A Wolverine In Mexico

Random update

2011-07-06T10:16:00.002-06:00

So I've been absent for awhile because my project work picked up--I am trying to wrap things up. I am still in Mexico, although half my group has gone home and left...I will be the next when I leave in mid-August to go to grad school. I just wanted to post this amazingly great set of signs that we saw last Sunday. The pictures say it all, even if you can't speak Spanish.

Concert and Día del Niño

2011-05-03T16:09:00.004-06:00

The last week or so has been the Festival Palafoxiano in Puebla, where they invite a ton of international musicians to play in public. Friday night we listened to Felippa Giordano (Italian pop-opera singer)--and the Zocalo was packed! They had a fenced off area, and I almost didn't make it in even though I got there 40 minutes early!!

Saturday was April 30th, which in Mexico is Día del Niño, or Kid's Day! So of course we had to do kids stuff! First we saw some acrobats at a cultural complex. They were pretty cool and worked with a portable rig. Next up as a puzzle--in less than 24 hours, we managed to solve this 1000 piece puzzle. The most impressive thing though, was that when we were shopping for the puzzle, we saw a 32,000 piece puzzle!! Craziness...

Semana Santa

2011-04-25T14:33:00.004-06:00

Last week was Semana Santa, a big holiday in México--in fact, my office closed the entire week! Two years ago I was in PST and spent the holiday in Querétaro. Last year I was in Monterrey and stayed in town (going to a local baseball game!). This year, I went to visit some friends in the state of Guanajuato, saw a museum exhibit in Mexico City, and stayed in town for the rest of it.

A view of the city where my friends live.

Abandoned mine shaft.

Temporary exhibit in "Carlos Slim's" museum in Mexico City. At least the entrance was free--the man is rich enough!

The streets of my town were carpeted for Semana Santa!

Touring bands

2011-04-15T11:07:00.002-06:00

One of my Peace Corps friends hooked up with a Mexican band as his "secondary project," so he gets to tour with them. Last night they played a gig here in town, so we went to go listen--pretty good stuff! The band is called Leones Negros and/or Atletas Campesinos, and they play reggae and ska. We even got in free as band groupies!

Dance exhibition

2011-03-28T14:16:00.002-06:00

Last fall I took a salsa class at the local casa de cultura, like a commuity center. Like every group, we were supposed to give an end-of-semester public presentation, but somehow it didn't happen. Some of our friends continued with the class this semester, and their presentation was yesterday! Of course we went to go watch, and even though we showed up late, we were lucky and caught the last song of their show.

Also, random story, but I was walking down the street yesterday and saw a couple of "wild" marijuana plants growing in an empty lot about a block from an elementary school. Yeah, that was interesting, since it wasn't like they were being cultivated for drugs or anyone was sitting next to them smoking, but also no one really cared that they were there.

Spring Equinox

2011-03-22T15:28:00.003-06:00

This past weekend was a long-weekend (we had Monday off for President Benito Juarez's birthday!), and it happened to also be spring equinox! This is / was an important date for the Aztecs, Mayans, Mexicans, etc., so there were a lot of local events celebrating the date.

On Sunday, we went to a performance put on by students at the state university. It told the story of Quetzacóatl and the creation of man, the world, etc. It was pretty cool, though I only understood about half the Spanish (it was over a loudspeaker).

Yesterday, a lot of people went to the local pyramid and partook in traditional ceremonies. Lots of ritual cleanings, dances, and "taking energy". I really liked some of these costumes, especially the feathers!

Taking energy from the sun.

Carnaval!

2011-03-18T12:58:00.003-06:00

Sorry, this post arrives about a week too late, but in México, Carnaval was at the beginning of March. Veracruz probably has the most famous Carnaval celebrations (within México...nothing compared to Brazil, though), though every region has different celebrations with different flavors. Here in my town, we had a parade with güe-güe's (no one seems to know the spelling), which poke fun at the Spanish conquistadores. They were all firing these really, really loud muskets, so it was quite an experience.

I also just got back from a short trip to the states (grad school open house--my post-Peace Corps plan!), and it was actually quite a shocker. Stuff is sooooooooo expensive in the US!!

Camping out in Pachuca

2011-03-07T15:19:00.003-07:00

This last weekend I went to visit some fellow vols in Pachuca, state capital of Hidalgo, two hours north of Puebla. We had the chance to go camping out in Parque Nacional El Chico, the oldest national park in Latin America--founded over 100 years ago! It was fun times, and a beautiful park.

On the return trip, we explored downtown Pachuca for a little bit, and I got to climb their clock tower. The inner-workings of the clock were made by the same company that did Big Ben in London, and it celebrated 100 years of operation last year.

COS Conference

2011-03-04T11:32:00.002-07:00

This last week was our COS conference in Querétaro, which meant it was probably the last time our entire group will get together. We have the conference about three months before we all leave country, and it was good to see the other vols--many of whom I haven't seen in months! Kind of a sad event...I'm sure it hasn't hit me yet, since I will be extending here until mid-August. About half our group is actually extending at least three to four months, which is a good sign, and gives us more chances to see each other. Here is my group with all of the PC staff.

March 1 was the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps, and there were parties all over the globe. Our former country director hosted a fiesta at his house, and we had this great 50th Anniversary cake (photo courtesy of another vol, S.B.).

Last "Vacation"!

2011-02-22T10:12:00.003-07:00

So according to PC policy, our last three months are aren't allowed to take "vacation"--so I took my last official day of vacation yesterday, for a long-weekend trip to the state of Veracruz. I basically went to visit a friend from Monterrey, who now lives in the capital of Jalapa / Xalapa. It is a pretty tropical town, and it was definitely hot, hot, hot! I can't imagine what it is like in the summer! Some photos:

Main church in Jalapa...not sure what happened to the tower on the left?!

Sharks in the aquarium in Veracruz.

Waterfall Texolo near Jalapa.

Ice Skating and Kites

2011-02-14T15:23:00.005-07:00

On Saturday I had a busy day, as I had promised to cook for my girlfriend and her family...so I whipped up an easy dish of three-bean chili. It was well-received (I think), and they asked me what my next dish is going to be! So at least they think I can cook. You can see it here.

We also went ice skating on Saturday at an indoor rink. The ice wasn't too great, but it was fun skating...it's probably been three or four years since the last time I skated, so it took awhile to remember how. I had one semi-fall, but nothing too bad.

Sunday, we went to a kite event! So I've never really flown a kite before (once or twice before in my life), so it was interesting. We got some good tips from one of the organizers, and we managed to get the kite pretty high, one time each (probably 100-150 m). BUT, both times, we spent probably an hour undoing knots in the string afterwards...so more time with knots than flying kites! We even saw SpongeBob flying over the moon (no, this was not our kite).

Visitors!

2011-02-11T13:28:00.005-07:00

So I've been away for a couple weeks because...I had visitors!! Yay! My parents came down from the US to see what a "Peace Corps México" experience is like, and we got to travel around a bit. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Sunset over Mexico City, from our hotel terrace.

Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan.

Mural on the Central Library of UNAM, the national university.

Street in downtown Puebla. My parents said it looked very Hollywood-ish.

The inside of a church near my house.

Xochimilco, kind of like the Venice of México.

Salsa and Hiking

2011-01-24T11:58:00.003-07:00

Last Saturday was a fun salsa and cumbia dancing night with the group from my old salsa class. I haven't continued with the classes, but I have gotten more practice in just regular social situations. It was fun to see my friends again, and hopefully now that the holiday seasons are over, we will have more get-togethers.

On Sunday, some friends and I went hiking up a local hill. Apparently, just two years ago it was pretty undeveloped and much better forested. Now, however, there are fields all the way up, random burning (preparation for more fields, I assume), and expensive housing developments right at the base. Here is the view of Popo, from the top of the hill.

Double Birthday Party and Circus

2011-01-16T20:48:00.004-07:00

One of the researchers I work with had his birthday last Tuesday, and another guy in my office has his this Tuesday, so we threw a double birthday party on Saturday--bowling first followed by dinner. It was a cheese / cold-cut / wine thing, which was pretty good.

For the cake last Tuesday, we used one candle for every year...so we basically had a bonfire going!

*Original picture courtesy of my counterpart

Sunday I went with a friend to a traveling circus, put up in front of one of the many local malls. This one, though, has a lot of history--it was the Circo Atayde Hermanos, founded in Mexico in 1888! It was pretty cool, in the style of Cirque de Soleil (clowns, acrobatics, etc.), though I don't think it was as technical or complicated. One of my favorite acts:

Christmas, and a New Year's trip

2011-01-09T17:49:00.003-07:00

This is a bit late, but I forgot to post before I headed out of town again. And this is going to be loooonnnnggg. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year as well!

