final days in Cuernavaca...

Well, my time in Cuernavaca is almost over, but I'm going out with a bang since tomorrow is the Mexican Independence Day.  Tonight, so I hear, will be quite insane and I'm pumped.  The festivities actually began yesterday with a huge concert at the baseball park across the street from the house I've been living in.  From about 7:00 yesterdaymorning until 1:00 this morning our house was shaking with the sound of it.

Since yesterday was my 

last day of language school I thought it would be good to post some pictures of the place I've been studying the past 4 weeks.  So here they are.  Enjoy.

Here are two pics of the grounds.  Nice, eh?

For some reason I couldn't get this one to turn but whatever.  This is Rosario, one of my three awesome teachers.  The best thing about this place was the people.  I'm gonna miss them a lot.

A-ZUL!!!!!

So, this past weekend we made the 2 hour trip back to Mexico City to set up our mexican bank accounts. All was going well until we got to the bank and they informed us that the computer system was down and that it would remain down until at least monday morning (so, in other words, they still may not have it up). Needless to say this kinda ruined our plans.

Well we were bummed for a little while, but on the metro ride home I was talking to Derek about how I really wanted to go see a soccer game sometime and how I wasn´t sure when I would get the chance. ¨Well,¨he said, ¨Cruz Azul has a game today.¨ So we went home looked up the time (5:00) and the cost (80 pesos , or about 8 dollars) and decided it would be a perfect use of our saturday evening.

We reached the stadium along with a swarm of blue(azul)-clad Mexicans. After some confusion at the gates we made it inside and found some good seats (they were comfortably shaped even though they were just concrete) on the upper level.

The game started strong with 2 goals in the first half - first a header by Cruz Azul that went of the post and then a scramble that ended up in a goal for Pachuca.

At half-time they had a ¨rodeo¨of sorts where contestents raced through a gauntlet of cowboys (who attempted to laso their feet) and then shot at a goal that was defended by the Cruz Azul mascot (a giant bunny). Haha! It was hilarious. Only 4 or 5 people ever made it through (out of like 15) and only 2 or 3 goals were scored. The rest of the time people would be bounding through the lines of lasos until one eventually caught and they hit the turf hard, haha. It was almost as entertaining as the game itself.

Anyway, the second half was a lot slower than the first half. There were no goals in the first 40 minutes. We bought some peanuts which we doused in lime (mexicans put lime on everything), and were happily entertained by a group of energetic youths who were roughhousing a few seats down from us. Some dark clouds were creeping in and we thought for sure we were going to get dumped on, but the rain never came. Finally, in extra time, Pachuca scored again during another scramble in front of the goal and the game was over.

Cruz Azul (the team I´ve decided to make my own) didn´t win, but we had a great time anyway. I should also mention that yesterday we went to see the Frida Kahlo museum and that was also sweet (haha, maybe this shouldn´t be a side note, but it´s hard to tell much about a museum). Now we have one more week of language school before some traveling with the CRs and finally our placements. Thanks for keeping up and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. Hope life is good wherever you are. Peace.

my first two weeks in Mexico...

First of all:
For those of you who don´t know, the reason I´m in Mexico is because I´m doing an 11 month cross cultural service program called SALT (Serving and Learning Together) through MCC (Mennonite Central Committee). After a month of language school I´ll be in Naucalpan de Juarez in the state of Mexico. There are also three other SALTers from the States who are doing service in Mexico this year. Kiara will be in Olinola, Hannah will be in Cuernavaca, and Lisl will be in Nogales (on the boarder of Arizona).

Well, on Saturday August 18th I flew (with the girls) from Harrisburg, PA to Charlotte, NC and finally to Mexico City, in the state of Mexico, Mexico (you know, the country). The CRs (Country Representatives) for Mexico, Derek and Anna Hostetler live in Mexico City with their 4 year-old son Lukas. Derek met us at the airport and we rode back to his house by van through some insane Mexico City traffic.

All together we´ve spent about 4 days in and around Mexico City since I´ve been here. Derek and Anna really make us feel at home whenever we´re there and they even took us to see Teotihuacan one Saturday, which is a site with many ruins and two huge pyramids (one of which is the third largest pyramid in the world).

Besides our time in Mexico City, we´ve basically been hanging out in Cuernavaca (which is just about 2 hours south). Our language school here is called Universal. It is a really nice school with a good staff and some great teachers. The classes usually consist of 4 or less people so they are very personal, helpful, and interactive.

While here in Cuernavaca (4 weeks total) we´re all staying with host families, but I´m pretty sure I got the best one. They live in a very nice house with a walled in garden surrounding it. The mom´s name is Carmen, and she is amazing. Basically, her full time job is taking care of students who come to school here and she does a dang good job of it. She has 3 sons: Alfredo (Freddie - who was an english teacher, but now works for ICEE), Leo (who is married and lives in a casita - little house - in the garden), and Eric (who is studying graffic design at a university here). The father of the family died a few years back unexpectedly. I live with another American, a guy about my age from California, who speaks very little spanish. It´s been fun translating to the family for him and just hanging out in general.

Cuernavaca is a beautiful city if you can look past the occasional garbage in the streets and the many shaggy, stray dogs that roam around (all of which seem friendly, by the way). The time I´ve spent here so far has been great and I know I´m gonna be sad when language school is over, but life goes on. To friends and family who are reading this, I hope you are doing well. Let me know what´s going on in your life. Peace.