Mexico City

Ah, finally my stomach virus has gone away, there is a free computer and I have a moment to write...


School is getting increasingly harder. The grammar that we are learning is getting more involved and the instructors are expecting us to know a lot of vocabulary. Each day, we have classes until 2pm, then students disperse to head into town to eat the main meal of the day, then back to school to work on homework and study before an activity from 6-8pm. These activities are either a lecture about Mexico - art, culture, history, or cooking classes, and twice a week the students are expected to take part in what is called intercambio - two hours of language exchange with Mexican people who want to learn English. The first hour is Spanish conversation to aid the students here at the school, and the next hour is conversation in English. I am tending to count down the minutes until I can speak English because an hour of only speaking Spanish is really hard!! But, the more I do it, the better I get.

I saw something really strange today...coming home from a class trip to a restaurant, I saw a man rolling around in the street looking like he was in pain. One of the other students was surprised that I had not seen that before. Apparently there are people here who accept tips from people in cars to roll around in broken glass in the middle of intersections. OK, that is strange!!

Last weekend, several students went on an excursion to Mexico City for the day. Our first stop was the Museum of Anthropology. Very interesting to see Mexico from Aztec civilization, to the spanish influences, to their independence and modern day. I especially loved looking at all the masks used for tribal celebrations and the dress, especially of the women - so colorful with all the hand stitching designs. You can bet you all are gonna see me in some Mexican dresses when I return home.

After the museum, we went into the downtown area - the center of town, called el zocalo. Each major town has a zocalo, or center of town. This is where there are usually historic structures, street performers, artists, and vendors selling their wares. One thing I saw that I found quite interesting (no photo though) were these shaman, men and women, who were performing spirit cleansings on different people willing to pay. They were encircling their bodies with some kind of incense and then hitting all over their bodies with bunches of herbs. All the while chanting some kind of prayer. I was not brave enough to have it done, but it was fascinating to watch

In the city, we went to eat at a famous restaurant that has been around since the early 1900´s. All the women wear white uniforms with big bows in their hair. There were beautiful murals all over the walls and a live mariachi band was playing for all the patrons having lunch. I´m really liking the mariachi music.

I found Mexico City to be very different from Cuernavaca. The city had so many visitors - a big melting pot of people - as you would expect in any city. Many seemed to be from South America and Europe. Not too many Americans hanging in Mexico City.

Not much else to report. This weekend several of us are headed to the towns of San Miguel Allende and Guanajuato - two bohemian meccas full of artists - right up my alley!! I will post next week when I get a computer and break from my studies. And speaking of studying............