Final Day in Puebla

What better way to end my stay in Puebla than dinner and a bull fight.  I was not to keen on the idea of watching possibly several bulls be killed with a sword, but my host mom recommends going.  Yesterday was my last day of school and tomorrow morning I will be flying out of Puebla at 7am straight to Houston where my friend Azalea will be picking me up so I can spend a few days with her and her family.  Super excited for that.  Azalea is my only friend who I will be able to practice Spanish with, but too bad she lives in Texas.  I am not excited about flying within the States.  I told my brother I was considering renting a car to drive back to Idaho which I swore I would never drive to or from Texas again, but I am a chicken.  I will just have to have a beer and a dramamine before boarding.  I am not totally sad about leaving Puebla now because my aunt found a school downtown that I checked out the other day so I am confident I will return to Puebla this year for 3 weeks.  I hope to return a few times so I can finish my Spanish here instead of the States.  At home I know I will learn Spanish grammar, but not speak great so it's pretty much common sense to return plus I love it here.  I know many of you at home think it is not common sense to return to Mexico, but I can assure you Puebla is a great, safe city.  If you have other opinions please keep them to yourself, I am not willing to listen. :). Thank you!

I am not sure if the elevation here in Puebla has started to affect my brain, but I have decided to return next semester to finish my Spanish. I told my advisor here he had to finish the mess he has started. A year ago I had no intentions on learning Spanish, but now I am determined to learn it as well as I can. I know if I were to accept the social work program now I would never have the opportunity like I have now to study abroad. This week here has been hell. On Tuesday I had 100% decided coming back to Puebla was what I was going to do. Then on Wednesday my professor slaughtered my awesome composition and my homework was wrong for the rest of the week. I had by Friday to let BSU know if I would start the program in the fall. I had other issues like trying to send my accountant a scan of my signature to get my taxes done and getting the right info to the insurance lady. I thought why the hell would I return here?  Thrusday night I sent my thank you for accepting me, but... to BSU and thought Friday would have to be better, but I still wanted to just crawl into bed.  My little buddies from class who have crept their way into my heart made me an early Easter basket to help me feel better. Kara suggested I write down my pros and cons. I knew I wanted to return, but I feel sort of guilty leaving my family for another 4 months and above all, my poor kitty, Sissy.  Thankfully I have my awesome sisters who take care of me. Nickole has kept Sissy and my crap in her house, Kelli  has taken care of my finances and such while I am gone and Sarah answers all my grammar questions.
Obviously I am content being in Puebla otherwise I wouldn't consider returning. With my luck I will be placed in another level of Spanish that I am not ready for, but all the headaches will be worth it in the end. I will be home May16th-Aug 20something. By home I mean Boise where hopefully I will find a job ASAP. My personal assistant tells me I need to work.

I have started volunteering at the orphanage which is going better than I expected. Today I went to cut a few kids hair and it took me awhile to get passed through the gate because the lady who knew I was coming was not working and did not leave a note so they had to call her before passing me through. Finally I get in and I explained to them that I didn't have trimmers because they are too expensive so I could cut girls hair. They bring me 5 boys which is fine, but lets face it, Mexican boys have lots of hair and I felt awful I couldn't clean up their necklines and sideburns. I think I may have met the mean lady that I have heard about. When she was not around yelling at them, the kids were laughing and talking and then she would come around the corner and yell then their cute little faces turned to solemon, sad faces. She stood there and watched me for awhile, occasionally beating on the window pane at the kids who were playing in the next room. She reminded me of the ladies you see on movies in orphanages. She started asking me questions in Spanish and made me so nervous I forgot how to pronounce estudiante. Finally she left so me and the boys who were left could go back to having a good ol' time.
I had bus troubles again this week. I had worked at the orphanage then stopped at Office Max because I was determined to find the type of battery I need for my camera. By the way, batteries are not universal. My sister had to send me some so I didn't have to buy a new camera. Anyways, it was getting too dark to walk home so I hopped on bus 34. It went the wrong direction, but I thought maybe it was going a different way on the loop. As we kept going I started getting a little nervous so I asked the kid next to me if we were going to 11 sur. He said no and asked where I lived so I showed him my address card because I still suck at my Spanish numbers. He stood up, grabbed my arm and stopped the bus. Apparently I was headed back to the ghetto where I ended up a week or so ago. The nice kid took me across the street and back onto a bus to my house. He even walked me to my door. With my awful Spanish I found out he worked at the pharmacy in Walmart and had friends that lived in my neighborhood. I felt awful because I didn't have a small enough bill to pay for both of us on the bus so all I had to give him was a piece of gum. I was told you could not give the bus driver anything over 50 pesos. He wrote me a note in Spanish and told me to translate it. His note said it was a pleasure meeting me and his home as open to me anytime I needed something. He left me his home address and email. Nice kid. I think he potentially saved my life.
I found out in sociology class last week that when a girl goes to the movies alone it is because she is "looking" to get something. Girls travel in packs here so I guess I am a theater slut now since I go to the movies once or twice a week. Whoops.

Last weekend I went with a friend to a small town called Cuetzalan close to where some indigenious people live. Cuetzalan is up in a mountain which made me a little carsick especially coming home. I made it most of the way down the mountain before having to throw up. I did discover that Mexican toliets don't smell like American toliets. It seems like at home when you have to throw up everyone's toliet smell the same. Sort of gross, but anyways I am going back the end of this month with Bryce to do the tourists thing.
I am currently tutor shopping. Most things in class are going right over my head and I am going to be disappointed if I am not at least speaking some before going home. I get 2 hours of tutoring a week from my instructor and Bryce has offered to help me out. I am going to get as much help as possible.
Yesterday was my first day volunteering at the orphange close to campus. I went with another student who works with the babies since I can't speak with kids. Time went by very fast and it was fun. They had 8-9 babies lined up strapped in carseat sort of things and I just spent my time attending them. Next Sunday I am going to help out with haircuts.
The weather is great here. I have to put on sunscreen everyday now. I heard about the snow in Twin. Sorry guys, that really sucks.

First short trip out of Puebla

Call me lame, but I just had my first trip out of Puebla on Sunday with some American friends and other Mexican students. We traveled about an hour and a half to a volcano called Malinche and climbed up it which took 3 hours or something like that. As you can imagine I am a bit sore even with all the walking I do on a daily basis in Puebla, it was quite the workout. There was a couple spots that we were climbing up on our hands and knees.  It was a great experience and a good day out. This coming weekend I am supposed to travel with our group to Mexico City, but I may go with my "communication partner" to that small town he has invited me to twice, but we still haven't made it there. Erick is a little inconsistent, but I was told that is typical of Mexicans.  Either way I will be having fun times outside of Puebla.
Mexicans are some of the cleaniest people I have ever seen. Several times I have seen people mopping their cement sidewalks outside their businesses.  My host mom has a maid who comes twice a week to help clean the house.  Our school has three levels with classroom after classroom and everyday janitors are sweeping the floors in the hallways and classrooms, wiping down the metal banisters, and today I saw a lady wiping down the outside of the doors.  Our bathrooms get cleaned every two hours, but keep in mind we aren't supposed to flush our toliet paper down so they should be cleaned often.  At home we have scented toliet paper, but I am not sure why because we flush our paper down. I am not sure if it's a luxury thing, but the scent sort of drives me crazy.
Fridays are now my movie day.  It just costs around $4 to go and it helps me to hear English, but read it in Spanish.  I rarely go to the movies at home, but it's now my new tradition in Puebla.

I have experienced my first sickness in Puebla, but it wouldn't be the sickness you would expect in Mexico just a fever. I stayed home for a day and a half and slept tons. I don't know if it really helps or it many of our moms have just put in our heads that 7up and crackers help you feel better. I walked to the small corner store at the end of my block to pick some up and chatted with my new friend who owns the store. He has told me in Spanish that he does not like English only Spanish. He rambles to me in Spanish and I just catch a word here and there. He usually asks me about school. Today he had American oldies playing so I asked him por que ingles musica? Tu no gustan ingles. He said some English music was okay. He tolerates me and shakes his head when I hand him too much money. I don't fully have the whole numbers thing down yet. He is fun to practice my malo espanol with though.
 I was a sucker for the kids today down at the Zocalo. I gave a boy 5 pesos for some religious card and paid 100 pesos to a girl who was selling purses at the market. She was a good sales gal and I will probably buy from her again. I met a couple at the market that make a lot of Mexican clothes, animals, etc. out of natural wools and other material. They spoke some English and have suckered me into buying from them too. I also got my foot measured for some moccasions that some Indians make at the market. We communicated okay, he was patient with me. So in all, today was a spendy day at the market. I don't talk them down because I speak crappy Spanish and everything is so much cheaper than home so I might as well give the full amount to help them out.
My host mother told me I was starting to speak more Spanish. Our dinners are lasting a lot longer because she wants to know about my family and it's now easier for her to understand what I am telling her. Or trying to tell her. It is hard to know what tense to use verbs in so she is constantly correcting me.  I have started to carry a small notebook around so I can write words and phrases down. I don't have a social life here, but I feel like I need to study more.
Fun facts about Mexico: around 30ish years ago they adopted Christmas which they call Nochebuena. Some kids are raised to believe in Santa and others are raised to have the traditional what we would call Christmas, but to them is Kings Day on Jan.6. They have Halloween now too.  Girls don't use tampons because it has something to do with the viginity thing so tampons can be hard to come by in the stores here. I don't remember if I mentioned houses don't have heating or a/c here. It's illegal to have an abortion in Puebla, but not Mexico City. Flipping people off it majorly offense. You should raise your elbow or this other hand gesture. And guys are just raised to whistle and mock women here. It starts for these poor girls when they hit puberty, but it is just a way of life here in Mexico.

