Wednesday, March 31, 2010
RIP Sir Barks a Lot
My beloved dog, named "Sir Barks a Lot" by Alex when he was 7, back in 1995, died in his sleep last night at my sister-in-law Carol Limanowski's house in Chicago.
Tapachula to Antigua
I'm in Antigua, after a 24-hour, two-bus, one-taxi trip.
You read the story of part one in yesterday's post from Tapachula. It took 7 hours to travel the 119 miles from Tapachula to Guatemala City in the giant, two-story luxury TransGalgosInter bus. Just 15 minutes after leaving Tapachula, we arrived at the border and had to get off the bus. I've been in 33 countries, if you count changing airplanes in Bolivia (where they did stamp my passport) and Norway, and 35, if you throw in Vatican City and the handful of blocks in Italy that make up the Republic of San Marino, but yesterday was the first time I ever walked across a border.
First we lined up at the Mexican immigration office to have our passports stamped for the exit. Then we walked the gantlet of money changers holding fists of quetzals and pesos. Having no idea of the exchange rate, I was ripped off immediately. It's tough to beat a bunch of guys shouting and waving bills and calculators in your face. My 170 pesos should have gotten me about 80 quetzales, but I only got 65. I lost about $4, but felt foolish.
But there were hundreds of people along the road, changing money, selling things. At this point, since I looked a little lost--and the only blonde there--a family on its way from St. Louis to Honduras took charge of me. We walked through the crowds, across a bridge, and into the Guatemalan immigration office, and then past more vendors and money changers and over to where our bus was parked. It was a relief to get back on. My seatmate, a young college student from Mexico city visiting Guatemala with her family, said that they had decided to take the bus instead of drive because it was a "more secure" way to cross the border. And for me, she said, this was definitely more dangerous. (Later, my taxi driver said "yes, the border is puro ladrones, pure thieves.) I was so shaken that I forgot to take pictures of the chaos!
Just a note on the nice family that took care of me: this family of 4 was traveling on 3 different kinds of passports. The husband's was Honduran, the wife's was Mexican, and the children's were American. It's pretty typical for members of the same Hispanic family living in the U.S. to have different immigration statuses--some citizens, some green cards, some not legal at all. Which is why so many families are vulnerable to deportation, and why so many families in Mexico also have mixed immigration status. In Oaxaca, an American told me that the U.S. embassy has NO IDEA how many children in Mexico--children in families that have chosen to come back, children in families that were deported--have U.S. passports and are officially their concern. The Mexican census takes place this spring. I wonder if one of the questions is, "does anyone in your household have a U.S. passport?"
The next 6 hours were spent very, very slowly driving the last 100 miles or so to Guatemala City. Since this was a "luxury" bus, we got ham and cheese sandwiches and soda for lunch, and much later in the day, coffee or juice and cookies. We stopped a few times to let people off. At one intersection, the driver flagged down one of those beautifully painted chicken buses, and put two people on it. Their luggage was thrown to the top, where a man sat with it. All of those attractive buses were thronged with people who looked a little longingly at our amazing bus--the tallest bus I have ever been on, I am sure. Later, we pulled into a Texaco station to wait for another blue TransGalgosInter bus on its way to San Salvador, El Salvador. More people got off there.
Besides buses, I saw sugar cane fields, a volcano, women washing clothes in rivers, a boy sleepign on top of a truckload of melons, and dozens of pentecostal churches--the fruit of a U.S. strategy of the 1980s, when to combat the increasingly liberal liberation-theology-influenced Catholic church, the CIA and various Central America bad guys called on Pat Robertson and others on the Christian right to help start small, conservative, pentecostal churches that would undercut the Catholic church's authority. It worked. I didn't see one Catholic chruch until we got to Guatemala City--only a parade of storefronts called "Iglesia de Dios Fuente de Milagros" (Church of God Font of Miracles), "Iglesia de Dios Lluvia de Bendiciones" (Church of God Rain of Blessings", Mision Evangelica Luz y Verdad" (Evangelical Mission Light and Truth). (Because of this experience, Cuban party officials see these kinds of churches as CIA fronts, and they probably are!)
The last 45 minutes took us through Guatemala City, which has about 14 million residents, and it was 6:30 when we got there. To get to Antigua, I would have to change bus stations and buses, so the azafata or stewardess recommended I get a taxi. From the ranks of taxis at the station she chose Hugo, a man she knew, to get me the rest of the way. We had a good hour ride to Antigua, where he took me to the ATM, and then we prowled the streets asking people how to find the Calle Candelaria, where Alex's friend's Luis's grandmother Dona Ruth lived. I got out my flashlight so we could see the numbers and signs on the buildings. After many inquiries we found her, and she got in the taxi with us to get me to the home where I am staying, the family of Tomas Ixtamalic, at about 9:00 pm, 24 hours after I left Oaxaca.
When I leave, I think I'll fly!
You read the story of part one in yesterday's post from Tapachula. It took 7 hours to travel the 119 miles from Tapachula to Guatemala City in the giant, two-story luxury TransGalgosInter bus. Just 15 minutes after leaving Tapachula, we arrived at the border and had to get off the bus. I've been in 33 countries, if you count changing airplanes in Bolivia (where they did stamp my passport) and Norway, and 35, if you throw in Vatican City and the handful of blocks in Italy that make up the Republic of San Marino, but yesterday was the first time I ever walked across a border.
First we lined up at the Mexican immigration office to have our passports stamped for the exit. Then we walked the gantlet of money changers holding fists of quetzals and pesos. Having no idea of the exchange rate, I was ripped off immediately. It's tough to beat a bunch of guys shouting and waving bills and calculators in your face. My 170 pesos should have gotten me about 80 quetzales, but I only got 65. I lost about $4, but felt foolish.
But there were hundreds of people along the road, changing money, selling things. At this point, since I looked a little lost--and the only blonde there--a family on its way from St. Louis to Honduras took charge of me. We walked through the crowds, across a bridge, and into the Guatemalan immigration office, and then past more vendors and money changers and over to where our bus was parked. It was a relief to get back on. My seatmate, a young college student from Mexico city visiting Guatemala with her family, said that they had decided to take the bus instead of drive because it was a "more secure" way to cross the border. And for me, she said, this was definitely more dangerous. (Later, my taxi driver said "yes, the border is puro ladrones, pure thieves.) I was so shaken that I forgot to take pictures of the chaos!
Just a note on the nice family that took care of me: this family of 4 was traveling on 3 different kinds of passports. The husband's was Honduran, the wife's was Mexican, and the children's were American. It's pretty typical for members of the same Hispanic family living in the U.S. to have different immigration statuses--some citizens, some green cards, some not legal at all. Which is why so many families are vulnerable to deportation, and why so many families in Mexico also have mixed immigration status. In Oaxaca, an American told me that the U.S. embassy has NO IDEA how many children in Mexico--children in families that have chosen to come back, children in families that were deported--have U.S. passports and are officially their concern. The Mexican census takes place this spring. I wonder if one of the questions is, "does anyone in your household have a U.S. passport?"
The next 6 hours were spent very, very slowly driving the last 100 miles or so to Guatemala City. Since this was a "luxury" bus, we got ham and cheese sandwiches and soda for lunch, and much later in the day, coffee or juice and cookies. We stopped a few times to let people off. At one intersection, the driver flagged down one of those beautifully painted chicken buses, and put two people on it. Their luggage was thrown to the top, where a man sat with it. All of those attractive buses were thronged with people who looked a little longingly at our amazing bus--the tallest bus I have ever been on, I am sure. Later, we pulled into a Texaco station to wait for another blue TransGalgosInter bus on its way to San Salvador, El Salvador. More people got off there.
Besides buses, I saw sugar cane fields, a volcano, women washing clothes in rivers, a boy sleepign on top of a truckload of melons, and dozens of pentecostal churches--the fruit of a U.S. strategy of the 1980s, when to combat the increasingly liberal liberation-theology-influenced Catholic church, the CIA and various Central America bad guys called on Pat Robertson and others on the Christian right to help start small, conservative, pentecostal churches that would undercut the Catholic church's authority. It worked. I didn't see one Catholic chruch until we got to Guatemala City--only a parade of storefronts called "Iglesia de Dios Fuente de Milagros" (Church of God Font of Miracles), "Iglesia de Dios Lluvia de Bendiciones" (Church of God Rain of Blessings", Mision Evangelica Luz y Verdad" (Evangelical Mission Light and Truth). (Because of this experience, Cuban party officials see these kinds of churches as CIA fronts, and they probably are!)
The last 45 minutes took us through Guatemala City, which has about 14 million residents, and it was 6:30 when we got there. To get to Antigua, I would have to change bus stations and buses, so the azafata or stewardess recommended I get a taxi. From the ranks of taxis at the station she chose Hugo, a man she knew, to get me the rest of the way. We had a good hour ride to Antigua, where he took me to the ATM, and then we prowled the streets asking people how to find the Calle Candelaria, where Alex's friend's Luis's grandmother Dona Ruth lived. I got out my flashlight so we could see the numbers and signs on the buildings. After many inquiries we found her, and she got in the taxi with us to get me to the home where I am staying, the family of Tomas Ixtamalic, at about 9:00 pm, 24 hours after I left Oaxaca.
When I leave, I think I'll fly!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
A ranchera from the border
Greetings from Tapachula, Mexico, a place you will probably never visit.
I feel like I'm in a country-western song, except this is Mexico, so to pass the time I will write a ranchera about this leg of my trip:
March was wrapping up the morning that I got here
From the window I could see another land.
Things were greener, like the jungle was beginning
and the sun was broiling down to beat the band.
Sleeping on the bus is never easy
I toss and turn and sweat some and then freeze
"Pirates of the Caribbean" on the small screen
and snores of men the only midnight breeze.
But stumbling off the bus into the morning
brought even bigger questions to the fore:
was there a bus that went to Guatemala
or was I doomed to spend two days upon this floor?
Bad news and good were both on hand to greet me
Indeed a bus existed, later on,
but the schedule on the web was only fiction
and they wouldn't sell a ticket, not a one.
"Pues frente hay agencia que se venden"
so across the street I walked with all my cash
Tres cientos pesos later I had my own ticket
and three hours to wait until I left at last.
To fill me up I had a yummy desayuno
watching news from every corner of this pais
then opened up my gmail to discover
that my beloved Barks might soon decease.
Sad day! A dog I've loved for 15 años,
companion on Balmoral whom I grieve,
lymphoma means he's tired and not eating
I won't be there to hold him when he leaves.
Here comes a man with terrible glaucoma
in between the taxis, buses, horns and thieves,
collecting pesos for a mission franciscano
I gave, although his story's hard to believe.
It's almost ten, so there's another 90 minutes
before the border I can ever hope to see
Tonight I'm planning to arrive into old Antigua
where Luis's grandmother will greet me at her door.
Then I'll shower, sleep and think about my canine
and hope his end is peaceful, not a chore
in his last minutes may he smile and think of fondly
the life we shared in what's now my before.
National Poetry Month starts tomorrow, along with my two or possibly three weeks in Guatemala. Thanks for helping me get it off to a good start! If you know any country-western artists looking for some good material, rights to my song "Part-time girlfriend with a full-time heart" are available. Sounds like a grammy winner, doesn't it????
I feel like I'm in a country-western song, except this is Mexico, so to pass the time I will write a ranchera about this leg of my trip:
March was wrapping up the morning that I got here
From the window I could see another land.
Things were greener, like the jungle was beginning
and the sun was broiling down to beat the band.
Sleeping on the bus is never easy
I toss and turn and sweat some and then freeze
"Pirates of the Caribbean" on the small screen
and snores of men the only midnight breeze.
But stumbling off the bus into the morning
brought even bigger questions to the fore:
was there a bus that went to Guatemala
or was I doomed to spend two days upon this floor?
Bad news and good were both on hand to greet me
Indeed a bus existed, later on,
but the schedule on the web was only fiction
and they wouldn't sell a ticket, not a one.
"Pues frente hay agencia que se venden"
so across the street I walked with all my cash
Tres cientos pesos later I had my own ticket
and three hours to wait until I left at last.
To fill me up I had a yummy desayuno
watching news from every corner of this pais
then opened up my gmail to discover
that my beloved Barks might soon decease.
Sad day! A dog I've loved for 15 años,
companion on Balmoral whom I grieve,
lymphoma means he's tired and not eating
I won't be there to hold him when he leaves.
Here comes a man with terrible glaucoma
in between the taxis, buses, horns and thieves,
collecting pesos for a mission franciscano
I gave, although his story's hard to believe.
It's almost ten, so there's another 90 minutes
before the border I can ever hope to see
Tonight I'm planning to arrive into old Antigua
where Luis's grandmother will greet me at her door.
Then I'll shower, sleep and think about my canine
and hope his end is peaceful, not a chore
in his last minutes may he smile and think of fondly
the life we shared in what's now my before.
