Tepoztlán

Yesterday we all got up at 9 o'clock and ran over to the school for our first excursion of our semester here in Cuernavaca: Tepoztlán. Apparently there is a small pyramid in Tepoztlán that is up on a mountain and we were gonna hike up and see it.

Tepoztlán is about 45 minutes away from Cuernavaca out in a more rural area. There were lots of farming areas and horses along the road. Having not seen any horses since coming to Mexico, we were a little excited to see them all grazing alongside the road, some of them with babies. While "oo"ing and "aw"ing our mood suddenly changed when on the side of the road was another horse, this one dead and extremely bloated. I think it was more intriguing than gross, just because you could never imagine seeing something like that in America.

So we arrive in Tepoztlán, which is a quaint little town that's been built up around the tourism of the place. We parked the car and got ready for our hike.

Let me start off by saying that "hike" is not the correct verb for what we ended up doing. It was more like a mostly vertical climb at a very high altitude that none of us Portlanders were used to. This meant frequent stops, constant inability to breath and overall bodily pain. The "hike", which was supposed to take 45 minutes, took us an hour and a half to complete it (one way). The problem with the high altitude is that we would climb about ten steps and then need to rest because the air was too thin. Alot of us were feeling dizzy and one person in our group (Emily) was actually sick that day and still decided to climb. She's a trooper, for sure. We were really lucky that even though it was a sunny day, we were in shade the whole way up because we were basically climbing through a forest. So it was pretty cool and there was a slight breeze from time to time.

When we finally got to the top, the view was incredible. Its very hard to do justice with the pictures I took because the expanse of the sky and the feeling of being able to see everything without boundaries was so soothing. The pyramid itself was actually a little disappointing. Most of it had been destroyed, except for the steps and one block that had some carvings in it. Still, we climbed all over it and visited with the lemur-like monkey creatures that swarm the tourists who come to see the pyramid. Ramiro, our director, told us not to eat our lunches in front of the animals because they like to steal food from people. Sure enough, when one boy pulled out some food to eat, one of the monkeys actually climbed him to try and get the food. The boy kicked the animal. It was kinda sad.

After our sightseeing was done, we had to climb back down. Our legs were already nearly fatigued so going down was just the icing on the cake, so to speak. My legs were shaking so badly when we finally got down that James actually took a video of them. Needless to say, we're all quite sore today.

After eating at a local restraunt (because one lunch on that climb just wasn't enough), we decided to go through the town and shop a little. We'd heard there was a store that sold chocolate dipped Churros...but we never found it. So instead we bought a couple gifts for ourselves and others and toured a Convent, which was extremely antique and was all handpainted on the inside.

Finally, we met up with Ramiro and went back home to shower and clean up.

Every night for the past few nights there's been a thunder storm here in Cuernavaca. Only one has been directly over us, the rest happen off in the distance, but you can still hear the thunder and see the lightning. So last night, we all went to Ashley's house, which is on top of a hill, and sat on her roof and watched the lightning. Its not just sheet lightning here, its the huge vertical zig zag kind and James seems to think they're purple-ish colored. After it started to rain on us, we all went inside to watch a movie (in English) and then go home.

Pictures of this day can be seen here, by the way.

I'm feeling a little conflicted today because George Fox starts school tomorrow and I want more than anything to be there with all my friends, living in the apartment they've all already moved into. Not to mention Chris is flying back into Portland today and I wont be there to see him get in or spend any ounce of time with him for yet another 3 months. Its just so frustrating. I feel like I'm missing out on such an important bonding day, and week, at Fox and I don't want to be here, far away, while all my friends are getting together and having fun. Its just the worst.

So to sum it up, instead of greeting my boyfriend at the airport and seeing my bestfriends and meeting my new roommate, I'm here, in Mexico, having to write a paper in a language I don't understand for a class tomorrow that I only understand about 80% of. I'm feeling a bit down today.

2 days worth of blog

So, I've been just a little busy with the start of school being yesterday and my first field trip excursion being today. So where to begin...

My first day of school at Universal started yesterday and it was very, very pleasant. I'm taking 3 hours of Spanish and 2 hours of Mexican Civilization and Culture. Both my teachers are the best! Marta, who is my Spanish teacher, is a permanent smile. She loves to talk to us and listen to us and constantly crack jokes. She's very kind and is anyways very excited when you get an answer right. Her attitude of being interested in her class is what makes it so enjoyable and make you WANT to participate and interact with her. Some of you may know, this is NOT AT ALL what I'm used to in my language classes and its seriously a major breathe of fresh air after a horrible ordeal with one of my former Spanish teachers (which incidentally is the reason I'm in Mexico this semester). By the way, did I mention my class is a class of four (including me)? Its very personal education.

My history teacher, Carlos, is my absolute FAVORITE! He's an old man who has three very rotten teeth and he constantly smells like cigarettes. He talks very slow (which is sooo good) and he's extremely knowledgeable on tons of little facts about ancient Mexican culture. Right now we're learning about the Aztecs and the Olmecas. Its very captivating stuff!

My biggest problem here in Mexico is that I'm not eating properly. There was a little bit of a problem with the foods my host family was making for me and as a result, I ate next to nothing for three days. Keep in mind, I'm walking 10 minutes to and from class and also walking for hours downtown on sight seeing excursions. It all caught up to me yesterday while my group and I were wondering around downtown. I nearly fainted right in the middle of a Wall-Mart and Emily had to send me outside to sit down with her husband James until I was feeling better. Luckily Erin picked up my tab at the store and I brought home a bunch of Ensure to help get some calories in me.

Let me just stop and say how much I LOVE my group down here. Everyone takes care of everyone and Emily and James have dubbed us a "family". Everything is everyone's business and when Emily found out I wasn't eating right, she made it a personal goal of hers to put food in me. I'm so blessed to have these people around me. It makes all the difference in the world, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I'm sure everyone reading this knows how into photography I am. Well, I had the most amazing encounter with a photo subject today. I don't know her name, but she was this ancient looking woman who we walked by on our way back to the school. I smiled at her as we passed and she smiled this wrinkly little smile back and suddenly it hit me: I NEED a photo of this woman. I took out my camera and went back to her and asked her in Spanish if I could take a picture of her. She put one gnarled hand over my lens and leaned in and asked me to repeat myself. When I did, she started fussing about her hair and I think she was saying she looked bad. I told her she was so pretty and how I'd love to get a picture of her. By this time, she had wrapped a papery hand around mine and agreed to pose. So here's the product (unedited, for now). I think she's beautiful and for some reason I can't forget her.

Today, after classes Carlos took us on an excursion to La Palacio De Cortez which is now the Museso de Cuauhnáhuac. Cuauhnáhuac, which means "by the trees" is the original indigenes name for this city but since Cortez couldn't pronounce it, he named it Cuernavaca which means "the horn of a cow". Not a pleasant change.) Inside the museum are a ton of artifacts that were found in or around the palace, which was built on top of an Aztec pyramid/temple. It also consider a huge original mural by Diego Riveras which is simply gorgeous. Carlos explained to us all the symbolism in the painted and how it related to history and the conquer of the Aztecs.

The mural is a story that reads right to left and ends with a very interesting question for the "readers". On the right side, in the beginning, it starts with Cortez invading the Aztecs and massacring them. On top of the battle scene, Diego painted a human sacrifice taking place which the Aztecs did in order that the gods would help them win the battle. The human sacrifices they performed were sometimes voluntary. Rivera paints a story on the wall of how the Spaniards defeated the Aztecs (easily), starved them out, made them their slaves, used the land for their gain and years later, baptized many of them in the name of the church. On the last wall, there is a painted of another human sacrifice, this one is the church burned Indians alive for not accepting their Christian message. So Diego Rivera, who never liked the Church, asks: Which is better? To sacrifice others willingly? Or to murder them for not accepting Christ? Its obviously not exactly relevant to today's world but its the symbolism in the mural that I would have never understood if Carlos didn't take us so carefully through the museum with all this wisdom.

When we left the museum, Carlos left us to go home and we decided to wander around. Well, right now in Cuernavaca there is a large demonstration that has been going on for days now. The teachers are on strike because the government wants to charge students to go to public schools (a similar situation took place in Oaxaca last year that ended in violence). They are blocking all the roads and there's more and more people gathering every day. Everyone is pretty wound up about it. I think part of the demonstration included a tribal dance that people were all gathered around watching. There were drums and everything. It was very exciting and so I snapped a few photos.

So now I'm at home, procrastinating on doing my homework and writing this blog. I would really like to thank everyone whose been posting comments and sending messages of encouragement. I've REALLY needed them the past few days and its been so amazing to have all your support. Look at the prayer requests on the right that I laid out at the beginning of the trip. ALL of them have been answered and its only been 3 days! God has truly been amazing!

So thank you all again, and if you'd like to see more pictures from today, they are uploaded here.

