Conventions

Every state in México has its own traditional arts and crafts, food, and culture. I think a lot of this is due to the indigenous influence in each region, and now international influence. Up north there is a significant American influence, while down south more of the indigenous cultures survive. Recently there was a convention where every state in México was represented, and I got to see some of the uniqueness of each one. Especially interesting was the states where I´ve been, since I could compare my previous observations with what I saw at the convention.



I also saw this hilarious advertisement, trying to get Americans to join the Méxican revolution...

Weddings and Thanksgiving in México

Last Saturday, Nov 28th, I had the chance to go to a wedding of a coworker. I am not very familiar with Catholic weddings in the states, but it seemed like a very traditional ceremony. The funnest part was seeing them blowing bubbles afterwards instead of throwing rice!



The hospitable, former PCV in Saltillo hosted a Thanksgiving bash last Sunday the 29th and invited all of the norteños over for turkey and traditional food. We got to hang out with some folks in the new group who will be our new "neighbors" and catch up with some of the volunteers who are leaving. The host put together a great party with a ton of food--including a 10 kg (22 lb) turkey! Here are the remains after we 11 or so guests got through it.



During the week I was also shown the trompo, or top. It seems like everyone here learned to play with it as a kid, and some still remember some pretty neat tricks. I have gotten as far as the basic spinning action, and once or twice I have been able to flip the trompo onto my hand. I still need more practice for some of the between-the-leg style tricks. There is also a type of taco filled with meat called trompo (in the south, this style of meat is also known as pastor)--it is different cuts of meat layered onto a spit, with the end result looking like a top. Here is a local advertisement showing Taz attacking the spit.

Comic and Table Game Convention

In yet another episode of the "This is not your normal Peace Corps experience" story, last Saturday night we went downtown to the convention center. They were hosting several events, one of which was a Comics and Table Games convention. We were hoping to find some cool party games or nice chess sets (none of which are sold in the Wal-Marts or toy stores here...the only things we can find are the basics like Monopoly and Life).

Instead, the convention was filled with pure anime, comics, and videogame fans. Lots of people were dressed up in costumes. I was particularly impressed by the Joker costume.



Also, there were some Mexican celebrities on hand doing autographs and photos. The gentleman here plays the voice of Mr. Burns in the Spanish version of The Simpsons.

Real de Catorce

Last Monday (Nov 16), we had the day off of work for Día de la Revolución. Technically Día de la Revolución is Nov 20 (Friday), but for some reason the federal laws state that when the 20th is a Friday, the holiday is held the previous Monday...Día de la Revolución celebrates the start of the Mexican Revolution against the dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1910. This means that next year, 2010, will mark the 200th anniversary of Mexican Independence and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution--it should be a very festive time to be in México!!

Taking advantage of the long weekend, a couple of coworkers and I headed down to Real de Catorce for a day-trip on Sunday. Real is a tiny pueblo in the state of San Luis Potosi, in the center of México. It used to be an old silver mining town (like many pueblitos in México), and is now mostly a ghost town / tourist destination (like many old mining towns in México). It is probably most famous for being the site of various movies, including The Mexican with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Another notable site is the long, long, very long cobblestone road that leads to the town. It stretches on forrrrreeeeeeevvvvvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr...



We ate lunch at a hotel where the crew for The Mexican stayed during filming. The chef is actually an actor and appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean. Lots of pictures of both movies in the lobby.



On Friday after work, we had a carne asada at my counterpart´s apartment. It was a lot of fun, and a group of us actually wound up staying til 2:30 AM playing Risk! I haven´t played in a long time, but it was a good time.

Japanese Festival

So being in one of the largest cities in México, one of the advantages is the multiculturalism--and I´m not just talking Méxican culture. The local university actually hosted a two-day Japanese Festival this last week!

At the festival, I saw a tea ceremony, some dances, and participated in a True / False game about Japan. It turns out that Japan and México have had relations for the last 400 years!!



I also had the chance to brush up on my calligraphy skills, writing two kanji characters with a brush. Here is my turnout for the character for water. Ignore the fact that they gave us a hardcopy to trace...