National Poetry Month starts tomorrow, along with my two or possibly three weeks in Guatemala. Thanks for helping me get it off to a good start! If you know any country-western artists looking for some good material, rights to my song "Part-time girlfriend with a full-time heart" are available. Sounds like a grammy winner, doesn't it????
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Oaxaca
It's Palm Sunday in Oaxaca, and the zócalo next to this telephone center/Internet Cafe is teeming with musicians, pedestrians, and vendors of balloons and candy and trinkets. (Click here to see what the balloons look like.) This is the best zócalo I've been to--compact, friendly, busy. The cathedral stands in the middle of it, and since yesterday the steps have been filled with indigenous people selling palms braided into amazing crosses, crosses with Jesus, crosses with Jesus and flowers, crosses with Jesus and flowers and glitter. I bought quite a few sparkly Jesuses on the cross!
Several hundred people processed across the plaza into the cathedral at the beginning of the noon service. I went in, too, and now I know what it is like to be a peon. Remember, from your visits to Europe or Mexico, just how much floor space and how few pews there are in a 500-year-old cathedral? While the nobility sat, everyone else stood. And stood. And stood. As did I, trying my best to listen, comprehend, and not faint. I sang when I knew the words or the melody, tried to follow the passion story, passed the peace with everyone, but missed the offering and communion, because when the place is that packed, neither the offering box nor the wine and bread get around to everyone.
Just when I was sure the final benediction had been given, a male voice began to drone on and on and on again. A woman near me asked in Spanish if I were from North America. I said yes, and she introduced me to her husband, and we talked about California, and then I asked her, "what's with this second homily?" and she said, "oh, now they are blessing the palms." That she was more interested in chatting than listening to the homily was a clue that I could leave, so I did.
Oaxaca is a very beautiful town. Its most outstanding feature is the Iglesia de Santo Domingo (click here to get to a google page with images) and its former convent, now a very interesting museum on pre-Columbian and colonial Mexico. I learned that the first Spanish priests here used a cross but NOT the image of the crucified Christ because it was too similar to the human sacrifices that dominated the previous two thousand years.
Saturday, after the "Irreverent Church Tour" of the cathedral and two smaller churches, I had lunch with a Californian who took up residence here after being let go from her library job in San Francisco. Like me (and this is why we were introduced), she sold nearly everything she had and lives on rent from her two houses in Mill Valley. From the patio of her studio apartment, we could see most of the churches here as we ate guacamole, salad, and drank cold mint tea and beer. I got the inside scoop on being an ex-pat, and it doesn't sound half bad. In her case, how much more positive to start a new life in Mexico than apply for unemployment insurance and jobs in San Francisco.
I´m staying with another grandmother, a woman who once hosted a fellow student from Cuernavaca. My room is once again on top of the house, and has a terrace overlooking an empty lot and beyond it, a youth hostel. As in Cuernavaca, three generations live in or often visit this house, and there are also parrots and dogs. For me, traveling alone, it's nice to check in with a family for a meal three times a day, and speak Spanish. Travelers exploring churches and museums get to say little more than "how late are you open?" and "how much for this postcard?" Better to sit around a table watching telenovelas and listening to family members talk about their neighbors.
Tomorrow I take a tour to Monte Alban, the most significant ruins in this part of the country. Tomorrow night begins my pilgrimage to Guatemala, where another grandmother awaits me. It's an all-night bus ride (first-class, mom) to Tapachula, Mexico, on the border. In Tapachula, at 8:00 am Tuesday morning, I get a cab to the TransGalgosInter station and hope to get the 9:30 bus to Guatemala City. It's Holy Week, and everyone is on vacation, so I am a little worried about getting a seat on that bus. If my next post is from Tapachula instead of Antigua, you'll know I'm still cooling my heels in a bus station.
Several hundred people processed across the plaza into the cathedral at the beginning of the noon service. I went in, too, and now I know what it is like to be a peon. Remember, from your visits to Europe or Mexico, just how much floor space and how few pews there are in a 500-year-old cathedral? While the nobility sat, everyone else stood. And stood. And stood. As did I, trying my best to listen, comprehend, and not faint. I sang when I knew the words or the melody, tried to follow the passion story, passed the peace with everyone, but missed the offering and communion, because when the place is that packed, neither the offering box nor the wine and bread get around to everyone.
Just when I was sure the final benediction had been given, a male voice began to drone on and on and on again. A woman near me asked in Spanish if I were from North America. I said yes, and she introduced me to her husband, and we talked about California, and then I asked her, "what's with this second homily?" and she said, "oh, now they are blessing the palms." That she was more interested in chatting than listening to the homily was a clue that I could leave, so I did.
Oaxaca is a very beautiful town. Its most outstanding feature is the Iglesia de Santo Domingo (click here to get to a google page with images) and its former convent, now a very interesting museum on pre-Columbian and colonial Mexico. I learned that the first Spanish priests here used a cross but NOT the image of the crucified Christ because it was too similar to the human sacrifices that dominated the previous two thousand years.
Saturday, after the "Irreverent Church Tour" of the cathedral and two smaller churches, I had lunch with a Californian who took up residence here after being let go from her library job in San Francisco. Like me (and this is why we were introduced), she sold nearly everything she had and lives on rent from her two houses in Mill Valley. From the patio of her studio apartment, we could see most of the churches here as we ate guacamole, salad, and drank cold mint tea and beer. I got the inside scoop on being an ex-pat, and it doesn't sound half bad. In her case, how much more positive to start a new life in Mexico than apply for unemployment insurance and jobs in San Francisco.
I´m staying with another grandmother, a woman who once hosted a fellow student from Cuernavaca. My room is once again on top of the house, and has a terrace overlooking an empty lot and beyond it, a youth hostel. As in Cuernavaca, three generations live in or often visit this house, and there are also parrots and dogs. For me, traveling alone, it's nice to check in with a family for a meal three times a day, and speak Spanish. Travelers exploring churches and museums get to say little more than "how late are you open?" and "how much for this postcard?" Better to sit around a table watching telenovelas and listening to family members talk about their neighbors.
Tomorrow I take a tour to Monte Alban, the most significant ruins in this part of the country. Tomorrow night begins my pilgrimage to Guatemala, where another grandmother awaits me. It's an all-night bus ride (first-class, mom) to Tapachula, Mexico, on the border. In Tapachula, at 8:00 am Tuesday morning, I get a cab to the TransGalgosInter station and hope to get the 9:30 bus to Guatemala City. It's Holy Week, and everyone is on vacation, so I am a little worried about getting a seat on that bus. If my next post is from Tapachula instead of Antigua, you'll know I'm still cooling my heels in a bus station.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Living la vida chilanga
Early on in my Spanish classes at the Instituto Cervantes, I learned the word atropellar, which means "to be hit by a car." This word was never particularly useful until now, for it describes the possible outcome of every attempt to cross the street in Mexico City. But I am growing fond of dashing across 6 lanes of traffic with my coffee and churros (those long, skinny Mexican donuts--mmmm!!!), although I usually tag along after someone else, presuming that person has a better grasp of the odds or can at least serve as a sort of human shield.