For Christmas, I was invited over to a friend's house for dinner. Christmas and New Year's are both family events here in México, and last year I was on the road so didn't get a Christmas dinner. This year, it just happened that Christmas fell between my two trips, so I got to see a "real" Christmas. It was pretty relaxed, just hanging out with family, until midnight hit. Then everyone gives a round of hugs, wishes you well, and exchanges gifts! It was pretty interesting, and it beats trying to wake up early as a kid to see what Santa brought!

Right before New Year's, I headed out east to meet up with some PC friends from my group; my last big trip as a PCV. I hadn't seen these guys since May, June, or July, and we all wanted to meet up somewhere warm--and the beaches on the east coast won out!

My favorite beaches were at Tulum and Playa del Carmen...though I think the edge goes to Tulum because there were less people. The boardwalk at Playa felt like I was in Miami or something, just tons of tourists, stores, and really elevated prices (and prices were in US dollars / Euros and US ATMs!!).

Cancun was just plain crowded (and expensive like Playa). But the water and sandy beaches were just gorgeous in all of these places.

We also saw a couple sets of ruins (Tulum, Cobá, and Chichén Itzá). Tulum had the most beautiful setting (on the beach), Cobá was in the jungle, and Chichén was bigger / in better shape.

Snorkeling in Tulum was fun, and we got this great shot of the ruins above the surf.

Viewof the main pyramid at Cobá.

One of the carvings at Chichén. I was amazed at how well preserved they were.

Artistic shot of the Templo of Kukulcán, the main site at Chichén.

We also got to swim in a couple of cenotes, which are underground lakes or springs that the Mayans treated as holy sites. The water was really clean, and you could tell the difference from the ocean--it was much harder to float! So they had ropes spanning the cenotes to rest on.

Random things from the trip:
-People in the Yucatan still speak Mayan! So that Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto, yeah, these guys understand every word without the subtitles.
-We met a random Swiss girl in Cobá, and she travelled with us for four or five days. It was cool to hear about all her other travels and see her perspective. With all the Europeans we've met on our rural travels, I've realized that Americans really travel differently than Europeans...

I had a great time, and it shows. When I went to the corner store today to stock back up on groceries, the first comment from the owner was, you went to the beach!? You look really tan! Haha.

Weekend trip--AMAZING!

2010-12-23T15:48:00.004-07:00

This past weekend I met up with a fellow volunteer in the State of Mexico, which is west of Mexico City. We went for one reason--Piedra Herrada, one of the few Monarch Butterfly Reserves in Mexico (and the only one not in / near Michoacan state...which is a bit dangerous right now). Monarch butterflies spend their springs / summers / falls in the US and Canada, but every fourth or fifth generation makes it way back to Mexico in the winter. This generation somehow returns to the EXACT SAME SPOT where its ancestors were born, four or five generations earlier! Scientists still don't know how the whole process works. This migratory generation doesn't eat for six or so months--they only will drink water--and by living six-ish months, they shatter the standard lifespan of a Monarch butterfly (less than two months). More can be found here. It was an incredible experience to see the ten to fifteen million butterflies that were in this small reserve. They looked like oak leaves flying in the sky, and their flapping could be heard on the quiet mountainside (not audible in the video...too bad). And yes, every single one of those things that you think is a butterfly, is a butterfly.

Here is a picture of a male (right) and female (left). The male is distinguished by the two small, black dots within its wing pattern (near the guy's thumb).

Also, Monday night happened to be a lunar eclipse! We got up early (or late) to take a look, and I tried my hand at night-pictures. This is one of the few that turned out good, and it is by far my favorite. Yes, the moon turned red!

Random week

2010-12-17T16:41:00.003-07:00

Last Sunday (the 12th) was the day of the Virgen of Guadalupe...basically the most celebrated religious figure in Mexico. Last year I was in a not-very religious part of the country, so I had no idea how big this day was. But people from all over make a pilgramage on this day to the Bascilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Some walk, some ride bikes, and these pilgramages can last two to three days (one-way; most people who walk get rides back). On Sunday some fellow vols and I headed to a local park for a hike, and we saw people returning from their pilgramages--both biking and walking!

Today we have a Christmas posada, or party, at a coworker's house. Along with another colleague, I am responsible for the piñata! So here is my contribution...soon to be broken with the candy all over the place.

Navidad is in the air

2010-12-11T13:08:00.003-07:00

Last night, I went to a pre-posada (a pre-Christmas party) at work, where I practiced my dancing non-skills. Official "posadas" don't start until the 15th, so it's not like we will have another one!

My neighborhood has put up its Christmas tree in front of our church. Here is Christmas in the rancho...tree, church, bell-tower, and kid cowboy.

Also, a friend opened up a local cafe to try and capture the student population. I stopped by to pick up a snack last night, and on my take-out bag was hand-written the ingredients! I thought it was a cool attention to detail, and probably a lot of work for her to write these out beforehand on each bag.

Wine tasting

2010-12-05T17:33:00.002-07:00

Friday night I had the chance to attend a wine tasting with a Venezuelan sommelier who lives in Mexico. He brought with him three types of Mexican wine--apparently the state of Baja California is home to most of Mexico's wine industry (in addition to the states of Coahuila and Queretaro). I enjoyed learning about the different types of grapes and how to tell qualities of the wine from color, odor, and density. No pictures, but it was a great learning experience!

Christmas season and mountain biking

2010-11-28T20:48:00.001-07:00

Saturday I headed to the nearby Zocalo and saw the city putting up its Christmas decorations! Not sure if this is only for this week (there were some youth choirs / orchestras on Sunday playing in front of this tree), but I'm pretty sure it will stay all month.

Also, I was invited by a Mexican friend to go on a bike ride (not a race) with him on Saturday night. I've never done anything like it, so I of course agreed. It wound up being a tough (for me) 21 km ride at night, up and down some small hills. I started out okay, but I ran out of gas on the return trip and wound up lagging behind the rest of the group...luckily the pro's and guides were pretty nice about helping me along and making sure I didn't get lost in the dark! I am a bit sore, but not as bad as I thought I would be--and of course I wore my helmet!

Concierto de las Campanas

2010-11-21T08:33:00.003-07:00

So the Concert of the Bells was last night in Cholula. There are approximately fifty churches in the immediate area, and on this night, they all play together for an hour. I had thought it would be really organized and synchronized to some sort of musical score, but it turned out a bit random. The famous church in Cholula is up on a hill, overlooking the city, and so I headed up there for the concert. It was hard to hear the churches further away, but you can catch some on this video if you pay attention.

Yesterday (Nov 20th) was also the 100 year anniversay of the Mexican Revolution, so there have been a ton of other festivities as well.

Weekend chess tournament

2010-11-10T17:43:00.003-07:00

Last weekend I wound up going to a chess tournament, which was kind of fun. I lost every match I played in, but I learned some interesting differences compared to back in the day...

1) People here don't say "check." Now, I've never actually played in a tournament, so maybe that's normal internationally?
2) The Mexican version of "bug house" is called "taxi" and is different from what I used to play, which threw me off a lot. The general idea is the same (teams of two, and when you capture a piece you pass it to your partner), but there are (at least) three different local rules that changed the game:

They play with a 3 minute clock (as per the Wikipedia description). But this meant that every game ended on the clock, which for me was not as fun...I started playing the clock instead of my opponent.
No putting pieces where the king is in check, which meant a more subtle strategy.
If you castle, you can remove a piece from your teammate's opponent.

Day of the Dead

2010-11-05T18:48:00.003-06:00

Sunday I went to a community called Huaquechula, famous for its non-traditional Day of the Dead altars. They tend to be all one color (predominantly white, though we saw one blue one) and a bit more "modern"--angels, etc. You can contrast that with a more traditional Mexican altar (black, orange, and with catrinas), which I saw on Monday in the Casa de la Cultura in Puebla. The event at the Casa was so popular, a line formed outside and down the block!

On Tuesday, I happened to be downtown with a friend, and we walked by the Cathedral. Wondering what the line was all about, we formed up. Apparently once a year they open the crypt below the main pulpit, where they have entombed previous fathers of the church. One time a year!

Dance Party

2010-10-30T14:22:00.004-06:00

My salsa class had a get together last night at one of the student's house--her sister takes another class (general "ballroom dance"), and so she invited her classmates too. It was pretty fun, but what really got me was that the first couple of songs were Texas line dance songs!! I think this picture was to the Spanish version of "Achy Breaky Heart."

This entire weekend is also the Mexican version of Halloween (part of the Day of the Dead celebrations); it is nowhere near as organized as in the US, where kids in each neighborhood only come out on a certain day at a certain hour. Here, kids are in the streets, dressed up and asking for candy or money wherever and whenever. These two kids--my salsa teacher's kids--came to class on Thursday.

Day of the Dead 2010

2010-10-26T20:06:00.002-06:00

Next week is Day of the Dead in Mexico (Dia de Muertos), which falls on the night of Nov 1 / day of Nov 2. Last year I went to Aguascalientes with some friends for a festival, but this year I will probably try to check out some small pueblitos around here--the region where I live is very traditional, so people say the altars and festivities are very authentic.

On a side note, my Salsa class takes place in the Casa de la Cultura, kind of like a community center. Every class is putting up an altar this week for a competition, and they will be judged on Friday. So, my class put up our altar yesterday! Because of my unique, non-Mexican height, I got to tape up our flower outline, although by today it had mostly fallen down. I get to try and put the flowers back up on Thursday, so we can be judged at our best.

One of the women also made these little muffin people, one for each person in the class. How cool was that!!

Future volunteers

2010-10-10T08:20:00.002-06:00

I haven't done much of note this week...yesterday a couple that will be moving here after training came on their site visit. I met up with them downtown, and we walked around a bit and ate. They seem like a really nice couple, very outdoorsy and laid back.

On my way back, I heard a very random thing on the bus...an older woman actually yelled at the driver to drive more carefully!! Bus and car drivers are all pretty reckless by American standards, and I'm glad that Peace Corps does not let us drive. Rules of the road are not followed--a one lane road can easily turn into a two lane road with passing on the left-hand side. Turn signals are rarely used. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way. So it was kind of funny to actually hear a Mexican complain about the style of driving...

Mexico City and Kites!

2010-10-03T15:39:00.003-06:00

I went to Mexico City on Saturday to try and meet up with a friend, and to check out a photo exhibition of a mutual acquaintance in the Bosque of Chapultepec. Well, due to cell phone troubles and various other reasons, I struck out on both goals!! However, while looking for several asian restaurants in the Zona Rosa (where the US Embassy is), I stumbled across a Korean bakery--it made the whole trip worthwhile! I bought five different types of bread (four of them came in two-packs). The mochi was awesome, as well as two of the other sweet breads. Two of them, however, were just so-so...but mmMMmmmm, I haven't had that kind of bread in a long, long time. I also stopped by a highly-rated Chinese restaurant (some bloggers claim it is the most authentic Chinese restaurant in Mexico City). While it was run by a Chinese person, and it had CCTV (Chinese satellite television), I would only rate it so-so. When you can't get most of the ingredients fresh, it doesn't really matter how good of a cook you are...

While exploring the Bosque of Chapultepec, I snapped this picture of double-Mexican flags.

Sunday, in the morning was the 10th Annual National Kite Contest in Atlixco, where they had the world's largest chile en nogada. National is probably up for debate, but it was a fun event. Atlixco has a big hill in the middle of town with a church on top and an amphitheater on the hillside, and the hilltop gets lots of wind. As a result, only a couple got their kites up high and for longer then a couple of minutes. I snapped this shot of a kite in front of Popo.

Also, there were a lot of Charlie Brown trees getting their full of kites today...

Chess and Safari

2010-09-26T17:32:00.002-06:00

Saturday I went back to the big Cultural Complex, where they host a weekend open-chess club / teaching session in the afternoons. I got to play a couple of people, and it was fun to brush up on my skills. Nothing serious, though! They did have these kids playing with giant pieces on the ground, which I thought was a riot...this kid is deep in though.

Today (Sunday), I went to the local safari, Afrikam. You can grab a bus from the city or take your own car, but it's kind of like the San Diego zoo where you can drive around to these open-air zones with different types of animals. We actually had some monkeys jump onto our bus and hitch a ride for a little bit, but I couldn't get any sort of picture or video.

Here you can see some of their tigers taking a siesta. They get to eat 8 kgs of meat, six days a week. Note how they're hugging each other while spooning...

And finally we went to a bird show. This is a Golden Eagle (in Spanish, Aguila Real), which is the eagle on the Mexican flag. I've had the chance to hold a raptor on my arm before, and while birds are fairly light, I can only imagine how much this guy weighs on this poor woman's arm...

Bicentennial

2010-09-18T22:49:00.004-06:00

Last Thursday, Sept 16, was Mexican Independence Day. Last year I celebrated with a fellow volunteer in Oaxaca, but this year several of us went to Mexico City to participate in the biggest party of the last 200 years. Not only was it just Independence Day, but it was the 200th anniversary of the Independence from Spain, and the 100th anniversary of the Revolution that ended dictatorship in Mexico. So it was going to be a big party, in the capital of the republic!!

Because of fears of violence on this noteworthy day, there was a ton of security in DF (Mexico City), and they actually limited the number of people allowed into each venue. The main venue, where the Grito is done in the evening of Sept 15 (Viva Mexico!), was the Zocalo, the plaza in front of the federal palace, and only 50,000 people were going to be allowed in. So, we camped out. For five hours or so before the actual event. And even then, we were late and didn't get great spots. But, they had giant screens set up to show the main events, and various bands and dancers to fill the time. I could list all of the things that I saw (floats, dance numbers, giant statues, etc.), but the most impressive was the fireworks display. I heard reports that 16,000 fireworks were used, or 8 tons, but whatever the actual number, the display lasted a good twenty minutes or longer. It was huge! Some random pics and videos of the events follow.

Also, the following day, Sept 16, was the military parade. A huge number of soldiers, medical corps, and students, representing every branch of the Mexican military, paraded through the main streets of the city. Not something you see in the US, but it happens in all the major cities in Mexico for Independence Day. The parade lasted several hours and included their military vehicles, boats, and fly-overs. We must have seen at least 20,000 soldiers marching in DF alone! Even some of the embassies (including the US and China) sent delegations to march. Again, random collection of pics and videos follows.

PCT Visit

2010-09-12T09:49:00.005-06:00

This past week two of the new trainees came to visit. These trips are parts of our three month PST to show trainees how volunteers live and work; for mine, I had gone up north to Saltillo.

These two had been out here last week to learn about my primary assignment, so I focused more on the outside-of-work experience. Thursday we had amazingly great weather (it has been raining every day for the last three months!), and so we went for a hike near the two volcanoes, where there is a waterfall called Apatlaco. It's a fun hike. While we stopped for snacks, a hummingbird actually came up to us and hovered behind one of the trainees for a couple seconds--I caught it out of the corner of my eye, and it was a pretty amazing / shocking / hard-to-believe thing. Apparently the other guy who saw the hummingbird and I had such stunned looks on our faces that the trainee thought she had some scary-as-crap animal behind her!

Friday we spent in downtown Puebla, browsing museums and the artisan district. We got caught in a downpour the afternoon as we were coming back for dinner (another party with my friends down the street), and the streets flooded. Here is one of the many rivers that we had to wade through on our way back.

Saturday a friend from my office took us out to this ex-Hacienda northwest of the city called Chautla. The governor used to live there, and now it is open for picnic-ers, fishing, etc. The house had some nice hardwood floors and a great view, but was definitely a fixer-upper.

Random festival and visitors

2010-09-04T09:51:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday night I said there was a stage being set up in the center; I actually wound up going. A band started playing around 9:30 PM, with a small crowd. The crowd kept growing, and the band's pyrotechnic guys kept lighting off fireworks. At one point, they introduced these paper-mache bulls with racks of fireworks strung on top...and invited people from the crowd to run around with them!!! So these two guys (one after the other), put the bulls onto their shoulders, lit the fuse, and ran into the crowd. I kid you not. I got some videos from my hiding spot behind the speakers (yes, the speakers are stacked about 3 meters high):

Also, this last week I got to meet some of the new trainees in Group 9! They have been down here for two weeks, and as part of their training, they came down to visit my office. I gave a couple of talks, we got some tours, and we signed the official memo of agreement for my center to accept volunteers. The new group seems really sharp and has some great experience / backgrounds, and I look forward to getting to hang out with them.

Dinners and Chiles en Nogada

2010-08-28T16:06:00.004-06:00

Last night (Friday) I had the chance to cook dinner for the family that had me over last week. It was kind of funny--since I don't have a lot of space in my apartment, I had to ask them if I could borrow their kitchen to cook for them. And all week, when I would invite people to the dinner, I'd have to say it was in someone else's house...not a normal party invitation! But it went over well; we had about 10 people, with lots of conversation til past midnight. I have no pictures, but hopefully will get passed some when I get to the office on Monday...

Today, the 28th of August, is the Day of Chiles en Nogada, a famous regional dish that is very popular. It is a chile stuffed with a mixture of fruits, meats, and nuts, topped with a creamy walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. In a neighboring town, they have what is billed the "Largest Chile en Nogada in the World." It is actually made up of 2000 chiles en nogada and shaped to look like one giant chile. Here is a picture of them making it. This dish is incredibly labor intensive due to the number of ingredients and having to hand-cut them all (you have to remove the inside brown peel on the walnuts, etc.).

And looks like they are setting up for another concert tonight in front of our local church...not sure for what. But I will probably go check it out and see if I recognize anyone from the neighborhood.

