And so it is.

After spending the majority of my past year here in Mexico, I'm headed home without clear plans of returning. A friend recently asked me if I'm still American or if so much time here has made me Mexican. Can I answer, "los dos"? As thrilled as I am to go home to see my family and friends,I'm sad to be leaving.

I'm going to miss the Tamale Man.

I'm going to miss the kiss-on-the-cheek greetings.

I'm going to miss the bwooop sound that taxi horns make.

I'm going to miss the people, especially my host moms. Gracias Mercedes and Olivia!

I'm going to miss the language, ND Spanish classes promise to be dreary.

I'm going to miss street vendors, buses, the carefree attitude, afternoons in the zocalo, real tortillas, being called "guera" in the market.

I'm going to miss Mexico.

Yesterday as I "viaje-ed seguro" with ADO from Oaxaca to Puebla, I thought about how much growing up I've done in the past year. Sure, there were the days where I wished that I had just stayed home and worked, comfortable in my own house, drinking tap water and speaking English. The full impact of this summer still won't sink in for a few months but I'm glad I did it. Coming full circle and visiting Mama Olivia's family as I head north has been a lovely end to my trip; I am so blessed to have met such open and caring people during my time here in Mexico.

Now it's off to the shower, bus depot, and airport for the final leg of my journey home. Nos vemos Mexico!

The Big G and other Oaxacan Adventures

Where to even begin?

I’m currently sitting in bed, regretting eating whatever street food or unwashed fruit it was that made me feel so sick. I guess it was only a matter of time before “throwing caution to the wind” came back to get me, but that doesn’t make it less unpleasant. Nevertheless, I managed to have a stellar four day weekend which temporarily cured me of the “I wanna go home” blues.

On Friday we had an Impact Project with ProWorld and we all met early at the office instead of going to our respective internships. We went to FOE, a non-profit equine therapy organization run by a retired physical therapist. After working for thirty years in Oaxaca’s public hospital, Carolina started FOE to help local kids with Downs Syndrome, Autism, MS, and other mental and physical disabilities. She now has nearly 60 students who come weekly for occupational and physical therapy. The parents pay on a sliding scale and the majority of the funding comes from the many side projects that Carolina has also started in her small Oaxacan suburb. There’s a community bakery that employs local women and sells bread at a discounted price, a plastic bottle drive which feeds funds back into the bakery and horse therapy, a small horse manure/fertilizer business, and an orchestra of 60+ kids. Carolina also mentioned several other projects that she’s been starting up in her “free time”, although I can’t imagine that she has a whole lot of that lying around. We split into teams to bag manure, paint the corral, revive old folding chairs, make teaching materials, and paint a logo on the front of the building. This was one of the most organized and dedicated non-profits that I’ve ever come across and Carolina is a truly amazing woman.

On Saturday, some of the ProWorld staff invited us to go to some nearby pools. After a long and slightly confusing trip involving a bus and multiply colectivo taxis, we arrived at Vista Hermosa. The past few weeks have been gloomy and rainy but the weather decided to clean up its act just in time for the holiday weekend. We lounged in the sun, tried out the water slides, and splashed around in the pool until dark rain clouds showed up mid-afternoon. After hurrying back home for a quick shower and change of close, we headed downtown for the calenda parade that marked the beginning of the 2 weeklong Guelaguetza festival. I was greatful for all of my 5’4” as we pushed our way towards the front of the crowd to catch a glimpse of the intricately costumed dancers and marching bands; I’m pretty tall for a Mexican! After the parade, it was off to the Mezcal Fair, one of Oaxaca’s greatest brainchildren. An admission fee of $35MX (three dollars) gains you entrance to the park containing more than 20 mezcal vendors, all eagerly offering samples.

After “dar-ing la vuelta” a few times, we had all become mezcal experts and were in a pretty good place, but hadn’t really eaten real food all day. Clearly the best solution to this is to buy street hamburgers. These are a little pricier than most streetfood, but they aren’t your Dollar Menu cheeseburgers either. It’s hard to find the pattie amidst the cheese, ham, pineapple, tomato, jalenpeno and magic that goes into these tinfoil-wrapped pieces of heaven. We visited a couple of our favorite bars and danced for a while, but everyone was exhausted from the busy day and we were all home and in bed before 1am. And the weekend was only halfway over!
Julie and I have been talking about going to mass in Oaxaca’s biggest and oldest church, Santo Domingo, for the past 2 months and this weekend was our last chance. After visiting so many Mexican churches over the past year it’s easy to lose enthusiasm for them, but Santo is truly beautiful, especially with all the lights on and the gold leaf shining. Afterwards we got one last Sunday coffee at the Italian Coffee Company and loitered around in the shade, admiring the passersby with their babies and dogs in tow, and turned down a friendly kitchen knife vendor. We took it easy on Sunday night in preparation for Monday’s big event: the Guelaguetza!

This is Oaxaca’s biggest event of the year. Each of the state’s 8 regions sends at least one delegation of dancers and musicians to perform in the parades and at the Guelaguetza stadium. Each region has it’s own traditional costumes and style of dance, accompanied by a tireless brass band and enthusiastic fans. We had purchased tickets for Monday’s Guelaguetza right after they went on sale and had fantastic seats in the 8th row, front and center. Although I was skeptical at first, I enjoyed all 3.5 hours of the traditional dancing and was almost sad for it to be over. The pictures really don't do it justice and fail to capture the general sense of excitement and pride.

