September 16, 2009

after several days of internet complications and my brothers wonderful help, i can finally put this up. i wrote this on the 16th ...

As of yesterday I’ve been living in Mexico for one entire month. CRAZY! One on hand it feels like I’ve been here forever, and on the other hand it feels like I just got here. I’m already 10/11ths of the way done with this adventure…kind of weird, since it’s just getting started! Hopefully in the next few days I’ll put up a blog about my first impressions of life here in the Via and “work” at Buena Tierra. But in the meantime, I write today because today is special here in the great country of Mexico… Today is Mexico’s Independence Day…therefore, no school! Although today is technically the holiday, all the celebrating happens on the 15^th, yesterday. At 11 pm on September 15 is the grand “grito” (yell) – where the president comes out in the National Palace and yells “VIVA ________________ !!! ” (fill in the blank: la revolucion, los heroes, libertad, México, etc...he says about 10 things) and everyone yells back “VIVA!!!” after every thing. check it out here, if you care to:



I had considered going down to the Zócalo here in Cuernavaca for the celebrations of last evening, but due to rain, dislike of huge crowds, and still a bit of fear of public transportation at night, I decided I’d rather just stay and hang out with my family here. (I think it was a good choice.) We just hung out, cooked a bunch, talked, and watch the crazy events in D.F. on TV. I actually stayed up until almost midnight, which is crazy late for me here! Today is then considered a day of rest when a lot of things are closed and people can recuperate from the happenings of last night. It was nice to have the opportunity to sleep in today, although I sadly woke up at the same time I always do … 7:30 … oh well, at least I got to lay in bed then for awhile and didn’t actually have to get up! Anyways, so yesterday at school we had a big fiesta for Independence Day. The kids of the kinder dressed up like the “pueblo” … the townspeople, and the kids of the primaria dressed up like the revolutionaries. They were absolutely adorable. It was awesome. I also have been dubbed official photographer of Buena Tierra, so I took tons of pictures of the event. So we paraded down the Via a bit, then four “famous” people gave speeches (students dressed up as revolutionaries), and the students sang the national anthem. Then they danced for awhile and ate typical Mexican sweets. It was a grand time. After school someone invited all the teachers to eat posole, which is like a classic Mexican soup made with corn and chicken and such. It was super tasty. A couple teachers and I went down to the Zócalo in the afternoon then to check out the scene and it was crazy busy with tons of people and shops and such. It was good to see but I’m glad I didn’t go back at night because it would have been crazy overwhelming…

Here are a few pictures of the days events (I think I’m going to put more up on facebook so you can check those out as well if you’d like):

the littlest ones excited to leave for the fiesta

dancing in the street

singing the national anthem