Tamales

I am in love with the food here! It is so wonderful! So far, my favorite food here are the tamales. There are at least two different kinds tamale con mole and tamale dulce. The tamale con mole that I tried was wrapped in a banana peel and it was huge! Tamale con mole is my favorite. The tamale dulce tastes like corn bread and it was wrapped in a corn husk. Both pretty delicious! It's my goal to learn how to make them.

My home

These are some pictures of the outside of my house.

Oaxoaca y Hualtulco

 My first (and only go) at eating cricket omelet!


Las ruinas de monte Alban:

We are given a few weekends for vacation while I am here and since I got here right before a holiday, Cinco de Mayo, we had our first vacation right away. On a side note, I am very upset that Cinco de Mayo is no big thing here. I think Mother's Day had more action...There is a parade in Puebla, the city where the battle took place, but I didn't get a chance to go because we went on vaca. First we went to Oaxoaca (above) where we saw some pretty cool ruins. However, nothing in comparison to Tulum y Chichen Itza.

Then we went to Hualtulco and went to two different beaches. it was no easy adventure getting to Hualtulco. We had to go up and down a mountain where it was constant switch backs for about four hours. These switch backs were worse than the switch backs in the Grand Canyon. Not to mention every two minutes we went over at least two speed bumps. It was a horrible ride! One of my really good friend's threw up. Then when we were almost an hour from being out of the mountain, there was a huge accident and we couldn't pass. There has got to be hundreds and hundreds of accidents there all the time because they are constantly trying to pass each other on the tiniest two lane road. Anyway, we had to wait about another four hours just chilling in the darkness of the jungle until they took care of the accident. Our driver and I walked up to see the accident and it was a huge bus with this tiny tiny truck. They were completely t-boned. It looked pretty bad, but I don't think anyone was hurt. When we finally got to Hualtulco we still didn't have anywhere to stay and it was way late! We found this awesome guy who took us to some apartments that cost about $12 a night. They were legit with two rooms, bathroom, kitchen, and a swimming pool. We went shopping at an artisan market, but I didn't buy anything because of course I got lost and then spent my time searching for our apartment. haha. Don't worry mother, it wasn't too hard to find. Well, when it was time to go back we had to pass through those dreaded mountains again, but thank goodness this time there was no accident, so it only took us 4 slightly miserable hours to get out of the mountains. Although, it was definitely worth it! We had a blast!

La boca nada: where we boogie boarded and had an intense mud fight:

La entrega: where I enjoyed a beautiful pina colada and we snorkled!

I love my students!

I have a crazy bunch of students and they are all sweethearts...for the most part. Some of them can be punks, but I can't blame them because they have already been in school for the whole day and then they have to come to English class for two hours at night. There is this one student I love. His name is Adrian and he is about 5 years old. He is such a touchy feely boy and loves to hug me and hold my hand. One day, I was wearing a skirt and sitting down next to him. He full on grabs my leg and puts in on his lap and tries to stroke my leg. HAHA! I about died. I didn't know want I did, so I tried to pull my leg back as quickly and nicely as I could. Well, we have decided that his English isn't at the level as the rest of my students, so he is being moved down a level and I am really sad to see him leave!! Here is a picture my friend took right after he got done stroking my hair, lol.

Hola, I arrived in Tehuacán, Mexico on April 28^th and my life has been an adventure ever since. There are 11 other teachers with me and I already love them all. They really are an awesome bunch! My adopted family is so wonderful. My “mom” is only 27 years old. She has three kids: Julio 10, Maria 5, and Emiliano 2. The dad is some kind of a planter, but he seems to be doing pretty well because our house is very nice. When I first met them, they told me my accent sounded weird. After a few minutes they determined I sounded like a Spaniard. I thought that was pretty cool, but my goal is to leave with a Mexican accent.

  

My whole house is tiled and they look at you weird if you don’t wear house shoes aka flip flops around the house. I walked around barefoot for the first few days and they made fun of me. I also nearly broke my neck when I slipped in the shower. Apparently that’s why they wear shoes indoors. They are afraid that if they don’t they will fall and die. That is basically how my “mom” explained it to me. I now wear flip flops all the time when I am indoors. Flip flops are usually just for in the house not for going out in; they’re just not nice enough. Sandals are ok to wear though. It’s pretty typical for everyone to have a maid. Our maid is really nice, but super quiet. The family really likes that I can speak Spanish and they are always giving me things. The other day my “mom” bought me a Mexican style purse and a flower made out of corn husks. They both are really cool!

Mexico is awesome! They literally have a holiday every other day. I was surprised that Mother’s Day had bigger celebrations that Cinco de Mayo. Since I have been here we have celebrated, Cinco de Mayo, children’s day, construction worker day, mother’s day, and today we celebrated teacher’s day. I love having a fiesta almost every night. Also May is the rainy season here and it rains a lot! I have never seen so much rain. The streets are completely flooded and there have been times that I thought the car we were driving in was going to float away. The pictures and video of the floods that I am posting don’t give the flooding justice.

I love Mexican culture, but there are just some things I don’t understand. For example, it is like a million degrees outside and I see the majority of the people wearing full on long sleeve sweaters and pants. They act like its winter! In a lot of the schools it’s against the dress code to wear shorts, but the girls can wear dresses. So, I have worn a dress or skirt every day since I arrived. 

I have eaten some amazing food here, as expected. I have also had the best ice cream since Italy. I also have drunken my weight in horchata. I don’t understand why we can’t make horchata that good back in the states. I have also eaten some rather strange food such as a cricket omelet, pig feet saturated in vinegar, and some kind of meat that is a cross between a hotdog, sausage, and jerky. I’m not really a big fan of any of those dishes, but I survived them. Before I leave I will have also eaten fried worms. Apparently, those are a delicacy…mmm…can’t wait. 

I started teaching English May 2^nd. I teach at two different schools. At the first school I teach from 1:30-3:30 and at the second school I teach from 5:30-7:30 M-F. I really love my kids, although sometimes they get really crazy and out of control. They are all so smart and are learning English so quickly.

During Cinco de Mayo break, my group and I took a weekend vacation to Oaxoaca and Huatulco. In Oaxoaca we saw some pretty sweet ruins and in Huatulco we spent the majority of our time at the beaches swimming, snorkeling, tanning, and drinking piña coladas. It was a fun vacation, but it was a pain to get to Huatulco we had to go through a mountain that had switch backs worse than the Grand Canyon that lasted the entire four hours. I felt bad for the bus driver because he was driving stick and had to keep turning the steering wheel. I know that doesn’t sound like a workout, but doing that for four hours straight can make anyone sweat. One girl threw up a few times because of how windy it was. Basically, it was not a fun ride, but once we got there everything was amazing. 

Well, so far life has been an adventure. I never know what is going to happen tomorrow. I love life here and I love how sincere and kind the people are. I would be fine living here for much longer than four months, but I don’t think I could live away from my family for that long. I miss you fam!