............: Week in San Cristobal

This past weekend we had an MCC-Mexico retreat in San Cristobal de Las Casas (further south). 4 of us had the delight to go a few days early and do a little “sightseeing” if you will. So last Wednesday kiara, marcos, ana julia, and I flew to San Cristobal. This city ROCKS. Seriously, you should all probably go. Me encantó! It is somewhat touristy and I saw a whole lot of white people there, a lot of Europeans, etc. but it was still awesome. So as not to write a novel, I will resort to list format of some of the highlights of the past week in San Cristobal:

I had the experience of DRIVING through clouds as we drove from the airport to San Cristobal … that was interesting. Perhaps this wasn’t a highlight – more of a freaky experience.
an AWESOME market – full of great “gifts” – jewelry, scarves, bags, wall hangings, etc. etc. spent a lot of time there and maybe bought a bunch of things …
kinoki – this awesome coffee shop-esque place … went there several times … ate crepes with nutella and fresas, and rented our own little room to watch movies in
zapatistas – all over san cristobal there are paintings/books/anything you can think of with people with black masks showing only their eyes (zapatistas) in 1994 there was an uprising of these people trying to stop government from oppressing the indigenous Mexican communities. Anyways, again I find myself absolutely fascinated with the history of this country and am inspired to research/read/etc. It was very interesting to ask different people about the zapatistas – for instance our taxi driver one day told us his perspective that was TOTALLY anti-zapatistas and said they wanted nothing more than to fight and kill people (we started talking about this after we passed a giant military base that was placed there in response to the zapatistas) … our van driver another day came in and sat down and talked to us because he is a zapatista and gave us a totally different perspective on it. Crazy how perspective changes an entire story … anyway it was totally fascinating learning about this and I’m definitely going to be spending more time on that! (p.s. I never realized what a history loser I am until getting to mexico … )
mcc mexico – I finally got to meet everyone! It’s interesting, however, to be suddenly a part of a bigger group that has such history together and I’m a newbe. But they’re all great people and it was really nice to meet them all towards the beginning of my time here and hear their stories and learn what their work is, etc.
pyramids – Thursday the four of us took a 2 and a half hour taxi ride to get to climb a pyramid of ancient Mayan ruins. It was awesome. Although utterly exhausting and SOOOO hot (I was the wise one who wore jeans). It was great – check out the pictures. it was so crazy high up and there was such a beautiful view of the terrain and mountains surrounding it. Though perhaps it was one of the more dangerous things ive done recently and my knees screamed at me for a few days afterwards …
lancha – Friday was a much more relaxing day – the four of us went about 45 minutes away from san cristobal to this river that runs through the area where we took a boat for about 2 hours. Again, words can’t really describe how incredible it was – check out the pictures. the river was between HUGE cliffs/canyons that were crazy high and the river was crazy deep as well. We also got to see monkeys and crocodiles and lots of great birds on our little trip. It was lots of fun and a nice relaxing alternative to the adventures of the day before.
workshop – the Mesa Directiva just completed a 5 year evaluation of MCC Mexico. They told us about their findings and their suggestions, which was interesting but included a lot of thinking in Spanish about big ideas which made my head hurt. kind of a lot. They also led us in a “game”/activity that was incredibly interesting and revealing about how groups and teams work … lots of feelings/thoughts about this but this now is not the time or place for that.
amber – the area has TONS of amber and shops just EVERYWHERE. I bought a ring. I love it. I wanted to buy everything …

So, the future:

Wednesday we are taking the trek to Cuernavaca (the reps, marcos, Meredith, and I)
I will be left behind when they all return … yikes!
I will be in language school for one week. Living with a different host family for that week.
language school will be one on one for me – awesome. Hopefully I’ll have lots of chances in the afternoons for outings/getting to know the city.
after that week I will move in with Dona Juana (my host family for the year)
when I will start work at Buena Tierra is still a little unknown, perhaps next Thursday, or perhaps the next Monday … things are still being decided.

My thoughts:

the week in san cristobal was AWESOME. I totally want to go back.
I’m excited to finally be getting to cuernavaca and especially for language school.
I know it’s going to be hard to leave mexico city. It’s been awesome hanging out with kiara, marcos, and meredith all the time. i’m really really going to miss them
I wish I had been home to experience the joy of dad’s birthday! I bet it was awesome.

That’s all for now I suppose. Sorry again for writing so much.

Next blog will be from the great city of Cuernavaca !!!

here´s some pics from the week: