...mas cuadros

Teatro Juarez

Central



Carlos hanging up one of the pinatas


Sugar cane, lolipops, oranges, and gold coins!YUM!


Lisa, Meghan, Me, and Tamara hangin out at break

mas cuadros!

This is my school at night!





Street performers in Plaza de la Paz

Religious parade before Christmas Eve.












Top Row: Elie, Tamara, Me, Vada
Front Row: Kavita and Nancy






Universidad de Guanajuato
(the street on the left of the uni leads up to
my house...eventually)



















Guanajuato en la noche...gorgeous!


Sorry that the formatting is all over the place--hopefully my next posting won't be so terrible.

for the love of photos...

These are videos of us breaking the pinatas we made before Christmas. I will be posting more photos when I have a bit more time and a more stable internet connection For now, enjoy :)

cosas (things)...

I'm nearing the end of week 2 here in Guanajuato and school has been going well, had food poisoning 3 times now, and the walk home from school hasn't gotten any easier. Homestay in combination with school has been helping with language comprehension. I've been thinking that I will take up reading CORREO, the local newspaper starting next week. Going to the movies has really been helpful as well. Now in regards to food poisoning, well, it's only been happening when I eat what my host mom cooks for me. I am not sure exactly what it is, but my suspicion is that she doesn't put things back immediately after say, pouring a glass of milk or something. Of course this is just a guess, but I also don't want to offend her. I left the house very early this morning before she could attempt to feed me and opted for Cafe Tál, a cafe on the way to school. I ate out all day and boy, did it feel great! I haven't been too worried about gaining weight here, as I climb a mountain just to go home everyday ;) The walk is so enjoyable--I sometimes stop to hang out with the kids on the street and set off fireworks. Que divertido! (how fun!)

I miss home more than ever nowadays since I don't know how much longer I will be around before starting my Peace Corps service and also knowing that most of you have returned home for winter break for a week or so. However, do know that I am thinking of all of you during the holidays.

I have been continuing my research on water purification and am trying to set up an appointment to visit the local water purification plant. I'm not too sure how this is going to work, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Another issue here that I have a hard time turning my back on is the baby I saw on the steps of a church, somewhat by the school just yesterday. Someone from the church took the baby in, but this is a huge problem in all of Mexico. Reproductive health education is lacking in Mexico because parents don't want the government to teach their children about prevention, HIV/AIDS, and STIs in school, but parents don't teach their children either, so one often sees 13-14 year olds who are pregnant. Abortion is illegal in all of Mexico, and these unwanted babies are either kept, left in the street, or left in front of a church. There are so many issues surrounding this problem and it makes me sad.

On a lighter note, salsa dancing has been going great~me and two friends from school have been going to a bar in the center of town, and also a gym 10 minutes or so from school. Me encanta!

It's been quite a week--7 hours of school/day (including our culture class), hanging out with my host family, lots of going out in the evenings with the other students from school, and then studying and doing homework until 2AM. I absolutely adore it! :)

We have learned so much about holiday celebrations here in Mexico earlier this week. The associate dean of my school, Javier, taught us all about dia de virgen Guadalupe Day of our Lady Guadalupe (12th of December) and that 20-25 million people from all over the world celebrate this day by traveling to Tepayac Hill in Mexico City to pray. It is said that the Virgin Mary had appeared there in 1531 and asked a peasant farmer to build a chapel so that she could watch over her people. Juan Diego told the bishop this, but he didn't believe Diego. Mary performed a miracle by allowing flowers to grow where only cactus could survive. A chapel was built to honor her, and many people believe that miracles happen there.

We also learned about the piñata. The authentic piñata is nothing like what we have in the states. It's not an animal, it's not filled with an overwhelming amount of candy, and it's definitely not light even when it's empty. Rather, it is a huge clay pot made by hand. We made paste with flour and hot water, ripped up newspaper, and started to craft this masterpiece. We put paste all around this clay pot to glue the pieces of ripped newspaper to it. We then took huge sheets of colored construction paper and made them into cones--7 cones to be exact. Each cone or 'point' represented the 7 deadly sins. The cones were then pasted to the newspaper-covered pot. We set it out to dry for 24 hours and continued working on it the next evening.

Our teacher, Rebecca, gave us sheets of colored wrapping tissue to decorate the piñata. We all sat around a table and set up an assembly line. One of my classmates, Derek, called it a piñata sweatshop! :) We then took aluminum foil and covered parts of the piñata. Our teachers filled the piñatas the next day and hoisted them up on a rope on the terrace. We gathered after class to take turns hitting it yesterday. When it broke, we found sugar cane, peanuts (in the shell), lollipops, jamaica, and gold chocolate coins--YUM!

