Exploring my site

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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!