10K Race in Monterrey

We two Monterrey volunteer went and ran in a 10K race this morning, in San Pedro Garza Garcia, according to local reports, the area with the highest per-capita income in México (and possibly all of Latin America). It is a very, very nice area, and all of the houses that I have seen down there would be considered luxury homes in the US. Obviously we don´t live in San Pedro.

However, all of the local races seem to take place there, as running is apparently a luxury sport. I managed a 1:01 10K, about on pace with the 8K I ran a couple of years ago (45 min). Not particularly fast, but it was a great workout, and I hope to run more in the future. The race was very well attended, well organized, and well supported. They even had bands and cheering squads set up every couple of kilometers to cheer on the racers! This group of guys on stilts wandered around afterwards with a small band, handing out balloons.



Also, since it was Halloween last weekend, it was a costume race! Most runners wore the official, red shirt seen in the pictures (one of the requirements to be in the raffle for 50 iPod Nanos), but some others got really creative. This guy ran all 10K in this bull-rider costume!

Día de Muertos in Aguascalientes

A couple of volunteers decided to meet up this last weekend in Aguascalientes to take in their Festival de Calaveras. It is a celebration of the Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, which occurs on the evening of November 1 every year (All Saints Day). November 2, the following day, is always a national holiday in México, regardless of what day of the week it falls on, so this year we were lucky and had a 3-day weekend.

A calavera is the head of a catrina, and both are skeleton images that are widely celebrated now in México. The catrina was created by Méxican artist Jorge Guadalupe Posada--born in Aguascalientes. A famous image of a catrina is here.



The festival included a ton of activities, including bands, a county-fair, theater, and a parade. Here is a picture of some people painted as calaveras and wearing traditional costumes. They were pulling people from the crowd to dance on stage.

Reconnect and All-Vol

I just got back in town from a series of meetings and a ton of travel...taking the day to recuperate! One thing that I do not miss is the mosquitoes. I am the proud owner of at least 5 new mosquito bites that I can add to my collection.

So it has been a couple of weeks since posts. I actually flew back to the states for a couple of meetings, and then swung by to see my family. The trip was really good, and I am hopeful that the partnership we pitched for my work site will prove fruitful. I also loved seeing my family, even though it was only for a couple of days.

My Peace Corps group then had our Reconnect meeting back in Querétaro! About 3-4 months after swearing in, we all get together and reflect on our progress so far, talk about strategies for the rest of service, and get a brush up on our Spanish. The Spanish was great--now I just need more practice! It was also very interesting seeing what the other volunteers are doing. We all seem to be in similar boats, trying to figure out how to make an impact at our centers and what roles we should be playing, so it is good to know that I am not alone.

And then on Friday and Saturday we had an All-Volunteer conference, where we actually got to meet all of the current 13 trainees plus the other 30-40 current volunteers from previous groups. It was really interesting, since I got to put names to faces and really see what volunteers nearing the 2-year mark had done during their service.

Last note, and I'm sorry I couldn't get any good pictures of this, but the butterfly migration from the US to México has started! When I got back to my site, as I was walking around, I saw butterflies of all different colors making their way down South. November - February is roughly the time when the butterflies arrive and mate in central / southern México, and they happen to fly through Monterrey. It was amazing to watch! I must have seen thousands of them in the air, with at least a dozen passing closely by me every couple of seconds. I hope to make it down south early next year, when you can see thousands of these butterflies all in one location.

New Trainees!

This week I had the chance to host two trainees in the current group of PCTs, PCM-08. The group arrived at the beginning of September, so they have about two more months of training left. In México, trainees get to visit a current PCV to see what their work is like and how they live. I had gone to Saltillo for my PCV visit, right smack-dab in the middle of the first swine-flu scare, so I really didn´t get to see much. Luckily no big swine-flu news this time around. The couple seem to have pretty strong backgrounds that match their future jobs, so I think they will make a good contribution to the program.

Probably the best find of the trip was the Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, recommended by the other PCV in town. Unfortunately we couldn´t go on the free plant tour (closed-toed shoes only), but they did have a beer garden with free beer! This brewery is the oldest in México and makes 6 million bottles of beer every day.



Also, unknown to us, the National Baseball Hall of Fame is located at the brewery! They had the standard history of baseball in the country, famous players, plus an interactive area where you could practice batting or pitching.



The best part was finding an old jersey for a team called the Ingenieros!!