Although nothing can quite make up for Fourth of July at home, this week has had a similar feel to it and I'll take what I can get. Plus, our strategically located seats put us right in line to receive the free food and trinkets that each group threw into the crowd at the end of each section. After a quick trip home for lunch, we headed back out into the streets; it was Shopping Time! Julie and I are now expert mezcal tasters and hagglers and we walked home quite satisfied with our purchases for the day.
I’m off to kick this stomach bug and enjoy my last few days in Mexico before I fly home!
Love and miss you all, kudos if you made it through that marathon of a post!

Fourth Tier road for sure, there's a river down the middle!

I'm sorry that I've been such a slacker with the blogging lately, but I feel like I have a legitimate excuse. You see, the motherboard of my laptop is about as useful as a Frisbee. It might actually be less useful, it´s definitely less fun. After several treks crisscrossing town following vague directions and a sub-par description on my part of the computer´s issues, I left my misbehaving machine in the (hopefully) reputable hands of a repairman. When I returned a few days later, I was informed that both the motherboard and the video card were toast, very burned toast. Luckily all of this happened during the second half of my stay here and not during the first couple weeks. Unfortunately, all of this happened exactly when medical school secondary applications, many with "we recommend returning your application essays within two weeks" warnings, started arriving in my inbox. I never thought that I´d wish for a typewriter, but I´ve found myself lusting after the clinic doctor´s motherboard-less typing machine the past few weeks. (Please ignore the fact that I´m currently writing a blog post instead of an application essay. This is so much more fun than "How do you imagine your personal and professional lives intersecting in 10 years?" Hell if I know.)

But I digress, enough whining about my slight discomfort and technology withdrawals. This is about adventure!
Since arriving, we´ve frequently been attacked in the zócalo by guides offering trips to a nearby waterfall called Hierve el agua, or the water boils. This weekend six of us from ProWorld decided to venture out on our own. Armed with bug spray, some pesos, umbrellas and directions from our host moms, we hopped on a bus to Mitla. We soon realized two things. One, no one had brought enough small change for this impromptu adventure. We all had large bills (large being the equivalent of $20), but most transportation services, restaurants and vendors don´t accept anything larger than a $50 pesos (i.e. life runs on $1 and $5 bills). Two, as the rain began to splatter on the bus` windshield, we realized that we were in for a wet day. The rainy season has been so much rainier than I ever imagined possible and Saturday was ark-worthy. Arriving in Mitla, our obvious guero-ness paid off and we were immediately offered a ride in a camioneta to Hierve. Camioneta is a confusing word because it can be applied to anything from 18 passenger vans to 2 passenger pickup trucks. We were directed to the bed of a little pickup that had been transformed into a 12+ passenger vehicle by the addition of bench seats and a tarped roof in the back. We felt very much like we should be illegally crossing a border but as the driver said, "the back is more fun".
Without going into laborious detail I will summarize the 45-minute drive into the mountains by thanking God that I no longer get carsick and that I don´t suffer from chronic back pain, as both would have ended badly. Seeing as these weren´t a concern, I had a great time watching the scenery and joking about the progressively deteriorating road with my fellow passengers. The road became progressively less road-like until we were driving through streams and potholes large enough to drown in. The bright side to the bad roads and the persistent rain, however, is that we had the site to ourselves when we finally arrived.
It turns out that Hierve el Agua is not a waterfall at all, but rather a hot springs that looks like a waterfall from a distance because of the mineral deposits on the cliff, left behind by hundreds of years of sulfur water. Due to the rain and the fog (we were literally in a cloud), the "waterfall" itself was hard to seen, but we were plenty distracted by the other rock formations and several deep pools. We had come prepared with swimsuits and took advantage of the "lukewarm" pools, ignoring the questionable fogginess of the water and incredulous looks from other visitors. After several cannonball competitions and plenty of photos, we dried off as best we could and got back in the truck. The return trip was quicker but also much bumpier, being downhill.
We found a nice little restaurant in Mitla where we filled our bellies with warm coffee and traditional Oaxacan food before venturing off to the market for some last minute souvenir shopping. We were definitely a tired, more subdued group of gueros on the busride home and nearly missed our stop because everyone was so exhausted. The only bummer of the whole day was that we didn't go on a similar adventure sooner. It seems like I'm just getting to know some of the other ProWorld interns and now it's nearly time to go! I'll be leaving Oaxaca in 10 days, spending the night with my Puebla host family, and finally making the long trip home. Idaho IDAHO!

Todo para la salud

The past week or so has been especially crazy and blogging got shuffled to the bottom of the list. Stressful things that have happened include:

1. my computer crashing: maybe hard drive, maybe a mega virus? if only i had computer skills!
2. switching internships: this is crazy in a good way and the main point of this blog update
3. the arrival of med school secondary applications: there are 5 sitting in my inbox. thanks for crashing this week, computerfriend
4. realizing that I have less than 3 weeks left here in Oaxaca and only a month before I'm back at ND: this is also a good type of stress. It's encouraged me to jump on those activities that I keep putting off until another weekend. It's also great because I'm getting around to missing my family and my house and my pets and my lake and my friends. This whole not having a computer is really getting to me, although I feel like I should be above that. Oh the struggles of a middle class American!

