Muy Buenos Dias a todos,
This entry I was going to write about “El Grito,” the traditional Independence Day celebration that takes place on the 15th of September every year, but as I drank some bad coffee and had a stomachache all that night and the following day, I didn’t go. Well, the stomachache and the fact that there had been a shootout between Narcos (people involved with the drug cartels) and the police the night before. That also contributed to Pako and I not going. Bush thought he started a “war on drugs,” cough total failure cough cough? Well, this is a war, that is for sure. Our night time activities are suspended for awhile, but don’t despair, I didn’t really want to see any of my students drunkenly screaming ‘Viva Mexico!’ Hearing them talk about it on Thursday was enough. Anywho, Pako and I watched the fireworks from our balcony, which was super cool and Louise would have oohed and aahed her heart out, and then we watched the parade on TV. All in all, I didn’t really get to experience the grito, but as I’m told it happens every year with some regularity, I’m not too upset.
I was excited to leave school for the weekend as I give a (mandatory, not my choice) quiz on irregular verbs to all of my classes every Friday and inevitably at least one student in each class will ask me what the quiz is about, despite a week’s worth of warm ups and practice with those specific five verbs (this week’s were: come, cost, cut, dig, do). These questions consistently give me the urge to smack someone so Friday afternoons are always somewhat triumphant as I haven’t hit anyone (thus far). At home I rested, did some grading (nerdy, I know) and Pako and I watched City of God, which is an amazing, but unpleasant account of events that took place in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Then, to pick ourselves up we went to walk Tekila in a park in Ixtapa and saw two of my students on the way to a bar. This is karma, I tell you! I never went to bars in high school (not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t get in), but I wasn’t exactly a teetotaler and now karma is repaying me in kind. Let me tell you, it is very bizarre to see your 15 year old students heading into a bar and being the only one freaked out. Tekila enjoyed his walk in the park, at least.
Then on Saturday, the family packed up and drove to Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, an industrial city about an hour and a half away from Zihua for Pako’s dad, Eliseo’s, and his two brother’s birthday celebration. Michoacan is run by La Familia, an evangelical Christian drug cartel who won’t kill you unless you get in the way of their selling drugs… yep. Anywho, the military presence on the way to Lazaro (important Mexican president after the Mexican Revolution, google him) was heavy and we were stopped and the car searched at the border of Guerrero (my state) and Michoacan, on the Guerrero side, presumably to stop drugs from entering or leaving the state. Also, saw a dead burro on the side of the road reminiscent of a deer on the side of a two way freeway in rural Wisconsin. That was sad, and odd.
The party was a dinner for about 15 people and there was pozole, tamales and carne asada as well as chips and salsa, empanadas, cacahuates japoneses (thought of you, dad!) and cake. Then there were about 17 two-liters of Coke, diet Coke, Fanta and eSprite (say it out loud and you will sound like my in-laws), copious amounts of beer and Tequila. We didn’t go hungry. There was also a time when someone pulled out a guitar and the men started singing corridos and boleros (traditional Mexican songs, google them). Then at one point, when everyone was slightly enebriated, they started chanting “sing, white girl, sing” (canta, guera, canta). So I obliged and sang them Jingle Bells. It was not embarrassing in the least…
At one point we went to pick up a cousin from a basketball final (they won by one point… the playing made me want to start my own basketball team in Zihua so we could wup everyone else’s butt… that means they were bad) and on the soccer field next to the bball court there as a mini-rodeo where they were “bailando caballos.” For you non-Spanish speakers, that means they were dancing horses. This is something I had never seen before and found quite amusing. Mariachis play and the rider makes the horse quick-step… here’s a youtube video (not of what I saw, but similar) so you can get the idea… The whole experience felt very authentic and surreal.
Sunday morning we came home early, undisturbed by the military, and I went to La Perla to watch the 2nd half of the Packers’ game… The last minute was exciting, but without the outcome I was hoping for… oh well, it’s only week 2. Keep your fingers crossed that Clifton is back next week and our offensive line can regroup. They stream a Canadian channel and it was really off-putting to watch tv broadcasts in English again, I felt slightly disoriented. Saw the owner, met his mother and talked to my favorite bartender. I’ve reserved a good table for my father and I on Superbowl Sunday. Now if only we could arrange for the Packers to also be present that day, it would be perfect!
This evening will consist of planning for one of my classes (the other 3 are already prepared) and watching a movie that didn’t make much noise in the US shockingly enough. It’s called “A Day Without Mexicans” and it is a simulation of what would happen in the US if all of the Mexicans disappeared. I’d heard it was funny, but didn’t get the chance to see it when it debuted in the States. This week I’m giving the first exam to my two high school classes… wish me luck! Wednesday and Thursday are oral exams and the written is on Friday. Should be fun. Might take off the next Friday to go with Pako and Petra to Acapulco for the weekend. Pako will finally (hopefully) get his license and papers from his school and Petra will visit her mother. I will visit the mall and compare it disparagingly to the Mall of America, which, in my extended absence, I have put on a pedestal, not to be topped by any mall, anywhere. That trip is still just a “plan,” which, in Mexico, means that it is just as likely to happen as not happen.
Ok, until next week, I’m off to laze about for a few more hours. I suggest you all do the same. Happy birthday to Karen Wright and Jen Walter who turn older on the 25th and 27th respectively. Eat some cake for me! On second thought, maybe I will buy a cake and eat it for you… I’m quickly becoming obsessed with any food that is reminiscent of what I may have eaten at some point in the past in the States. Toodleloooooooooooooooooo kids!
besos and abrazos!
