Day of the Dead 2010

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.