Influenza and Cirque de Soleil

In case anyone is wondering about the resurgence of swine flu, or now called A/H1N1, don't worry! Our office (like many around México) has provided us with a stash of hand gel near every door. Except in our case, the brand is actually called Influnza. Influnza to combat the spread of influenza!!



One of the advantages to being in a large site is that I get all the conveniences and activities of any large city around the world. Last Sunday a couple of friends from Saltillo came over to Monterrey to watch Cirque de Soleil. Cirque was putting on a production of Dralion, its Asian-fusion style traveling show. Prices were very reasonable (590 pesos, or about $45, compared to over $100 in Las Vegas for comparable seats). The show was very acrobatic, and I loved two of the acts a LOT! For the first one, they had two giant trampolines set up right next to a vertical metal structure. People were jumping off of the structure from different heights onto the trampolines, then ¨walking¨ up the wall and doing stunts!! It was very, very mind-blowing to watch. Also, the acrobats had the standard diving-through-the-rings tricks, but they added a second set of rings. So, there were two sets of vertical rings set about 3-4 feet apart, and each set had rings at different heights. Guys were actually jumping through one ring on the closer set, then without landing (or barely touching the ground), going through a second ring at a different height on the far set! It looked very gravity defying!

Independence Day, Méxican Style!

I just got back from 10 days of vacation in the state of Oaxaca, alternating between Oaxaca City and the coastline. It was my first ¨real¨ vacation so far, and it was great! I could probably fill several weeks worth of blogs, but I'm going to focus on the major holiday last week and see how much other stuff I can post later this week...



The big event during my vacation was El Grito, or The Shout. This happens in every city in México on the evening of September 15th, Méxican Independence Day (although the official holiday is Sept 16). Each city celebrates it a little bit differently, but in Oaxaca, the town center, or zocalo, had several stages set up for the festivities. Live bands were playing on all of them, starting around 8 PM. Around 10 PM the zocalo started becoming packed with people. People were wearing giant sombreros and fake mustaches (some sort of tradition, couldn´t quite figure out if it was anything other than a touristy gimmick). Around 11 PM, the governor appeared and started giving his speech, celebrating the heroes of Méxican history and the Independence. Supposedly the ¨official¨ Grito occurs in México City at midnight, so all other cities in México have to do theirs before midnight. Everyone in the crowd shouted along with ¡Viva Domingez! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva Oaxaca! The fun part began when everyone pulled out the spray-cans of foam and threw around hollowed-out egg shells filled with confetti. Some guys directly behind me had a couple cans of foam, so I got hit pretty good.



There were also castillos, tall structures with fireworks strung on them. They go off in several stages, with different parts lighting up at different times. Here is a video of one of the stages. You could get pretty close, which is amazingly unsafe, since the sparks and even some fireworks were flying everywhere!



This was then followed by fireworks in the sky over the basilica. All in all, we were out til 1:30 AM, and we didn't even go back to the zocalo for more live music!!

We don't quite do anything like this in the states for Independence Day. The closest equivalent we have is probably New Year's, and I think that is centered on the big cities. Even the tiny beach town in Oaxaca that we went to later in the week had an Independence Day celebration with a grito and castillo's!

Thoughts of America

This is a very sad weekend for me. Yesterday (Thursday) I had to say goodbye to the second person to leave my site. Out of the 3 volunteers that started in my office, I am the only survivor 3.5 months after swearing in. We had all been through a lot together, and both the others left to take care of personal business back home (good and bad). If I were in their shoes, I would also be heading back home in a split second, so I understand where they are coming from. Still, it hurts to think about because we had all gotten along pretty well both at work and outside of work, and I still get emotional thinking about this last goodbye. All I can hope for is that the friendships continue beyond Peace Corps. Peace Corps, like any other association, is just a medium to bring people together, and it is not the end-all-and-be-all of anything.

Today continues my sad note. I am actually on vacation in Oaxaca, but a volunteer couple from my group that I am meeting up with are also going back to the states in a week and a half. At least 4 out of our original 16 will have left before Reconnect...all are good people, and the couple is also going back to the states for very good reasons. I hate saying goodbyes, but I am glad that I have been able to say goodbye in person to all those in my group who have left so far. Maybe that´s a sign of bad luck on my part...