Community Integration

2010-08-22T17:16:00.003-06:00

One of the aspects that I really like about Peace Corps is the community integration. Many times, I think that Mexicans are more welcoming than Americans. Mexicans have been very welcoming to me as a stranger, and I know other volunteers have similar stories.

Lots of volunteers get invited to visit people's homes or over to dinner (like me going to Acatlan a couple weeks ago). This does happen in the US, but it just feels like a much rarer occurrence, especially for casual or new acquaintances. Case in point--last Friday, we were talking about regional dishes at the office, and on the spur of the moment, I am invited over to someone's house to dinner with their family. How cool is that? Yes, I've been to friends' houses in the US, but it seems like it takes longer for us to warm up to people. And even then, only the closest of friends get the choice treatment. I'm sure lots of factors play into it, but it is interesting to see a cultural difference.

If I take one thing back from my experience, I hope to bring part of this open culture back with me...

Flour carpets--not for my house

2010-08-15T12:17:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, Saturday, I went to a pueblo magico called Huamantla. Mexico has various little towns with this designation; usually they have a unique cultural aspect that is very colonial or pre-Hispanic. In Huamantla, they have a long tradition of a festival called La Noche Que Nadie Duerme, or basically the Night Where Nobody Sleeps. I only went during the day (since I had no hotel reservations, I would have had to sleep on the streets, if I slept at all), but I got to check out some of the festivities.

This festival involves building these giant, long "carpets" made of colored sawdust, flour, and flowers throughout all of the major streets (bigger versions of the one two pics shown below). Early in the morning is a parade of the Virgen, which passes over these carpets. Here you can see these guys marking out the carpets near the Zocalo...once they start, you can't even cross the street!

There was also a competition for kids to build a little block of carpet. Here is one of my favorites, because it makes a good cover-picture for La Noche.

During the entire month of August, the town also is hosting its annual feria, or county fair. They had a ton of rides and stands, though things didn't pick up until the evening. There were some very odd looking Disney-themed trash bins, too...

Weekend trip to southern Puebla, Cheese Fair!!

2010-08-10T19:48:00.005-06:00

So a very abbreviated account of an awesome weekend:

A fellow volunteer was visiting with a couple of people from his office. I was invited to spend the weekend with them (and I happened to know all of them from before). We spent Friday exploring Puebla and saw several things that I haven't had the chance to visit! One was this house that housed someone during the 1910 Revolution (I have to brush up on the details), and was attacked and shot up. Bullet holes are still present!

We then went down to Acatlan, a decent-sized city in the mountains in southern Puebla state. We stayed with the family of one of the Mexicans in their really nice house. It was the first house that I've seen with lots of big wood supports, etc., which was cool to see. They had these giant moths (as big as my hand!) that they said always show up when it rains.

Saturday we went up to the family's ranch with a ton of their friends (local and from Mexico City). We hiked up a riverbed to try and find a swimming hole, but it was just too dry. Along the way we found a pregnant cow, recently dead, who had tried to push her baby out unsuccessfully. I'll spare the pictures, but the rancher and some of the guys managed to pull the (dead) baby cow out...

Saturday evening we had basically a barbecue at the house with lots of music and eating. It was good times! Some of the hand-made ice cream that we had (melon flavor).

Sunday after returning to my site, the fellow vol and one of the guys from his office went with me to a local fair in my town. Even though it was late, the last day of the fair, and people were closing up their stalls, it was packed!! I had never seen so many people in my little town!

Exploring food

2010-07-31T20:31:00.003-06:00

So the theme this week is going to be food. I got to explore a couple of different plates that I enjoyed, really enjoyed, and probably won't eat again.

First, the most interesting, though probably least tasty of the dishes. These are fried maguey worms with guacamole and some sort of mole sauce (was not a big fan, though I normally love mole). Maguey is a type of agave, which is the plant that they make tequila out of. These worms are only harvested during a certain season of the year, so they are one of the regional, seasonal foods. Some others are friend grasshoppers (crunchy and taste like the chili powder they are dusted in), escamole (ant eggs...still want to try these), chiles en nogada (now is the season, though they are eaten cold here...not so great).

Second, I always enjoy cake. We had a birthday at the office this week, so cake is always fashionable.

Lastly, my favorite was a traditional dish called a huarache, which has a tortilla-like base, beans, avocado, tomato, lettuce, onion, topped with meat and salsa to taste. What could be better!?!!?

Cacaxtla

2010-07-24T15:32:00.002-06:00

Last Sunday (the 18th), a couple of fellow volunteers were down visiting Puebla. I met up with them at the central bus station, and we headed up to Tlaxcala to visit another volunteer. We then went as a group to Cacaxtla, which is a a set of ruins between Tlaxcala and Puebla. It was only discovered in 1975 and many of the murals are still brightly colored! It was amazing to see how long the paint had lasted!!

If you look at Google Earth, Cacaxtla looks like a giant, white block. Why? Because the Mexicans installed a giant roof over the top of the ruins!

Then on Wednesday, my center hosted a piano concert for one of its summer courses. The husband and wife team played some solos and some duets, and I really enjoyed the music.

Hurricane Alex

2010-07-15T21:00:00.005-06:00

So this apparently did not get any news coverage at all in the USA, but Hurricane Alex hit Monterrey, my old site, a couple of weeks ago. Since then, a lot of pictures of the devastation have been floating around via e-mail. It is amazing the amount of water that was dumped on the city and surrounding areas (the bridge picture..that river used to be non-existent and instead was a riverbed about 30-40 feet down). The little pueblitos in the mountains around the city have been completely isolated because the roads all washed out, and they are relying on helicopter drops for food, water, etc. "Only" a few people died, which was amazing, but they could still use a lot of help. If you are interested in helping from the States, the Mexican Consulate has set up a bank account at Wachovia where you can deposit money (account number and news release here at the bottom).

University Cultural Center

2010-07-10T17:21:00.004-06:00

So I went exploring today and found the cultural center for the state university, BUAP. They have free events there every weekend, like dance shows, live music, movies, etc. I got to watch some regional dances, which was pretty interesting.

Local parties and Jaripeo´s

2010-07-03T15:52:00.004-06:00

This week there have been a couple of local festivals. Tuesday was the day of the saint in a neighboring church, so they were going to throw a fair. I showed up around 6 PM, thinking that it was an all-day event, but it turned out to only be an evening thing...and 6 PM is too early to be called evening in México. With the looming rain, I sadly left and missed out on the festivities. Here is a picture of me watching a local watch some workers watch other workers unloading the truck.

However, on Wednesday, in the exact same spot, they had a jaripeo, or a rodeo! I haven´t been to one in México, so I went to watch. They had some loud music (a staple in all local festivals) and bull-riders. Some of the bulls weren´t too energetic, but some really made the riders work. Sorry, the action doesn´t start until 1:30 into the video.

Later that evening, I headed over with some friends to another church, where there were bands playing cumbia andina, a type of cumbia from South America. Apparently it kept going until well past 1:30 AM, but I had already hit the sack by that time.

Paso de Cortés

2010-06-26T21:59:00.003-06:00

We went up to the Paso de Cortés, between the two volcanoes that you can see from my site, Popo and Izta for short. It is how Cortés traveled from Puebla to México City when he was conquering the natives. Unfortunately we didn´t realize how far it was from the city, so we only got to spend a couple hours hiking in the pass. There are supposed to be a couple of waterfalls, so I will have to go back sometime. Here, the flags of CONANP (like our National Park Service), México, and the National Park of the two volanoes is backdropped by the cloud-covered Popo.

Also, I snapped this picture last week. There is a local church famous for its interior decorations (no pictures allowed inside, so no evidence here). Inside it is full of this amazing handwork on all the walls and ceiling. They manually ring their bells, though, so this poor guy was up in the bell tower trying to cover one ear while ringing the bell with his other hand.

New Site

2010-06-19T15:24:00.002-06:00

So a couple weeks ago I moved to a new site, and I´ve been settling in. It´s definitely much easier the second time around...I understand the bus system, just not the local routes, and with an upgraded language ability I can communicate fairly well with the people.

This is the view from my small town. This is an active volcano, called Popo for short. You can hike near the volcano, but I´m not sure if you´re allowed to hike up this one. Some of the inactive volcanoes in the area you´re allowed to hike up with a permit and appropriate gear.

Also, I went to a local museum a couple weekends ago that has some really interesting pre-Hispanic artifacts. Skulls and death are important, as shown by Day of the Dead and the Katrina figurine that are popular all over México.

Fails

2010-06-04T18:36:00.004-06:00

If any of you surf epicfail.com or failblog.org, you'll know a new fad is random pictures of things that don't make any sense. The pictures and videos are pretty funny, so I wanted to post some of the things that I've seen in México.

They were doing construction on my office...this guy is hooked up to a safety harness, which is good. But look closer at how long the harness cable is...

This is a kindergarten in Puebla...obviously the razor wire is only for the really bad kids...