But as the title suggests, this is not about silly stressful things. It is all about the health. I just finished my first week at not-Puente. Thanks to Agustin's connections (the man knows everyone!) and Susannah's patience, I moved to a health clinic in the Colonia America, a 15-minute busride from our neighborhood. The Mexican public health system is arranged into primary, secondary and tertiary care. Tertiary care involves specialists and serious surgeries, hospitals are considered secondary care, and clinics or health centers fulfill the role of primary contact. This reduces the demand on the hospitals for everyday attention such as prenatal care, immunizations, and low-risk procedures while allowing patients to develop a closer relationship with their assigned doctor in the local health center.

Since my health center is very centrally located, most of the "sexy" medical cases bipass it in favor of the nearby hospital, but this doesn't mean that it's a boring place. I showed up with the expectation of just observing and figuring out how things went for the first few days. In addition to the nurses and doctors, each health clinic has promotores who are officially in charge of public health initiatives and unofficially in charge of fun. What luck that they're in charge of me!

My first week at the clinic consisted of a nice mixture of time with doctors and promotores alike. I gave a small talk in the waiting room on dengue fever (no one really listened but that was alright), learned to use the scale and helped with check-ups for school registration (number practice!), made a poster about all the scary shit that's in cigarettes, attended an exercise class, and spend some quality time with Dr. Francisco (I'm convinced that his stethoscope is a fake). Most of the action at the clinic happens between 8am and 11am, after which "no hay nada", there isn't much happening. After a second breakfast, I usually hang out with Tere and Esdras, the promotores and we have a great time. Whether we are hiking across the neighborhood for an appointment, only to find that the person took the day off or making a mess on the desk with poster glue or sampling a local beverage called tejate, Tere and Esdras have a great explanation for the activity. With a smile and a joke that I usually don't understand, they cheerfully explain that we're doing "todo para la salud". Everything we do is for health. While this is probably not exactly true, it makes everything seem very important and exciting. 

While there is definitely a lot of downtime at the clinic and I am not spending as many hours interning as I really want to, I'm overall much happier at the clinic than I was at Puente. The next few weeks are going to fly by and be gone before I know it! In the meantime, I'm going to fill my time with food adventures, market wanderings, and a potential salsa dancing date.

Love and miss you all!

Hopefully no bridges were burned…

So that was just 2 days. What have I been doing for the rest of the month? That is a great question.
I've painted an amaranth-themed bulletin board, learned the best place in the city to print photos, mastered the photocopier (single and double-sided printing), befriended the vegetable stand family at the nearby market, designed a nutrition education poster, led an exercise session and played street vendor at a food festival. Want to incorporate amaranth into your daily diet? Seeds, cereal, flour or leaves? I can tell you how (although secretly, it doesn't taste all that great. Not bad, just mostly like plain popcorn). Want to grow your own amaranth garden? I can tell you about that too. I could also tell you about the nutritional advantages of amaranth and its history with the pinche Spaniards.
If most of these tasks seem random to you, that's probably because they are. They're usually assigned in a "oh good morning Olivia, you're here…hmm. Well, how do you feel about painting?" or "whoops we forgot to tell you that there was an outing this morning and everyone left. Could you go pick up a few things at the market?" Don't get me wrong, everyone at Puente is very friendly. They just don't seem to have anything for me to do and I end up feeling like a small child hanging around, in need of entertainment. Like my mother, I love to have a plan, preferably on a calendar. For the first week there was very vague talk of my using my "medical student experience" to advocate the importance of good nutrition and generally enlighten people with my knowledge. The second week, I briefly saw a partial calendar of activities, which has since disappeared. The third week, after several explanations of the difference between medicina and pre-medicina, it finally became obvious that I am just a science student with high hopes and my practical medical knowledge is approaching mostly non-existent. It turns out that the general idea was to have me flex some MedStudent muscles at Puente meetings to make their points more legit, plus help develop some workshops specific to at-risk groups, such as pregnant & nursing women or young children. The main troubles with this gameplan being that I have no MedStudent muscles and my knowledge of all things nutrition come from the food pyramid, which is now outdated and heavily criticized, and Professor Hager's lecture on Digestion and Absorption, which was patchy at best. If you will.
What I'm really trying to say without actually saying it is that this internship was not all I had dreamed it would be. This is not to say that I didn't learn a lot or that I didn't meet some very nice people. I did. But I didn't feel like I was able to do what was, due to early miscommunication, expected of me nor did I feel that these expectations were every made very clear. Sure, some things are lost in translation, but some things, like that evasive calendar, were just never communicated at all. I don't want to turn this into a blame game and I will take 50%. I came in with little idea of what I wanted to do with Puente or anything resembling a goal. The best I had was "an interest in public health initiatives, specifically concerning women and children", but translated into choppy, clumsy Spanish. As a Mexican-Russian project supervisor with a hipster mullet, I wouldn't have known what to do with me either. I have not been the most self-directed volunteer there ever was. However, I have also not been the most self-centered volunteer there ever was. Puente is vaguely working with a group of students with Amigos de las Americas, the high schooler equivalent of ProWorld. Last Friday featured a meeting with the Amigos to plan their next few weeks in the Oaxacan mountains. Although I might be slightly biased due to my jealousy of their day-by-day calendar, their coordinator was just the worst. This is not an unnecessary superlative, it's just true. She marched in, interrupted nearly everyone with her highly specific demands and idealistic sweeping statements, shot down suggestions from every direction, and generally acted like she owned the place. Especially when she un-invited me from the lunch that Puente provided. For everyone. So this may be a case of pointing fingers to make myself feel better, but at least I am not that kind of volunteer.
Where is this going? Long story short, I'm moving to a clinic for my 2^nd month. I hate to quit things or make extra work for other people, but I'm also really excited to get myself into a white labcoat. I learned a lot about the inner workings of an NGO, how not to be a volunteer, and all the best ways to eat amaranth. I saw firsthand how frustrating NGO work can be due to a lack of resources, audience or trust. You can't just roll into town, distribute little seeds of knowledge and leave. You have to introduce yourself, gauge interest, develop a group within the community, find out what they need or want, and know when you're not welcome somewhere. It's not easy, because I guess if it was, someone would have done it already.

