| 3 more days |
[Mar. 22nd, 2009|01:16 pm] |
My Mexico adventure is quickly coming to an end. I’m heading into Mexico city tomorrow for a bit more adventuring and Wednesday I am flying home. Things in Tepotzlan have been pretty fun. We built doors, windows, shelves, a bench, and a desk for our room that was previously just a big cement rectangle with holes where windows and doors ought to be. We did a lot of planting and garden care, and yesterday we built a feeding trough for the deer that are arriving today. The baby bunnies are big enough now that they wont fall through the holes in the cages any more and soon they will be big enough to eat. If you haven’t ever tried rabbit or deer meat I would strongly recommend it. They are both very tasty. I’ve tried a lot of new exciting things in Mexico, most of which I would whole heartedly recommend, but a few of which were somewhat questionable. I would not recommend eating any kind of organs. They have the most disgusting texture of anything I have ever put in my mouth. Chicharron (fried pig skin) is also something that I would steer clear of. I did try some chapulines (grasshoppers) toasted with garlic lemon and salt. They are considered a delicacy and are especially popular in Oaxaca. They tasted alright, but I just couldn’t get down with the texture. This evening we are going to visit a village high up in the mountains for a local festival and to gorge ourselves on mole.
This has been such an amazing trip, but I will be happy to go home. It is often uncomfortably hot here and there are more poisonous things crawling around than I care to think about. There a scorpions all over the place, poisonous snakes, tarantulas (according to Jack. I haven’t actually seen any), a black widow that lives in the living room, and my most feared nemesis: the Mexican bed bug aka Kissing Bug. The kissing bug can infect you with a chronic disease called Chagas’ disease that is often fatal. These bugs are all over the mansion. Fortunately I have a bug net, but I didn’t have one for the first few nights and I didn’t have one when I was here before with Alice and Anne. Yikes!!! On top of all that there are also tons of mosquitoes, hornets, bees, wasps, tiny biting flies, and other winged things that bite or sting. Awesome. I’ll be more than pleased to be away from all these pests.
I’m heading back out to Star Island as the Housekeeping Supervisor for another summer of fun. Alice will be the Kitchen Supervisor, and most likely Jeremy and Anne will be there again too. They still haven’t sent out contracts because they love keeping people in suspense and preventing us from planning our lives. Anne is still in San Cristobal, but she’s planning some more traveling around Chiapas (she might actually be in Palenque now that I think about it), and then she is heading down to Guatamala.
Well, I have to run. I probably won't get another chance to update before I get back. See you all soon! |
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| bunny drama |
[Mar. 12th, 2009|09:45 pm] |
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This morning when I got up I went to pick some broccoli leaves to feed to the bunnies (there are about 14 bunnies here not counting the babies). One of the week-old baby bunnies had escaped from it’s little nest and gotten itself stuck. It had somehow crammed it’s head and one of its arms jammed though a whole in the cage and gotten stuck there. It was tricky to get the delicate little baby out of there without breaking it’s little arm off, but we did eventually get it out safe and sound. Once that bunny was safely back in it’s nest I heard Sarah, one of the WWOOFers here, yelling to Jack that the dog had one of the babies in its mouth! Apparently that bunny had escaped from its cage and the dog was just gently carrying it around in it’s mouth. We were able to return that one to it’s mother safely as well. |
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| Back in Tepotz |
[Mar. 7th, 2009|05:41 pm] |
Sorry I haven’t updated for a while. Most of the time I’d rather go adventuring or have a snack than sit down and type a journal. I’m back at La Quinta Piedra volunteering for a bit. I had planned to be in Alice’s bungalow at this point in time. Alice was renting a little place in Tepotzlan, but she decided to head back to the US before her lease was up and offered to let Jeremy and I stay there through the end of her lease. Unfortunately she only asked her landlord if I could stay there and forgot to mention Jeremy. He was less than pleased and less than friendly when two people showed up instead of one. I don’t think it helped that Alice hadn’t paid her electricity bill either. Even though he said it was fine that we both stay there because it was only for a week we didn’t feel very welcome, so we headed to La Quinta Piedra earlier than planned.
My last month in Oaxaca was pretty great. Jeremy brought his ukulele, melodica, mouth harp, and harmonicas, and Misael, the teacher of my conversation class, lent Jeremy his guitar. Our house was always full of music. I quit taking classes for my last two weeks in Oaxaca because I wasn’t getting as much out of it as I wanted. Fortunately I still had plenty of Oaxacan friends and acquaintances to hang out and practice my Spanish with. My friends Oscar and Kevin are both musicians and came over a few times to “practice Espanglish”, as Kevin said, and make music. My teacher, Misael ,even came over one night for some dinner and music.