A restaurant in Monterrey. No smoking, but they'll sell you the cigarettes anyways.

Busy two weeks

2010-05-22T09:20:00.003-06:00

I had planned on coming back home last weekend between trips, but I had an unexpected opportunity to attend a course, so I jumped on it. So my last two weeks have been fairly busy:

I first went to a small community where a fellow volunteer had organized a two-day leadership conference. Both days about 30-40 people showed up, which was a great turn-out! There were probably less than 300 people living in the community, and it was great seeing how the "other half" of Peace Corps volunteers lives.

I then went down to Puebla, where a CONACYT center was hosting a four-day course called "Fundamentals of Business for Scientists". It was very interesting meeting the mix of people at the course and seeing a different center. I also had the chance to hang out with a volunteer stationed in Puebla. The big attraction there is a pyramid in the suburb of Cholula, where you used to be able to go into the tunnels under the pyramid. BUT, they had water damage in November, so they tunnels have been closed down...bummer!

Our group then had our mid-service training in Queretaro. One full year of service--done! One more year left! The time has flown by, and it was great seeing all the other volunteers and talking about our experiences.

Sierra Gorda Biosphere

2010-05-09T09:20:00.003-06:00

This past week I again had the opportunity to visit the Sierra Gorda Biosphere in the north of Querétaro. I am helping some of the volunteers there on a project with remote wildlife cameras--basically sensors attached to a digital camera that takes pictures of critters in the wild. The hope is that they can get some good shots of the jaguars, etc., that populate the park. This is a rooftop shot of the main church where the volunteers life.

Also, we stumbled upon a barrio festival one night! There was a big band, two stages, and lots of people dancing huapango, the music of the region.

One day we also went swimming in a local river. I caught this ironically funny shot, though it is slightly unfair. These three kids were playing with an air mattress in the river, and of course the two girls are pushing it upstream while the guy is relaxing on top. I say unfair, because he jumped off about a minute later to help pull...but he still got a free ride for a while!

Summer heat

2010-05-01T13:42:00.003-06:00

I had forgotten about how hot it gets here in the summer. Then summer came a couple of weeks ago. And it's not even really that hot yet (highs in the low 30's). It makes me not want to do anything at ALL during the day, except find somewhere indoors and preferably with air conditioning. Thus, I'm hiding today from the heat and have nothing of cultural value to share about México.

Okay, so I do have some little tidbits. Yesterday (Apr 30) was the "Day of the kids" in México, which means that at my office, they were handing out bags of candy for the employees who have kids. Now, I´ve never seen anything like this in the US (parents will probably tell you every day is "Kid´s day"), so it´s a pretty unique tradition. Also, today (May 1) is Labor Day, as in the rest of the world outside of the US. Unfortunately, it is a Saturday, so most people (like me) do not get an extra holiday. In fact, the holiday schedule is very random and not at all standardized. I have heard of some offices getting yesterday off (for Labor Day), other offices getting Monday off (for Labor Day), some offices getting May 5 off (Cinco de Mayo), and some places getting Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off to take care of both holidays. My office? We get Wednesday off for Cinco de Mayo, and nothing else.

Park cleanup for Earth Day

2010-04-17T19:54:00.005-06:00

This morning I went to a cleanup event organized by the US Consulate, the other Peace Corps Volunteer, and a local school. We were celebrating Earth Day, so we cleaned up a stretch of road in a part of the park called La Huasteca. This was the hand-painted sign welcoming the cleanup-crew to the park.

About 100 people showed up, and we collected a ton of trash. Here is a picture of the final pile of Team 1 (my team!). Multiply the pile by three, and you get an idea of how much trash we picked up in total. Unfortunately it was a small percentage of the total trash in the park. We drove around afterwards and saw a lot more trash sitting by the side of the road.

During the morning, I also stumbled upon two scorpions when I turned over a rock. They were fairly small, but one of the park employees picked them up by their tails with his Leatherman.

Airplane crash in Monterrey

2010-04-14T19:31:00.004-06:00

So this made the news today. A cargo plane crashed trying to land at the Monterrey airport. It so happens that it happened close to my office, and I saw the unfortunate aftermath when we were heading out to lunch (hence my version of the news fotos is below). The main road to the airport was closed, and traffic was being re-routed. Very sad indeed...

More fútbol!

2010-04-11T19:58:00.003-06:00

Last Wednesday I went with some friends to watch the movie, El Juego Perfecto (The Perfect Game), about the little league baseball team from Monterrey. It was dubbed all in Spanish!!! So I got to practice. I actually understood about 95%, so I think that's a good sign. Although it wasn't complicated Spanish since it was geared towards family audiences, but still...

Saturday afternoon I also had the chance to go to a Rayados fútbol game! They are one of the two teams in the city and actually won the league championship last fall. The stadium was packed with about 70-80,000 fans and a couple hundred police in full riot gear. We were frisked going in, and the security guard wouldn't let me take my camera into the stadium (pretty lame, as there were plenty of people with cameras on the inside). Unfortunately the game ended in a tie, but it was cool watching the hardcore cheering sections get really into the game.

Baseball!

2010-04-03T18:22:00.006-06:00

This week is Semana Santa, or Good Friday / Easter weekend, so my office was closed for Thursday and Friday. A lot of Mexicans have the entire week off or take vacation and travel for this week. I decided to avoid the crowds (it is one of the busiest travel times in the country) and stay in Monterrey.

Baseball is inherently an American thing, I've found. Some of the terms are even the same (grand slam, balk, wild pitch, etc.)! So Friday night I went to a professional game for the home team--the Sultanes. As you can tell from their logo and this billboard, the team owner has a thing for the Yankees. I was told (cannot verify) that the current owner actually played on the Mexican little league team featured in the movie The Perfect Game, that came out in the US last year.

We got really lucky with this game, as it was 2 for 1 night, so we got seats on the third-base line. While we were waiting to buy tickets, some random guy walked by, looked at our group, and handed us an extra ticket (my guess--he didn't realize it was 2x1!). Score! So then we paid 80 pesos for 1 more ticket, and since we were a group of 3, an older gentleman and his son (kids under 12 free) came in on our free ticket with our group. He then handed us 40 pesos for helping him out. So, basically we got 3 adults into a professional baseball game with great seats, for 40 pesos or $3.50.

There were a couple of interesting differences. One, the food was different, but not as different as I thought. Hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, etc., were all present. However, they also had the great Mexican snack, fruit with lime and chile!

Drinks were also served differently. Instead of the Beer-Guys who have to lug their wares all over the stadium, they had these guys stationed in every aisle with buckets of ice and drinks. So if you wanted something, you just waved this guy over and he gave you a cup. Less work, for sure.

Finally, something that is kind of common in México...but there were actually cheerleaders at this game. Cheerleaders at a baseball game!

Biking and Birthdays

2010-03-28T11:49:00.003-06:00

Friday night a couple of us went to Parque Fundidora after work to enjoy the nice weather. You can rent bikes there (100 peso deposit, and you get your money back when you return the bike), so we all took advantage of the 1-speed demons. They aren't very adjustable, so you can see me here ignoring the pedals and just pushing off with my feet...I managed to go just as fast pedaling this way as with the actual pedals...

Last night a coworker had a birthday party at his house. There is a tradition here of a mordita, or a little bite, where the lucky birthday person has to take a bite out of the cake before everyone else digs in. Of course, this winds up with the person getting their face pushed into the cake! I didn't get a great shot in the chaos, but you can see his friends helping out with the mordita here.

Also, the aftermath is below. It was a pretty cool cake made up of cupcakes, which is what you see in the face-imprint.

Latin Danza

2010-03-21T10:03:00.005-06:00

Yesterday I had the chance to go watch a dance show funded by a government grant. It was really good! They mixed together various styles (like hip-hop, salsa, tango, etc.), with couple dances and choreographed pieces.

At the end, they even had a scripted, Bollywood style part where some "audience members" got up on stage and did a song with the cast! And I swear the song is a Spanish version of I Will Survive...

Peace Corps Foro in Querétaro

2010-03-13T15:45:00.004-07:00

Last week I returned to Querétaro for some in-service training and a two-day Foro on Innovation and Technology Transfer put on by Peace Corps. We had done a Foro last year, but this year we had a much bigger and diverse audience--over 100 people attended! It was extremely well put together by the staff and received a lot of positive feedback. We had some amazing speakers cover topics about Myths of Innovation, what CONACYT is doing at a national level, FUMEC (a national-level technical agreement between the US and México), and panels on how industry currently works with academia and research centers.

In Querétaro I had the chance to eat dinner with my host family again, which was very cool. Their dog is a bit older and slightly better behaved!

Since it is the bicentennial and centennial of Mexican independence and the Revolution, respectively, the city of Querétaro is putting on a bunch of events (the city has played a huge role in Mexican history). Friday night I went to a concert at the beautiful Teatro de la Republica and listened to the Querétaro Philharmonic.

Birthday parties

2010-02-28T18:11:00.003-07:00

I actually played in the office fútbol game last Friday, and it was another great game. Only 10-1! The rules of the league are no glasses, so I basically had to play blind...pretty exciting. I managed to deflect one goal (a slow bouncer heading towards our goal), so that felt good.

Saturday I went to a birthday party for a friend. It was hosted in one of her friend's house, and her parents are American / Canadian--so they had a tetherball pole set up on the roof!! It was the first time I had seen one in 15 years or so.

The party was pretty cool, we filled up a room with about 250 balloons and had ton of silly-string. I got to meet lots of other Mexicans and try to explain what I am doing here, in Spanish.

Office Futbol

2010-02-20T17:08:00.003-07:00

So a group of guys in my office joined a mini-futbol league in town with a guaranteed minimum of 9 games in the regular season. They play on a smaller field, with 7 or 8 guys on the field at a time. So far, they have played in 4 games and have gotten completely dominated. The scores go something like 19-0, 9-1, 12-1, 17-1. Understandably, they are at the bottom of the rankings. Well, this week (Friday the 19th), they played the second worst team, which had lost its previous 4 matches with similar scores. This was our chance at victory! I went to watch the game and cheer on the team, so some shots are below. Unfortunately, we still lost, 7-4, but it was a really good game and we had 3 or 4 almost-goals...so very heartbreaking. I plan on playing in at least one of the remaining games...

10K Number 2 and Chinese New Year´s

2010-02-14T11:10:00.002-07:00

Happy Chinese New Year´s to everyone! There isn´t a big Asian population here in México, so there aren´t a lot of festivities marking the holiday (outside of all the Valentine´s Day stuff).

This past week I formally signed up for acoustic guitar classes at the local Casa de la Cultura. There are community centers that every city has, and they offer things like dance classes, music classes, etc. Since it is a basic class, we have just done exercises so far with finger placements and chords. Hopefully he will teach us some songs before the class is over.

On Sunday the 14th, a group from my office and the other volunteer up here ran in the Imagen 10K with 2995 other racers. It was not quite as exciting as the previous 10K I ran (no cheering sections or bands along the route), but it was a good run. You can search for my results at this page:

http://www.asdeporte.com/evento.html?evento=2840&deporte=1&service=2

The worst part was that there was an uphill during the last kilometer...killed my plan to sprint the final leg...

Constitution Day

2010-02-06T18:30:00.005-07:00

So Monday, Feb 1, was the official holiday for Día de la Constitución, or Constitution Day, which means I didn't have to go into my office. The holiday is actually Feb 5, but when Feb 5 falls during the week, the holiday is moved to the Monday beforehand. If Feb 5 is a weekend, well, I guess we lose out on a holiday...

As you may recall, Feb 2 was the follow-up day to the Day of the Kings, where we ate Rosca (the circular bread with little porcelain dolls baked in). The lucky ones who cut out the dolls had to bring in tamales. So, the 6 people in my office ordered up 300 tamales for a mid-morning snack. Here are the steaming containers after we polished them all off.

Food and Guitars

2010-01-31T18:21:00.004-07:00

Earlier this week we had a birthday party at a coworker's house. We ordered pizza from Domino's, and guess what, it came with hot sauce on the side! It was actually pretty good with the sauce, and after I tried it, I had to use it on all the slices I ate.

On Wednesday a couple of us went to a free guitar concert by a talented Mexican guitarist, Cristina Macías. She is currently studying abroad in Italy on a fellowship, and she played some amazing classical songs.

The little differences

2010-01-24T08:03:00.003-07:00

I had my first two "Spanish for Foreigners" classes this past week. I'm not sure if it will help or hurt my Spanish. First, I have to spend 3 hrs a week listening to other Americans struggle with the language, which just reinforces my own bad habits and pronunciation. But, the teacher has done a good job so far of pointing out common mistakes that foreigners make (wrong verb use, etc.). So now I just need to put these into practice and try to shut my ears during class.

I also bought a bag of apples yesterday at the supermarket. It included a bag of chili powder! There are certain condiments that go on everything here, and the list includes, chili, salsa, lime, salt. Just a bit of cultural difference in something that is also very similar.

Random updates

2010-01-17T19:15:00.003-07:00

This last week the Peace Corps coordinator for my program came to visit. He met with the managers and counterparts in my office to try and ferret out real feedback on my service so far. The challenge for most of us is that the local culture is kind of anti-feedback...for example, in the US, I could ask my boss how I was doing and what I could do better at (communication, teamwork, etc). Here, whenever I ask that question, I always get "you're doing everything just great!" Right. No one wants to offend you. So the program coordinators kind of act as a neutral third-party, with the hopes that the counterparts will be more open and honest with them. In reality, I think everything that came out was still sugarcoated (to counterbalance my overly negative point of view) because the people in my office don't want to lose the prestige of having a volunteer. I did, however, get some good tips on things to try that might help me integrate into my office better.

This weekend also started my adventure to find non-work related activities. I took a placement test for a Spanish for Foreigners class at a local university. I did not do so hot on the grammar part, but since I can speak decently, the teacher put me into the Advanced 1 class! I will be starting this week--two nights a week, after work. I also went to find the local Casa de la Cultura, and found out that they will be offering acoustic guitar lessons on Saturday mornings, starting in February. This was enough inspiration that I whipped out the guitar and practiced on Sunday, for the first time in months. Later on Sunday, I took my first salsa class at a dance school. It was tough! My feet just do not seem to stay coordinated with themselves or the rest of my body, even without throwing in the music. Plus, I couldn't quite understand all the Spanish that people were throwing around...

Rosca and the 3 Kings

2010-01-09T16:58:00.004-07:00

The religious aspect of Navidad carries on in México. June 6 was the Día de Reyes, to celebrate the 3 kings who visited baby Jesus. Normally this involves eating rosca, a type of bread with little figurines baked in. Anyone who cuts the rosca and finds a figurine is then on the hook (theoretically) to make tamales for Feb 2, the Día de la Candelaria. In pre-Christmas culture, the 3 wise men would also leave gifts for children if they left their shoes out in the evening of Jan 5...now Santa takes a bigger role, at least up north.

Our office celebrated this event on Friday, June 8, with 5 giant roscas. Each one had 2 figurines. The 50 people in my office managed to polish off 3 roscas. I did not have any luck getting a figurine, but one guy didn´t want his, so I managed to pick one up. Here it is, still covered in bread.

¡Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo!

2010-01-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Christmas, or Navidad, is a big holiday here in México. I spent my Navidad in the state of Chiapas, in Southern México on the border with Guatemala.

One of the big traditions around this time of year is the posada, or basically a Christmas party. The one for my main office was definitely livelier than any office party I´ve been to back in the States, though! They had several live bands, a dance floor, giveaways for the kids, food vendors, etc.--it was almost like a carnival with engineers rocking out!

When I finally made my way down to Chiapas, I was amazed by its beautiful natural scenery, weather permitting! Some of the lakes and waterfalls in the state are shown here. The small falls on the right are part of Agua Azul, while the larger falls are part of Misol-Ha.

In the Cañon del Sumidero (like a greener version of the Grand Canyon), there is a rock / plant formation that looks like a giant Christmas tree! Very appropriate!

Many Mayan ruins also dot the state, and we visited Toniná and Palenque. Toniná is the giant, single-structured ruin on the right. Palenque is the more famous ruin and is absolutely crawling with foreign and Mexican tourists.

Conventions

2009-12-12T21:31:00.003-07:00

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

2009-12-04T18:55:00.008-07:00

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

2009-11-27T17:52:00.003-07:00

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

2009-11-21T07:51:00.003-07:00

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

2009-11-14T18:28:00.004-07:00

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

2009-11-08T15:04:00.003-07:00

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

2009-11-03T19:59:00.007-07:00

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

2009-10-25T12:00:00.003-06:00

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!

2009-10-09T19:23:00.005-06:00

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

2009-10-02T11:18:00.000-06:00

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!

2009-09-23T19:51:00.001-06:00

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

2009-09-11T09:44:00.003-06:00

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

2009-09-06T17:37:00.005-06:00

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

2009-08-29T15:29:00.000-06:00

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

2009-08-23T17:13:00.000-06:00

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

2009-08-14T16:02:00.004-06:00

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

2009-08-07T15:38:00.003-06:00

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!

2009-07-31T10:06:00.006-06:00

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

2009-07-25T16:15:00.003-06:00

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

2009-07-24T08:38:00.004-06:00

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

2009-07-19T16:26:00.000-06:00

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

2009-07-10T05:59:00.003-06:00

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

2009-06-27T19:50:00.004-06:00

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

2009-06-20T21:18:00.002-06:00

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

2009-06-14T11:45:00.005-06:00

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

2009-06-06T19:13:00.005-06:00

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.

