Nothing has really happened here lately. We go to school or volunteer in the morning, go home for lunch, go back to school in the afternoon, come home and do insane amounts of busy work (I feel like I'm in high school again or at the very least back at Stout), and then pass out fairly early. If I am still awake at 10, especially on a no-nap day, it is an accomplishment! We also haven't gone anywhere or really been able to do anything so it has kept the excitement at a minimum. I understand that we need to have class so much, but I really feels like we have no time to be able to immerse ourselves and be able to experience the culture, which is supposed to be a large part of this experience.
I am more or less enjoying my classes (though I kind of wish I would have stuck with my original plan of only one class instead of two). We've watched a lot of really interesting films in my Film and Literature class. They have pretty much all been war movies, although last week we watched a really trippy one called "Pedro Paramo". If you can find it with English subtitles I highly recommend it. I'm starting to see the "mexican culture" in a different way due to my Zapatista class. I feel like it is bullshit at times, but our professor has been able to relate even the most obscure things back to Emiliano Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. For example, very few people wear seat belts here and on construction sites safety equipment (hard hats, gloves, etc) are rarely seen. According to him it relates back to the lack of fear of death and machismo from the Revolution. I can see it, but it feels like it's pushing it a little bit. Still a super interesting class.
The first few days of meeting with my intercambio she asked me about things that I thought were maybe more expensive or cheaper here versus in the U.S. For almost everything I said it was cheaper here, mostly with the exception of some clothing and shoes. I'm quickly starting to see how wrong I was. I went last weekend shopping and bought a pair of super nice dressy sandals for less than $50. I'm guessing that the equivalent in the U.S. would be around $70-80. Not a huge difference but still, I bought them from what I imagine is an over-priced boutique. It's funny because the other girls who are here would never even think about spending that much money on a pair of shoes. At the market some of the other girls bargain and try to get things down a bit, which I understand and appreciate as an art, but I don't have the heart to do it. The second time I was trying I realized that trying to get the vendor down from $180 pesos to $150 pesos was really only $14 down to $12. For me, not a huge difference, for many of them it's gigantic.
The biggest thing I've seen a HUGE difference in is phone costs. Not the cost of the phone itself, but the price of texting and calling. Texting is extremely cheap. A local text is about 15 cents. Not that much cheaper than in the U.S. but it's by far the cheapest way (outside of good of Facebook chat) to communicate. Everyone does it and I'm starting to believe that people rarely call each other unless on land lines. Cell phone calls on the other hand are crazy. The first time I called Freddy it was late at night. 20 minutes was 60 pesos, about 24 cents a minute... comparable to me calling Freddy internationally from the U.S. Wednesday was a day of misfortune. I attempted putting more money on my phone. I'm not sure what happened but the scary lady at the Super Das was working and I'm fairly certain she typed my number in just one number wrong, but read it back correctly because the money never got put on my phone. I was out my last 50 pesos. Not only did that mean I'd have to go to the ATM the next day (a huge pain because they're all at least 2 blocks completely out of my way) but it also meant that I was running low on money on my phone. I called Freddy and after 10 minutes of talking we got cut off. I went through 80 pesos in 10 minutes!!! That's basically the equivalent of a domestic, albeit long distance, call costing 63 cents a minute! Pretty crazy! It was earlier in the night, so still probably peak hours, but still. I couldn't believe it. Luckily when I went on Friday to add money back to my phone (I literally couldn't text or call ANYONE) I put enough on that they gave me 60 pesos for free, so I got back what the bitch didn't give me.
I've still been too busy to read up on any election stuff. I'd really like to know more about the three main candidates, but I've had no time. I did find out however that the last elections were in 2006, when the last teacher's strike was outrageous. Schools were literally completely closed for 9 months and when they opened back up, the students still had to go forward and were expected to know what they were never taught. Apparently one of the current candidates won, but suddenly a bunch of ballot boxes went missing, there was a recount, and the current Governor ended up winning. He was not the teacher's candidate so the strike just got worse. Also the strike is not really up to the teachers at all. The government pays the sindicato which is more or less a union, but it seems like me like it has more power over it's members than they do in the U.S. Then the sindacto pays the teachers their wages. These teachers get paid based on a points system and they earn more points not from how long they've been teaching, but by how active they are in the sindicato and the strikes. This only encourages them to not have class because they are getting paid MORE to not teach! June 14, 2006 there was a big police vs teachers clash that I guess was very violent. The teachers threw large rocks at police and blockaded roads with giant parking meters (imagine the big machines in parking garages where you can pay for your parking before returning to your car). My intercambio said that in all her years of school they were always closed for at least a week around this time, if not for months. Monday was the anniversary of the violence. There was a large march and the sindicato said that if things weren't resolved after Monday, schools would close indefinitely. Monday there was no school, but magically on Tuesday I had no hot water when I went to shower and realized that there was in fact school. The sindicato is being smart this year and rather than straight up closing, they are rotating their teachers through their strike days. During the last elections they lost a lot of would be support because parents were mad that their children weren't getting their education. This way the schools are staying at least partially open (I believe I heard a minimum of 30%) and the parents aren't getting pissed.
VIVA MEXICO!!!! In case you haven't heard, Mexico beat France for the first time in the history of EVER in their World Cup game on Thursday. It was super exciting to watch. They will now have to beat Uruguay on Tuesday to go onto the next round. The excitement around winning was awesome. I had to leave for class shortly after the game ended and the amount of Mexico pride was crazy. Cars were all honking the same rhythm and many people were driving around just to honk, wave their Mexico flags, and show off their green, white and red. It continued for hours after the end of the game.
Team USA is another story. They did tie, so that's cool. We didn't get to watch the game though. We always have class on Friday mornings. The only reason we got to watch the Mexico game the week before was because they are showing the Mexico games at the Institute--so we could watch and then just move to the classroom quickly when it was time. There was no way to work both class and the game in. Hopefully I'll be able to watch the next one, which they also have to win to be able to move on.
Last night was possibly one of the best nights of my life to date. First of all my intercambio, Zuly, invited us to a fashion show that was happening in the plaza of Santo Domingo. Her cousin was one of the student designers. The pieces were all beautiful and I was super impressed. They definitely blew anything I saw and have seen in photos at Stout out of the water. Afterwards we met up with Zuly and her cousin. I guess on Thursday her model backed out and she was scrambling to find someone. Zuly suggested me but she 1.) hadn't seen the dress and had no clue if it would fit me, though she said it would have and if not they would have made it fit and 2.) she didn't think I would want to do it. So basically I could have been a model in Mexico. She did invite me to go try on the dress and take some pictures in it this week (and possibly some of the other dresses if the other designers would agree). Her dress also just happens to be one of my favorite ones from the show. Super cool.
We hung out at Santo Domingo for quite awhile. It was really interesting because there was a lot of partying going down. At the end of the University school year it is customary for the graduating generacion to march from their school with their band and other things to Santo Domingo to drink and party all night. They generally leave their school at about 3 in the afternoon and party all night. By 10 last night there were few still standing. It was pretty interesting to watch with lots of random fireworks. We ended up back down at Santo Domingo around 3 am and it was very sad to see the destruction they left behind. One of the really pretty bars had graffiti all over the outside of it. Beer bottles everywhere. It was insane. But this is how it is in Oaxaca. I'm sure that by tomorrow afternoon, if not right now, the walls have been repainted and it's no big deal.
Our dance teacher, Saulo, offered to take us out to practice what we had learned. We were going to go to a salsa club called Candela but when he called his friends to see if they wanted to join us he found they were all preparing for a show that night. We ended up going to the show. It was at this very interesting place called La Mata. It was very pioneer themed, which we later found out is because it's generally a bandera and tejana bar. They had videos of quebradita playing all night, which was super cool to watch because it's freaking insane. If you don't know what it is, youtube it. You will be amazed. Last night they had salsa night because of this show. It was basically a bunch of dancers, all of whom our teacher is friends with, from local dance studios. We thought it was going to be a competition, but it was more or less like 10 exhibition performances. These dancers were pretty amazing.
After the show Saulo told all of his friends to dance with us, so we got to dance with these amazing dancers all night. Many of them kept saying that they were really impressed with how good I was, but I thought they were just being nice. At one point one of the guys told me that Saulo told him that I was a perfect dancer and that I really knew what I was doing. I really thought nothing of it, until I realized that I was the one getting to dance with the professionals the most, and everyone else was still dancing with Saulo (granted, he used to compete and is super good, but he knows how much we know already). It was a ton of fun and I was really impressed with myself. The first time I danced, I was terrifed--and slightly drunk. I was worried about looking stupid next to all these people who looked awesome. After about 10 minutes I decided screw it, I know 5 people in this place, and just had fun. I woke up this morning still with a smile, even though I was crabby that I barely got any sleep. Even though I'm exhausted today and just want to sleep, I'd go dancing again, right now.
There is a guy from Seattle living here now. He's really nice, 28, and works for Boeing (they paid for his masters degree, are paying for him to be here for a month, and are then paying him to go to Turkey for 8 months to learn Turkish). Anyways, he's nice but Grandma Bev, don't go getting your hopes up that he's a new man in my life. This morning at breakfast he was extremely surprised that I don't play basketball because apparently I'm tall. I was just really surprised by this because I always feel like such a shorty. By Mexico terms, ok yes, I am practically a giant. So take that all you people, ie Jess and Leah, who pick on me for being short!
Sorry for the novel, I didn't expect it to end up being this long at all. It may be awhile before I get a chance to post again. Next weekend is our vacation and we have lots to get done before it. We'll be taking an overnight bus for 10.5 hours to Puerto Escondido leaving late Thursday night. We'll be taking an overnight bus back Sunday night, most likely. Headed to go buy the tickets now. Very excited to spend a few days at the beach and possibly learn or at least attempt to learn how to surf! :)
Ciao!
I'll have you know, you goose, that I have never called you short...I always think you are the same height as me, you are always the one who yells at me and tells me you are shorter than I am...
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