I went on various adventures to see some natural wonders and ancient ruins. On Valentine’s day Jeremy made Johanna and I breakfast in bed (pancakes, eggs, home fries, fruit salad with homemade yogurt, fresh squeezed orange juice, and coffee) and then we all went to Hierve el Agua. Heirve el Agua was absolutely beautiful. It has “petrified waterfalls” that are made of mineral deposits. Another weekend the three of us went with Johanna’s intercambio partner to see the ancient Zapotec ruins at Monte Alban. I would say those are the top two sites to see in Oaxaca.
In addition to adventuring we made a lot of really good food. There was a little market down the street where we got super fresh, super tasty, and super inexpensive produce. We bought 50 oranges for 40 pesos (a little less than $3) and squeezed it into 5 liters of fresh fresh orange juice. I also tried out several of the recipes that I learned in my cooking class. We made entomatadas, chilaquilles, sopa de tortilla, arroz con leche, and sopa de chayote to name a few highlights. We also indulged in some battered and deep fried veggies mmmmm!
I want to write some more about Tepotzlan but not right now. Hopefully I’ll get to it soon. <3 |
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| Adventures... |
[Feb. 6th, 2009|03:11 pm] |
So lots has happened since my last update. Everything is wonderful and amazing. Every day I feel a little more fluent, like all the pieces of the puzzle are snapping into place. I think the most exciting thing for me is that I have some friends from Oaxaca who I can have really interesting conversations with. I still make a lot of mistakes all the time, but I can express myself and successfully hold up my end of the conversation. I have a new teacher this month who I really like. We haven't done any activities out of the book so far. Instead we've been reading short stories and talking about them in class and playing games that involve talking in the subjunctive. I liked my old teacher too, but he did a lot of lecturing and we did a lot of fill in the blank sort of activities. I feel like I'm really getting a lot out of the class that I'm in now. To make things even better, there is only one student in my class this month as opposed to the 8 students in my class last month.
Jeremy got here last Friday. He dropped everything he was doing in New York and sold like half of his instruments and his brand new ipod so that he could afford to come here to Mexico and be with me. The family that I was living with offered to let us live in their other house that they are building, but since it is outside of the city and isn't quite a house yet (i don't even think it has running water) I opted instead to rent an apartment with one of my classmates (who is now my only classmate). Our apartment is really nice. It's fully furnished and is much closer to my school than I was living before. Although I'm not living with the Angles anymore I've visited them almost every day with Jeremy. He's doing some work on their house in exchange for them feeding us. Jeremy couldn't say more than a few words in Spanish when he got here, but he is picking it up ridiculously fast.
Sandra's aunt who lives in Cuernavaca, Morelos was visiting for the week and we all hit it off really well and she invited Jeremy and I to stay with her in Cuernavaca whenever we want and for as long as we want. Her son is a Spanish teacher and she said that he would give Jeremy lessons for free in exchange for us practicing English with him. She has a spare room in her house and she said she'd feed us and everything! The offer is too good to pass up, so in March when our lease us up in the apartment and I'm done with my term at school we're going to head to Morelos. Cuernavaca is only about an hour from Tepotzlan, so we're planning to go to la Quinta Piedra for a short while to see how the project is going and to visit Jack then we'll probably head up to Mexico City, which is about an hour north of Cuernavaca, to check out some of the awesome museums that are there. After that who knows where we'll go? We're not sure yet, but I'm sure it will be somewhere awesome.
Jeremy brought his camera, so I can finally post a few pictures.
This is me in front of the little room that I was living in for the last month.
Jeremy and me in our apartment
I'll post some more later. If you want to see all of Jeremy's pictures you can check them out at http://community.webshots.com/user/boigah but a lot of them are pretty boring. Also, my roommate Johanna has some pretty sweet pictures in her blog http://jackpotjo.wordpress.com/ |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|03:35 pm] |
Things continue to go swimmingly here in Oaxaca. I'm not really doing much else besides studying Spanish, which is fine because that's exactly what I want to be doing. I'm now taking a Spanish conversation class in the afternoon instead of the cooking class. I also started to take an hour of private classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm trying to cram in as much studying as I can before Jeremy gets her at the end of the month. I've been holding off on sight seeing and other things like that until he gets here. Things are really starting to come together,. I'm reading a novel in Spanish that I'm really enjoying and I'm really excited that I actually know what's going on. My only problem is that my mom keeps sending me pestering emails that are either just frantic list of questions or statements about how worried she is.
Dear Mom, I'm OK! I just don't have a lot of time to chat on the Internet!
Yesterday I played hokey from grammar class to watch the inauguration at a restaurant near my school. The place was packed with students form the Institute. I'm really excited and hopeful about our new president and I'm glad I was able to see the inauguration. If I don't update for a while it's just because I'm too busy learning Spanish and having fun--not because I'm dead. |
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| chicken feet |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|03:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
The house where I'm living is half an hour walk from my school. Everyday I stop at a fruit stand and get a giant glass of fresh squeezed orange juice for 10 pesos. Things are continuing to go swimmingly. I was hanging out with the Israel, brother of my mama Oaxacaña, who is a professor of pedagogy. He told me that when I finish classes in February that I can go to school with him and sit in on his classes for free! He thinks it outrageous that I'm paying $100 per week for Spanish classes and says the best way to learn is through conversation. I really appreciate having both structured grammar lessons and the opportunity to practice conversation though.