Exploring my site

2009-05-30T08:14:00.004-06:00

This has been my first week at my site, and we've been lucky to have some time to explore the city and surrounding area. Finding housing has been interesting, as there is not much available given our restrictions on budget and lack of transportation. It seems like the places we have found have been at either the very low-end extreme (very low cost, but in very poor condition) or the high-end extreme (furnished, brand-new, and rent costs more than my monthly "salary"). Hopefully the couple of prospects we have will come through within the next month and be livable.

I have been learning the bus system, which is really extensive and will be the way I get around town. I have only gotten lost once so far, but it cost me about an hour and a half of sitting on the bus until it got back to an area that I recognized! This week we've taken the bus to downtown Monterrey, where we've played tourist. There are a lot of public works of art scattered around, including this beautiful fountain in the mail plaza.

One of the famous dishes in Monterrey is cabrito, or goat kid. It is pretty pricey, but it is an experience to have. The meat doesn't have any sort of exotic flavor like lamb or rabbit, but it is really filling. The restaurant we went to let me go into the kitchen to take some pictures of the process. You don't actually get served the entire goat at your table, but rather you can pick parts of it, i.e. a leg, the breast, the back, etc.

End of PST! Swearing In!

2009-05-22T18:11:00.000-06:00

The final week of PST has been pretty relaxed, with only the final language interviews, medical / security exams, and performance reviews taking place. My language skills have improved somewhat from zero, which is good news. I would absolutely love to become more fluent, but a lot of that will depend on how disciplined I can be at speaking and practicing Spanish.

Wednesday we had the 1st annual PC México Talent Show (our group is setting a lot of expectations for the following groups!). The skits and acts were all great, and I wound up singing I Did It My Way in Spanish with a couple of other trainees, plus acting in a skit about cultural integration based on Getting To Know You from The King And I. This is from our version of Sinatra.

Today (Friday) was Swearing In, when all of us trainees became official volunteers. We had a speaker from the US Embassy, as well as higher-up representatives from the two Méxican organizations that we work with--CONACYT and SEMARNAT. Last week I ¨won¨ a vote to give 1 of 2 trainee / volunteer speeches in Spanish during the ceremony, and one of our great language instructors helped me come up with a pretty funny speech. We followed the 80-20 rule--he wrote about about 80%, and I wrote about 20%! The speech went over pretty well, but I´m glad it is over. Here is a picture of us saying the official oath that changed us from Trainees to Volunteers.

Tomorrow I go to my site with my two companions. Somehow we´ve all accumulated a ton of additional luggage, mostly through training materials and the medical kit. Hopefully we will manage it all...

Final weekend in Querétaro

2009-05-16T19:56:00.001-06:00

Well, this was the second to last week in Querétaro for PST, and this is the final weekend. Last Sunday (May 10) was Mother's Day in both México and the US. In México, it is always on May 10, regardless of the day of the week, and so this year it overlapped with the US by coincidence. For Mother's Day, I made two lasagnas for the family, to take the workload off of my host mother. I actually made the sauce from scratch for the first time, so that was a great experience. I definitely needed more sauce and cheese, though--next time!

Wednesday was the unofficial start of rainy season here--we had our first real thunderstorm!!! It was great! Querétaro´s rainy season brings back memories of the rainy season in New Mexico, where we would get insanely hard rain for a short while and the streets would flood. Obviously it´s not fun if you get caught out in the rain or if your house floods, but I always loved rainy season because of the amazing lightning storms and just the sheer difference in weather. I know it sounds stupid, but 300+ days of sunshine can get monotonous when you´re used to four different seasons. It has rained every evening since then, so I finally need to break down and buy an umbrella.

Saturday night a group of us went to a play in town at the Museo de la Ciudad. It was supposed to be a comedy about a female polar bear, but it was really hard to follow. Even after one of the Spanish speakers explained it, the storyline still didn't make a lot of sense. But that's what happens sometimes.

One more week in Querétaro, and then off to our sites and ¨real¨ Peace Corps work!

Freedom!

2009-05-09T20:25:00.004-06:00

So the swine-flu standfast was lowered on Thursday, which meant that we could take trips outside of our sites--freedom! The cities actually started coming back to life around Wednesday, as the Méxican government also lowered its alertness level. I believe that after the primary and secondary schools re-open on Monday, everything will be back to pseudo-normality.

Friday night we had the First (Annual) Peace Corps Pretty Night--following groups now have the burden of raising the bar! Some of the other volunteers who are going to rural areas felt like they were never going to be able to use their formal suits and dresses, and so they organized a fiesta for the occasion. Our country director graciously hosted the event at his amazingly beautiful house. Some of the staff also showed up, and it was a great time. One of the volunteers formally graduated with her MPA yesterday (she was allowed to leave her program early for Peace Corps), so we had a surprise mini-ceremony for her since she couldn´t be at her actual ceremony.

Since things have loosened up, on Saturday I headed out to San Miguel de Allende, the American retirement mecca of México. The city is famous for its hot springs, and somehow it has become the go-to place for American retirees to live. I saw license plates from Texas and Florida, and I heard more English on the streets than anywhere else in México so far. It was a bit hot out to really enjoy the hot springs, so I went to the Jardin Botánico El Charco Del Ingenio outside of town. It is a giant reserve for native flora and fauna, and it is famous for its cacti.

San Miguel has several central plazas with churches, which are architecturely very beautiful. Here is their most famous one, the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel.

Once I returned to Querétaro, I also finally made it into the Alameda, a nice, shady park in the southern part of the city. The park is surrounded by a fence with a rotating exhibit. Right now the exhibit includes photographs from the Sierra Gorda, the famous biosphere in México, to help raise awareness of environmental issues. The rumor I heard was that a Peace Corps volunteer was involved with this project.

PCV Visit and swine flu standfast

2009-05-02T20:45:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday another trainee and I took a bus up to Saltillo to visit a current Peace Corps Volunteer. This was so that we could see what it is like to work in one of the offices and see how volunteers live. His office at CIQA was amazingly nice, with a campus mixing a university-type atmosphere and a government research park. They actually have graduate students and professors there, so it is an interesting type of government institution.

On Tuesday we were going to tour Saltillo, but of course the flu had shut everything down. Two of the famous museums (bird museum and desert museum) were closed, so we just wound up hanging out downtown. This is all we saw of the bird museum.

We took the night bus back on Tuesday (I wore my mask), and we got into Querétaro around 5 AM. I am definitely not liking the long bus rides... I was going to check out one of the public parks in town during the day on Wednesday, but even that was closed! Oddly enough, the museums in Querétaro were open, and I visited the Museo de la Restoración de la Republica, which highlights the role that Querétaro played in the Méxican revolution for independence.

After returning to the office on Thursday, we found out that Peace Corps had decided to cancel all training activities throughout the weekend, which meant we had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off. Our first vacation! Really, though, we cannot even take public transportation, so it limits what we can do around town. Friday in México was Labor Day, and so almost everything was closed anyways. Our events three weeks out are also being adjusted, with the possible cancellation of Counterpart Day (where we work with our future office counterparts to define our roles) and having a closed swearing-in ceremony (no ambassador, no host families, no center directors from work, etc.).

The city of Querétaro is also taking the flu seriously. They even have clinics-on-wheels at one of the Jardins in case you feel sick! I guess the newspapers on Saturday are reporting that cases of the swine flu have been found in the state of Querétaro, however the WHO thinks that overall cases have plateaued. Hopefully it will all blow over soon.

Swine flu

2009-04-29T09:47:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone, just a quick update on the swine flu situation since it's in all of the headlines.

First, thanks for all of the e-mails! I am doing fine, and I just returned from a trip to Saltillo (not the best timing, but we left before it turned into a big deal). A lot of things are closed around México, including schools and museums. The other Peace Corps trainees actually had a weeklong trip to Oaxaca canceled, too, and all non-essential PC travel within México has been restricted. The Méxican government and PC have both been handing out surgical masks, and I wore mine on the entire 8 hour bus ride last night.

We are taking the standard precautions of washing our hands a lot, avoiding kissing / handshaking, and avoiding crowds. Future activities around the country are in limbo right now until PC Washington gets a better feel for how the swine flu will turn out.

Site Visit

2009-04-25T20:26:00.008-06:00

Last Saturday I had a 10-hour bus ride up to the state of Nuevo Leon with some other volunteers to see our future site and get to know the town--this is where we will be spending the next two years! The bus ride took all day, but the people from the office were very nice and picked us up at the bus station in Monterrey.

On Sunday we had the chance to tour downtown Monterrey. It is really nice, and I hope I can get out there in the future for social activities. They have a man-made riverwalk, similar to San Antonio. However, the one in Monterrey seemed longer and had a lot of artistic fountains to add a little flavor. We happened to catch some floating displays of children's stories, since April is Children's Month. Sounds like lots of activities for the kids plus a big fiesta on April 30th.