Tlahuiwhaaa?

Ok, let's talk internships. This post is a long time coming and might have to happen in 2 parts. Hold on to your hats!Like I said, I've been working with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, which "contributes to food sovereignty and advances the health and well-being of rural communities in Mexico by promoting the cultivation, consumption and commercialization of amaranth" (this is straight off the website). Although the headquarters are in the city of Oaxaca, most of the real work is done in 3 mountain regions surrounding the central valley: the Mixe, the Mixteca and the Sierra Zapoteca (I'm about 80% sure that I got these right). I've spent most of my time with the Familias Salubables division, which works mainly with women and children, although there is an agricultural side as well. A while ago I mentioned that my 2^nd day on the job involved an overnight trip to the mountains, but I didn't really explain. This is mostly because it terrified me, although I didn't want to admit it at the time.
Under vague instruction from Team Puente, I took a colectivo to Tlahuitoltepec, which is about 3 hours away in the Mixe region. A colectivo is a taxi that operates on a set route like a bus, but charges by distance traveled like a normal taxi. Unlike a normal taxi, you don't know the other riders and 5 passengers is the norm, with the extra person (me) snuggling the stickshift. For 3 hours. Between 2 Mexican men. It turned out that the taxi driver had recently returned to Oaxaca after 20 years in the States and literally talked the entire way to Tlahui. It was nice that he spoke English but it's also a lot harder to evade personal questions from a stranger when they speak your language.

Anyways, he helped me find the bakery where I was supposed to meet Vicky, the Puente promoter from Tlahui. The evening's plan was a cooking workshop, at which my main task was to take pictures. This took all of about 10 minutes because there were only 5 women there and you can only take so many pictures of people cutting up vegetables (especially with my photography skillz). It was hard to get involved or even know what was going on because most of the workshop was conducted in Mixe, the local language, so I bonded with the little kids who thought I was the world's best photographer.

At about 8pm it started to get dark and it was announced that I would be dropped off at a guest house for the night with plans to meet up at 9am for another workshop. The guest house ended up being a cabin building hidden in the trees. The señora in charge was convinced that I was both mute and incapable, refusing to talk to me. So I hung the extra sheets across the bare windows as curtains and settled in for 12 hours of…
Like I said, I was terrified. This was probably not the greatest start that an internship ever had. Luckily, the loud group of male voices wandering by at 11pm was just some boys, the crash at 5am was just a mango on the roof and I was not kidnapped while walking from my room to the bathroom with only my TelCel flashlight function to guide me. After a confusing conversation in which the señora's daughter with Down's Syndrome insisted that I only pay $7.50 for the night (about 60 cents), I headed off for another cooking workshop. This one went a little better despite the fact that I still didn't understand Mixe and was still bad at taking pictures through cooking fire smoke. I can't say that I was disappointed to finally be dropped off by Chedraui at the end of the day.

Although my cabin-staying self would have vehemently denied it, this was perhaps one of the most significant experiences I've had this summer. I still wouldn't use the words best, favorite, enjoyable, or easy to explain the 24 hours that I spent in Tlahuitoltepec, but it was significant. I've never felt like such an outsider before. Every single head turned as I walked through the city square on the way to breakfast and more than a few people stopped to ask why I was there. Like the güera comments in Oaxaca, the attention was mostly curious and not really malicious or unwelcoming. Nevertheless, I was really wishing that I could be invisible. I was acutely aware of myself standing next to the local women wearing traditional skirts and sandals with babies slung across their backs in scarf contraptions. Talking about "working in rural impoverished communities" sounds so heroically simple until you're there, surrounded by wood smoke, muddy trails scattered with stray dogs and their excrement, houses made of scrap metal and ancient people hauling their produce in a box slung around their forehead. But this is just as much the real Oaxaca as the bustling zócalo or the charmingly colorful streets full of hamburger stands and handicraft vendors. Reading about Oaxaca's relatively low standard of living and rural poverty could not have prepared me for this excursion and I didn't know what to do with myself. And that is why it has taken me 3 weeks to finally write about it; because I was overwhelmed, scared, and a little embarrassed by my naivety. In the end though, this was just a life lesson in disguise and whether it's a formal lecture or a taxi ride to a remote village with a crazy name, we have to admit that we don't know everything before we can learn anything.

No te preocupes.

