10K Number 2 and Chinese New Year´s

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.