Mexico City is awesome. (I sound like Alex, but it is.) What a good thing I started my trip in Cuernavaca. Compared to this city, it's small, and was an excellent place to begin to learn Mexican ways. This is the big league of rutas (buses), subways, museums, street food, and street theater. I've seen men rolling in glass, swallowing fire, and performing Aztec purification rites in the middle of traffic to earn money. I've eaten fabulous tacos and churros from street stands. Although most museums were closed yesterday, I still saw the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional and other intense murals on the subject of justice at the Supreme Court, and today I visited Diego Rivera's and Frida Kahlo's twin houses and studios as well as Frida's Casa Azul. Get this, Chicagoans--a subway ride of miles and miles and miles costs 36 cents. The economy of scale in action! And instead of 24 or so rutas, as there were in Cuernavaca, there are hundreds, all unnumbered. You just study the list of destinations, or ask the driver if he is going where you need to go.
I just got off a ruta that took me from the Frida Kahlo museum over to Avenida Revoluciòn, near the Lutheran Center, where I'm staying. A little boy on board was playing with a direction sign, and I figured out that this was the driver's son. Then I realized that the woman behind the driver was the boy's mother, and the driver's wife. Then I saw the infant carrier tucked in behind the driver's seat and the tiny head sticking out of it. And THEN I saw the tufts of hair of a third child sleeping on the seat. The driver's whole family was accompanying him on his evening of work. Life is amazing.
Briefly, I got here Saturday, driving up from Cuernavaca with Andrea and Luke, two colleagues from the ELCA. (I still fly under this flag though I no longer work there.) We picked up two more colleagues and had supper that night with David, who teaches at the Seminary here, and Alicia, his wife--all of us either current or previous employees of the ELCA Global Mission Unit. We got lost several times along the way and I began to grasp the scale of the city.
Sunday, Andrea & Luke & I went to Buen Pastor, the Lutheran church where the ELCA supplies interns and has a relationship with staff and members. After, I was taken out for lunch and an afternoon by Celic A., a very poised young lady who participated in the ELCA International Guest Program for the last two ELCA Youth Gatherings. (In 2006 and 2009 I was a counselor-leader-chaperone for 40 to 70 international teens, including Celic, at the big youth events that gather 25,000 - 40,000 teens and chaperones.) Celic and her boyfriend Santiago took me for a walking tour of the UNAM campus (the most famous university in Mexico) and then for a stroll and lunch in Coyoacàn, a lovely part of the southern part of Mexico City.
Sunday night I prowled the streets and taco stands with John B., a young man from Wenatchee who is volunteering at the Lutheran Center. We know each other from Holden Village, of course. Monday morning he and I got our breakfast on the street (serving number one of churros) and then took a ruta and the metro to the Zòcalo (the giant main square of Mexico City, used for celebrations and protests) to sightsee. The murals were terrific, but the best part of the day for me (after John had left for his Spanish classes) was climbing the bell tower of the cathedral. For 15 pesos, I climbed up an ancient stone staircase with 10 other people and a guide who told us the history of the bells and how they are rung. Then we got to clamber around the roof of the cathedral, admiring the view and taking pictures a couple hundred feet over the zòcalo. Unlike in the states, where insurance would prohibit this kind of adventure, in Mexico you are trusted not to do something stupid like lean too far over a parapet, or drop your camera on a tourist below. I didn't do anything stupid, and the photos are great.
Today I took the metro and a bus (coffee and churros in hand) and a cab to the Guatemalan embassy, where I found out that I don't need any visa or card to enter Guatemala. It was not a waste of time, because everything I do in Mexico teaches me something, and it's all Mexico. Then off to Frida and Diego land. This only scratches the surfaces of museums here. I hope to spend more time some day seeing more, but tomorrow I take the bus back to Cuernavaca to participate, with my host family Angeles and Fernando, in an event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the assasination of Bishop Oscar Romero. Thursday morning I get the bus to Oaxaca, where I'll be until next Monday.
"Chilangos" are residents of the D.F. (the Distrito Federal), aka Mexico City. I've gotten to be one for four nights, and hope to come back. Really, never mind the drug lords, the swine flu, the bad rap Mexico gets in the news--you should all come here, and soon, whether you are Lutheran or not!
Mexico City is awesome. (I sound like Alex, but it is.) What a good thing I started my trip in Cuernavaca. Compared to this city, it's small, and was an excellent place to begin to learn Mexican ways. This is the big league of rutas (buses), subways, museums, street food, and street theater. I've seen men rolling in glass, swallowing fire, and performing Aztec purification rites in the middle of traffic to earn money. I've eaten fabulous tacos and churros from street stands. Although most museums were closed yesterday, I still saw the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional and other intense murals on the subject of justice at the Supreme Court, and today I visited Diego Rivera's and Frida Kahlo's twin houses and studios as well as Frida's Casa Azul. Get this, Chicagoans--a subway ride of miles and miles and miles costs 36 cents. The economy of scale in action! And instead of 24 or so rutas, as there were in Cuernavaca, there are hundreds, all unnumbered. You just study the list of destinations, or ask the driver if he is going where you need to go.
I just got off a ruta that took me from the Frida Kahlo museum over to Avenida Revoluciòn, near the Lutheran Center, where I'm staying. A little boy on board was playing with a direction sign, and I figured out that this was the driver's son. Then I realized that the woman behind the driver was the boy's mother, and the driver's wife. Then I saw the infant carrier tucked in behind the driver's seat and the tiny head sticking out of it. And THEN I saw the tufts of hair of a third child sleeping on the seat. The driver's whole family was accompanying him on his evening of work. Life is amazing.
Briefly, I got here Saturday, driving up from Cuernavaca with Andrea and Luke, two colleagues from the ELCA. (I still fly under this flag though I no longer work there.) We picked up two more colleagues and had supper that night with David, who teaches at the Seminary here, and Alicia, his wife--all of us either current or previous employees of the ELCA Global Mission Unit. We got lost several times along the way and I began to grasp the scale of the city.
