First Week in Cuernavaca - Language Study

So, last Wednesday I came here to Cuernavaca. Marion and Merideth came with me which was quite a delight. The city is not quite what I expected – after hearing from thousands of people how beautiful and great the city is I definitely had a different picture in my head than what the reality is. I’m in no way saying it’s a bad place – it’s just not what I expected. It’s like a miniature Mexico City (granted I have seen like 1% of it so far so I can’t really say much of anything about it yet…)

For the past week I have been attending Universal, a language school (http://www.universal-spanish.com/), and living with a host family through Universal. I had anticipated this week as being a week to get to know the city a bit before I moved in with my host family for the year and started my work at Buena Tierra. However, it did not quite turn out that way. Instead of exploring, I spent the majority of my time sitting in my house and running to the bathroom about every 20 minutes. Awesome. I never felt good enough to go explore because I never knew when I would need a bathroom again! Oh, the joys of my stomach adjusting to another country…Oh well, the good news is I will be here for a year so I’ll have plenty of time to explore.

So I’ve been living with a delightful family that lives about a 4 minute walk away from Universal. They have been totally great and Sara, my host mother, has definitely taken care of me while I’ve been sick. I had been warned by fellow MCCers that everyone would have a different idea of some herbal/natural remedy if I were to ever get sick – and the minute I told Sara I was intenstinally not well she asked me if I wanted her to make me a tea that, although it didn’t taste very good, would fix my stomach. I figured what the heck – but no. I know I exaggerate but I kid you not – that tea was the NASTIEST thing I have ever tasted in my entire life. She made me like ¾ of a mug and I only drank about half of what she gave me and it took me like an hour to down as much as I did…it was plain awful. Anyways, she was trying to help and has been super helpful while I haven’t been feeling the best.

Language school has been good, but a challenge. I have had one-on-one class for 3 hours every day (will be 5 days total). We have pretty much focused everything on grammar and the structures that I don’t know. While I feel good about being exposed to all of it – I also feel like I am getting 3 months worth of information crammed in my head in one week … and it’s been frustrating at times. I don’t know if I put too much pressure on myself to know everything there is to know in Spanish or what, but I have gotten fairly upset with myself at times when I don’t get something. But it’s okay – I still feel pretty good about where I’m at and know that I will learn tons more in the next 11 months than I did this past week.

Happy HAPPY note – with all my time spent in my house I have managed to learn quite a bit on my new toy – my guitar. I’m uber pumped. I thought I would never been able to read tabs – but I totally learned and can play an awesome song (or at least struggle through it) – Sarah Mclachlan’s (beatle´s) “Blackbird.” If anyone has any suggestions of good material/books/songs for learning how to play guitar – please let me know! Or if anyone can teach me how the heck to play bar chords … I don’t think my hands were created for those … Bob, I’m still waiting for you to get yourself down here to Mexico to teach me everything J

The Future: Wednesday I move in with my new host family and Thursday I start work at Buena Tierra – lots of transitions coming up…should be interesting.

I guess that’s all for now. Sorry there aren’t any pictures to show…I didn’t exactly do/see a whole lot this week to take pictures of…

Take care and keep in touch!

PICTURES!

hello to all.

i just wanted to say that pretty much every picture that has been taken by myself or my compañeros from my arrival to mexico until now are on facebook. i know i have put up a few on this blog each time i have written, but there are definitely lots more! if you go to my facebook page and click on pictures of me there will come up a couple of albums with pictures of me that marcos has put up. if you click on that album name in the bottom right corner you can look at all the pictures that we have taken! sorry i haven't been all on top of it to put up the pictures myself, but i probably will from now on now that i'll be by myself and won't have marcus to put them up for me :) that's all for now! take care.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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 …
3. 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
4. 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 … )
5. 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.
6. 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 …
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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:

1. Wednesday we are taking the trek to Cuernavaca (the reps, marcos, Meredith, and I)
2. I will be left behind when they all return … yikes!
3. I will be in language school for one week. Living with a different host family for that week.
4. 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.
5. after that week I will move in with Dona Juana (my host family for the year)
6. 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:

1. the week in san cristobal was AWESOME. I totally want to go back.
2. I’m excited to finally be getting to cuernavaca and especially for language school.
3. 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
4. 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:

the streets of san cristobal

the huge ruins we climbed

ready to go!

the view from the tippy-top

ready to head out on the boat!

also, for the record, check out the first sentence of this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8229204.stm

i am LIVING in mexico city right now and of course i had to be out of town to miss out on this !!! i am seriously uber bummed ...

i love my daddy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD !!!