All of the ETs make me wonder what I am accomplishing here in Mexico. On some level, I feel like I could ¨accomplish¨ more in a job back in the states. On the other hand, I know that I will never get this kind of opportunity again, because all 4 people who have left basically left because life back in the states caught up with them. Kids, grand-kids, family illnesses, etc., are pretty strong factors that make Peace Corps look darn unimportant. I am ¨lucky¨ that I do not have any of those factors in my life right now, so I can afford to focus on Peace Corps. Is there a standard ¨profile¨ of volunteers that finish their 2 years of service? What is 2 years of my life worth to me?

On a pseudo-related note (thinking about the states), I read this article earlier this week, and I really relate to the story now:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/09/07/atlanta.ludacris.cars/index.html?iref=newssearch

The lack of a personal vehicle in Peace Corps makes transportation a very frustrating experience for me. The added time to do even the simplest things is a huge factor in lifestyle, and owning a car is a convenience that I never fully appreciated in the states.

Saltillo and Independence

Next week rings in Independence Day in México. Sept 16th (really the evening of the 15th) marks the start of the Méxican revolution against Spain in 1810. Lots of street vendors are selling green / white / red gear, and even the local mall is getting into the act.



On Friday this week, we were invited to the US Consulate in Monterrey for a town hall meeting. The new Ambassador to México, Carlos Pascual, was in town for a conference, and he wanted to meet us. When we showed up to the Consulate, everyone wanted to know about PC México--they didn´t even know we had a program in México! All of the consular people that I met were really nice, and we even went to a reception at the consular general´s house (the head of the consulate) afterwards.

In a couple of weeks a fellow volunteer is getting married to his Méxican novia, and so we had a pretty cool (but tame) cookout / despedida for him. A fellow volunteer and I traveled from Monterrey to Saltillo for the event, and I had time to visit the Museo de las Aves and Centro Cultural Vito Alessio Robles. This eagle / snake model at the Museo mirrors the image on the Méxican flag.



The Centro Cultural has the largest mural in all of México! It chronicles the history of Saltillo, and here is just a small taste.

Guadalupe, carne asada, and horses

So last Sunday (23rd of August) was the last day in a local event called Oaxaca in Guadalupe. Guadalupe is a suburb of Monterrey, so we joined up with the other Volunteer nearby to see what the event was like. It was being held in the central plaza of Guadalupe (every town in México has one). The main church (also standard in all towns) is pictured here. The event itself hadn´t picked up yet as of noon, so we just browsed the stalls for a bit then took off.



Last night I went to my first carne asada in México, which is equivalent to a barbeque in the US. It was hosted by work to welcome all of the new people that we have been hiring. I think since I started 3 months ago, we´ve gone from 27 employees to...35, plus 5 interns? Food on the grill!



Today, a couple of us went to Cola de Caballo, a waterfall south of Monterrey. It hasn't rained much here, so the water level was probably down, but it was still a fun trip. Up in the mountains it was noticeably cooler than in the city, which was great!

5th International Film Festival

My triumph of the week actually happened early in the week, when I finally got Internet at home. This adventure (which deserves its own rant) took a little over 3 weeks to accomplish, but I won't get into the gory details. Suffice it to say that I am now locked into a contract for Internet until I leave México...

Friday started the 5th International Film Festival in Monterrey, so I decided to volunteer to check it out. I was assigned to the press area. I had the chance to watch a documentary called Big River Man about the Slovakian swimming, Martin Strel, who has swum the entire lengths of the Danube, Mississippi, Yangtze, and most recently, the Amazon. I also sat in on a panel discussion with Bruce Beresford, the director of Driving Miss Daisy. His next movie is a story about a Chinese ballet dancer, Mao´s Last Dancer, and comes out next year. It sounded interesting, so I hope I can watch it. Here is a picture of Bruce at the panel (guy in the white t-shirt).

Matacanes pictures and cooking

Ok, so I finally got some pictures from Matacanes. The bare bones numbers are on my last post, but this is the one group jump that we did. Pretty short, maybe 3-4 m? I'm wearing the red lifevest on the left.



