Oaxaca, Mexico - January 14, 2006

Hola!

Well, I am now in Oaxaca, Mexico! As some of you may know, I had a bit of trouble with my homestay here. About a month ago, the director of my program, through Portland Community College, sent out a mass e-mail with everyone's homestay information on it... except mine wasn't there. I called the director to ask what was going on, and she told me, quote, 'No worries, we'll send that information on to you shortly.'

She was never heard from again.

I called repeatedly, e-mailed, contacted everyone remotely connected to her, but - nothing. No one knew where she was. Her answering machine at home was full, and didn't accept messages, and I discovered later that other people in the program had also tried desperately to contact her, to no avail. It was as though she'd disappeared off the face of the planet. Then, Thursday morning, literally a half-hour before I left for the airport, I got a phone call from the director's assistant, letting me know that she had been able to arrange a homestay for me, and that they'd be waiting for me when I arrived. And they were. So, everything worked out okay.

My host-family consists of: Josefina (host-mom), Manuel (host-dad), Carlos (host-son), Nicho (from Dionysius - host-housekeeper), plus various other family members who all live nearby. They have three kids besides Carlos, of which one lives in the house to our right, one lives on the house to our left, and one lives across the street, a couple houses down. So, they all stop by occasionally. There's also Jesse (or as they call him here, Yesse), a student from Wisconsin, who's leaving tomorrow. Apparently they act as a host-family almost year-round: there's another student coming in a couple weeks. Anyway, they're all nice.

My first day, after arriving, I took an exam, and was placed into class 3B, the advanced Spanish class - and, what's more, the fourth week of the advanced class. All the other students in the class except one were girls from Wisconsin. The fact that the class was in the fourth week actually wasn't that much of a problem: I learned all this stuff in high school, and haven't used any since, so I need to practice it all equally - I'm not any more lost doing past-subjunctive than I would be doing por and para or ser and estar in class 1a. The only problem with being in this class was that when everyone else in my program was going to bars and such, I was writing final papers, and studying for my final exam on Friday. (I did go out to one bar - I don't know the name, but there were giant skeletons everywhere. It was kind of cool). All the Wisconsin students are leaving this weekend, and next week, I start a new class: 3B again, but this time in the second week of class (... which doesn't entirely make sense to me...)

Starting in a class that everyone else had been in for a while was more of a problem for Salsa dancing. The first day, the teacher didn't seem to realize that none of us knew what we were doing, and immediately started us doing triple-back-sombrero-flip-spiral-somersaults, or some such. Which was not fun. The next day was better, though: we got put with a teacher who was just teaching us newbies, so we actually got to start with the basic steps. I've discovered, though, that no matter how sexy it looks when other people are doing it, when you're actually dancing, it doesn't matter how pretty your partner is - salsa is not sexy at all. It's hard. And complicated. Few things are less erotic than trying to remember where to put your feet. Anyway, I'm taking it for two more weeks, so at the very least I'll be getting a good work-out.

The weather here has been beautiful. It's been sunny, in the 70's and 80's in the day (I got a pretty bad sunburn on Sunday, when I went to Monte Alban through the Instituto. Which was fun, by the way). At night, it drops down into the 30's, which apparently are the lowest temperatures on record. My host-mom wears about 4 layers of clothing in the house, and there were reports that two men froze to death. The economic effects due to livestock loss have been 'incalculable.'

Food here is very good, but they eat on the oddest schedule. Whereas at home I generally have breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and an evening snack, here I have breakfast (arround 8) and lunch (around 2). And that's all. I probably get about the same amount of food as I had at home, because the meals are so big, but I don't know whose idea it was to create a meal schedule where you have to wait 18 hours between meals every day. The meals themseves are good though. Yesterday I had: a bowl of fruit, two pieces of toast with jam, a hotcake with honey, and frijoles (kind of like crepes, with cheese and black bean sauce on them) for breakfast, then a bowl of pasta, a bowl of rice with fried bananas, and a couple burritoes for lunch.

My schedule of classes consists of Spanish class from 9-12, Conversation class from 12-1, a workshop (salsa now) from 4-6, plus an intercambio (talking with a Oaxacan student for an hour) which was 1-2 the first couple days, then 6-7 later. So, there's a couple hour break in the middle for a lunch and siesta. I live about 20 minutes away from the school, but the walk is nice. My Spanish is slowly improving, and I'm really enjoying Oaxaca. I hope you're all doing well.

Hasta luego!