I happen to be in San Cristobal de Las Casas this weekend, where there happens to be a street named "28 de agosto" (August 28) ... so I had to take a picture in front of it! In case you cant read that sign i'm holding it says "happy birthday dad"

I hope you had an awesome day dad! I love you dearly! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Weekend Fun

I apologize for my excessive writing the past few times. In order to better please my brother, I will try to write less from here on out …

I had a delightful time this past weekend. It was pretty much totally free, so I got to see a lot of the city, which was a lot of fun. Kiara, Meredith, Marcos, and I made pancakes Saturday morning, then set out for the day. We went to Chapultapec which has like 5,000 things to do. We went out on a paddle boat, which was actually sweet to be able to do on a lake in the midst of this huge bustling city. We also climbed a small mountain to get to a castle that we got to tour, which was actually quite awesome. The history teacher in me definitely came out, and I am sure I will go back there again sometime to really take it all in. I am hoping to find a good book on Mexican history to read in the meantime … After we left there we went to El Merced which is this HUGE market and I experienced my personal space violated like nothing I have ever experienced before by this very large woman behind me in line for the metro. Anyways, we bought some stuff there and then ate at a little place as well. When we got home we made pizza (enough to feed an army) which was uber delicious.

Sunday we went to church in Nauculpan where one of the workers with MCC works … it is a Mennonite church of about 30 people and I actually really liked it. It was nothing like I experienced church in the DR … it was much more tranquillo and the people there were super nice. I am hoping that I can find a church similar to this to attend for the next year! After church and lunch, Ricardo, Isabel, Marcos, and I went to Coyoacan – which I give lots of thumbs up. It was a big market with lots of earrings, scarves, etc. to buy. They had an ice cream store where I FINALLY found something of passion fruit .. .it was so delicious. I will definitely be returning there.

Sunday evening Marcos said he was going to make us empanadas (he claimed to know how to make them…) it was quite a big adventure that started with us taking the meat out of the refri that we bought at El Merced to find it to be green … the meat is totally sketchy here and I am fairly certain I have been convinced to be a vegetarian after seeing that meat … sick. Anyways, we had loads of fun making empanadas and jugo de limón. It was a DELICIOUS dinner.

I also gave Marcos one of my Schmucker’s shirts. Dad – he says that you should start making empanadas at the restaurant. I told him he’s have to come teach you how J

So the weekend was a lot of fun, but I found myself totally exhausted afterwards. So yesterday and today I’ve been trying to recuperate from that a bit and take it easy. Tuesday Marcos and I went down to the Zócalo to get my guitar fixed (done and done, finally...i now know about 5 chords) but other than that we haven’t really done a whole lot. Today Kiara, Marcos, Ana Julia, and I are going to Chiapas (San Crístobal). There is an MCC Mexico retreat this weekend there and we are all going a few days early just for a bit of vacation, sightseeing, and getting to know the country a bit! So it should be a lot of fun. I will be back here in Mexico city on Monday.

Okay, I suppose that is all for now. I’m sorry Jason, somehow this still is sort of long. I hope all is well wherever you all may be and whatever life has been bringing you lately! Take care!

marcos and i in the paddle boat

the boat in its entirity

in a beautiful garden on top of the castle

overlooking the city from the castillo

kiara and i with our liter of agua de limon at El Merced

marcos and the delicious empanadas that he (we all) created

first week in mexico city ...

I forgot to include pictures of our travel and getting to Mexico in my last blog, so here are a few pics:

Arriving at the airport: Marcos and I loaded up with all our stuff and ready to go!

A view of the city from the airplane … it is HUGE. And surrounded by mountains.