I feel like I hear this a lot. When I ask for details of plans that don't yet exist, when something is late, really whenever something seems to be going wrong, the answer is often no te preocupes. This No Worries attitude is the topic of many a classy country songs about losing your load, leaving your mind behind and forgetting to come back. On the contrary, however, there are so many things to worry about in Mexico. It's a terrifying place! Here's why:

1. Water. Speaking of classy country songs, that one about not drinking the water is not an exaggeration. You really shouldn't drink it here. REALLY.
2. Fruits and vegetables. Even if they're washed (see #1) they aren't actually clean. Because again, you can't drink the water.
3. Dogs. They're hungry and they're everywhere. And probably have at least 3 types of parasites plus mange. The good news is, they are not cute and therefore aren't very tempting to pet.
4. Cats. Like dogs, cats run about as they please, dragging their inevitable parasites with them. Even the clean cats are dirty.
5. Pork. Mexico loves pork. This is debatably the single most popular thing that was introduced by the Spaniards and there are at least 4 words in Spanish for the live animal alone, not including the plethora of food products that can be made from literally any pig part, head to tail.
6. Street food. It's so bad but it's soooo good. Stopping at a street vendor for esquites or a cup of nieve is always a risk assessment exercise. It usually works out alright, but when it doesn't go well it REALLY doesn't go well.
7. Milk. It's still a mystery how the milk can be stored on a shelf until it's opened. In general, quite a bit of food that seems to need refrigeration gets to sit out on the counter here. Alternate universe? Or maybe it just explains some of the fear behind #6.
8. Germs. See #1-7. And probably a good part of #8-23. They're all up in everything.
9. Buses. $5.50MX for a heaping serving of citywide adventure, whiplash, loud music and bus exhaust. What. a. deal.
10. Bus-taxis (colectivos) All the fun of the bus system condensed into a lovely maroon vehicle. And the intimate touches from your seat neighbors are free of charge.
11. Taxis. There's no practical driving test to get a Mexican license. Enough said.
12. Mototaxis. All the fun of the taxi system condensed into a doorless, 3-wheeled rickshaw.
13. Taxi-buses. Now you and your 17 friends can all enjoy a taxi ride together! To the beach perhaps?
14. Traveling alone via any of the above mentioned vehicles.
    
15. Crossing the street. All the rules that your mom and kindergarten teacher taught you about street safety probably revolve around the ideal of the pedestrian right-of-way. Pedestrian be warned, trucks, bicycles, buses, private vehicles and especially taxis will not hesitate to accelerate in your direction as soon as you step off the curb.
16. Too much fun, too little sleep. So goes traveling, no?
17. Dirt. Although the previous weeks' dusty coating has been washed off every surface by the recent rainy season, it's now collected in impressively muddy globs. Best leave your pretty heels at home.
18. Poverty. Whether it's in the form of an entire family asking for pesitos in the zócalo or a house built out of rusting scrap metal or statistics on malnourished toddlers, poverty is a terrifying thing to encounter because it makes us reconsider our cushy seat in life. And this is just a glimpse from which we can easily walk away; imagine if that was your everyday reality.
19. Mosquitoes. While Idahoan mosquitoes are pretty harmless and will, at worst, leave you with some itchy welts in awkward places, international mosquitoes can be another story. Dengue fever, malaria, West Nile Virus, the list goes on. Quién dice yo? Who wants some?
20. Rain. Plans just don't work out well when the streets become rivers and it's dark at 6:30. Also, see #16 & #15 & probably #1.
21. Insects. Oaxacans have a unique appreciate for the nutritional value of insects that many of us would find appalling. As nutritional as it may be, a handful of dried crickets somehow seems less appealing than a chicken nugget. Hot weather also has a way of producing extremely large (and thankfully, less edible) bugs.
22. Sweating. It doesn't matter if you're lolling in bed after lunch or walking home from work or snuggling with some strangers in a colectivo (see #9). This is Mexico. You will sweat.
23. Spicy food. It's always a good idea to sample salsa before slathering it all over your plate. Chances are, it's going to pica mucho. But to be fair, anyone would eventually add chile to everything if the alternative was beans and tortillas cada día.
    
24. Beans. Like insects, beans are a great source of non-meat protein. I don't know the biological back story to the "beans give you gas" wive's tale, but I'm skeptical. And they're in or on just about everything so as Dulce María says, it's inevitable. You're going to eat some beans (she just sings the inevitable bit, nothing about beans).
    
25. Unknown. I'm sure there are other things to be afraid of that just haven't been discovered yet. And this, perhaps, is the scariest thing of all. The Unknown. But as appealing as it may seem, hiding in a closet (after checking it for spiders and cockroaches) with a life's supply of bottled water and saltine crackers is only going to expand the Fears List. The only way to know the unknown is to, as my mom would say, put on your big girl panties and go introduce yourself.

Buenos días, scary, marvelous world. Me llamo Olivia. Mucho gusto.

And yes, the tú form is a must because we're going to be best buds. Some might even use the term "biffles."

