It's that time again my friends

Today was our third day in Guanjuato and our second day of classes in general, and it was much like the terrain here: up a lot and every once in a while, way down. But also like the terrain, you cannot go down without going up again. It's impossible.



Right now, I'm sitting here in the dark on my bed while glancing up every so often to catch a glimpse of the movie which I can hear playing and narrating in the background. Taylor and I are watching Spanglish. Appropriate, I think. Aside from that, I'm thinking about the real and metaphorical paths I took today.



For breakfast we had fruit again, sliced apples and mangos, along with single toritilla quesadillas. It was all good except for the mango which, upon ingesting, tasted just like...vomit. Luckily, I had the opportunity to spit it out. I hate to do that, but my fear of digestive track problems is large and scary.



Taylor and a left not long after desayuno to go to change our money at the bank and we walked down the dusty stone hill from our house (makeing sure to lock the gate as we went out). It's a black painted iron door built into a stone wall with a an old lock that requires you to shimmy the key to get it to work. Our walk to the bank and to school is past houses and stores, empty lots between houses where it looks like buildings have just up and left to create gaps and holes where people now work. The streets in the morning are busy, but not very with people all going toward their jobs in the stores on the streets that are just off the tiny sidewalks that follow along the stone block roads.

We crossed the sidewalks in all the crazy places we must cross and arrived at the first bank in time to discover they would not let us change our money without passports, but the second in the plaza de paz didn't have any problem with it.

After that, the day had a weird tint to it. My blood sugar got low during our first class and after that, I just kept getting more and more tired and then it seemed like I couldn't understand anything that was said to me in Spanish. After Taylor and I walked up the, what feels like, mountains to get back to our house for la comida, I could barely understand anything that Enriqueta said to me.

I started to get really frustrated with myself, but finally just took a nap, and talked to Becky, ate some food, and then went out exploring and felt a lot better.

This evening, I asked for directions in Spanish, and then participated in a conversation in which I understood almost everything that was said and had things I could contribute! It made me so happy! When Julio and Enriqueta came back from Leon, they had to take their daughter to the doctor because she was very sick (I hope she feels better soon, she's had a bad fever), we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and talked about politics and aztec creation myths. It was great.

I think I'm really going to like Mexico.

Estoy aqui, en Mexico!

Buenas Noches a todas!

After touring the city of Guanajuato and finishing my home work, and wanted to get this blog up and running with an appropriate, and verbose start.

This is meant to be the chronicling of an adventure for me as a learner of spanish but even more so as a teller of stories.  As such, I hope that I can convey to you the reality of everything I see, hear, taste, touch, do, and feel.  I'm so glad to be here and to have this chance to be a part of another amazing culture.

To start from the beginning, (an appropriate place, I think), we left from Atlanta at 6:35 in the morning.  I only slept about two or three hours the night before, and I was tired and wired the whole day.  Taylor and I checked our bags and talked with my family and girlfriend and her sister for a few minutes before we had to say goodbye, and then through security where a man yelled at the both of us saying:

"No shoes or belts with laptop computers!  There are seven signs, please read one of them!"

I saw the signs, but I'm pretty sure they didn't say what he said they did.  We did as we were told, though, and continued on in search of a quick bite before getting on the plane and stopped by a Burger King where an employee stood out in the line with us pressing menu options on a touch screen as patrons relayed their orders.  Taylor asked if they served biscuits and a customer in a red Hawaiian shirt with green palm fronds printed on the front laughed and said:

"Ha!  In the Atlanta airport, I don't think so."

We waited at our gate for only twenty minutes or so before our flight started boarding, and saw a man in his late thirties continually slapping an elderly man next to him on the back asking:

"Hey, are you okay?  Are you okay?"  as the man continued to go limp and raise up, go limp and raise up.

I was afraid he had had a heart attack and was wracking my brain to try and remember the  appropriate procedures I had been taught in First Aid merit badge nearly ten years before.  Luckily, before my assistance was needed, the emergency technicians came down and took care of him.  As it turns out, he was fine then, and one of the attendants went and got him a coffee with one sugar saying, "I didn't know if you would take a whole sugar or not."

As we continued to wait and then boarded the plane, I thought about that attendant and the way she had taken care of the older man and continued to ask if he needed anything.  Something about her genuineness helped to calm me down--I was pretty nervous, though not as nervous as in Korea.

Both flights were close to two hours each with a layover in Dallas of about two hours.  On the second flight, I kept looking out the window at the view that had, in America, been filled with square plots of farmland, business districts, and the "little pink houses" of suburban neighborhoods and was now now disheveled and random with dark and sometimes brown roads running all through the desert countryside of a place I had never been or seen.

I looked at all the little villages gathered haphazardly around small watering holes amidst the brown and sand.  It all looked so natural compared to where we live.  I was looking at people who lived their lives only from day to day, from 34,000 feet in the sky.

The entirety of both flights, I thought about how scared and excited I was to be living in a world with very little English for a month.  Language is something so important and real to me, and I was gradually getting more afraid of how I would survive in a world where I could most of the time only speak in my very small, yet to be mastered second language.