Last Sunday morning I also hit up some of the city museums in downtown Monterrey. The Museo de Historia Mexicana and the Museo del Noreste. They were both pretty interesting, but the Mexican history was very high level. The exhibits started from pre-hispanic cultures and continued to present day. They had some interesting colonial stuff, including arts and culture in México. No pictures allowed in either museum, but they had these giant statues outside (I think they are the museum mascots...).

Matacanes and PC Plumbing

So Matacanes was really fun, but very intense. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures yet, since I didn´t take my personal camera (and I´m glad I didn´t!), but hopefully the guide will send us our pictures soon. In a nutshell:

• Got up at 3:15 AM to catch a ride
• Got back home after midnight
• In between, did 27 cliff jumps of various heights. Highest was 12 m (~40 ft), with a couple of 8 m ones mixed in
• 2 rappels, highest was 36 m
• Ton of rock slides (which I loved!)
• 12 hours of walking, climbing, jumping, swimming, rappelling, etc.
• 1 soaked and destroyed cell phone (hence why I´m glad I didn´t also have my camera)

For some reason, I also ate a ton more during the hike than everyone else in my group. I had 8 Snicker´s bars, 8 granola bars, and drank about 2 L of water. Right afterwards, I also wolfed down half a roast chicken, rice, and beans. Guess I still have that high metabolism...

An interesting note on the 12 m cliff jump. On the way down, I was watching the water, and I actually had enough time to think to myself, Hm, I haven´t hit the water yet... That´s how long it takes to fall 12 m...

On the plumbing note, I had bought a washer for my house, to save on laundromat costs. There was a perfect space to hook it up in the back patio, but when I went to connect everything, I couldn´t find a cold water hookup available. So, over the course of a week, I basically had to rig together this T-pipe plus washer faucet plus hose contraption to keep water flowing to the house while also providing cold water to the washer. Very professional!

Visitors!

Thanks for all the words of encouragement! This week I got to fight the blues when I hosted my first guest. Scott, one of the volunteers from the central part of México, is a big hiker, and he came up for a week to enjoy the hiking in the mountains around Monterrey. On Sunday, my counterpart went with us to Parque Chipinque, but we took a different trail than I took last time. This time we went to a point called El Pinal...loosely translated in my bad Spanish to the Piney Spot. El Pinal is the little wooden structure at the top of this mountain. Yes, we actually made it that far!

This is the view of the city from El Pinal.

The haze and smog kind of wreaked havoc with the view. But, as the sign says, from here, you can see...nothing!

I have also started hanging out on my terrace at night to get out of the heat. Homes here tend to trap heat and literally turn into ovens, especially the second floors. Before he left, Scott surprised me with some house plants for my terrace as house-warming presents! Right now they are pretty small, but with the constant sunshine and some TLC, in two years I might have a full-fledged jungle upstairs. The jungle will compliment the turkey, roosters, and roof dogs that I can see from the terrace.

On the sad news front, our English Club was very short lived. When I stopped by our cafe on Tuesday with Scott, I saw a sign that the owner was selling everything in the cafe! She had not been getting much business, so last Friday she and her husband decided to shut down! Needless to say, just that morning I had sent out an e-mail to everyone in my center, inviting them to the club. Oops...

As a point of comparison between the US and México, here is a basket of groceries that I bought at the local convenience store. Basically enough as snacks for a couple of days: a loaf a wheat bread, a pineapple, a half-kilo of eggs (8), some nopales (cactus leaves), carrots, tomatoes, bananas, and juice, for a grand total of...88 pesos! Which is roughly $6.75. An order of 5 tacos from the local joint costs 35 pesos, so less than $3 for a very satisfying main entree.

Tomorrow I head off to Matacanes with a fellow volunteer and some people from his office. Everyone says that it is an amazing experience (think cliff jumping, rappelling, swimming, hiking, caving, etc., for 10 hours), and I'm getting pretty excited! Pics and stories next week.

House of Blues

So here is my very manly pink and red house. La casa rosa! I have an extra guest room with an actual bed and a second full bathroom, so anyone who feels like visiting the norteños, there is space! I finally got everything except Internet installed yesterday, so the house now feels livable. Just very empty...maybe I need a puppy or something...



