Another week down, one more to go! In 7 days, I will be landing in Chicago and sleeping in some suburb of Milwaukee that I think starts with an H, but the name is escaping me at the moment. It may come to me in a bit, in which case, there will be a random town name later in the post. !!!! I'm pretty excited! Slash pretty. I'm all out excited! I'm super pumped to see everyone and to hang out and catch up and all that! Plus the food! Plus, for 3 weeks or so, I get to sleep in MY bed! That being said, next Sunday there will not be a blog, unless for some awesome reason there is free internet in the Mexico City airport where I will be hanging out for 3 hours or so...
Just got home from watching Pako and Tito play with the Sol team against the Santorini water guys. You know, the ones who yell "Santo - RINIIIIIIIIIIIIII" outside my window all the time. Yeah, those guys. Turns out, those guys are pretty good at soccer and they beat Sol 3-0. Pako pulled his hamstring (only slightly), so he didn't play all of the second half of the game. I was going to take a picture of him playing, but then I forgot. Oops. Maybe next time.
*DISCLAIMER: the next paragraph is all about World Cup Soccer, non - sports fans, please skip ahead*
Soccer is pretty much on everyone's mind all the time here in Zihua. The World Cup has started and Mexico played South Africa in the first game. They tied 1-1. Mexico
has never won an inaugural game, so we'll take the tie. The really good news is that the other two teams in our group, France and Uruguay, played the same day and also tied. That leaves all of us with 1 point. On Thursday, Mexico plays France and then the following Tuesday (which I shall watch with my father, whether he knows it yet or not) they play Uruguay. The two teams from the 4-team group with the most points (3 for a win, 1 each for a tie, 0 for a loss) advances to the next round. France is pretty good. They lost to Italy in the championship game of the last world cup. Uruguay isn't a team to ignore either. It'll be tough for Mexico to advance, but I think they will (at least until the next round, then the groups change and I will reevaluate my stance). In other soccer news, the US played England, a favorite for winning the Cup, yesterday and they also tied, 1-1. The US got super lucky as the English goalie totally boffed an easy save to tie the game.**Soccer talk is over, except to mention that I am only a soccer fan until REAL football starts again **
This last week at school I took my high school kids to El Refugio de Potosi on a field trip. Despite the fact that the ghetto-fabulous micro (bus) showed up 45 minutes late and looked as if it was likely to breakdown on the freeway, we had a great time! Anybody who ever visits me in Zihua will go to the Refugio with me because I think that A. it is a super cool place with really cool animals, B. the purpose (conservation/education) is a really important one and C. Laurel, the director, is a friend of the family (me, Pako, Petra, etc. + the Las Urracas fam) and I like to support her however I can. The students had a really good time. They got to hold a baby porcupine, a baby opossum, 2 parrots and a snake! Then we split them into two groups and they took the tour where the saw 2 owls, Military Macaws, Butterflies, Tejones, Hawks, a Toucanette, a Jaguarundi, lots of Iguanas and more! I was pleased with my students' behavior and I was really happy the field trip finally came to fruition even though it was literally the last day that I had classes with those kids so we couldn't do any real follow up activities (Good thing I planned ahead and did PRE-trip activities! Teacher score!).
Saturday, early afternoon, it FINALLY rained! There was some pretty nice thunder and then it rained steadily for about 2 hours. No flooding (nothing worth mentioning anyhow), the rain was just enough to get everything wet. We really need it here because we're supposedly a month into the rainy season and not one tiny little droplet had fallen before yesterday. It cooled down the air for all of 5 minutes and then the heat and humidity returned. Today the sky is bright blue with a couple teeny little fake clouds spread out, but it doesn't look like any rain is in the forecast for today. The water situation here is getting dire, many rivers and wells are all dried up. To top it all off, CAPAZ, the water company is on strike because 20 workers who had been there for 20+ years were laid off and not given their due severance. That is a huge NO-NO here in Mexico where labor unions are very powerful. Lorena and Tito, who's water only shows up every 3 days on a good week, hadn't had water in about 9 days so they had to buy a private pipe of water. We had 2 days without water (which always makes me cranky) last weekend and AGAIN today is our 2nd full day with no water. The crankiness is multiplying in direct proportion with the length of time without running water (or some other mathematical-ish sounding equation).
*For those of you who, like me when I first moved here, have no idea what the hashish I am talking about, this is how things work here: Lorena and Tito live on a private piece of land (not a public housing project, like the Infonavit, where Pako and I live). It is then their responsibility to connect plumbing so that they have running water. This means having large cisterns high up somewhere so that gravity does it's thing and there is running water. It's their job, also, to re-fill the cisterns with a hose connected to a faucet on their property, every so often that the water shows up. If the water shows up at 7am, up you get and make sure you're filling all available buckets with water and washing your clothes while there is extra water for the washing machine. If the water shows up at 11:30pm (more often then not), same deal. It's a crazy system. At the Info, we've been luckier and basically there is a ginormous underground holding tank that the city fills with water. Each building has a pump that pushes the water upward and fills the cisterns on the top of each building. Then, again, that magical wonder, gravity, does it's thing. Since CAPAZ is all a-tizzy right now, the ginormous underground holding tank appears to be dry. Boo. Boo BOOO BOOOOOOO. And UGH.
Ok kids, here are some photos from this week. Until next week: GO MEXICO!!! (and the US, except that I don't actually care if they move on or not, but it would still be cool if they did)!
Next blog: the Mexico City Airport and it's crappy PA system OR Reflections from somewheres in Wisconsin!
XOXOXO,
Leyah
First Row: L-R
1. 11th graders going up the tower to check out the vistas.
2. Alondra hanging out with the baby Porcupine (Puerco Espin) named Edwarda aka Lala.
3. Chantal, Melissa, Elizabeth holding parrots (11th grade).
2nd Row: L-R
1. Marilyn, all set to cheer for Mexico. AFTER she finishes her English final, that is.
2. All of 6th grade taking their English final. Kenia is in the front with the Mexico headband. She's not what you would call a rabid fan, but she'll take any exam not to wear her uniform. Marilyn is in the middle, look for the funky wig. She didn't want to take it off for the exam, she thought maybe it would bring her and Mexico good luck.
3rd Row:Pales of water, just in case your water supply runs out... LIKE RIGHT NOW. Also, the washing machine is full of water and some other random bowl shaped objects. *SIGH*
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