Sunday, Andrea & Luke & I went to Buen Pastor, the Lutheran church where the ELCA supplies interns and has a relationship with staff and members. After, I was taken out for lunch and an afternoon by Celic A., a very poised young lady who participated in the ELCA International Guest Program for the last two ELCA Youth Gatherings. (In 2006 and 2009 I was a counselor-leader-chaperone for 40 to 70 international teens, including Celic, at the big youth events that gather 25,000 - 40,000 teens and chaperones.) Celic and her boyfriend Santiago took me for a walking tour of the UNAM campus (the most famous university in Mexico) and then for a stroll and lunch in Coyoacàn, a lovely part of the southern part of Mexico City.
Sunday night I prowled the streets and taco stands with John B., a young man from Wenatchee who is volunteering at the Lutheran Center. We know each other from Holden Village, of course. Monday morning he and I got our breakfast on the street (serving number one of churros) and then took a ruta and the metro to the Zòcalo (the giant main square of Mexico City, used for celebrations and protests) to sightsee. The murals were terrific, but the best part of the day for me (after John had left for his Spanish classes) was climbing the bell tower of the cathedral. For 15 pesos, I climbed up an ancient stone staircase with 10 other people and a guide who told us the history of the bells and how they are rung. Then we got to clamber around the roof of the cathedral, admiring the view and taking pictures a couple hundred feet over the zòcalo. Unlike in the states, where insurance would prohibit this kind of adventure, in Mexico you are trusted not to do something stupid like lean too far over a parapet, or drop your camera on a tourist below. I didn't do anything stupid, and the photos are great.
Today I took the metro and a bus (coffee and churros in hand) and a cab to the Guatemalan embassy, where I found out that I don't need any visa or card to enter Guatemala. It was not a waste of time, because everything I do in Mexico teaches me something, and it's all Mexico. Then off to Frida and Diego land. This only scratches the surfaces of museums here. I hope to spend more time some day seeing more, but tomorrow I take the bus back to Cuernavaca to participate, with my host family Angeles and Fernando, in an event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the assasination of Bishop Oscar Romero. Thursday morning I get the bus to Oaxaca, where I'll be until next Monday.
"Chilangos" are residents of the D.F. (the Distrito Federal), aka Mexico City. I've gotten to be one for four nights, and hope to come back. Really, never mind the drug lords, the swine flu, the bad rap Mexico gets in the news--you should all come here, and soon, whether you are Lutheran or not!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Pictures of my first 30 days
Hi folks. Thanks to ELCA colleagues Andrea and Luke Roske-Metcalfe, I have a comfortable bed, a laptop and a wireless connection, and a ride to Mexico City this weekend. I just spent the last three hours uploading photos to a new album called "The First 30 Days." Click here to see all 60 photos of Cuba and Mexico! The one above was taken at the Colony Hotel on the Isla de la Juventud, Cuba.
For the next couple weeks I'll be posting words only as I am on the road in Mexico City and then to Oaxaca for four days, then take a long bus trip to the border town of Tapachula, Mexico, where I hope to get a bus to Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua, where I'll be for a couple weeks, will be my next picture opportunity. But you'll be hearing from me!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Cuernavaca photos!
Lucky you. I'm spending my last two nights in Cuernavaca with friends who have TWO laptop computers and wireless access. Watch for many new photos and posts! Meanwhile click here to see my little album called "Getting to School in Cuernavaca."
Monday, March 15, 2010
Three-Day Weekend
Today is the holiday celebrating the birthday of Benito Juarez. I misled you in my last post; it's Emilio Zapata who is from Morelos, not Juarez. Juarez is from Oaxaca and was Mexico's only indigenous president.
Tepoztlán
Saturday I took a local bus to the town of Tepoztlán, about 20 miles and 40 minutes away. In this charming town there is an old Aztec temple called El Tepozteco that is dedicated to Ometochtli Tepoztécal, a tepozteco god of corn, good harvests, fertility, and good times. To reach the temple means climbing thousands of steps up a steep, steep bluff. It was exhausting and hot, and a challenge for everyone else on the trail. Safety precautions are not common in Mexico, but then neither are lawsuits. It's up to you, not the government, to take care of yourself. However, at the beginning of THIS trail was a sign that said, roughly, if you have had a heart attack or are prone to them, please don't take this trail.
I could see why. I was surrounded by children from a school in the state in Guerrero, and not all of them were happy to be working so hard. Their teacher kept yelling encouraging things like "Sí, se puede!" (yes, you can) and "Somos de guerreros, somos guerreros!" (We are from the state of guerreros, and we are warriors! because "guerrero" means warrior) They all made it, and so did I, after 45 minutes of climbing, resting, climbing, resting climbing. At the very top was a black cross commemorating someone who either had that heart attack upon reaching the summit, or chose that moment to fall off the narrow stone steps into a chasm. Oh well.
The view was outstanding. You could look straight down at Tepoztlán, or back across the valley at Cuernavaca, or up at the surrounding bluffs. The temple itself is quite small and most of its decorative stone has been removed, but it's a popular climb for people all over Mexico. Hundreds, in various states of fitness, were climbing, including some in running clothes who were obviously training for some ungodly event.
I had a lovely lunch with a woman from another language school in Cuernavaca, one that is apparently quite posh and caters to Mormons. We had beer and guacamole on a lovely terrace in a lush garden before walking back into town, where I went to the cathedral and the ex-convent. The gate features an intricate mosaic of corn and seeds, a la the Corn Palace. The convent is one of 11 in the state of Morelos that are UNESCO World Heritage sites, all built between 1523 and 1550 or so to house friars who came to convert the locals, who also had to buidl these structures and their accompanying cathedrals. One interesting feature is that many, like the cathedral in Cuernavaca, have outdoor chapels, because the new indigenous Christians weren't used to holding ceremonies indoors.
The highlight of the trip was ice cream at Tepoznieves, perhaps the most beautiful ice cream store I've ever been in. Turns out that the priests up at Tepozteco included in their rituals "nieve" or snow from the volcano Pococatéptel and flavored with maguey and other plants and fruits. This eventually became many flavors of ice cream and sherbet and this chain of ice cream is all over it. Click here to visit their site and see a picture of the temple.