My first taste of Mexico was getting to walk across the tarmac at the airport after exiting the plane via stairs.  I made it through security with no problem--there is a traffic signal with two lights, one green and one red, whose button you must press before exiting the baggage claim area.  If the button is light is green, you may pass.  But if the light is red, you and your luggage must be searched.  Taylor and I both got greens and went on to meet a few new friends and then take a ride across the countryside to the bus station where are families were to pick us up.

The lands were dusty sand covered with little roadside stands every so often underneath funeral home style tents with signs reading "Fresas con Crema" or "Strawberries with Cream".

We got out of the bus at the station in a man with longer, curly black hair and glasses came over asking for "Jeffrey y Lance".

I was so nervous in the car ride to hour house, but thankful I could understand most of the things said by Julio Silva (our new friend and the father in the house where we would be living).  I said something about us traveling to South Korea last summer on scholarships and realized a few moments later when Taylor said the word for scholarships in spanish (vecas) that I had told the man we had traveled by way of cows (vacas) to Korea, which explained the odd look I received.

When we got to our house, I almost cried out at how amazing the area we were living in and our house were.  We live in a nice little neighborhood on a hill over looking the city in a house with three dogs (Goofy, Diego, and Frida), some parrots, and the most amazing window views ever.

So far, I have had  la comida (a meal similar to supper but served in the middle of the day) twice with our family, and the food was amazing.  They have two small children that are so cute.  And they have gone out of their way to make us feel at home.  I've been a little sad, though not terribly.  It's just a little frustrating to be such a communication oriented person and not be able to communicate well with the people around you.  I understand most all the things that are said to me, but when I try to reply, I can see the words started to gather into sentences in my head and just before completion, they fall apart.  I can get my point across usually, but it's not pretty and I feel tied down by my tongue.

But I think it's going to be alright.  The best part about everything is that I'm getting to experience some awesome things that will really help with the creation of the people in my book.  Not only do I get to see and be a part of the Mexican culture, but I get to see what it is like to be a person who speaks English and only an intermediate level of Spanish in a country where very few people speak English and I have to depend on my Spanish to survive.

Yesterday evening, Enriqueta (our Senora) took us out to walk us through the city and show us where our university is.  Then, we met up with Julio and the kids at the Jardin Union where the tries are like tall bushes that have all grown into each other with the edges shaved flat by chainsaws.  The kids played for a little while with all the other children (families go there almost every sunday to play) and then we all got cups of corn from a street vendor that had cream, mayonaise, butter, and some very spicy sauce that caused me and Taylor to run to find the nearest vendor of water.

Afterwards, Julio took us and family in the car all around the city and up into the panoramic views over the city telling us what each important building was and where to do this that and the other.  We watched a parade from on top of a mountain, looked out at all of the houses and buildings of colors ranging from green to red to yellow to blue that seemed to have just grown right out of the sides of the mountains the floors of the valleys.

I think I'm really going to love this city a lot.   The people are very friendly and excited to speak with foreigners who speak Spanish.

I should say also, that our host family's five year old daughter Paula is adorable.  Yesterday, she came into our room, handed us 3-D glasses with the cardboard frames and blue and red lenses, and asked us if we would watch a barbie movie with her.  And we did, making sure to put our 3-D glasses on at all the appropriate times.  She came into my room last night and asked what the bag in my shelves was, and I told her gold fish and that I would give her some tomorrow if she wanted some.  As soon as we got back from class at about 3 or so, she ran to our room and just stood and looked at me and smiled, waiting to get some.  I think she came back for four handfuls, always grinning and saying thank you.  Taylor and I may find a way to mail some back down here after we leave.

As for my classes, they are AMAZING.  The grammar class is, of course, dull and mathematical, but that's just the nature of grammar.  The literature class is going to be great.  We got into small groups today in order to discuss, in spanish, what literature is.  Our instructor is someone who loves to talk about how beautiful literature is and how poignant and important it is, which is refreshing.  I have only met a few teachers who treat it as such, and not some sterile concept to study.  I can't wait for my next class.  We only have classes from 11 to 3 each day and get out just in time to come home for la comida.

And tonight, after another tour of the city given by an American student studying here for over a year, we got to have a great conversation with our family.  Julio encourages me to talk and helps me through words and concepts that I don't know, which makes me feel better about not being able to speak so well.  I feel that I am, even in the only two days that I have been here, getting better at speaking spanish already.  I'm interested to see what the end of the month will bring.

For, I'm really tired and dirty from the long day, and listening to the furious winds outside our window that seem to come only at night.  You will probably be reading this during the morning or afternoon, and I hope that it finds you well and happy.  I know I am.

Have a great day everybody!  I can't wait to see you all again to share these stories in person!

Keep an eye out for a new post soon!

Sincerely,

Lance

p.s.  I have pictures posted here http://picasaweb.google.com/saffirsimpson/Guanajuato52526.