movin on to second month

I was going to go with Erick to the small town they are starting a project at this weekend, but the trip was moved to next week. He introduced me to his cousin, Angie, and invited me to this family's house for lunch on Saturday. They are super nice and helpful. I probably don't speak enough Spanish with them, but I am not sure how to speak Spanish when I am still learning the grammar. New words are coming to me daily and I am reading Spanish a lot better so it's coming along I suppose. I am not sure how people go somewhere for six weeks and learn a language unless they already were speaking it before. I thought I needed to start studying Spanish more, but then I realized a huge percentage of my time is Spanish. Oh well, it will come. My two hours of weekly tutoring is going great. I told my instructor maybe it was time for me to learn the Spanish alphabet and days of the week. The alphabet will be super helpful because I was sounding out the words in English then that pronouncation gets stuck in my head and it's hard for me to remember the right way to pronounce it once I am corrected.
 The girls from my class and I finally found a restaurant with chips and salsa today. Every other restaurant brings you bread and salsa. I try to eat new food everytime I eat out with the exception of our awesome taco place. Whenever the waiter asks me if I want an English menu I tell them no, I don't want to be able to know what I am eating otherwise I wouldn't be trying new foods.
I bought some used childrens books from some sort of yard sale I walked by this last weekend. The lady asked me if I had ninos and I told her no that I was learning Spanish so the childrens libros were for me. She laughed. We spoke in Spanish and she seemed to understand me which always is exciting even though it's small communication. I also got my messenger bag fixed and returned an alarm clock successfully by myself all completed with my broken Spanish. Sometimes speaking Spanish is intimating depending on who I am talking to, but I do need to speak it more.
I am grateful to be here and am very content and happy.

I thought I was becoming a professional Mexican pedestrian, but then I almost got creamed by a bus on my way to school the other day. Pedestrians have no rights here. My sociology teacher said if someone hits you they may just keep driving. Mexico definitely has Las Vegas beat with wild drivers. Puebla also has shopping that is quite comparable to Vegas which I would never think would be in Mexico. Not all of Mexico is suffering financially like we think, Puebla is a pretty wealthy city.

Today I met my "communication" partner my advisor hooked me up with. His name is Erick and he traveled to Italy for a semester without speaking any Italian so Ignacio, my advisor, felt like we would connect. We spoke English at first and then Erick spoke Spanish to me and I had no idea what he was saying. He was easy to have a conversation with so I think we will get along well. He has a friend who is setting up some company that is helping a local village produce syrup for coffee so he thought  I would be interested in tagging along when they go to the village with my degree being social work so I am excited about that.

The two girls in my class and I found a taco place down the street from our school. Normally at home if I saw a place like it I would not eat there, but their tacos are awesome and only 15 pesos. I am not sure why, but food is really cheap in Puebla. We have eaten there twice a week the last few weeks. Our tradition now is to eat there after we have a test. Today was our first final and a week ago was our first test. Moving quite along to Intermediate Spanish II.

My life in Puebla

It has been brought to my attention several times that I need to blog since I don't write much about Puebla on my facebook so here we are. I have been in Puebla three weeks tomorrow. The first week went by slow, but the last two weeks have flown. It makes me a little worried that I won't speak as good of Spanish as I would have hoped if the time keeps going so quickly. I live with a husband and wife who are retired. They have a son and two daughters with several grandchildren who all live in Puebla. My host mother is a great cook and very patient with my not so great Spanish. I walk 1.6 miles one way which takes me 30 minutes. It is an interesting walk as you might see from my pictures, but it makes me laugh every morning. I would have never thought I would be doing something like this. I have already lost an inch off my waist, but I compensate for it by having a pastery on a very regular basis from the pastery shops which are everywhere in Puebla. I have never walked so much in my life, but since the weather is nice it doesn't bother me. The occasional blisters are a pain since I haven't found the perfect walking shoe yet, but I will survive. I have Spanish Monday-Friday from 9-12 and since I am so special I get an addtional 2 hours a week in tutoring. Yes, I am a special ed. or resource student whatever you want to call it. I signed up for elementary Spanish which we have decided doesn't really exist so I am in an intermediate Spanish class with two other girls. They are very helpful at translating between me and our instructor. School is great and Puebla is a beautiful, safe city regardless of what most Americans are lead to believe. Be sure to check out my pictures.