Sandra (my mama Oaxacaña) gave me a beautiful dress with embroidered pink flowers. She told me to wear it to school so I would be more guapa (apparently my Carhartts and work boots weren't quite cutting it). In addition to to giving me a dress and a shawl, she's apparently started campaign "make Madeline fat". "¡Come! ¡Come, Madeline! ¡Tú eres tan flaca! ¡Come, porfavor!" I really want to be polite and eat everything she serves me, and usually it's not that hard because she makes thins like mole rojo and black beans with pork, but I just couldn't do it when she served me chicken feet (a favorite treat for the little girls). |
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| My new family |
[Jan. 6th, 2009|04:55 pm] |
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I’ve been adopted! Last week I had the good fortune to meet the most friendly and generous family in Oaxaca. I was sitting on a corner downtown listening to some street performers when I was approached by a mother and daughter who asked me if I spoke English because the little girl, Venus, was studying English and had to do an interview for he homework. The next thing I knew I was living with them! They’ve been feeding me and taking me everywhere with them. They are so excited to teach me Spanish and all about Oaxaca. I feel like my Spanish has improved exponentially since I met them (partly because the mother, Sandra, never stops talking). I even moved up from an intermediate Spanish class to an advanced Spanish class. They say I can live with them for as long as a want and they emphatically want my family to know that I’m safe and being taken good care of. There generosity is so overwhelming it’s hard to know how to respond. So all in all live is lovely right now. |
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| Oaxaca |
[Jan. 1st, 2009|12:08 pm] |
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Happy New Year everyone! So I forgot to mention that I'm in Oaxaca. I couldn't wait, so I left last Sunday. My classes are going really well. I'm taking a cooking class in the afternoon, which is extra awesome because I get to eat everything I make. Things seem like they are working out really wonderfully for everyone in my life. Anne was going to go back to San Cristóbal, but she wanted to take more Spanish classes first and didn't know where she would go to take them. Jack told her that she could stay at La 5ª Piedra and take classes in Tepotzlán if she wanted. And last I knew, a friend of Jack's was going to teach her for free. Alice is heading to San Miguel de Allende to take art classes. Also Jeremy is coming to Mexicoooooo!!! I'm not totally sure where we'll live. Right now I'm living at a hostel, but I've been looking for places on couchsurfing.com. I'm sure something will work out. |
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| books and things |
[Dec. 29th, 2008|04:54 pm] |
Books I've read since I've been in Mexico:
1. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris- Ok so this is one of my most dweeb sauce obsessions I am so into this vampire series. I pretty much devoured this book on the plane, and one of the things that I'm most looking forward to when I get back to the US is watching the new HBO series base on the books. It's from the creators of Six Feet Under and it's sooooooooo good.
2. Mort by Terry Pratchett- This is the first Terry Pratchett book I've read. It was pretty ok and very silly. Nothing like an anthropomorphic personification of death.
3. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde- Ok, so this book was totally efffed in a weird way. I was about three quarters of the way through the book when about 4 chapters repeated themselves. And as if that wasn't enough when I was nearing the end of the book the action wasn't rising they way you would expect it to for the dramatic conclusion and then the book just stopped! The last 4 chapters were missing! How unsatisfying! Fortunately Alice had read a more functional copy of the book and was able to tell me how it ended.
4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz- I'm almost finished with this one. Parts of this book are in Spanish so I get to feel a little like I'm practicing Spanish even when I'm reading a book that's mostly in English. And I'm learning all kinds of things about the history of the Dominican Republic.
5. The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan- So I haven't actually started this one yet, but someone just gave it to me and I've heard good things about it. We'll see.
Pero, pienso que estoy listo para empezar a leer libros en español. He leído libros de niños en español pero estoy lista para leer libros de adultos (espero). Jack me dijo sobre 2 de sus libros favoritos: Metafísica Para Principiantes y Mas Allá de la Libertad. He buscado para estos libros pero todavía no he encontrarlos.
Which brings me to my next point: Jack is amazing. He has eyes that twinkle and is full of vision, inspiration, and words of empowerment. I asked him where he was from and he rattled off a list of ethnicities including, Native American, African, Mexican, and Polish. He is very childlike in many ways. It's just great, that's all I can say. |
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| goose |
[Dec. 23rd, 2008|06:56 pm] |
So there is this big tennis court that was totally grown over and full of dirt and scorpions. We set fire to the brush and have been clearing the dirt for the past few days. We're clearing it for this big event that is going to happen on New Years. It's kind of a crazy new age things where people listen to Beethoven and move their hands to the music in a specific way that is supposed to lead to enlightenment.
We're going to slaughter a goose for Christmas. If anyone has any delicious dessert recommendations feel free to send them. |
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msmaddie's journal