Yesterday I also started feeling the new-location blues (hence the my house feels empty comment). I can only stand puttering around the house for so long, then I need to do something. Especially when the entire house is an oven. I think part of the feeling is the normal Peace Corps experience, but I actually think a lot of it is just the challenge of moving to a new location and having to start over (just amplified). I had the same experience after college, moving to a new town and new job. It took me about a year and a half, two years before I finally called my city home. I had to find activities I was interested in, make new friendships, etc. So, I figure that by the time I leave, I´ll finally feel like I belong! I know the PCV experience always starts out this way, and others in my group are going through the same things, but boy, it is a downer...

Puppies

Ok, house pictures will have to wait. I am still working on Internet access at the house, and I forgot to take pictures before coming to my Internet hotspot. Still, today is a big day, since everything big that I bought this week is supposed to get delivered...sofa's, table / chairs, etc. I will finally have a chair in my house!! It's the little things in life here that make it so exciting...

But, as promised, here are some puppy pictures from last weekend.



And for whatever reason, this guy loved getting himself stuck under this side-table.

Weekend Trips

So last weekend some fellow volunteers and I went to San Miguel de Allende after our workshops. We stayed in the most amazing Bed & Breakfast. My room actually came with its own private terrace, which was a great place to just hang out, relax, and enjoy the great view of the city. The staff was all very friendly, the service was amazing, and I just loved the overall experience. I think running a B&B like that would be quite a fun job, since you have the opportunity to meet world-travelers and provide a unique, personalized experience. I hope I have the chance to go back! This is San Miguel at daybreak.



While in San Miguel, this time I manged to make it to the hot springs with my amigos. Everyone we talked to recommended La Gruta. It is famous for having a grotto, with a tunnel linking the grotto to the outdoor pool. It was a bit hot in there, but otherwise the water was great! They actually had a set of rules, and you could get kicked out for "antisocial" behavior.



In San Miguel, I also had some great Chile En Nogado, kind of like chille relleno, but the chiles were stuffed with a mix of nuts, meats, and fruits.



I then went to Guanajuato with one of the guys, since I will have a hard time visiting the city again (being so far North really hurts the travel opportunities). However, there are so many things to see in the city that I have to go back!! The view from the Monument de Pipila was great. The city is in a bowl, and essentially has different layers to it. As they built the city, they used old mining tunnels as roads, lowered the streets, and otherwise built around the natural features. As a result, the city is really a 3D maze! Doors of buildings literally lead into the open air!



And, after another week of PC workshops in QRO, a couple of us went to San Luis Potosi, a couple hours northwest of QRO. One of the volunteers there had 7 very cute puppies, and I have some great pictures that I will have to post next time (I am hanging out in the local food court with no cable for my camera). I just received all the keys to my house today and spent a good half of my settling in allowance today buying basics (trash cans, cleaning supplies, etc....definitely surprised how quickly it added up), so I will post pictures next time! The next week will be filled with cleaning and more economic stimulating.

PC Training

Well, after a quick trip out of the country, I came back on Tuesday just in time to take care of some Peace Corps business. Right after I stepped off the plane, I made my way to my future house and signed the lease--I finally have a place to stay! No pictures yet, but I promise some after I get back to site. It's a very cool place with a terrace all around the second floor and painted in a very manly red and pink color scheme. After the lease was signed, a couple of people from work helped me move all of my luggage and a bed from my host family to my new house. Some basic construction and cleanup continues while I am out of site, but hopefully everything is ready when I return.

Wednesday we left site to take yet another 10-hour bus ride down to Querétaro for some Peace Corps workshops. I think that makes the 5th long bus-ride for me, although I know some people who have taken 16 or 18 hour bus rides to go on vacation. I´m not sure how they do it... This time we took ETN, which is the luxury bus line in México. It was the same sized tour bus, but there were only 24 seats! Each seat was very spacious, like a first-class airline seat, and everyone had their own headset to listen to music or the movies. While the movies weren´t blockbusters, it was very nice to not have the music blared over the speaker system for everyone to hear.

Thursday and Friday were filled with PC workshops with representatives from our sponsoring agencies (CONACYT offices), some universities, and professional associations. The subject was technology transfer, and different experiences and perspectives were offered. I thought it was a pretty good networking event, since the various centers rarely communicate about projects or ideas, and the various counterparts talked quite a bit amongst themselves.

