Introduction: Un hombre mexicano found me on the street the other day and spoke to me in English about how he went to high school in Nebraska; Laura the English teacher found me in the library (for the second time) and told me I had to come to practice English with her class; the man with the dogs always tells Sharon and me that we’re a beautiful pair.
Body:
1. On Saturday, I had the awesome opportunity to hang out with the Chávez family, relatives of my track coach that live here in Cuautla, and it was bien padre, güey.* I stopped by their house, drank some agua de limón, went to Tlayacapan and saw mummies (momías, en español) with them, ate in at least seven (or two) different restaurants, bus tour to an ex-hacienda, witnessed a protest and spotted the Reina de Cuautla (Queen of Cuautla) talking on her cellular.
*Big-time misuse of Mexican slang, but misused con cariño!
2. On Sunday, we (the Earlham group, no Chávez, desafortunadamente) went into Mexico City to see Frida Kahlo’s blue house in Coyoacán. It was bluer than expected, and also didn’t have as many of Frida’s works as I had hoped. After that, we went to la UNAM to see a play about the debate between Las Casas and Sepúlveda about the naturaleza of the indigenous people, chatted with some actors before hand, and got back to Cuautla super late, especially for una noche de escuela (school night). On Monday morning, we were the momías.
3. The weekend before last, we went to Cuernavaca, la capital de Morelos, and saw the palacio of Hernán Cortés; according to my friend Ance’s host mom, this was the lugar where Cortés got it on with his girlfriend, La Malinche.
4. The library is going, but mostly when I’m not in it. I decided to change projects: now I’m just trying to help kids in elementary school with their homework. I made a flyer, posted it in the front of la biblioteca (¡Atención, Amiguitos!), and three people came last week. No obstante, today nobody showed up – which is a mentira (lie), because one girl showed up, but she didn’t want to work with me because “le da pena trabajar conmigo,” which could be a saying but probably means something like “it pains her to work with me.” So I put return slips in the backs of books for a couple hours and headed home.
5. To make it through, I listen a lot to this song.
6. Last Thursday, Cuautla celebrated its own holiday, and since its official name is H. H. Cuautla, short for Heroic and Historic City of Cuautla, it’s allowed to have a four hour parade.
Closing remarks: people dressed as clowns juggle between cars at stoplights to get a few pesos; men with machetes outside the public library, Norma said they were campesinos there to tend the lawn; we saw an alacrán (scorpion), small and yellow, on a friend’s roof, and it scuttled into the water storage unit.
Reiteration of thesis: I am still a foreigner in México.
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