Birthday and Baptism Party
Following my outing I showered, changed and went to a party down the street from my Mexican family's home. The hosts are the other grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of Angeles and Fernando's son's children. I was seated at a table and served a plate of meat, rice, beans and tortillas and a beer. There was Corona everywhere, and old people, young people, children in costumes (the party had a Peter Pan theme, and the baptized baby was wearing a Tinkerbell outfit), and babies being passed from one person to another. When I arrived at 7:45, the DJ was just getting to work. Outside on the terrace, speakers were stacked about 10 feet high and accompanied by ranks of colored flashing lights and a smoke machine. Once the dj got to work, the noise level was squared, or cubed, or increased by some large mathematical amount, so the walls and the floor truly were shaking. Cake was served. New, unopened bottles of tequila were distributed to each table. My "parents" Angeles and Fernando arrived and started eating. More people kept arriving. More food was consumed, all of it I think cooked back in the kitchen, because I could see enormous stainless steel pots lined up there.
When we left about 9:45, things were just getting going. Back up at our house, it was still loud, and across the barranca or ravine, another house was having a big party. Everyone was having a good time on this Saturday night in the Buena Vista section of Cuernavaca, but I kept worrying about those mariachis I saw the other day, sitting along the plaza waiting for work. Are DJs replacing them? Angeles and Fernando assured me that they have plenty of work, and are quite expensive. I guess you might have the mariachis for an hour or so, and then switch to the DJ.
Járdin Borda
Sunday morning I went downtown to this lovely 18th century garden, built for the man who owned all the silver mines in Taxco and eventually taken over by the French emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlotta as a vacation home. It's a lovely spot and on Sundays it is free, so many locals and visitors were present. (Lots of people from Mexico City come to Cuernavaca on the weekends.) In the rose garden was a really cool installation of paintings and sculptures representing the Virgin of Guadalupe. I took lots of photos and will post them soon. This was a lovely quiet morning after the excesses of Saturday night. Click here for a couple photos of the ponds and rowboats in the garden.
Bus tickets and Internet
Which brings us to Monday. Many things are closed but the woman at the travel agency that works with my school said she would be there after 11 or so. I´m trying to buy a bus ticket from Puebla to Oaxaca, where I will stay for a few days, and then from Oaxaca to Tapachula, on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and then I hope the TicaBus (run by "Ticas" or Costa Ricans) from the border to Guatemala City, where I can take a shuttle to Antigua, my next long stay. But this is my second attempt at buying the ticket, cuz she wasn't around last week. Otherwise I am staying home today ( after this interlude at the Internet cafe) and studying, studying, studying.
I have one week left in Cuernavaca. It has been a good stay, although my Spanish has been taking 2 steps back as I focus intently on some of my thorniest grammatical problems. Okay, more later. I have to go try to buy that ticket now!
Tepoztlán
Saturday I took a local bus to the town of Tepoztlán, about 20 miles and 40 minutes away. In this charming town there is an old Aztec temple called El Tepozteco that is dedicated to Ometochtli Tepoztécal, a tepozteco god of corn, good harvests, fertility, and good times. To reach the temple means climbing thousands of steps up a steep, steep bluff. It was exhausting and hot, and a challenge for everyone else on the trail. Safety precautions are not common in Mexico, but then neither are lawsuits. It's up to you, not the government, to take care of yourself. However, at the beginning of THIS trail was a sign that said, roughly, if you have had a heart attack or are prone to them, please don't take this trail.
I could see why. I was surrounded by children from a school in the state in Guerrero, and not all of them were happy to be working so hard. Their teacher kept yelling encouraging things like "Sí, se puede!" (yes, you can) and "Somos de guerreros, somos guerreros!" (We are from the state of guerreros, and we are warriors! because "guerrero" means warrior) They all made it, and so did I, after 45 minutes of climbing, resting, climbing, resting climbing. At the very top was a black cross commemorating someone who either had that heart attack upon reaching the summit, or chose that moment to fall off the narrow stone steps into a chasm. Oh well.
The view was outstanding. You could look straight down at Tepoztlán, or back across the valley at Cuernavaca, or up at the surrounding bluffs. The temple itself is quite small and most of its decorative stone has been removed, but it's a popular climb for people all over Mexico. Hundreds, in various states of fitness, were climbing, including some in running clothes who were obviously training for some ungodly event.
I had a lovely lunch with a woman from another language school in Cuernavaca, one that is apparently quite posh and caters to Mormons. We had beer and guacamole on a lovely terrace in a lush garden before walking back into town, where I went to the cathedral and the ex-convent. The gate features an intricate mosaic of corn and seeds, a la the Corn Palace. The convent is one of 11 in the state of Morelos that are UNESCO World Heritage sites, all built between 1523 and 1550 or so to house friars who came to convert the locals, who also had to buidl these structures and their accompanying cathedrals. One interesting feature is that many, like the cathedral in Cuernavaca, have outdoor chapels, because the new indigenous Christians weren't used to holding ceremonies indoors.
The highlight of the trip was ice cream at Tepoznieves, perhaps the most beautiful ice cream store I've ever been in. Turns out that the priests up at Tepozteco included in their rituals "nieve" or snow from the volcano Pococatéptel and flavored with maguey and other plants and fruits. This eventually became many flavors of ice cream and sherbet and this chain of ice cream is all over it. Click here to visit their site and see a picture of the temple.
Birthday and Baptism Party
Following my outing I showered, changed and went to a party down the street from my Mexican family's home. The hosts are the other grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of Angeles and Fernando's son's children. I was seated at a table and served a plate of meat, rice, beans and tortillas and a beer. There was Corona everywhere, and old people, young people, children in costumes (the party had a Peter Pan theme, and the baptized baby was wearing a Tinkerbell outfit), and babies being passed from one person to another. When I arrived at 7:45, the DJ was just getting to work. Outside on the terrace, speakers were stacked about 10 feet high and accompanied by ranks of colored flashing lights and a smoke machine. Once the dj got to work, the noise level was squared, or cubed, or increased by some large mathematical amount, so the walls and the floor truly were shaking. Cake was served. New, unopened bottles of tequila were distributed to each table. My "parents" Angeles and Fernando arrived and started eating. More people kept arriving. More food was consumed, all of it I think cooked back in the kitchen, because I could see enormous stainless steel pots lined up there.
When we left about 9:45, things were just getting going. Back up at our house, it was still loud, and across the barranca or ravine, another house was having a big party. Everyone was having a good time on this Saturday night in the Buena Vista section of Cuernavaca, but I kept worrying about those mariachis I saw the other day, sitting along the plaza waiting for work. Are DJs replacing them? Angeles and Fernando assured me that they have plenty of work, and are quite expensive. I guess you might have the mariachis for an hour or so, and then switch to the DJ.
