El Mundo Real...

I have come to realize that in my attempts to escape the real world, that I find myself right smack in the middle of it. I wake up every morning (EARLY like 5:30 am early) and go to work and I have to budget time and money and friends. I have a pretty consistent schedule. Then I come home, eat dinner if I feel like cooking and go to bed to start it all over again. So boring right? And guess what? I work in an office! I live for the weekends. Why I wanted to leave school in four years in beyond me. I really should have stuck to the five year plan at Georgetown. Just joking....well kinda...

So I am "working" for about 12 hours a day but only getting paid for about 6 of those hours. The rest of the time is spent on the bust traveling from one office to another. Last week I picked up about twenty hours teaching business people at HP and I work at two different sights that happen to be directly across the city from where I live. Not to mention the buses just got about 3 times more crowded this week because school started back. Who would have thought that such a simple thing as kids going back to school would cause such a dramatic change in traffic. It now takes me about 20-30 longer to get where I need to go especially in the afternoons driving up my commute time to 1 hour or more. The shear number of children in this city is a bit disconcerting. I still haven't gotten used to it. But I supposed they all have to go to school right?

And let me just say: making pesos sucks. Mexico all of the sudden got a whole lot more expensive. Saving money in this country means eating peanut butter and jelly often. When my boss tod me I would be making about as much as a doctor, he forget to mention that doctors don't make any money here. I met one and she told me. LOL. BUT, I did discover the market the other day. It's really cool and so much better than the grocery stores (well I should say grocery STORE as I have only seen one kind, Super Gigante). They have all this stuff and people yell at you to come to their stands to buy fruit or meat or whatever you like. I have seen more than enough cow tongues to last me for a good long while.

What else...I went to my first capoeira class yesterday. I really liked it and was doing one handed cartwheels on the first day. The people seem really nice too and the teacher is cool. I think I am going to join the gym where it is at too. It is a little expensive but is the only place so far that I have found that has working treadmills and weights that don't smell like rusty sweat.

All in all though, I am having a blast in Mexico and if everyting didn't take 10 years to get done, I may even be able to see myself living here for a while. And aside from making pesos too.

Well send me love...I'll try to take some more pictures and put them up too.

Mexicans are funny…

Written 8/11/06

So, I was walking down the street one night about a week ago on my way to meet friends to go out when a couple stopped me and asked me for the time. I didn’t know how to tell people the time yet so I just showed them my watch. (that’s another thing I have noticed, Mexicans don’t wear watches. I can’t figure out why because someone is always selling watches somewhere. Maybe it’s just part of the general disregard for being on time.) Anyway, the next thing I know guy has me sitting on bench engaged in conversation about his girlfriend’s sexual preferences. And she was sitting right beside me! This was half in English and half in Spanish. So he goes on to ask me if I have brother because it is his girlfriend’s dream to have a black boyfriend because, as everyone knows, black men HAVE to be oh so well endowed. I was in complete shock. I mean who does that! So imagine me sitting there, in the middle of a park, on a bench between two strangers talking about sexual preferences of a man’s girlfriend right in front of her. And they were serious! I considered attempting setting them straight about stereotypes, but I was late meeting my friends and definitely couldn’t do it in Spanish. I think they wanted to go clubbing with me, but we were going to a gay club and I didn’t know how they would feel about that. Besides, after that conversation it definitely would have been weird. So I made up some excuse about having to go someplace else first blah blah blah. Crazy right? I don’t think Japan could top that. LOL

OH! So then a few days ago I was walking down the street on my way to the bank to do something for my visa. This guys walks past me turns around and walks with me and says hi, asks if I speak English. I roll my eyes and say yes. I knew this wasn’t going to be fun. So he’s talking to me, he speaks English really well but definitely like he’s from the hood somewhere in the US. Interesting right? So I entertain him for a few minutes. He tells me he’s from St. Louis and “born and raised in the hood.” OK, so far so good. So then I was like why are you here in Mexico and more importantly why are you here trying to sell me handmade bracelets. Come to find out, he got deported for having something to do with the Black Panthers (so he said). According to him the government didn’t like what he was doing. This seemed a bit far fetched since her couldn’t have been older than 30 and had told me his whole life story and how his “baby mama” was still back in the States with his baby and was getting married to some other man. So a little crazy but not that bad right? Well wait for it. So THEN, he starts telling me about how he has studied all these different religions including voodoo and Rastafarianism and then he points to this drawing of an alien on his paper and looks to the sky. He says to me, “I have been there you know. I have left this physical realm in an alien spaceship. I have seen things. I know things the government doesn’t want me to know, about their mind controlling devices and everything.” No lie, straight-faced. RUN AWAY right? Right. So he asks me for my number and I’m like HEELL NO, and start backing away slowly making sure this crazy man is not following me.

If one more person asks to touch my hair….

I think I am going to scream! I don’t know what changed lately but it seems everywhere I go, especially out at the clubs, people forever come up and ask if they can touch my hair. Sometimes people don’t even both to ask and will stand right in front of me and proceed to grab one of my locks. Others who do actually ask may take it upon themselves to rub their hands through my head. I don’t get it. And it’s not like Mexicans don’t have locs either. I have seen many with locs, or rastas as they call them. Well maybe not many people but definitely enough for it not to be some new amazing phenomenon to see someone with locs. Not sure what I am going to do about that one. I try to give people odd looks so that they may get the point that this is weird and annoying request. Saying no straight out seems a bit mean especially when I am still trying to make friends. Maybe I’ll just wear a hat.

Well, I have finally moved and settled into my house. I like it so far. I have been busy cleaning and trying to get rid of bugs and cobwebs. It seems that no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of ALL the roaches. I’ve asked everyone and no one seems to have a clue as to keep them all out of the house no matter how clean you keep it. I think I’m gonna have to buy stock in Raid. My roommates are pretty cool. The two Mexican guys, Luis and Hector, just moved in the last of their stuff yesterday. The house is pretty nice, definitely a lot cleaner than where I was before, and in a decent neighborhood that I am still trying to figure out. The only thing is that I think the furniture, tv and washing machine is about as old as the house itself. The furniture looks like some Victorian style and is about as comfortable as sitting on a cinder block. The TV is the oldest I’ve seen. I think the company made some attempt at color but only a red tint came out. The worst part is that there is no remote, so you have to actually get up to change to one of the four channels that we get. Oh and only the down channel button works. I found the washing machine too, or what they call a washing machine. Literally, it is a round, tin trashcan with an agitator. No lid. No water (you have to fill it yourself). And no Spin cycle. No one has ventured to use it yet and so was just take our laundry up the street to the laundromat.

written 8/11/06