I went on an excursion to a local silver mine with some friends from school today. What I find interesting is that there are no guides in the city that speak English. It’s great because it forces us to listen very carefully to what they are saying and get a good idea of what is going on. The listening portion of being in the city hasn’t been overwhelmingly difficult, but the speaking portion still remains a struggle. I am sure that in time it will get easier. This brings me to my next point: I went to a local café today to ask for a job and was hired. I start tomorrow and really look forward to improving my speaking and listening by working there.

I will post some photos I took of the city in my next entry—I’m having quite a bit of trouble with the formatting of my entries.

Yesterday was my first day of school and it reminded me of my first week or so in Germany when I had so much to say, but simply couldn't express myself. I started school at 8AM, taking a placement test and conversation test. I've already made so many friends from all over the world: 2 Germans, 1 Swiss/Uruguayan, 5 Americans, 1 Swiss-German, 4 Dutch, 1 Finlander, and 1 Japanese. It's a crazy mish-mosh of languages at all times--it's definitely awesome. We were in class through the afternoon and went on a walk of the city.

We all went out to dinner in the center of the city and went to a pub for drinks afterwards. It was so neat to see the city at night. I will have to post photos I took soon. The hills are super intense--it takes me 30 minutes to walk to school in the morning, pausing every so often to enjoy the view (I really have to pay attention to the road when I walk because of the uneven roads/cobblestones). Walking home was WAY more intense than my walk to school because everything is uphill. I'm so out of breath when I reach my front door and hopefully it will get easier but I doubt it :)

I'm in school for 6 hours a day and have already learned a LOT--I had a 2 hour conversation with one of my teachers today and I am so surprised how much I have learned from watching TV in the US. I was told that I'd be moving up a level by next week or so--we'll see. We also have Mexican culture classes every night at 7PM. We're learning about how people celebrate Christmas here and King's Day. We learned the history of the piñata and that the 7 points of the piñata star represents the 7 major sins.

Well, I've gotta run, but I'll write again soon.

I'm finally here in Guanajuato and it's everything Zack said it would be and more. I found my way to my host family's home this morning--my taxi driver was so awesome, telling me about some of the sights as we drove into the city. It really is like a medieval European city!


I hung out with my host sister Keren, her 2 year old son, Carlos, and Roberto, my host brother's 5-year old. My host mom took me into the center of the city to do some grocery shopping and to show me how to get to school. The view is amazing and I already love being here. We also stopped by the central garden area in Pastita for real Mexican enchiladas--yum!

The weather today was “shorts-and-a-t-shirt” great and I spent most of my day hangin’ out with the kids in the jardin.

Here's a photo of Roberto telling me to look at something. He's quite the storyteller :)

Dónde?

Many of you probably haven't heard of Guanajuato. Guana..what?! Yeah, I hadn't either before this program. I did a little research and here's what I know:

Guanajuato lies in the central heart of Mexico, 380 kilometers northwest of Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico City), and east of Puerto Vallarta. In 1558, veins of silver were discovered, resulting in peaks of economic realization as well as repression. I was one of the richest cities in Mexico, attracting the Spaniards. In 1810, the wealthy and poor of Mexico united to defeat the Spaniards at Alhondiga de Granaditas. If you look solely at the architecture, you'd think you were in a medieval European city. Guanajuato is located in the Bajio region, nestled at the bottom of a big bowl shaped ravine surrounded by hills and mountains. With a population of 160,000, its people are famous for a long tradition of music, or callejoneadas. It is also well known for its college town environment.

UNESCO declared Guanajuato and its silver mines a world heritage site in 1988. The city was originally built over a river which flowed through tunnels under it. This caused a lot of flooding (I imagine much like Venezia, Italia) so a dam now exists to redirect the water into underground caverns. The former tunnels in which water used to flow, has now been made into a road underground for car travel. The city is far away from Cancun and Cuernavaca--perfect for learning Spanish!

My school is in the city center in the "barrio Pastita." The method of teaching is focused on socializing and also increasing knowledge of Mexican culture. I'm really excited about meeting my host family, other students at school, and improving my Spanish.

This is now my current address:

Vista Hermosa 26
Guanajuato, Mexico
36000

ph: 7329448 / 7341886

Exciting Plans!

I had been talking to my fabulous friend Zack O'Brien since this past spring about the possibility of going to Mexico for a Spanish language immersion program for some time now. After doing extensive research on programs in Spain, Central America, and South America, I've made the decision to study at the don Quijote language school in Guanajuato, Mexico.

I got on the phone with the program administrator who is located in Spain to sign up for 4 weeks of intensive and superintensive Spanish, complete with a homestay and half-board. I will be starting school this upcoming Monday, 17. December. I just booked my flight with Mexicana Airlines--one way ticket since I don't know when exactly I will be back :)

I will post as regularly as possible during my program--stay tuned.