Járdin Borda
Sunday morning I went downtown to this lovely 18th century garden, built for the man who owned all the silver mines in Taxco and eventually taken over by the French emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlotta as a vacation home. It's a lovely spot and on Sundays it is free, so many locals and visitors were present. (Lots of people from Mexico City come to Cuernavaca on the weekends.) In the rose garden was a really cool installation of paintings and sculptures representing the Virgin of Guadalupe. I took lots of photos and will post them soon. This was a lovely quiet morning after the excesses of Saturday night. Click here for a couple photos of the ponds and rowboats in the garden.
Bus tickets and Internet
Which brings us to Monday. Many things are closed but the woman at the travel agency that works with my school said she would be there after 11 or so. I´m trying to buy a bus ticket from Puebla to Oaxaca, where I will stay for a few days, and then from Oaxaca to Tapachula, on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and then I hope the TicaBus (run by "Ticas" or Costa Ricans) from the border to Guatemala City, where I can take a shuttle to Antigua, my next long stay. But this is my second attempt at buying the ticket, cuz she wasn't around last week. Otherwise I am staying home today ( after this interlude at the Internet cafe) and studying, studying, studying.
I have one week left in Cuernavaca. It has been a good stay, although my Spanish has been taking 2 steps back as I focus intently on some of my thorniest grammatical problems. Okay, more later. I have to go try to buy that ticket now!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Why you should never use a web translation program
My hosts in Cuba sent me a perfectly lovely thank you note in Spanish...and then used a web program to try to translate the letter into English, with these unfortunate results:
Lover and dear Anne, above all receive the whole affection that you wins of each one of us. He/she was waiting to that arrived to their home to write him and to know as it was him the return trip.
We are well, we return to the Island on Thursday 25 and we are already preparing again trip for the Havana where we will participate of the General Assembly of the Council of Churches of Cuba, in this opportunity there will be general elections.
We will be so soon in contact it arrives from the Havana; I leave tomorrow March 2 and return March 6. When he/she returns I will begin sending him historical information and biografica.La he/she wants and it estimates.
Is the moral clear?
Lover and dear Anne, above all receive the whole affection that you wins of each one of us. He/she was waiting to that arrived to their home to write him and to know as it was him the return trip.
We are well, we return to the Island on Thursday 25 and we are already preparing again trip for the Havana where we will participate of the General Assembly of the Council of Churches of Cuba, in this opportunity there will be general elections.
We will be so soon in contact it arrives from the Havana; I leave tomorrow March 2 and return March 6. When he/she returns I will begin sending him historical information and biografica.La he/she wants and it estimates.
Is the moral clear?
Obeying a mandate from Alex
Alex sent me this note the other day:
Mom,
Don't get too frustrated with technology. Just show us what Mexico is like in words! Your camera will come around....Plus, if you're having a great time but all we at the blog hear is how bad a time you are having with blogging, you're misrepresenting your trip!
Just write about it,
Alex
I'm struggling with technology, but I'm not having a bad time. Today I will just write about it.
Today I'm sitting at an Internet cafe just off the zócalo or main square of Cuernavaca. Across the street, along the perimeter of the square, two dozen mariachis are lounging in full dress, smoking, texting, strumming their guitars. It's Friday evening on the corner where you come to hire a mariachi for a party or a wedding!
I'm loitering, too, waiting for the woman from a recommended travel agency to return so I can purchase my bus ticket from Puebla to Oaxaca and Tapachula, the border town where I'll have to find myself a bus to Antigua, Guatemala. This leg of my journey is two weeks from now, but travelers always have one eye on the future. Next Thursday the 19th, for instance, I move from my host family to the home of Andrea and Luke Roske-Metcalfe, ELCA colleagues who live and work here supervising our young adult volunteer program. How to get my big suitcase from my current home to my new one before school starts and without using the local bus (not built for big suitcases) is one concern. Getting to Mexico City with them a few days later will be a cinch, but how to get back from the D.F. (the Distrito Federal, or Mexico City - like our D.C.) to Cuernavaca on the 24th is another concern (a ride with someone I know? another bus?) and then on the 25th what time to take that long bus ride to Oaxaca...and on and on and on. This continual need to plan ahead, especially in an unfamiliar place and culture, makes it hard to "be here now."
Just to recap my journey so far, I was in Cuba from February 19 to 24, and after one night in Miami arrived in Cuernavaca on February 25 for three weeks of language study. Because all of this had been arranged in advance, I had a nice, soft, logistics-free landing. Those plans expire March 19, leaving almost five weeks to plan until April 21, when I get four nice, be-here-now nights at my friend Steve Broin´s Casa Sirena on Isla Mujeres. (Speaking of mariachis, if you click on the "Casa Sirena" link and then click "guest book" you'll see me being serenaded by mariachis on my 50th birthday.) That's where Mexico City; Oaxaca; Antigua, Guatemala (another language school--anyone have any recommendations?); San Cristobal de las Casas; Merida; and Vallodilad may all play a role. That's what I'm pinning down.
Meanwhile, school is going swimmingly, I love staying with my hosts Angeles and Fernando, and tomorrow I take a practice run at being a solo tourist by visiting Tepóztlan, a charming village with impressive Aztec ruins. It's a three-day weekend in Mexico, this coming Monday being the official holiday celebrating the birth of Benito Juarez, who was from this state, Morelos.
So yes, Alex, I will set aside my struggles with my camera, USB, and Picasa this weekend to post more words, okay? Meanwhile, I'm off to take pictures of mariachis and buy a bus ticket.
Mom,
Don't get too frustrated with technology. Just show us what Mexico is like in words! Your camera will come around....Plus, if you're having a great time but all we at the blog hear is how bad a time you are having with blogging, you're misrepresenting your trip!
Just write about it,
Alex
I'm struggling with technology, but I'm not having a bad time. Today I will just write about it.
Today I'm sitting at an Internet cafe just off the zócalo or main square of Cuernavaca. Across the street, along the perimeter of the square, two dozen mariachis are lounging in full dress, smoking, texting, strumming their guitars. It's Friday evening on the corner where you come to hire a mariachi for a party or a wedding!
I'm loitering, too, waiting for the woman from a recommended travel agency to return so I can purchase my bus ticket from Puebla to Oaxaca and Tapachula, the border town where I'll have to find myself a bus to Antigua, Guatemala. This leg of my journey is two weeks from now, but travelers always have one eye on the future. Next Thursday the 19th, for instance, I move from my host family to the home of Andrea and Luke Roske-Metcalfe, ELCA colleagues who live and work here supervising our young adult volunteer program. How to get my big suitcase from my current home to my new one before school starts and without using the local bus (not built for big suitcases) is one concern. Getting to Mexico City with them a few days later will be a cinch, but how to get back from the D.F. (the Distrito Federal, or Mexico City - like our D.C.) to Cuernavaca on the 24th is another concern (a ride with someone I know? another bus?) and then on the 25th what time to take that long bus ride to Oaxaca...and on and on and on. This continual need to plan ahead, especially in an unfamiliar place and culture, makes it hard to "be here now."