It’s actually a really great view from the plane.

llegamos! happy to have arrived.

Anyways, I’ve now been in Mexico for one entire week. Woohoo!

Our first full day here (Sunday) we spent on a turibús. Ricardo and Marion (MCC Reps) and their daughter Isabel (who is 2…and bilingual…awesome) and Marcos and I went. It was one of those open air two story buses that drives you around the city and you listen on your headphones to learn stuff about the city, its history, etc. We got off at a few stops and walked around the zócalo, which is basically the main big square downtown with a cathedral and lots going on, and went to see Bellas Artes which is like an art museum. We spent about 8 hours doing all of this, so it was exhausting, but a really good way to see lots of different parts of the city and learn some of the different neighborhoods and history.

Marcos and I on the turibus

The cathedral in the zocalo

The countdown to Mexico’s bicentennial (sept. 15, 2010) – apparently the celebration on sept. 15 in the zocalo is beyond crazy and anyone who’s not Mexican shouldn’t even consider going …

Lots of decorations in anticipation of this coming sept. 15 (no, it’s not for Christmas … easily confused colors J )

Bellas Artes – a view from the 9^th floor of the Sears store

Isabel and I

Most of the week has been about the same every day. We have our mornings free. After lunch we have little “sessions” to learn about MCC Mexico and how things work here. Then in the evenings I usually watch a movie and use the internet for a bit before going to bed. In the mornings we have done a couple of fun things with our free time. Monday we went to a market that is really close to the MCC Office where they seriously let you try any fruit you want. There are some WEIRD fruits here! Like the fruit of cactus (they call it tuna) and something that looks like a sea urchant on the outside and like eyeballs on the inside. Very weird. I also saw passion fruit (they don’t call it chinola here which totally weirds me out – it’s like maracuya or something) but I didn’t buy any and I’m kicking myself for it…Anyway, the market was really awesome and we bought tons of fruits and stuff there (although none of them have really captured my taste buds yet). Thurdsay we went to a big market of like anything you could want: clothes, dvds, cell phones, tvs, food, radios, video games, shoes, etc. etc. etc. It was crazy big. I accidentally bought four dvds … but it’s hard not to when they cost like 65 cents … you all thought I was bad in the states for buying DVDs…it’s gonna be real tough here…

Me and my new movies … don’t judge me for my purchases (if you can tell what they are)

Most of the days during the week Kiara and Marcos and I have made lunch, which has been a lot of fun. (Kiara – currently lives at MCC Office/Guest House). The three of us have a grand time cooking, listening to music in the kitchen, and cleaning up after lunch. We normally begin all this around noon or before, and don’t finish until around 3 or 3:30. And then sometimes I just don’t eat dinner J I love this whole concept of big lunches (la comida is what they call it here … not almuerzo…) and then just eating a tiny bit for dinner. The other night Kiara and I were craving sweets so we made this chocolate peanut butter bar dessert that rocked our lives.

Cutting up vegetables for thai fried rice

Kiara and I cooking

Later in the week I decided I should get out more and see the city so Thursday Marcos and I went got on the metro and went back to the zócalo just to look around and stuff. We decided to try to find a guitar for me but weren’t sure if we would find any music stores…well we ended up on a street literally FULL of them. It went on forever and every single store on it was full of musical instruments. It was crazy. By the end I was so sick of looking at guitars… but I bought one ! (for a pretty cheap price too, I think). Luckily I had marcos with me because I know NOTHING about guitars, which ones are good, which ones are good deals, etc. so he helped me out a lot. And now I have a guitar! Step one of my goal to learn guitar this year has been achieved, now on to the harder part of actually learning …

In one of the music stores so overwhelmed by all the choices!

