Mexico 2009: Part 1

Hello all!

I hope everyone´s finals, winter breaks, and winter terms (and for some spring semesters) have been going great! I am here to report from Mexico and let me tell you, there is a lot to say.

It´s a balmly 50 degrees here in Guadalajara, Mexico in the mornings (which is rather a bummer once you get used to the weather... 75-80 during most of the day). The program I am doing is an intensive spanish immersion. We are trying to do a semester´s worth of spanish in 15ish days. To put that into perspective, in Oberlin it took us 4 months to cover 6 chapters. Here we covered 2 chapters in half of a week. That´s what 4 hours of lecture and 1 hour of conversation a day does to you I guess. In addition to classroom time, I live in a home with a family who only knows spanish. As in the grandkids know colors in english and everyone seems to listen to terrible american top 100 hits here.... and that´s where english ends.

Mexico is a very different place than the States. In some ways it is a lot more friendly (by american standards). I´ve seen jam-packed buses pass bus fare from the person who is squished against the back door to the bus driver in the front. Thank you, excuse me and hello and expected of everyone by everyone. Yet, it is not uncommon to see people chilling with semi-automatics, or open-air trucks with military personnel with guns and camo. I have yet to feel unsafe, threatened or stolen from in any way.

Since my host family can only speak spanish, my entire relationship with them is based around food. My host mom makes the best everything. I have not had anything like it matched in any of the restaurants here. Also everything has a spicy edge (even the hot chocolate) with extra hot sauce on the side. I must say though I had no idea how disheartening it is to not be able to communicate your thoughts, opinions, or expressions to others around you. At this point my spanish is only good enough to cover my immediate needs and describing literal actions I did or wanted to do. That does not leave you with much to say at the dinner table, let me tell you!

The center has taken us on many trips -- around the city, to huge open air markets. Tomorrow (my birthday) we go to the lake outside town and hot springs! And hopefully afterwards I will be found salsa dancing with some of the other obies on the trip.

Hoping to find you all well, Ray p.s. Since I wrote this, my birthday has happened. It was a great day! Very relaxing during the hot springs. At night a few friends of mine went out for cuban food (some of the best food I´ve had here) and then went to a discotec for dancing. Can you believe that obies started the dance floor at the discotec?!?! Yes we started the party and got the locals to join in. Here's a video from one of the CDs I picked up in Mexico: