A Day in the Life,...

Dinner :)


A cool building by our house that we walk past everyday.


"La Cocina" aka our family's restaurant. This is where it all goes down. From slaughtering goats to dance parties, it's pretty much our second house.

October 3, 2009

Lately me and Kami have been really stressed out with everything. Between trying to include other priorities into our schedule, preparing for classes, traveling to and from our house, lack of communication, frustration with other teachers, and being sick, we hit rock bottom yesterday. Thankfully me and her get along great and have no problems or concerns with each other. We call each other "esposas de Mexico" because we are always with each other 24/7! The other day we stayed late at Discovery because it was dead silent once the other teachers left for ILP and the kids left for home. We sat down, vented, made lists, then figured out a schedule that included times for daily things that are important to us. Since then we've been a lot happier and not quite so stressed out. Hallelujah! Since i've been so stressed i've also been eating alot,.. which leads to my next topic...FOOD!
I'm officially turning into a chola. I love Valentina hot sauce on everything. I even carry little packets of it in my purse. Its good on popcorn, pizza, burgers, any kind of Mexican food, fries, by itself, its even good to use as salad dressing. I know they sell it in the US so i'm pretty stoked I can still have it once I go home! My favorite foods here that i've discovered so far is tacos al pastor, chalupas, and gorditas. Taco Bell's chalupas ain't got crap on Mexico's!

Okay, here is another list for you all!

Facts That Are Interesting But Aren't Interesting Enough to Blog About:
1. I have 18 mosquito bites
2. My eyes been twitching the last week
3. 3 teachers have swine flu, one has a parasite
4. Tehuacan's winters are 70-75 degrees, sunny, and clear. I'm in Heaven.
5. Im getting less tan and more white
6. I love Polverones- an orange flavored cookie
7. I got my butt slapped by a 6 year old last week
8. I bought floss :)
9. Im starting to fall in love with my students
10. We're almost half way done with the semester!

To be continued...

#1 Depreivation- TIME

Okay soooooo im officially a slacker when it comes to blogging. This past week has been absolutely crazy. Last week there were three Birthdays (including mine!) and this week Casey the President of ILP program, came to Tehuacan to check up on us.
My Birthday was by far the coolest Birthday I've ever had. It started at 5:30am when my family blasted FELIZ CUMPLEANOS on our stereo system. I kid you not,..the whole house was shaking. I felt like I was in the Bay Area again. We went to the kitchen for breakfast where i ate 5 pieces of pan dulce then had frijoles and an omelet with a torta on the side of course. I left the kitchen waddling that morning. The kids at Discovery did so many adorable things for me. Mariem and Lorena made me a DELICIOUS chocolate cake, a little girl bought me a necklace and wrapped it up all nicely, teacher Ryan's class made me a book of pictures, teacher Kami's classes made me a ton of cards, and I got a gazillion hugs from cuper cute kids. My favorite gift was from Hugo. He made me a card that said "Top Secret" on the front. Then on the inside it said "I love you" with a picture of a heart and arrow. I laughed cause it was so hilarious but so cute.
Last Saturday the teachers threw me, Sarah, and Adri one big party to celebrate all our Birthdays. We ate pizza and played "Pin the Tale on the Whale". It was also our mammita's Cumpleanos on Saturday. So Saturday night we had a fiesta with all our family at our house. It was so much fun I can't even begin to explain it. We pretty much just watched most of our family get drunk and then we all had a dance party. Even our 14yr old cousin was downing tequila like it was Koolaid.
Yesterday Casey from ILP flew here from Utah to check up on us all. He also brought us Reeses and took us out to dinner.
But thats the update on everything over here. Things here are pretty good. I started feeling better but then the last couple of days I've had more headaches and have been really tired. I was just informed 10 mins ago that Sarah from Canada had swine flu in June and that Ashley (our head teacher) possibly has swine flu. I guess we're bound to get the swine flu in Mexico though right? haha. But none of us are too worried about it. Anyways, Hope all is well in the US! Keep me updated on the latest news!

Viva Mexico!

The past couple of days have been quite eventful. Between our trip to Veracruz and Dia de Independencia, I’m pretty freakin worn out! The original Veracruz plan backfired when Bethany got sick about an hour before we were to leave for the bus station. I had left my cell phone at the school so I had no way to contact Savannah to tell her Bethany couldn’t go to Veracruz. We had planned on us three girls going because ILP has a rule that you have to travel in groups no less than 3. So I had no idea what to do; we already had hotel reservations and our bus tickets. After missing the combi and bus from Bethany’s house in the boonies, I jumped in a taxi and headed to the bus station to meet Savannah. We contemplated if we should actually get on the bus to Veracruz or not, but after we talked to the head teacher and got approval we decided to go for it. We had strict orders not to talk to any strangers and to be rude to people we don’t know.
5 hours later we arrived in Veracruz and checked into our first hotel in Boca del Rio. It was awesome! We layed out by the pool and developed some gnarly tan lines then headed to the huge fantastic mall where I spent 500 pesos on a pair of supa cute heels. Don’t freak out,… 500 pesos is only like $40; sounds expensive though! Saturday night we grabbed some pina coladas and relaxed on the beach while listening to music. It was glorious.
Sunday morning we got up and decided to go to Anton Lizardo. It’s only 20 minutes away from Veracruz and I had read that it was a great place to snorkel and that it had some really pretty beaches. I HAD READ A BUNCH OF LIES. It was straight ghetto there! So we ate breakfast on the beach then went back to Boca del Rio and found another hotel by the beach- which was also really nice! We swam in the pool then walked to the ugly beach that smelt of rotting fish and stinky perverted men. We sipped on fresh coconuts and attempted to get rid of some tan lines. That night we walked around town and found a good Italian restaurant to eat at. It’s always an interesting experience traveling; we get random people coming up and asking for our pictures. Sometimes they won’t even ask- they’ll just bust out their camera phones and take pictures. It’s really weird and uncomfortable,..but kinda funny.
Monday we got up nice and early and went to the Wax Museum and then to one of the top 10 Aquariums in the world. They were both tons of fun! I probably liked the wax museum the most though because I’ve never been to one before. The only bad part about it was that I couldn’t stop thinking about this creepy horror movie I saw about a wax Museum. Later we went and got our nails done and met the sweetest nail ladies ever. After talking and getting pampered for 2 hours we exchanged e-mail addresses and then walked to Café Parroquia which was apparently an award winning café in 2008. Monday night we walked around near the port, did some shopping, and enjoyed the festivities Veracruz has to offer.
We got back to Tehuacan on Tuesday and started celebrating Dia de Independecia! We went to the church activity, ate tons of food, danced, then joined Juan Pablo and his family for a little cultural experience. My host family totally blew us off and didn’t answer their phones. Kami and I were bummed out that we couldn’t celebrate Mexico’s biggest holiday with our own family, but we had a great time at Juan Pablo’s casa! We had a piñata, ate even more food, and danced of course! We continued the celebration the next day by watching Tehuacan’s one and only parade. It was crowded, hot, loud, and by far the coolest thing I have ever experienced!
But the last week has been so much fun and I definitely got a dose of Mexico’s culture. Most of the people here are so friendly and sweet! Even when we were traveling, people were always so good about keeping us safe and making us feel welcome. There was a lady passing out toilet paper in the bathroom at one of the restaurants who gave us her phone number and email just so we had someone to contact if we needed anything. And random people would stop us and tell us to avoid specific areas. I love everything about this country and it’s culture. The food, the people, and the history of Mexico are all amazing and I can’t wait to experience more!

Friday Night

So tonight I'm spending the night with Bethany at her host family's house which happens to be the owner of Discovery (a private school I teach at). First off,...I've never been in a nicer house. This place is definitely CRIBS worthy. Amazing pool with a slide, huge glass windows, modern designs, and a cute dog. This casa makes me want to retire in Mexico when I'm rich someday.
But anyways, Bethany's parents Pepe and Maribel had a party tonight. Apparently some of their friends went on a trek to Spain and studied the apostle Santiago. Thats what I understood at least. They did this whole presentation thing which i understood about 10% of. Thankfully they had pictures to go along with it. We talked to their 22 yr old daughter named Jimena (like the hurricane) who had gone with them on the trek. When I asked her where her parents were from she told us the story about how her grandpa came to Mexico from Spain. When the civil war was happening, her great grandma sent her 8 children to Mexico because there was no food to give them. She told them after the war was over they would come back to Spain but when the war finally did end the President wouldn't allow anyone to come back. So her grandpa at the young age of 8 never saw his parents again. He only had contact with one sister. They were told their mother had died from a broken heart. I thought it was a pretty cool story.
This morning my mammita accused me of being anorexic- 1. Because i ONLY had 2 tacos and 2 tortas for breakfast, and 2. Because I take multi vitamins. I told her that i wasn't anorexic and then she continued to talk about bulimia. It was hilarious. Then she proceeded to say, "I live to eat,...and you eat to live" (all in Spanish of course). Oh and another thing! My dad calls me "sponja swarepan" aka "sponge Bob squarepants". Don't know how i got that name... I think it's cause I don't usually understand them so I do this weird sponge Bob laugh a lot.
Anyways, I'm deliriously tired right now and gotta wake up at 5 am to go to Veracruz! Oh yeeaaahhhh!

9/11

Today is an ordinary day for Mexico, but for me and the other teachers today is the date in America that we will never forget. This morning all of us were talking about what we were doing when the terrorist attack took place in New York. I was in sixth grade; I had gotten up for school and gone down stairs. The t.v. was on that morning which rarely happens on school days. My mom tried to explain to me what had happened but I didn't understand. It took me a while to figure out it wasn't a "tourist" attack, it was a terrorist attack. I wasn't completely aware of everything that was going on, but the depressing and helpless atmosphere our nation experienced was enough for me to realize the severity of the situation. It's amazing that even in a time of despair, we were able to come together and grow stronger as one- a true definition of a nation. My heart goes out to the families who lost a loved one and to all the remarkable people who helped our country in a time of need. We will always remember ♥

Recent Pictures :)