My lovely new guitar J

So … Mexico City … it’s huge. It’s actually the second biggest city in the world (after tokyo). It’s been interesting being here because I find myself constantly comparing it to Santo Domingo and expecting to find Helados Bon on every corner. I guess that’s what happens when I’ve only ever “lived” in two huge cities in my life. But it is surprising how much I think of Santo Domingo or things that I miss from there while I’m here. Public transportation is still a bit of a challenge for me. I keep saying they should just throw me out on the street one day and tell me to find my way around because I’m not going to learn it if I don’t! I hardly ever leave the MCC Guest House/Office because we always meet here every day. So I definitely am still a little afraid of transporte público…although I think I’m starting to get the hang of it a little better day by day. I can’t wait for the day I feel confident in it! I’m told I need to learn it really well because I may be coming here frequently … Cuernavaca is only about 1 ¼ hours away from Mexico City. I also learned Cuernavaca has one million people in it…I had no idea it was so huge! Crazy crazy …

Random fact: Walmart is responsible for over 25% of the economy in Mexico. (gross)

So our sessions every day about important stuff … they are always in Spanish … because Ricardo (MCC Rep) and Marcos really only speak Spanish. So it’s been very interesting. The first day we spent over an hour talking about finances and how finances work … now let me tell you I would have been confused if it was all told to me in English! So needless to say I had quite the headache after that session. But actually I have been so incredibly surprised with how much I understand. Depending on who is speaking to me, I can generally understand between eighty and ninety-five percent of what is said. Which I really didn’t expect. So I’m feeling really pretty great about the whole Spanish thing already. Which rocks … and I also feel like I’ve already learned a ton in the week that I’ve been here…

Random story: We were in the park talking about this that or the other thing and I got belted in the head with a soccer ball. those punk kids in the park … ha

Anyways, I hope all is well with you wherever you may be. It’s been sort of weird knowing that school is starting back in the states now … part of me wishes I was there starting school with the rest of you all! But things are really good here and I’m really enjoying myself. I’m excited for this weekend – I think we’re going to go do some fun stuff. Take care. I miss you all dearly!

SALT orientation in Akron, PA

Hello to all, and welcome to my blog! Hopefully this will be a good place for you to read and see what’s going on in my life this year . . . I have no idea what kind of time/internet access I will have for such things, but I’ll try to update it as often as I can. I also apologize that sometimes I tend to get long-winded (aka wordy) so I’ll try to keep these things on the shorter end so you actually read them all, but no promises!

I am currently sitting in the MCC Guest House in Mexico City. I just arrived here yesterday … the past week I have been in Akron, PA for orientation with all those from SALT/YAMEN!/IVEP. It was an incredible week. At the beginning we all compared it to the first week of your first year of college – it’s kind of awkward because you don’t know anyone, and you just kind of make friends with lots of people because they don’t know anyone either, and you feel like you’re friends but you don’t really actually know them … it’s an interesting sensation. But it turned into awesomeness – I made some great friends with people and the week was phenomenal. Well, it was also very boring at times, full of long days, and exhausting as well. We spent most of our time in sessions learning about MCC, logistics of SALT, living cross-culturally, setting goals, nurturing ourselves spiritually, oppression, self care, etc. etc. etc. Some of the sessions were extremely heavy and I left feeling as if I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Others were very boring and I had to try to keep myself awake. And others were extremely helpful to be in dialogue with others. It was especially great because we had people from all over the world there for the different programs, so we were given the space to learn from people from so many different cultures. We would often divide up into regions – for instance one day all of us either coming from or going to Central America met (about 10 of us) and discussed/taught each other how things happen where we are from. (those social norms that we just inherently have ingrained into us that people coming to our culture wouldn’t necessarily know). It was a really great experience.

When I first arrived in Akron I found out I would be staying at the Manor House – not actually in the “compound” of the MCC Welcoming Place as I learned to call it. I was a little jealous at first because others in the compound had much nicer facilities (i.e. 2 people per shower instead of 10). But after about one day we all realized The Manor had it going on – it was full of people either coming from or going to Latin America, and we all made great connections and had tons of fun together. No matter how hard I tried I could never get to bed before midnight or 1 (even though we had to get up early) because it was always just such at good time at the manor!

