Park cleanup for Earth Day

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

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!

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!

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

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

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

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.