A world you can’t predict demands a mom you can trust

Mercedes Cruz. Only the best.
I was skeptical when my coordinator informed me on the first day of orientation that my assigned host mom was generally known to be the best. There were no other interns within earshot and what was to stop La Jefa from telling everyone that their host mom was the best? It turns out that this was not a little white lie to calm nerves but was pure, empirical fact. My host mom is the BEST.
Here's why:

1. Love. She has opened her home to countless oblivious, non-fluent, unknowingly abrasive students over the years and remembers something about each one, whether it's the city they're from, an experience they had while working with ProWorld, or the day she decided that they were the equivalent of her grandchild-soulmate. She handles a situation that many of us would consider to be a constant invasion of privacy with all the grace in the world.
2. Pep. Mama M has not had an easy life. She started working when she was 16 years old and moved from her small village outside Oaxaca. Her husband passed away about 6 years ago and although her 2 grown children live close and her elderly mother is living here, I can tell that she gets lonely. Nevertheless, she never insists on talking about her problems and always wants to know how our day went, if we're hungry, if we need anything else. She's not afraid to dole out motherly advice and sticks to her guns on issues.
3. The Nest. Mercedes has a beautiful, comfortable house. Everything is very bright and open and I feel very much at home here. The backyard is small but the plethora of flowers make up for its lack of size. Also, there's a double-wide hammock under the palm tree. I have yet to find anyone to share it with (except some mosquitoes) but applications are being accepted.
4. Nomz. Mama M is a strong believer in eating natural foods. Every morning we have either fresh fruit or freshly squeezed juice (carrot juice day was not my favorite but luckily haven't seen that since). Sometimes the oranges even come straight off the tree in the backyard! Just about everything we eat comes from a nearby market or tortillería. Feeling like tea before bedtime? Don't worry there are mint, chamomile and several other unidentified plants on the patio exactly for that reason. Barbara would be so proud!
5. I have a nickname. I'm not sure when exactly it came about, but lately Mama Mercedes has taken to calling me "Oli" and I like it.
6. There are so many other unidentifiable bits that have made my homestay experience 100% positive, mostly revolving around one Mercedes Cruz. What a woman.

I would extrapolate but I guess I should go to work or something. More on that later...

Shovels, shots and other shtuff

First a quick rundown of the last few days:
Thursday: day trip to Tlahuitoltepec for El Día del Productor. Much less traumatic than the last trip and overall success, despite the 5 hours in a car.

Friday: Instead of internshipping we all went to a nearby elementary school to help plant trees. This sounds like butterflies and rainbows if you don't consider why there aren't already trees at this school. After digging for a couple hours, I formed a pretty well-supported theory that it had something to do with the rock-solid clay/soil. If those little trees survive I will be truly impressed. It was nice to play in the dirt and swing a pickax around. Finished off the day at a karaoke bar. Also a success.

Saturday: ProWorld sponsored a trip to Mitla and a mezcal factory. We ended up spending more time on a bus than at the actual destination but that's how it goes.

I opted out of distributing condoms with an NGO in the centro, pretty sure that's not allowed on ND's bill. Celebrated Julie's birthday by watching Mexico defeat Guatemala in the Gold Cup, eating at multiple restaurants in a row, attending a non-existent party/art display at the Railroad Museum, and playing cards in a bar. Happy Birthday Julie!


Sunday: went for a run at the nearby university sports complex and will definitely be going back. Midday meal in the town of Etla with Mama Mercedes and housemates. Cow tongue anyone? Birthday festivities continued with a delicious cake for "July". Stumbled upon a mass close to home and came back home for some well-deserved lazy time in my room.

After being here for 2 weeks I'm feeling very confident navigating myself around the main part of Oaxaca and am starting to recognize places and street names. The other interns and I have been spending a lot of time just wandering around the zócalo region, slowly discovering bakeries, torta restaurants, the best places to watch soccer games, and bookstores. Tomorrow I'm hoping to hit up the public library and plead my way into a library card with the intention of transitioning into reading in Spanish at bedtime. It turns out that my internship is going to involve a lot of writing and while I am nearly in fluent in that I understand most everything and can communicate most ideas, my syntax isn't very natural. So hopefully I'll broaden my vocabulary a bit and sound more like a native speaker and less like a güera.
What is a güera you ask? It mostly means white girl but can be more broadly applied to any foreigner. Every time I walk by the hamburger stand near my neighborhood Chedraui, the hamburger man says, "Güera, quieres una hamburguesa?" Want a hamburger white girl? At first this really bothered me, despite pre-emptive warnings from the folks at ProWorld. Really, he's just trying to be helpful. Everyone knows that Americans love them some hamburgers. I'm American, and therefore, he's offering me a hamburger. No one ever really says it in a derogatory or threatening way; it seems to be more of an observation. Like a game of I Spy. I spy a bus, I spy a light post, I spy a white girl. The hamburger man is not really that different from the little girl who tripping over herself to get a second look at the English-speakers behind her or the tourist exclaiming over the baskets of chapulines in the market. We're all fascinated by new things. I've accepted that my pale skinned, blonde self is going to make a scene and that if I can't beat 'em, I'll join 'em. And it's actually pretty fun to mutter "güeros" upon sighting fellow foreigners, it really helps to take the sting off. And maybe one day I'll buy a hamburger, just for kicks.

Let the rain fall down

Well it's official. The rainy season has arrived. And this is not a light-shower-rain or gentle-drizzle-rain. This is your-umbrella-is-no-good-here-just-give-up-now-rain. But as long as you don't have anywhere to be or don't mind being a little retrasada, it's pretty nice. And considering that everyone runs on Oaxacan Time, rain is a perfectly legitimate reason for being 45 minutes late! It definitely helps to cool everything down after a hot morning and rain on the roof is one of my favorite things. Plus it makes all the farmers happy. In case you were wondering, this is the perfect time to be sembrando-ing amaranth!
I'm gradually getting my bearings and feeling more comfortable here. One of these days I'll go into more detail about exactly why my host mom is so fantastic, but for right now you'll just have to believe me. Although I'm still not cien por ciento happy with how my internship's going, I'd much rather have that be touch-and-go than to be unhappy with my living situation. It's nice to know that no matter what, I'll come home to someone asking how my day went. It's nice to be mothered.

