Mexico

4 hours to the border in a chicken bus, 12 hours in a nice, new big charter bus, though halfway through the A/C cut out and we were miserable and hot. Then it came back on and we slept...for a sec.

At the border we got off the chicken bus at the wrong stop, were harrassed to all hell for rides to the border...they convinced our director to takes all of us 12, 2 by 2 on bicycles with a big seat in the front, to the border. It was really really weird. Got the the border, crossed fine, waited forever cause they were out of forms for us to fill out, then off to the other place, Tapachula, Mexico to catch the big, nice bus to take over night. Got to Oaxaca Mexico at about 8am. My family was already there cause they were waiting with their prior student who was leaving on a bus to Mexico City. The first day with the fam was great, we got picked up by the daughter and the dad, mom was at home doing who knows what. The daughter, Bertha, (mom Bertha too), invited us to a her friend's child's 1st birthday party so we went, after a long needed nap in the hardest new bed of mine. We got to the party entirely too early, cause we sat awkwardly for an hour waiting for people to show up, the clown even showed up early. Yes clown, so scary, I never was afraid of clowns, but this one was weird. They served us 3 tamales, two with mole, one sweet one, cake, drinks, some pudding, candy, too much. There were 2 pinatas, one huge one and one made of clay, which I thought was weird and pretty unsafe, but it just clunked to the floor, didn't really shatter.

So, Oaxaca exceeded my expectations by far. It was beautiful, surrounded by big green mountains. There were tons of flowers, trees, clean streets, no pollution/trash, Jill and I sat in a park and drew and no one bothered us, you could walk alone without fear (though always safer to walk in pairs at night), great food, SUN aka NO RAIN. Though, our family was poor which was kinda disappointing just because everyone else had rich families and great food, like 5 course meals, gourmet style, and we got a tiny cup of fruit every morning, weird stale bread, rice and beans for lunch and dinner wasn't much better...once we got sandwiches with avocado...we were ridiculously too excited. The light in the dining room was eery as all hell...just one little fluorescent light that put out a weird tinge of blue on all the odd trinkets that flooded the shelves. Every night there was a candle lit, sitting on the floor of the "living room." Weird. The location was great though, just a 5 minute walk to school, by the park, and another 5 minutes to the Xocolo, the place for eating/shopping/going out/getting annoyed by people trying to sell you fancy toothpics. The school was beautiful too, with giant palm trees and other trees everywhere, and a nice big lawn. The first couple days were frusterating cause our teacher sucked ass...like kept wandering off into space about random shit, didn't learn anything. The third day, wednesday, we made masks for day of the dead, which included putting vasoline all over your face and having your partner wet strips of casting material (like for your arm), and place them all over your face, 3 layers full. It felt neat. Thursday and Friday we had a different teacher cause we bitched so much about the one lady...this guy ended up being really great and making us do fun activities. Sorry this is so choppy. Friday for day of the dead, after class we did final touches on our masks and waited around for the parade to start, our parade! It was great, there was a band, 2 giants (people in costumes on stilts) and the whole school in their masks parading around the block and occasionally stopping for music, shots of mescal, and a dance party! It was really fun, the teachers were going around feeding everyone mescal shots from gasoline tanks...fitting, cause mescal pretty much tastes like hell. If you didn't know, mescal is the liquor of Mexico, why, I don't know. So, we ended up drinking a lot of that and taking a giant nap before meeting up with the group to tour the cemeteries. We went to 3 cemeteries on Halloween, it was really interesting. So just some background, the 31st they celebrate the return of the dead children, 1st the adults, and the 2nd everyone...So people make different types of altars...altars are the things they set up for the return of the dead, as offerings, like food, water, mescal for adults, for the long journey home from the grave, and candy and toys for children. The altars always have these yellow flowers and lights, so they can find their way. Some are huge, and some are only so big as to offer water, food, and a flower and a candle. You can see these in the pics on picassa in Greg/Amy's pics. So families go to the cemeteries, clean up the graves and decorate them in flowers, incense, sand with glitter in the form of a picture, have food and music, and stay there all night long. There were so many people at the graves. Oaxaca is the most traditional in all of Mexico for Day of the Dead festivities, they say. Most of the people were there just to walk around and see all the decorations, but many families were just sitting there, around the grave, talking, or not. It was really neat, some graves were really beautiful with all the candles and flowers. After the cemeteries Jill, Greg, Ruchi, and I went out to celebrate Halloween...fun night, up till 4am since the bars don't close there until like 6am. Jill was determined to make out with someone and succeeded, so did Ruchi, Greg and I danced the whole time, it was fun. Jill was in rare form that night, hilarious, belligerent. The next day was our last day, Jill stayed in bed all day, and I went out shopping alone, until I randomly found Amy and Ruchi, a great surprise, and we shopped, had a last great beer in the sun on the rooftop of a restaurant...and off we went at 6 back to Xela! That's it!