Also during the week I had the delight of spending time with a select few individuals – Sara Groff stole me away for an evening. I also went to my Uncle Terry, Aunt Joanie, and cousins Alyse and Austin’s house for a few hours. My last night Kelly Shenk and Peter Koontz came to visit as well. So it was really nice to get to spend a little bit of time with those people throughout the week! Although it was interesting – those of us who left in the evenings to be with family/friends all discussed the fact that part of us didn’t want to leave – there was always so much fun and learning going on that we really didn’t even want to miss out on it. Evenings were full of just hanging out and talking, playing music, birthday fiestas and despedidas, and going to the park to play volleyball, tennis, etc. It was awesome.

So, enough about orientation. Now I’m in Mexico! woot woot. Yesterday morning at 8 am Marcos and I left for the airport. Marcos is part of the YAMEN! program and is from Argentina. He will also be in Mexico this year, though sadly very very far away from where I will be. Anyways, we flew out of Philadelphia … when we got to the airport I was so bound and determined to get McDonald’s breakfast (surprising, I know) because generally McDonald’s in other countries don’t serve breakfast and I wanted one last sausage and egg mcgriddle! … and so we set out on to find it – with all our stuff – we ended up walking for casi 30 minutes … and when we got there they weren’t serving breakfast anymore! It was slightly traumatizing. Ah well. Our flights were pretty good – Marcos thought he was going to die on the first one and I thought the same on the second one, but we survived. I was slightly depressed that in my one hour layover in Houston I was so close to my brother but didn’t get to see him L sorries jason! When we were coming into Mexico City there was a thunderstorm that we were seriously flying right into – I have never been so close to bolts of lightening in my life and frankly I was scared to death. And p.s. this city is HUGE. Like nothing I have ever seen. It’s incredible. And it’s right in the middle of all these mountains – it was really quite beautiful to see from the air. and i found out once i was here that it is the biggest city in the entire world...crazy...

So we got in around 6 and I was scared to death of customs – but it was easy breezy no problem. Ricardo (MCC Rep) met us at the airport. We came back to the MCC Guest House/Office where we met Kiara, another MCCer, and Marion (Ricardo’s wife) and their daughter Isabel (2 years old – SO cute). We all went out for dinner and words can’t describe how excited I am to be eating Mexican food for the next year. It is so good. I don’t even know what the name of what we had was – but it included meat off of those giant slabs of meat on rotisseries in the street that rotate round and round and utterly gross me out usually. Yeah – it’s good. And mmm spicy! If that is any indication of what I will be eating for the next year – I’m stoked!

So I will be staying at the MCC Guest House for I think the next two weeks (I’m not positive exactly…) The 27^th all the solteros in MCC (the single ones) are heading to an MCC retreat. I’m not quite sure why those of us who are single are going a day early…odd…but anyways, the married ones will come the 28^th. We’ll be at retreat until August 31 (I have no idea where it is). In the mean time I think I will be spending lots of time getting to know the city, learning about the country, and possibly visiting Cuernavaca (where I will be for the rest of the year)

My thoughts and feelings … well I told Marcos that I feel like I’m going on vacation. It doesn’t even feel like I’m going to be gone for a year, and frankly I’m so super excited to be here that I haven’t felt nervous or scared at all yet (well, minus when I was flying in a giant metal hunk right next to bolts of lightening and when I was going through customs). I am just really happy to be here. It’s going to be a lot of fun .. at least this next month I am positive about that. And the rest of the year too. I have talked to several people about my assignment – my living and working situation – and I would greatly appreciate your prayers for those situations and that I may have strength to deal with any challenges that may come my way.

I suppose that is all for now. Basically – I had a phenomenal week at orientation. And I’m super excited to be here now J Take care, and keep in touch. I will try to write again sometime soon about my adventures here in mexico city orienting myself to this country.

okay i´m not sure how this whole photo thing works, but i will try it out ...

mcc welcoming place - aka the compound

playing sand volleyball down in the park

MANOR HOUSE! - all of us either coming from or going to latin america

my roommates - dora y laura

mis nuevas amigas y yo heading off to our comissioning service

hanging out in the manor

we had all kinds of fun and fiestas in the evenings

we also danced thriller - there was a talent show where we were supposed to perform songs or dances from our culture - so of course what better to do than honor the king of pop.

if you want to check out our attempt at it go here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaW7_Z9y5WA (though keep in mind we only started practicing the night before ... )