There are also little things that I've forgotten are familiar. Offertory and communion always feature the same songs at mass (te presentamos…). Seemingly obscure slang, courtesy of Prof. Barrientos, comes up in everyday conversation (Mama Mercedes was worried that my lunch would get apapachado-ed in my backpack). I chose to ignore the "traditional Oaxacan food" side of the menu at dinner tonight in favor of a Puebla classic, tacos al pastor, and what a great choice that was. This summer is not going to be all smiles and rainbow ponies but is it going to be an unforgettable experience. As Bishop Allen says, let the rain fall down…oh let the sky be grey, 'cause if it's gonna get any better, it's gotta get worse for a day.

Poco a poco llegamos.

In the sun

This week has had its fair share of challenges, both real and imagined. It was not an easy week and felt like at least a year. As I lay in the hammock in my host family's backyard, happy to have survived the week, I thought of a salsa song that is both catchy and a reminder of the small joys in life. Here I am, in one of the most beautiful cities of a fantastically unique country. I'm surrounded by some of the most caring people I've ever met and some of the most delicious food I've ever met. The sun is out every day without fail, leaving the evenings warm and breezy. Although it sometimes feels more like a bombardment than a blessing, someone is speaking Spanish everywhere I turn. In comparison, a few weeks ago I was strategically seating myself in the library just to overhear the Latino kids' conversation. Not because I was particularly interested in what they were saying but in how they were saying it. I might be biased but Spanish is a beautiful language, whether you understand it or not.

And while I've only been here a week, there are only 7 left. So in the coming weeks I'm going to open my eyes, look up, and enjoy the good things in life. Like fresh cantaloupe juice for breakfast. And wristwatch tans. And Mexican men merrily shouting ¡güerita! as I walk by. Because yes sir, I am a white girl. Muchisimas gracias. And finally, the ridiculous things that bus drivers deem worthy of decoration in their camiones, like this poem:

Si comes cualquier chacharita,

No tires su basurita.

Si son pepitas

¡Cómete las cascaritas!

Mostly it just says to take care of your trash if you eat a snack on the bus. And if your snack of choice is sunflower seeds, you'd better eat the shells too. And it only rhymes because there's a diminutive at the end of every word. Viva.Mexico.
Finally finally, this has been my jam this week. Disfruta!
YouTube - In the sun (Joseph Arthur)

Typical.

Today was the first day of my internship. I might have briefly explained it earlier but I can't remember and don't feel like going back to look so I'll tell you again. Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (Bridge to Community Health) is an NGO that focuses on nutrition education and works towards food autonomy (this is a vague translation) in rural communities. Puente kills two birds with one very small stone, amaranth. It is not only native to Mexico and relatively easy to grow and process, but also balances the typical rural diet that is based on corn and beans. I heard something today that sums up their mission really nicely: siembra amaranto, cosecha alegría. Translation: sow amaranth, harvest happiness. Some of the meaning is lost in translation because alegría means both amaranth and happiness. For those of you who are curious: More on amaranth

  
Anyways, it's still unclear exactly what my role will be with Puente, but for the first bit I'm just figuring out what exactly they do. Today we went to a town outside Oaxaca for a meeting that involved a "amaranth popper" machine (If you're imagining an industrial sized popcorn air-popper, good) and a lady from the Ford Foundation. I spent most of the afternoon with some super friendly little girls, playing kitchen. I swear the little first grader knows her way around a kitchen, either for realreal or for playplay, better than I do!

While the morning bus ride was a piece of cake, the ride back was a bit of a struggle. By a bit, I mean an hour-long detour. I got dropped off somewhere besides the Puente office and was directed to the main road that circles the city. I wasn't sure exactly where I was, but the Puente people assured me that if I got on the bus, I would eventually end up at the Chedraui store right by my house. The detail that either a) they forgot to include or b) I missed in translation, was that I needed to cross the 4 lane road to catch this great bus. So I happily hoped on a bus (not THE bus) and settled in, waiting to see something familiar. After a while, places did become familiar, not because there was a SuperChe in sight, but because the bus was headed back the way I had just come from the mountains. Slightly concerned, I asked the bus driver if the route would make a loop (specifically, I asked if it would dar la vuelta). He assured me that it would, so I decided not to worry.

It turns out, however, that this vuelta was at the top of some godforsaken mountain overlooking the city. And the vuelta was actually the end of the line, requiring me to get off, wait 10 minutes, get on another bus, and ride the whole route over again. It turns out that I was originally only about 10 minutes away from my neighborhood. While I was never in any real danger of being truly misplaced or permanently lost, it was not an ideal way to spend my afternoon. In retrospect, the best thing would have been to bail when I first suspected it was the wrong bus, swallow my pride and take a taxi home. But then what would I have blogged about? And who takes a 10-minute taxi when you can spend an hour on a bus?