This entry I was going to write about “El Grito,” the traditional Independence Day celebration that takes place on the 15th of September every year, but as I drank some bad coffee and had a stomachache all that night and the following day, I didn’t go. Well, the stomachache and the fact that there had been a shootout between Narcos (people involved with the drug cartels) and the police the night before. That also contributed to Pako and I not going. Bush thought he started a “war on drugs,” cough total failure cough cough? Well, this is a war, that is for sure. Our night time activities are suspended for awhile, but don’t despair, I didn’t really want to see any of my students drunkenly screaming ‘Viva Mexico!’ Hearing them talk about it on Thursday was enough. Anywho, Pako and I watched the fireworks from our balcony, which was super cool and Louise would have oohed and aahed her heart out, and then we watched the parade on TV. All in all, I didn’t really get to experience the grito, but as I’m told it happens every year with some regularity, I’m not too upset.
I was excited to leave school for the weekend as I give a (mandatory, not my choice) quiz on irregular verbs to all of my classes every Friday and inevitably at least one student in each class will ask me what the quiz is about, despite a week’s worth of warm ups and practice with those specific five verbs (this week’s were: come, cost, cut, dig, do). These questions consistently give me the urge to smack someone so Friday afternoons are always somewhat triumphant as I haven’t hit anyone (thus far). At home I rested, did some grading (nerdy, I know) and Pako and I watched City of God, which is an amazing, but unpleasant account of events that took place in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Then, to pick ourselves up we went to walk Tekila in a park in Ixtapa and saw two of my students on the way to a bar. This is karma, I tell you! I never went to bars in high school (not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t get in), but I wasn’t exactly a teetotaler and now karma is repaying me in kind. Let me tell you, it is very bizarre to see your 15 year old students heading into a bar and being the only one freaked out. Tekila enjoyed his walk in the park, at least.
Then on Saturday, the family packed up and drove to Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, an industrial city about an hour and a half away from Zihua for Pako’s dad, Eliseo’s, and his two brother’s birthday celebration. Michoacan is run by La Familia, an evangelical Christian drug cartel who won’t kill you unless you get in the way of their selling drugs… yep. Anywho, the military presence on the way to Lazaro (important Mexican president after the Mexican Revolution, google him) was heavy and we were stopped and the car searched at the border of Guerrero (my state) and Michoacan, on the Guerrero side, presumably to stop drugs from entering or leaving the state. Also, saw a dead burro on the side of the road reminiscent of a deer on the side of a two way freeway in rural Wisconsin. That was sad, and odd.
The party was a dinner for about 15 people and there was pozole, tamales and carne asada as well as chips and salsa, empanadas, cacahuates japoneses (thought of you, dad!) and cake. Then there were about 17 two-liters of Coke, diet Coke, Fanta and eSprite (say it out loud and you will sound like my in-laws), copious amounts of beer and Tequila. We didn’t go hungry. There was also a time when someone pulled out a guitar and the men started singing corridos and boleros (traditional Mexican songs, google them). Then at one point, when everyone was slightly enebriated, they started chanting “sing, white girl, sing” (canta, guera, canta). So I obliged and sang them Jingle Bells. It was not embarrassing in the least…
At one point we went to pick up a cousin from a basketball final (they won by one point… the playing made me want to start my own basketball team in Zihua so we could wup everyone else’s butt… that means they were bad) and on the soccer field next to the bball court there as a mini-rodeo where they were “bailando caballos.” For you non-Spanish speakers, that means they were dancing horses. This is something I had never seen before and found quite amusing. Mariachis play and the rider makes the horse quick-step… here’s a youtube video (not of what I saw, but similar) so you can get the idea… The whole experience felt very authentic and surreal.
Sunday morning we came home early, undisturbed by the military, and I went to La Perla to watch the 2nd half of the Packers’ game… The last minute was exciting, but without the outcome I was hoping for… oh well, it’s only week 2. Keep your fingers crossed that Clifton is back next week and our offensive line can regroup. They stream a Canadian channel and it was really off-putting to watch tv broadcasts in English again, I felt slightly disoriented. Saw the owner, met his mother and talked to my favorite bartender. I’ve reserved a good table for my father and I on Superbowl Sunday. Now if only we could arrange for the Packers to also be present that day, it would be perfect!
This evening will consist of planning for one of my classes (the other 3 are already prepared) and watching a movie that didn’t make much noise in the US shockingly enough. It’s called “A Day Without Mexicans” and it is a simulation of what would happen in the US if all of the Mexicans disappeared. I’d heard it was funny, but didn’t get the chance to see it when it debuted in the States. This week I’m giving the first exam to my two high school classes… wish me luck! Wednesday and Thursday are oral exams and the written is on Friday. Should be fun. Might take off the next Friday to go with Pako and Petra to Acapulco for the weekend. Pako will finally (hopefully) get his license and papers from his school and Petra will visit her mother. I will visit the mall and compare it disparagingly to the Mall of America, which, in my extended absence, I have put on a pedestal, not to be topped by any mall, anywhere. That trip is still just a “plan,” which, in Mexico, means that it is just as likely to happen as not happen.
Ok, until next week, I’m off to laze about for a few more hours. I suggest you all do the same. Happy birthday to Karen Wright and Jen Walter who turn older on the 25th and 27th respectively. Eat some cake for me! On second thought, maybe I will buy a cake and eat it for you… I’m quickly becoming obsessed with any food that is reminiscent of what I may have eaten at some point in the past in the States. Toodleloooooooooooooooooo kids!
besos and abrazos!
Leyah
PS. Here's me making a tortilla by hand... look at me learning how to be a Mexican housewife!
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