Snail Mail

Here it is, finally! If you guys would like to send me a letter or package or post card or WHATEVER (except anthrax) you can send them to Universal, my school, and they will see to it that I get it. The address if you want to send a letter is different than if you want to send a package, so just be aware of that.

The addresses are here.

I've never sent anything to Mexico before, so I'm not sure how the address should line up...ask someone who knows better than me, I guess.

Also, George Fox kids, alot of you gave me your home addresses, but I realize you wont be at home very much longer. So please send me your school address and box number. Then I can write you lovings.

Today (and its only 12:00 pm) has been thus far a day of acceptance...which is a good thing. Good things always come after a good night's sleep, which was more or less the truth of last night. We had a thunderstorm here last night and it was a lucky thing too, or else the house next door never would have stopped blasting their very loud Mexican restaurant-like music and went to bed after it literally rained on their party.

Anyways, about my realizations. I feel like there have been certain trains of thought that I've adopted in the States and they've become a part of me over the years. I've always been so absolutely comfortable, and even prided myself in being independent and free to think whatever I wanted to and do whatever I wanted when I wanted. And as much as I would joke with you about how thats the way I thought, that was truely the way I thought.

Mexico is breaking callouses off my bones. Its chipping away ideals that I've held for 20 years and that's what hurts the most, I think. Its the uncertainty. Everything in Portland was certain. I could call on her and him and him and her in a hard time, and I could go here to get away and I could blow off so and so because they'd done me wrong in the past. Right here in Mexico, I'm so far away from everything I took for granted that I never want to take it for granted again.

I'm also learning, and here's the best part, to be dependent. Sounds opposite from everything we're taught, right? Well, let me explain. I'm learning to be dependent on God and on myself. If I put my strength in God, He will put strength in me and in that way I can be dependent on someone who will never let me down. I knew this time away from modern distractions and family and friends would be a growing time for God and I, I just didn't know how much growing I would need to do! Its scary and yet I'm so excited about it at the same time, just like Cuernavaca.

Prayers that the best thing you guys can give right now. And of course Skype conversations, because I love to see your pretty faces. So get a Skype account if you don't have one and lets chaaat.

Also, photos from downtown Cuernavaca and my school can be seen here.

Universal and Downtown Cuernavaca

I have pictures of Universal, my language school!! Its sooo beautiful. Its basically like studying in a garden. Everything in Cuernavaca is a garden. Even your house is a garden...and thats probably because nothing here has ever been weeded. But its still beautiful! My school is on a slope...a hill, really. Lessons are at the top, tennis courts and swimming pool is at the bottom and we have an amazing view. I didn't have my large camera today but I will take better pictures of the view soon - promise.

School starts are 8 in the morning every morning, 4 days a week (no school on Friday). It begins with three hours of Spanish, followed by Spanish literature for the first quarter and Spanish history for the 2nd quarter. School gets out at 1 pm. Lunch is served at our homes at 2:30 and then some nights we return to the school for an extra class at 4.

We have 3 field trips that will last an entire weekend. One is to Guadalajara, one is to Pueblo (Luis!), and the other to Oaxaca (Luis!!). Apparently the rumor in Oaxaca is that the mosquitoes that bite you in the day carry Malaria and the ones that bite you at night have Wes Nile Virus...or Dangi fever....or something obsurdly scary. I'm not sure I'm down with that.

Today we toured downtown Cuernavaca. It's very small but very busy and apparently we came just as a strike was going on with the teachers. I guess the government is wanted to charge kids to go to public school and everyone is very angry. Ramiro (our director) told us his daughter isn't in school right now because of the chaos. Other than that, we visited the Palace of Cortes and the Cathedral de Cuernavaca. There are too many pictures to post here, so I will upload them to photobucket and you can go there to see them.

Tonight I'm going to get a local cell phone so hopefully I will be able to call a few of you...but I'm not sure how expensive that will be yet...so fingers crossed.

I'm sorry this blog is so short and vague. Today was especially rough. The post you guys left were great, but I had to run to the bathroom at school to cry after reading them and when I returned everyone was staring at me because my eyes were red and puffy. I've seriously been on the verge of tears all day. And its not that things are going wrong. Everything has gone very smooth and there's nothing to complain about. But its just so overwhelming and I feel like no one else here is going through what I'm going through. I feel weak and that makes me more ashamed, so its really just a tragic cycle. And I couldn't even write that paragraph without crying. I just want to quit and go home...but I know that the thought of coming home a failure far outweighs what I need to endure here.

I'm just constantly afraid. Afraid of being mugged, afraid of getting lost, afraid of offending someone, afraid of being alone. Its so much pressure and so overwhelming, I'm at a breaking point. I can't even eat, my stomach is too upset. And I had to explain to my host mom today that her food was good but that I couldn't eat it because I can barely keep it down. And then I cried in front of her and Alfonso. It was so embarrassing. But she's kind and she understands.

Just keep me in your prayers...that this all will pass. And I'm usually online between 7-10 my time (5-8 for Portlanders) so get online and say hi. It would help alot.

Siempre, La Cuidad de Mexico

Well, here we are! We’re all well and good here in Mexico City, although we’re all quite exhausted, some of us having been awake since 1 am this morning (Portland time). But as tired as we are, we can’t close our eyes. Everything is already way too exciting.

I have never been to Mexico. Ever. Not even on vacation. So of course I’d HEARD about Mexico being a huge city and how it’s completely overwhelming. Yeah, totally underestimated how big Mexico City is. And so will you if I try and explain it as you’ve never been there. It’s expansive and never-ending. Quite a few minutes of our flight was simply flying over the metropolitan area, looking for the airport. It’s so huge! And it’s incredibly smashed together and yet still enormous. Its hills of houses and neighborhoods and cityscape as far as the eye can see – and that’s from the air! I was truly in awe.

So we landed in the Mexico City airport and had a bit of trouble finding the immigration counter. Some man kindly pointed us in the direction of a gigantic line and we were on our way into Mexico. Immigration was fine and easy. Customs was where it got a bit tricky.

At the Customs counter they request that all your luggage go through a second scan while a man who doesn’t speak English interrogates you. Its not a very fruitful process, as I’m sure you guessed, because I barely understood the man, he barely understood me, and therefore any questions of importance that he was asking went right over my head. Its ok, he didn’t seem too serious about his job anyways.

So I’m in the back of the line for Customs. Tiffany, Ashley, Erin, and Alayna have already had their stuff scans and are on the other side of security by the time I get my stuff off the scanner. Interestingly enough, the man checking the out the baggage was also checking me out and when I had loaded my stuff onto a cart to leave, he insisted he do a baggage inspection. I’m alone. Everyone in my group has already outside. What could I do? So while he opens up all my stuff and loosely inspected the contents, he also tries to make friendly conversation and really doesn’t look through my stuff at all. I’m fairly certain he just wanted to see my lingerie. So bad.

When I get outside, we’re met by Javier, who works for Universal (from what I’ve guessed). He’s a nice man who doesn’t speak English but is still very interested in all of us. We had a sweet van with AC, so we had the hookups on the way to Cuernavaca. Its about 70 degrees here and looks like it could rain at any moment. Everything is very green, but Javier says that’s only because its been raining a ton. Apparently everything is usually dead. He’s a very optimistic man.

Mexico City. Wow. Everything is pink or orange or purple or green or red and nothing (and I mean NOTHING) is NOT adorned with graffiti. Literally everywhere you look, there is graffiti covering the walls like wallpaper and some of it is really good! I wish I could have taken more pictures, but it’s hard to do that from a moving van. People and shops and markets are everywhere. Everything is bustling and alive. Its almost like Singapore in that everything is city and everyone has somewhere to go and something to do very quickly. It’s not like Singapore in that it’s Mexico, and all the plants and people and signs and architecture are very different and Latin.

So right now I’m in Cuernavaca at my host family’s home in my room (which has two beds for some reason. Apparently that isn’t uncommon, as Ashley has two as well). My host mom is very nice and she speaks slow enough that I can understand a lot of what she is saying. We had dinner together and she asked so many questions and talked so much I could barely eat. We talked about Mexican culture, George Fox, my family, my ancestry (which was weird), the sights to see in Cuernavaca, the weather, and Universal (the language school I’ll be attending here). Apparently, she’s hosted lots of students in the past, some from Germany and parts of Asia. I think she also won an award from Universal for being a good host mom. I hope I don’t accidentally offend her in some way…that would be horrible.

So I’m all unpacked, I’m safe, and severely homesick and on the verge of tears, but I’m pretty sure that just from this whole thing being a very long, very overwhelming day. Ashley and I have already agreed we’re gonna own this trip, so no more homesickness…although I miss you all way too much.

Love,
Kelsey
This is the outside of my home.
And this is looking down the street.

19 days to go!

Its August 3rd and I have 19 days left to go until I get on a plane and fly down to Mexico City!