket Survey

Here are some picture of my day today.

The first is a picture of the kitchen where we eat all of our meals.

For breakfast I usually eat a cereal mixture of corn flakes, cheerios, and some really good homemade granola with a banana.

Lunch or comida is the biggest meal of the day and we eat it aroun 1:30 or 2 PM every day.

Around 11 AM we have botanas or snacks.

Then dinner is usually a mixture of leftovers from lunch and a couple of other things, always a salad.

There is always fresh fruit on the tables so you can have some whenever you want. There are guavas, which is what the second picture is. There are also bananas, apples, and oranges. I had never tried a guava before but they are excellent and I couldn't believe I had never tried one.

The last picture you see is of my dinner tonight.

I had a salad that had tomatoes, onions, avocados, carrots, and lettuce with a homemade salad dressing. I put some diced cantaloupe on top of it. Then I had some rice with my favorite dish I have had so far here. It is the green and tan colored mixture. It is green chiles stewed with chicken in some kind of sauce that I am guessing is sort of a roux with a little cheese. It reminded me a lot of green chile enchiladas from New Mexico.

At lunch I pretty much ate this same thing but I ate the green chile chicken stuff with a corn tortilla!!!!!!! I love corn tortillas.

They also always have pan dulce in containers on the counter where they come fresh every morning from a bakery right down the street called Panaderia San Antonio.

Today we did an activity that was called the Market Basket Survey.

We were divided into groups of four and given two items to buy in the central market called El Mercado Lopez Mateos. My group had to purchase 1 kilo of bananas and 1 kilo of eggs.

We also had to price a tooth brush and 3 pens.

The bananas cost us 8 pesos or aabout 67 cents and a kilo is about 8 bananas.

The eggs cost 15 pesos or about $1.25 and a kilo of eggs is about 18 or so eggs, maybe more.

The tooth brush cost 12 pesos or $1 and 3 pens were 9 pesos.

After we got back from the market we did some conversions to figure out how many hours a person making minimum wage in mexico would have to work to earn enough money to buy these items.

It was quite a surprise to me to find out that the minimum wage in Mexico is about 50 pesos per day since people are not paid by the hour like in the United States.

So for example, it would take someone from Mexico earning minum wage 2.4 hours to earn enough money to buy a kilo of eggs.

We did one more conversion which I thought was the most interesting.

We took the number of hours it would take someone from Mexico to earn enough money for the object and multiplied that number by $7.25, the minimum wage in the United States.

This number allows us to see the US cost equivalent or the price that US consumers would have to pay if they had to work the same number of hours as a Mexican worker.

So I am going to give the eggs as an example again.

It takes a Mexican worker 2.4 hours to buy the eggs. Multiply this by 7.25 and you get $17.40.

This is how much the US cost equivalent is.

When you see this cost of $17.40 for 18 eggs, that is very expensive, much more expensive than it seems previous to this activity.

We learned some other important things today like that between 40 and 60 percent of the population of Mexico earns a living working for themselves or as street vendors, taxi drivers, black market sellers, etc. Although Mexico does have a lot of social welfare and good healthcare, most of the population does not receive these benefits because they are the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder and are unable to have a job in which they would receive these benefits.

My white middle class guilt took me over for a bit but I am trying get over it because it is not worth feeling guilty because as one of my professors Anita said, "feeling guilty does not help anyone, or do anything."

I would rather engage in direct action than feel guilty.

Day 2 and 3 - Scavenger Hunt and Orientation

On Sunday we went on a scavenger hunt around Cuernavaca that took about 2 and half hours.

We had to go the cathedra, a restaurant, a bus stop, a garden called Jardin Borda and something else I cannot remember. I have decided that so far one of my favorite places I have been is the courtyard of the cathedral where I saw la boda or the wedding.

Today we had a morning of orientation where we met all of the staff who work at the house and spoke with them in small groups and did a lot of activities. This included about 35 people.

Then mis companeros y yo went back into town to the Zocalo which is the center of town near the Palace of Cortes. We walked around for a good two hours and I bought some notebooks in a store where I used my Spanish successfully. Two notebooks cost 26 pesos, or a little over 2 american dollars. We walked arond the artesan market and down a lot of streets where I recorded the name of some good looking restaurnts. It is really cool because a lot of the restaurants in Cuernavaca have live entertainment, mostly music at nighttime.

We got back and had dinner and I went running! Only for 30 minutes but it was still hard because of the elevation and it is very hilly here.

Tomorrow I have a Latin Dance class at night time.

Friday we are going to a cafe called La Comuna for dinner to have an "intercambio" with Mexican Univesity students.

Then on Sunday I am going on an excursion to Teotihaucanan where there are pyramids. It is about a 4 hours drive from Cuernavaca.

Cuernavaca Mexico, Day 1

Hello!

I have arrived in Cuernavaca.

My flight got into Mexico City at 4 PM central time.

I had to wait in the airport for 5 and half hours before I was going to be picked up but I made the best of it. I read the book The Hunger Games which is an excellent book by the way. I ate dinner at a restaurant called Wings which used to be called Baron Rojo.

I had an interesting encounter with a man who took my bag for me and led me off in the direction he thought I needed to go but I didn't and then I tipped him a lot of money because I felt bad when I gave him 20 pesos because he said that wasn't enough.

I met the two interns at the airport and we went and got two other girls who were arriving on Friday as well. We drove to Cuernavaca starting at around 10:30 PM and got to the house in Cuernavaca at midnight. The traffic was kind of bad because a lot of people go from Mexico City to Cuernavaca on the weekends to vacation. When we were on out way you could see the whole of Mexico City from above in the mountains where the highway was. It was the biggest city I have ever seen and made all the more beautiful with its glowing lights highlighting the terrain in the dark.

The next morning, me and one of my roommates, Deidre slept in and then we went with another girl, Ashley to walk into the thick of Cuernavaca.

We found the supermarket and walked towards the plaza where we entered the courtyard of La Catedral. There was a wedding about to begin at the cathedral and we watched as many people dressed quite fancifully, almost like they were going to Prom, arrived and walked into the church or chatted at the door.

The first thing I noticed about Mexico City was that there was extreme wealth right alongside dire poverty. As we drove I noticed expensive department store right next to a shack of a house.

This was similar to what I observed in the courtyard of the cathedral. All of the people dressed up for this grand wedding had light skin colors, some with skin as light as my own. The people hanging out in the courtyard who were not part of the wedding party had much darker skin. As the people who were part of the wedding arrived, they walked through the entrance of the courtyard and down a long path leading directly to the entrance of the cathedral. As they walked in their fancy dresses and high heels and suits, the darker skinned people watched. It seemed that the lighter skinned people were putting on a show, like they wanted people to look at them, to see them dressed in wealth. It made me feel pretty sick actually because I don't want to be like that. I don't want people to notice my lighter skin tone and different manner of dress. I wish I could just fit right in. That is the biggest challenge I think I am going to face is dealing with this.

After going into Cuernavaca we went back to the house and ate lunch and I took a nap.

Then we waited for everyone else to arrive and ate dinner.

I had pico de gallo, pinto beans, bread, and vegetable soup. It was very good.

Also, they have dry toilets here which are interesting to use.

Here are a few photos I took of where I am staying and the view from the house.