Hola!Last weekend, I went to a benefit concert for scholarships for local and indigenous women. It featured Celso Piña, 'the rogue accordionist,' who was very fun, Latin Grammy-winner Lila Downs, who had one of the most versatile voices I've ever heard, the Oaxaca orchestra, and Eugenia León, who was by far my favorite. The other singers had fancy lights, and cool images on the video projectors, but Leòn's portion was almost completely bare - and blew the other ones away. I've never heard such a powerful voice. Not bad for a five dollar concert.
I went on another excursion with my school on Sunday, to Mitla (another archaelogical ruin,
which was smaller than Monte Albàn, but let people walk into the tombs), Tlacalula (a huge marketplace, featuring everything from CDs and tupperware to squealing pigs in sacks), and Tule (a big tree). Our guide at Tule was a little kid, somewhere halfway between cute and annoying. He had a little mirror to point out features in the bark of the tree, and would exclaim 'Three wise men! DO YOU SEEEEE??? Horse saddle! DO YOU SEEEEE??? This way!' and so on, for the Virgin of Guadelupe, a horse head, an elephant, Monica Lewinsky's butt (seriously), and so forth, until 'FINISHED!'Manzana Lift is brilliant. Why don't they sell apple soda in the United States?
Hacky sack is fun.
There was a manifestation today, passing in front of our school. There were thousands of people, filling the entire street, waving signs with pictures of Che, and shouting slogans against the government, and for socialist revolution. I later discovered that the protest was against their tests, which they don't think are fair.
In the magazine stand next to our school, besides hundreds of magazines and newspapers on every subject imaginable, and a few dozen pirated DVDs hanging from the ceiling, they've also got an enormous three-volume set with Proust, Dickens, and the complete works of Kafka, in a bag threatening to pull down the roof. There are no other books in the store.
Why do the gas trucks moo?
This country doesn't make sense, dammit!
My new intercambio this week has a facial twitch, and says they're going to conquer us. I've also got a new student in my house, from Linfield (Oregon). He arrived last Sunday, and immediately began speaking perfect Spanish, carrying on a longer conversation with my family than I've had since I got here. Apparently his mom's Spanish - he just came to work on his grammar.
This weekend, I went to the beach, at Puerto Escondido (which is why this e-mail's a bit late), with 6 of the other Portland students. I hadn't been planning to go, but I changed my mind at the last minute, ran home from school, threw some stuff in my backpack, and got my host-sister to give me a ride to the bus station. I bought tickets on the first bus I found, leaving at 2:15 - which fortunately turned out to be right one, even though the other students in my program got on at a later stop. It started a bit late (like everything in Mexico), then, after a 'six hour' (nine hour) drive, we arrived at the beach around 11:45, where we spent another half-hour finding and checking in at a hotel, then waiting for the other people to arrive (by van), which they did around 12:45. At which point, it seemed like a good time to go to bed, and get a good night's sleep before spending the next day enjoying the beach.
Um, apparently I'm not normal. When Shateala said, after arriving 'Well, I'm ready for bed,' my heart gave a little leap. 'Really?' Irene asked. Shateala laughed 'No! I want to go out and party all night!' So we did. All. Night. Til 8 in the morning. The next night we went to bed a bit earlier, but I still only got about ten hours of sleep over three nights. Grrr...
The beach was fun though. It had amazingly warm water and some of the best waves I've ever
seen, plus it was so shallow that we could walk all the way out to where the waves began. And, because of the pecularities in the beach's topography, the waves would bounce back, and collide somewhere in the middle, making for an extremely fun ride. I rented a boogie board, by far the best two bucks I've spent since arriving in the country - I could have done that all day. But I didn't. Because I was too busy laying in bed, exhausted, all morning. Grrr...The beach wasn't crowded or built up like Cozumel or Cancun, but there were lots of gringoes there (including a bunch from the Instituto in Oaxaca), and the signs and menus were all in English and Spanish. I got a Grand Slam (à la Denny's) at one of the restaurants. They also had very good pizza down the road. I got a slice of one that had potatoes as topping, which turned out to not actually work very well, so I took them off and ate them on the side as french fries, with ketchup. Likewise, Coco Locos (drinks inside a coconut) sound like a clever idea, but has the small drawback that I apparently don't like coconut milk much.
The first night we stayed in a cabaña on the beach (Hotel Rockaway), but they cancelled our reservations for the next night (inexplicably. Gosh, I wonder if the loud music we were playing until 6 in the morning might have had something to do with that! You think???) The second night we stayed at a normal hotel (Papaya Surf), also on the beachfront, whose owners and kids all spoke italian. The hammocks were more comfortable at the first place, and the first also mosquito nets over the beds, but the second had lots of hummingbirds in the garden, and a bathroom with a door. Both had very friendly cats.
We ended out leaving around 10, Sunday night ('We can go to La Divina [bar next to Santo Domingo] when we get in!' exclaimed Amber). But, I ended out being the only one of us who took the bus. At the van rental place where we went, they said that they only had room for five, and I gallantly offered to be the one who took the bus. A gallantry that I rapidly began to regret (especially the next day, when I learned that another space had opened up on the van). I asked one person where the bus station was, and they told me 'Six blocks.' As it turns out, though, Mexican space, like Mexican time, is somewhat different than that in the United States. Six blocks later, I asked someone else. 'Six or eight blocks,' they told me. A couple blocks later, I asked someone else. 'Ten blocks, and then the curves. That's in a bad area, though...' So, I ended out getting a taxi (and discovered that it was quite a bit more than ten blocks).
The real trouble, though, was the bus. Because I'd packed in a hurry, and had heard that Puerto Escondido was very warm (which it was), I hadn't brought a warmer change of clothes, just shorts and a t-shirt, figuring that I could use my towel as a blanket. Which worked fine when it was dry. Unfortunately, on the way back, after swimming, the towel was slightly less useful, after it froze to my legs. Well, okay, it wasn't THAT cold. But it was close. I tried to lean against my neighbor for warmth, but after she left, I had to just tuck my legs inside my t-shirt in a fetal position, and wait until dawn. Fortunately, it was a slightly shorter trip on the way back (7 hours), and I managed to get home by 6, to catch a few hours of sleep before school. I'm still tired though. Oh well, it was still fun. Even though I'm sunburned. And covered with bug bites. And, judging by the other students in my program, have extremely bizarre ideas about proper sleep schedules. Grrr... I hope you're all doing well.
Hasta luego,
Nathan
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