Pandas and English

Sunday I met up with a fellow volunteer and his counterpart in downtown Monterrey so that we could go to the Planetario Alfa, a science museum for kids. The real reason we went was that they were showing a short, IMAX panda movie! We all thought it was a documentary, but it turned out to be an actual movie. I didn't realize it at the time, but my mom was telling me that we actually watched the non-IMAX version many years ago. The museum had a lot of hands-on exhibits which were interesting, but the best part had to be the people in costumes walking around. One guy was dressed up as an astronaut, and I kid you not, part of his job was to hang from the ceiling. Yes, there is a real person in that spacesuit! Proof that labor here is cheaper than "stuff".



Since I have not found a place to live yet, I commuted to my new English club after work on Tuesday. For the first class it was just the owner of the local cafe, but she said that she could get a group of people interested. Hopefully there will be more when we show up next Tuesday.

Roller-coaster week

So this week has been full of ups and downs. It started out with a pretty interesting morning of trying to find a tennis court at 7:30 AM on a Sunday. But all the courts we went to (about 30 in all) were full! The people of Monterrey apparently love their tennis! We wound up going to Parque Chipinque to hike, instead. It was a really nice park and had a completely different atmosphere than the city. The trail was surrounded by pine trees, and the morning mist made it a very relaxing, mystical hike. Unfortunately, I didn´t have my camera!

Monday night after work I had my first guitar lesson! I got to learn the basic notes, a simple song, and got lots of homework. I've been trying to practice every day for a little bit, and I am slowly picking up more easy songs (like Mary had a little lamb). Next week, chords!

One of the big disappointments of the week was the complete falling-apart of our housing search. For the first month at our sites, we live with host families again to integrate with the community, and then most volunteers move out afterwards. We wanted to move to this pueblito outside of the city that had a great sense of community. We had found a great apartment complex and had been going through the Peace Corps checklist to make sure that it would be safe to live in. Well, the contract review revealed a lease that was basically illegal according to Méxican law! We even tried negotiating with the landlord´s lawyer. No go. So, I skipped out of work on Friday afternoon and went looking for houses. Again. And I did the same thing on Saturday. Hopefully the alternatives will work out...

On a slightly brighter note, I stopped by the cafe in the pueblito in the early evening on Friday. It's a very relaxing, zen-like cafe that, honestly, we're amazed even exists. So we try to provide a bit of economic stimulus whenever we can. On Friday nights there is someone who teaches Japanese to whoever wants to learn, so I'm hoping that will be something else I can pick up here. The owner asked me if we could start up an English conversation club on a different weeknight--gladly! Just another reason that I want to finally move there...

MARCO and Pixar

Downtown Monterrey has a lot of interesting activities, and last Sunday my host and I headed to MARCO, the Museum of Contemporary Art. They have an exhibit from now til June 28th about Pixar and their animation process. It was a great exhibit! They had some animations from the original Pixar shorts (mid-1980's), which I had never seen before. Also on display were hand sketches, pastel and oil artwork, storyboards, and digital prints from all of their movies. They even had a couple of panels from their new movie, Up! No pictures were allowed inside the exhibit hall, so I could only get limited photos.



Also this week, one of my very nice coworkers took me and another friend guitar shopping! I wanted to learn something artistic while in México, and my top choices were singing and guitar. Luckily, my coworker teaches at a music school, and she is willing to trade guitar lessons for English lessons. I hope to find a singing class soon, so that I can do both. She actually showed me some piano songs last week, and it started bringing back memories. From almost 20 years ago! Some things you just never forget...

Concerts and Fútbol

One of my coworkers in the office teaches guitar and piano two nights a week, so she invited the volunteers to a free concert put on by her music school. It was a chorus of 26 female singing teachers, two violinists, and a pianist, with the theme ¨Songs sung by my grandparents¨. I wound up going with my host / counterpart. The concert was in this theater in the Parque Fundidora, at the end of the riverwalk. The songs were pretty good (though in Spanish), and the theater was so packed that people were sitting in the aisles! My counterpart only recognized 5 of the 20 songs, so just an indication of the era they came from...



Also, Friday after work I stayed late and played fútbol with some of the guys from work. They play almost every Friday, in the grassy area in front of the office on a miniaturized field. There was a wide range of skills, so I fit right in with my non-existent soccer skills. I lost track of the score, but it was good fun.