Janitzio

On Wednesday, we went to the Island town Janitzio on lake Pátzcuaro. We hiked up the hill and climbed all the way to the tippy top of the statue. It had stairs inside, don't worry. The space at the top was tiny, and to see out, we had to step up on a ledge and poke our heads through about a foot of space. We were all crammed in there. Then we took came down and took pictures in front of the statue. It was cool. I wish I could have stayed up there to look longer, but there were a lot of people waiting, so I didn't. 

I haven't really figured out the best way to post pictures on here yet. Here's a list of captions... in reverse order

1. Janitzio from the boat.

2. The view of the top of the island from the top of the statue.

3. "Team Morelia" in front of the statue. Christian was not into the pose. 

4. Me with lake Pátzcuaro in the background.

5. A snippet of the many vender tents on the road to the statue. 

How many cathedrals are there in Mexico?

Yesterday, we went on an excursion to a bunch of pueblos not too far from Morelia. We saw old churches and convents. There are a lot of old churches and convents in Mexico. Each one has some unique detail or story, but pretty much they’re a bunch of really old churches. Some of them are very beautiful and magnificent, with giant gold-plated alters and murals. Others are not quite so old and have more simple gold-plated alters.

They all have plaster figures of Jesus and the Virgen Mary and often the saint of the church. One church we went to last weekend had the skull of the monk or priest who founded the church. Yeah, the actual skull, held by another figurine way at the top of the alter, looking down at the congregation. Another church had a figure of Jesus lying in a glass “tomb.” This Jesus keeps getting longer, so they have to extend the coffin. The people of the church say he is alive and they’re faith causes him to grow.

 While the churches all have their unique details, they’re all fairly similar. Cathedral ceilings, wood floors and pews, figurines, flowers, dim, cold, dank. They’re old. They smell old.

 Honestly, most kind of give me heebie-jeebies. One that was really old, like the oldest on the continent, had doors in the floor that led to tombs. If the bloody Jesus doll didn’t creep me out, that sure did. I found myself walking on the planks of floor that were between the doors. That wood was old – I didn’t want to join someone in his resting place!  

 Overall, though, the churches are interesting. They are a much different place of worship than what I am used to. There is a richness in it, an adoring adornment. At first I thought the baroque beauty was a waste, that the money of the church should be used to feed the poor or something rather than make a spectacle. But, the people the money would have fed are gone now, and perhaps the beauty of the church draws in the people who worship there, so their spirits may be fed. 

maestros

We have three teachers at CUDEM. Hzi (EET-see) teaches advanced grammar, Dante teaches literature, and Della teaches conversation. They’re all 25 or 30. I like Hzi the best. She is funny and her class is fun. I can understand most of what she says, and she seems to know when we don’t understand the question. She looks like the host mother I had in Cuernavaca two years ago. He talks too fast -- I never know what he is saying or asking. I’m not even sure that Dante is his real name. I also don’t like literature so far because I hardly understand the literal meaning, let alone the literary meaning. Plus, I’m supposed to be good at reading, so it’s frustrating when it takes me so long to read. I’m not sure about Della. All she talks about is her “novio” Obama, los borrachos, and how she’s really cool because she’s "naco" not "fresa" because she grew up in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City. Apparently, having parents who pay for your school makes you a stuck up "fresa". I think she wears pretty stylish clothes for a poor kid. She also told me that I look like Renee Zelwegger, and I think Renee Zelwegger is funny looking. I mean, I can see the resemblance, but she is not the celebrity look-alike I would have chosen. People tend to grow on me, though. These are only first impressions.

We also have Christian. He´s our paid friend, but we like him anyway. He knows thecity and can take us around places. He seems cool. He’s really easy-going and fun, and I don’t feel self-conscious about speaking Spanish around him. I also don’t feel like he cares if we speak Spanglish. Although, part of me suspects that he is hired to be an undercover chaperone, just to make sure we’re safe, which as long as he’s fun to have around, I’m fine with. Nothing wrong with having someone who isn’t lost around

arroz y frijoles

Mexican food is not at all what the stereotype is. I guess there is a lot of rice, and I have had beans and tortillas and tacos and quesadillas and guacamole. Okay, so maybe the stereotype does have truth in it. But it’s not like we have tacos and burritos every day, at least we don’t in the house I live in. For breakfast, I eat fruit and cereal (Carlos is lactose-intolerant, so it’s deslactosada, much to my delight), maybe some yogurt or a bun. Oh, and fresh squeezed orange juice….mmmm.

 

By noon, I’m starving. Today in class, my stomach hurt it was so hungry. We don’t eat la comida, the big meal, until about 2:30, but by then, my stomach has closed in on itself, and the first course of soup or rice does nicely to ease the pain. By the second course, the main part of the meal, I don’t really feel hungry anymore, but you can’t skip the main course, so I eat it. I’ve discovered a strange phenomenon, though, because I have yet to feel over-stuffed, but on the last few bites, I’m praying that I’ll be able to chew. Please swallow, please swallow, please swallow.  Maybe since the food is new, I think more about it instead of just shoveling it down, or my stomach just is overwhelmed.

 

We eat again around 9. Cena has been a sandwich or quesadillas, something small, and I always have chocomil, which is Mexican for “chocolate milk.” I’m usually a little hungry, but really just want to go to bed.

 

Now, don’t think I’m not well fed here, or that I hate everything I have to eat. So far, it seems like at each comida, there’s something I like a lot and something I’m not so sure about. Certain things, like meat, I am just picky about, and as long as my Mexican mother tells me not to eat it if I don’t like it, I’m not going to eat the fatty parts of meat. Carlos and Ana (his girlfriend) both left an entire taco on their plates last night. I make a good attempt.

 

There has really only been one thing that I could not eat, and it was dessert, so I was full anyway. It was like a jello fruit pie. There was a layer of jello and a layer of custard-like jello with fruit cocktail in between. Not so bad? Well, I hate jello. The jiggling makes me gag. When I first saw it, I knew I was in trouble. I thought I’d try it because usually I can stand jello when there is fruit in it. No. The jello was clear and flavorless, plain gelatin. Anyway, I took a few bites and couldn’t do it. And, when she asked me if I liked it, I said, “no mucho.” I figure if I’m honest when I don’t like something, then when I say I do like something, she knows it’s true. 

The first few days

Estoy aquí en Morelia. I’m here in Morelia. The day of traveling was long. We left Iron River for Chicago at 10:30 am, met Mandy and her parents for dinner, then went to the airport for our 8:45 flight. I was glad to have her to go through security and find our gate, which was changed every 20 minutes. Our tickets said M3, the screen said M1, and other students’ tickets said M5. Apparently, there was some difficulty finding a gate to depart from, which meant we didn’t actually leave the airport until 11 pm. Now, that means we didn’t actually arrive in Morelia until 3 am. The airport wasn’t very busy, so we got through customs quickly. But, two feet out of the parking lot, our van of gringos got pulled over by the highway patrol, who were trying to get a bribe from our driver, thinking he wouldn’t know the rules about trafficking gringos. By the time we met our families it was 4:30 in the morning, which means by the time I was in bed, it was 5 am.

Luckily, Sunday is the day of rest, so that’s mostly what we did. My host mother and I went to the market to buy chicken for dinner. We picked up some fresh strawberries and cream, too. Someday, I will take pictures of the market and put some up, but not today.

I like my host family. They are very nice and seem like good people. I live with Juan and María Carmen Frias and their son Carlos. The house is in a nice neighborhood, but it is kind of far from school and the other students. I’ve spent a lot of time with my mother. She’s taken me around and took me to school on the combis (little taxi/van/bus). She is friendly and patient. She makes me feel welcome but also that it’s okay for me to retreat to my room when I need to. I haven’t seen Juan much because he works a lot, but he’s nice and jokes around a lot -- he says I’ll have at least two boyfriends while I’m here. But, he also has a very calm and sincere aura that puts me at ease. I was worried having an older “brother” would be awkward. He’s 28, so it’s kind of weird age difference to me because he’s not my age, but yet he is close to my age group. He reminds me of my real brother in that he is kind and cool, has a girlfriend, is bilingual, and listens to techno music.

At school yesterday, we had orientation to learn about the school and the city. We walked around downtown and saw the basilica and a lot of other old buildings. Again, someday I will put up pictures. Later in the day we had “la clase de artesanías”… arts and crafts. We painted fabric and spoke a lot of Spanglish.

*These post will probably be a day behind, just for the record, because I write them on my computer at home, save them on a flash drive, and put them on the blog at school.

Pre-Departure

To start off, here is a quote Dr. Parkyn, who teaches Mexican History and Culture, gave me at the end of the semester to keep in mind while in Mexico:

"In Mexico I first encountered the attitude that was missing from the optimistic innocence of living in the US. Such a sense doesn't force us into a closed, somber cone of depression and futility; it urges the opposite. The tragic sense opens a human being to the exuberant joys of the present. To laughter, carnality, the comical varieties of love, to music, to art, to the small human glories of the day."

- Pete Hamill

Here we go.