Just to recap my journey so far, I was in Cuba from February 19 to 24, and after one night in Miami arrived in Cuernavaca on February 25 for three weeks of language study. Because all of this had been arranged in advance, I had a nice, soft, logistics-free landing. Those plans expire March 19, leaving almost five weeks to plan until April 21, when I get four nice, be-here-now nights at my friend Steve Broin´s Casa Sirena on Isla Mujeres. (Speaking of mariachis, if you click on the "Casa Sirena" link and then click "guest book" you'll see me being serenaded by mariachis on my 50th birthday.) That's where Mexico City; Oaxaca; Antigua, Guatemala (another language school--anyone have any recommendations?); San Cristobal de las Casas; Merida; and Vallodilad may all play a role. That's what I'm pinning down.
Meanwhile, school is going swimmingly, I love staying with my hosts Angeles and Fernando, and tomorrow I take a practice run at being a solo tourist by visiting Tepóztlan, a charming village with impressive Aztec ruins. It's a three-day weekend in Mexico, this coming Monday being the official holiday celebrating the birth of Benito Juarez, who was from this state, Morelos.
So yes, Alex, I will set aside my struggles with my camera, USB, and Picasa this weekend to post more words, okay? Meanwhile, I'm off to take pictures of mariachis and buy a bus ticket.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Endless frustration and a link to another post
Maybe the USB has a virus. Maybe the camera does. Maybe it's his fault. Maybe it's mine. While the Internet cafe man and I argue in a language I don't know well, I still can't upload photos to this blog or to Picasa.
And all the great posts I write in my head at night have vanished when I get to the computer 20 hours later.
However, I did succeed in meeting my twice-monthly deadline on the ELCA World Hunger blog, Hunger Rumblings, so you can read that reflection on Cuba and simple living here.
It has been quite hot in Cuernavaca. Tomorrow my fellow students and I are going to swim a bit in our school´s pool after our classes and discussions have ended. Of course I've taken a picture of the school and the pool; of course, I can't post it.
Oh well.
And all the great posts I write in my head at night have vanished when I get to the computer 20 hours later.
However, I did succeed in meeting my twice-monthly deadline on the ELCA World Hunger blog, Hunger Rumblings, so you can read that reflection on Cuba and simple living here.
It has been quite hot in Cuernavaca. Tomorrow my fellow students and I are going to swim a bit in our school´s pool after our classes and discussions have ended. Of course I've taken a picture of the school and the pool; of course, I can't post it.
Oh well.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Getting around Cuba
These are sort of out of order, but they do give you a sense of how people move around. This blue truck belongs to the Lutheran Church and took our group around Isla de La Juventud for a few days.
The back of the bus has two benches along the outside wall. Church members set up rows of folding chairs down the middle to make room for more people, but as you can see, many people stood. All public transportation on the Isla seemed to be by passenger truck rather than bus, and all of them were crammed with people. Folks standing on rural corners seemed to expect us to pull over and pick them up, but the driver didn't.
Horses and carts were common on the island.
We took an afternoon's journey in a "carreton" or big carriage pulled by a horse. Here's the horse!
In Havana, yes, there were lots of great old cars. Any horses and carriages we saw were purely for tourists, and they do have buses in Havana.As you can see I have solved my technical difficulties and will now begin to steadily post great pictures of my journey!
Monday, March 1, 2010
From Cuba to México
To come from a country where almost nothing is for sale to a place where everybody is selling something is quite a shock. Instead of tv commercials, Cuba has public service announcements; instead of billboards for casinos or cars or Coke, Cuba has political slogans. On the extremely pastoral Isla de la Juventud, where we spent three nights, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages outnumbered private cars. It was very quiet, in the evening, without the sound of traffic. (You can read the history of the island (formerly called the Isle of Pines) by clicking on the blue link right here or an even more indepth excerpt from a book on google called Cuba´s Island of Dreams: Voices from the Isle of Pines and Youth It will work, I promise, Dad! Click on the highlighted part to get the link.)
Havana was everything the photos promised. Old Havana was beautiful; talented musicians play Buena Vista Social Club-style son in the bars and street corners (paid by the government, so you don't even have to tip them); gorgeous mansions are indeed in states of incredible decay; multi-story portraits of Che and Fidel adorn the government buildings; and many times I saw cars I expected my grandfather to be driving.
Organizing and uploading my Cuba photos from an internet cafe seems problematic but eventually I will succeed. Please be patient.
Meanwhile, I arrived in Cuernavaca last Thursday, settled in with my host family, visited the school, met the other students, and traveled to Taxco with them on Sunday. Today was my first day at CETLALIC language school.
For all its strangeness, Mexico is familiar. The paleta carts, people selling elotes, the old trucks straining under loads of scrap metal, plastic and cardboard that will be sold, the enchiladas and tortillas, even the accent all remind me of....Chicago!
Once I transcribe and digest my 15 pages of notes from Cuba, I´ll venture some opinions on the country and its situation. Finding time to do so will be tough cuz my schedule is busy and yes, I have homework.
Signing off with 300 photos in my camera that you still can't see....
Anita de viaje
Havana was everything the photos promised. Old Havana was beautiful; talented musicians play Buena Vista Social Club-style son in the bars and street corners (paid by the government, so you don't even have to tip them); gorgeous mansions are indeed in states of incredible decay; multi-story portraits of Che and Fidel adorn the government buildings; and many times I saw cars I expected my grandfather to be driving.
Organizing and uploading my Cuba photos from an internet cafe seems problematic but eventually I will succeed. Please be patient.
Meanwhile, I arrived in Cuernavaca last Thursday, settled in with my host family, visited the school, met the other students, and traveled to Taxco with them on Sunday. Today was my first day at CETLALIC language school.
For all its strangeness, Mexico is familiar. The paleta carts, people selling elotes, the old trucks straining under loads of scrap metal, plastic and cardboard that will be sold, the enchiladas and tortillas, even the accent all remind me of....Chicago!
Once I transcribe and digest my 15 pages of notes from Cuba, I´ll venture some opinions on the country and its situation. Finding time to do so will be tough cuz my schedule is busy and yes, I have homework.
Signing off with 300 photos in my camera that you still can't see....
Anita de viaje
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