The Cerro de la Silla in Monterrey is the famous mountain in the city. It looks like a saddle, hence the name.

Tuesday night we left Monterrey on a nightbus and returned to Querétaro around 3:30 AM on Wednesday. The driver blasted movies until midnight, then finally turned them off. Nightbuses are the norm for traveling from Monterrey, so it is something I need to get used to since I want to travel a lot within México.

On Friday night a couple of us listened to a guitar concert at the Teatro de la Republica. I forgot my camera, but here is a picture of the Teatro from the outside. I always see it in the university graduation pictures here, so I think it is a pretty historic landmark in Querétaro. The inside is amazingly beautiful, and we listened to two guitarists. One was Eduardo Pascual Díez from Spain, and the other was Fabián Sánchez Morales from Querétaro, México. Both were good, but Fabián was the one who got the standing ovation. I can´t believe how fast they could play!

After class on Saturday, a couple of us went to watch another volunteer play rugby. Rugby isn´t a big sport in México, but there are a couple of traveling leagues in the area. Today the team from Guadalajara came to play, and the hometown Bulldogs eeked out a victory. It was my first rugby game, so it was pretty interesting. Bulldogs are in the white and dark blue jerseys, and actually our volunteer friend is the one that is being lifted up on the left (for the line-out).

Mañana, again I get to hop onto an autobus for another long ride up to Saltillo (about 9 hours), for a PC Volunteer visit. I get to see how real PC Volunteers work!

Music and art

2009-04-17T21:42:00.000-06:00

This week continues the celebrations in Querétaro. It is actually the Festival Santiago de Querétaro. Santiago is one of the saints of the city, and so the entire week has been filled with free events around town--think bands, theater, book fairs, etc. The entire schedule is here, just to give you an idea of what has been going on in town.

On Sunday I stopped by the Museo de Arte, which was highly recommended by my host mother. They had a lot of religious paintings and some more modern stuff, but no photo's allowed inside. The architecture was amazing, though, like many of the older buildings in town.

Every night during the week I have also been making an effort to catch some live bands in the plazas. Some of the music is pretty good, and I am amazed that I can understand some of the Spanish lyrics.

Mañana I get on an autobús with a couple of other volunteers for a long, long 10 hour ride up to Nuevo Leon. I get to meet people in the office where I will be working and tour around the city. I am pretty excited, as this is where I will be living and working for the next two years!

Semana Santa

2009-04-11T20:39:00.010-06:00

On Sunday, I stopped by the Museo Regional in Querétaro to take a look around. Parts of it were closed, so I only got to see some of the history of religion in Querétaro (specifically the Franciscan church next door). This picture is one of the artifacts in the museum.

This week started a week of holy celebrations in México. I actually missed the first part by not going to church on Palm Sunday. There were lots of people in the churches, though, and a lot of people selling various religious icons made of palm.

Friday was Good Friday, and a lot of people had Thursday and Friday off of work (including us!). There were a lot of tourists from D.F. in town for the long weekend, many coming to watch the Procesión del Silencio on Friday night. The streets around the Central district were closed to traffic, and people were lined up along the roads to watch. This is a tradition that started in Querétaro about 34 years ago. All of the churches create an image of Christ or the Virgen and march down the streets carrying these heavy icons, with some male church members carrying crosses on their backs, walking barefoot, and with a chain around one of their ankles. And they had to carry these things for a couple of miles! Each color of clothling represents a different church. I am not sure why they wear these specific types of outfits, but the KKK copied the church costumes and not the other way around.

On Saturday, a group of us went on a tour of several places outside of Querétaro. First on the list was Bernal, a rock spire similar to Devil´s Tower in the US. We climbed about halfway up the rockface--much further and we would have needed rock-climbing gear.

Next was a famous Spanish winery called Cavas Freixenet. The wine is actually made and stored underground in two levels of caves. They had a live band playing and food vendors, which both paired nicely with the wine tasting. A lot of people were actually just buying whole bottles of wine and drinking them on the spot.

Last on our list was a little artisanal town called Tequisquipan. We walked around the central plaza and a couple of markets, but it was pretty touristy. I stopped into a bookstore to take a look around, and a kid actually walked up to me and asked in Spanish if the store carried Harry Potter books! I guess I just look like the stereotypical bookworm...

Last day in D.F. and back to the grind

2009-04-04T19:58:00.006-06:00

Last Sunday was our final day in D.F., and a group of us went to Teotihuacan to check out the pyramids. These are the famous pyramids about 50 km northeast of the city. This picture is of the Pyramid of the Sun, which is over 70m tall (much taller than El Cerrito!). A couple of us climbed up in the searing heat, and I was very gald we went relatively early in the day. We wound up meeting up with our other three amigo's and heading back to Querétaro together on the autobus.

Today, a group of us took a tranvia, which is basically a touring trolley that took us around part of Querétaro. The guide was talking pretty fast over the loudspeaker, so I missed a lot of the historical facts about the city, but it was interesting playing tourist. Who am I kidding, I'm still a tourist here...

México City

2009-03-28T15:33:00.006-06:00

Last Sunday I went with a group of volunteers to a suburb called El Pueblito to check out some of the activities around there. The first thing was a small pyramid called El Cerrito--30 m tall, so pretty small by Méxican standards. It was my first pyramid! We weren´t allowed to climb the ruins in any way, though, so it was slightly disappointing. Our other hoped-for activity, a charreada (rodeo), wound up being in a different city, so it will be something to try for in the future.

On Wednesday, our group of technology transfer volunteers plus three instructors hopped onto an autobus for Mèxico, aka Mèxico City, aka D.F. to the locals. We finally got to see the countryside that we drove by when we flew into Mèxico three weeks ago. Central Mèxico is very green, with farms and small towns between the major cities, much like the US. As you get closer to DF, you start seeing volcanoes. Some of them are apparently still active!

In Mèxico, we had a whirlwind of activities, some touristy and some not. We had a couple of meetings with higher-up directors in several government organizations, which was really interesting. I can´t imagine people at that level in the US government taking several hours out of their day to talk with a group of volunteers from another country. It definitely showed the hospitible side of Mèxico.

From the touristy perspective, we went to see the Casa Azul, or Blue House, where Frida Kohlo and Diego Rivera lived. Both are famous Mèxican artists. While there were not a lot of their works in the house, it was really interesting seeing how they lived, their studio, and some of their personal collections. Later on, we saw some of Diego Rivera's murals at the Palacio Nacional and Bellas Artes. These were really beautiful--I can't even imagine how the artists drew such large, colorful, and detailed murals.

Also on our list of places visited was the Zocalo, or central part of Mèxico, the Templo Mayor, a giant Aztec ruin in the middle of the city, the Museo de Anthropologia. There was so much stuff to see that I could have spent several days at each of the sites, but I did get a flavor for everything. Hopefully I will have a chance to come back in the future.

On the food side, we had only one bad meal and a bunch of great meals. One of the specialities was an Argentinian Grill. Here is the plate of four different types of grilled meats and vegetables--it was all delicious! These were part of a parrillada, or a set meal for 4 people.

Salsa parties and bull-fights

2009-03-22T14:41:00.002-06:00

Last Sunday I explored a historical park in Querétaro called Cerro de las Companas. It was the site where Emperor Maximillian was executed. This act restored the republic government to México. There is a huge statue of Benito Juárez in the middle of the park (President after the execution).

On Wednesday, a group of us went to watch an indie movie on indigenous women in México. It was kind of interesting, although the first half didn't make a lot of sense. It was mostly footage about the filmmakers telling people in the village about the film project. The second half was pretty interesting and showed how the men lived by catching fish / shrimp, the women sold the catch at the market, and then the men would go back out and purchase necessities like fishing net--traditional gender roles.

Friday night my host sisters invited me to go to a small bullfight--it was for beginner matadors and younger bulls, so according to my host brother, it was not that good. I thought it was pretty impressive (except for the blood and killing-the-bull part...not my thing). I don't think I could stand in a ring with a 400 kilo animal and do the moves these guys were doing, though, so very gutsy. The odds were definitely stacked against the bull.

Saturday we had multiple festivities, including a big ¨transportation rally¨ (i.e. scavenger hunt), where we were given eight different locations in town and had to take the buses or taxis to find them. We were given five hours and worked in teams. The other two people in my team were actually the same people that will be going up north with me at the end of May, so it was interesting to get to know them.

Saturday evening we had a fiesta at our Country Director´s house, where we got dance lessons from some of the staff. I still don't have any rhythm, but his house had this great terrace with an amazing view of the stars. I would love to live in a house like that and put a telescope up on the roof. We also got to meet and talk with some of the other Peace Corps volunteers who work in the area.

By the way, those stick things that we ate at fútbol are called churritos here. And finally, a picture of nopales con camerones (shrimp)!