This was just a warm-up adventure for tomorrow's adventure however. I'm off to a village that's even farther away with a name that I have no hope of remembering or pronouncing correctly to help with a women's workshop. As I understand it, we're staying the night, maybe two. Again, I don't know what I'll end up doing but I'm sure I'll learn something along the way. Wish me luck!

Mira, el arbol viejo!

Mercedes took us to the Tule Tree this afternoon. ¿Ya lo vieron?

When in Oaxaca...

(written 06/04/11)
Yesterday was rough. After 22 hours of traveling, all I wanted was a hug from my mom. Or my dad. Or a brother. Really, a hug from anyone would have been great. I may have llorar-ed a bit when the house got dark and quiet before 9pm and I didn't know what to do with myself.
But to backtrack a bit... Friday afternoon I took a puddle-jumper flight from Spokane to Portland. After a quick hello to Mt. Hood, I had another flight and soon hopped off the plane at LAX (if you now have Miley Cyrus blaring in your head, good. That was the plan). I knew that I had found the right gate for my Mexico City connection before I even got close enough to see the flight number. The whole room was buzzing with Spanish and the announcements were bilingual. There were so many little things, like plastic string bags and beaded hairclips, that I had forgotten about but were definitely from Mexico. We arrived in DF at 5:30ish in the morning and after a breezy trip through customs, I hung out in the airport with my book until it was light enough to venture out and catch a taxi to the bus station. Good ol' TAPO was not too busy at 7 in the morning and after talking with the nice people at ADO, settled in to wait for my bus. Despite sleeping through most of my flights, I fell asleep before the bus left DF and woke up just in time to see Malinche disappearing behind us. Yes, I managed to sleep through the entire state of Puebla...Typical of ADO, the busride featured completely strange and obscure movies that no one wants to watch. I definitely saw parts of "Open Season" and "Race to Witch Mountain" but sadly, no strange Nicholas Cage SciFi. The bus was miraculously ahead of schedule and we arrived in Oaxaca early, despite road construction and lots of traffic. This was probably due to the driver's David-like passing habits on the double-yellow-lined, two lane mountain roads between Puebla and Oaxaca. I met my coordinator, Leigh, at the ProWorld office and was soon picked up by my host mom, Mercedes. There are also two other ProWorld girls living with Mercedes who are both first-year medical students. I have a lovely room that gets sunshine throughout the day and looks out on the back garden.

Although my trip went about as smoothly as I could have expected, it's still stressful to travel alone. It's easier to have someone else there who will make half of the decisions, or at least will confirm that something sounds like a good idea. I became completely indecisive over ridiculous things, such as which bus seat to choose, what size of water bottle to buy, and which money exchange window to visit (they all had the same exact rate). Ah well, live and learn.

I woke up this morning feeling much more optimistic, partially thanks to the sun streaming in the window. In keeping with Oaxacan tradition, we had tamales and hot chocolate for Sunday breakfast, plus the ever-present pan dulce and fruit assortment. Hypothetically, I´m not a picky eater, but all I could think of while eating my papaya and mango slices was that Andy thinks the former tastes like solid fart and that I once threw up a large quantity of the later. Luckily, Mercedes is a veteran host mom and is very receptive to what her guests eat and don´t eat. She is heart-set on keeping me away from any dairy products ever since I told her that I´m más o menos lactose intolerant. The woman is solid gold.

This morning we had an orientation at the ProWorld office. There are 8 new interns this month, mostly college-aged students here for the summer, and all interning with various organizations. After some basic ¨Welcome to Oaxaca/Mexico¨ information, we went for a walking tour through Oaxaca´s centro. Enter, Project Suppress the Puebla Girl. Of the 8 interns, I´m the only one who´s spent any extended time in Mexico and it´s terribly tempting to share my limited knowledge on the Workings of the World. I mostly succeeded (I hope). In contrast with last night´s tears, today felt (nearly) like coming home. We wandered through the market where Amanda once found a grandote white teddy bear, saw the phallic balloon vendors in the zócalo, and walked past the hotel where Lisette made us watch an imitation Guelaguetza dance demonstration instead of watching the ND football game. I was reminded how much I like nieve from sketchy street vendors, how pedestrians don´t have the right-of-way, and how heavenly a taco stand smells on an empty stomach.
Despite the familiarity, I´m trying to be a blank slate. I don´t want to limit myself or let my guard down because of my previous experiences. Oaxaca is a very different city than Puebla, partially due to it´s indigenous population, but more on that later. I´m not exactly sure when I´ll get around to actually posting this because I have to go to a coffee shop or the ProWorld office for Internet access.
Nos vemos!

Regresamos

In exactamente one week, I will be on an ADO bus somewhere between Mexico City and Oaxaca. The reality of my summer plans didn't really hit until about 2 days ago, about an hour after I finished taking the MCAT. Anyone who knows me well knows that I internalize stress in strange ways and become a grumpy recluse (Katie Buetow is a saint for putting up with this for 3 years). I was so wrapped up in periodic motion and acid-base chemistry that I forgot to appreciate being home. As part of my denial-about-leaving-in-a-week routine I've imagined 294 things that could go wrong before I get to Oaxaca. I'm realizing how much of my study abroad experience was defined by Team Puebla '10 and the sense of security that comes with group travel. I could fall asleep on the bus without worrying about my neighbor stealing my bag (although Erica is quite the clepto). We could vent in English and always had built-in taxi buddies.

In contrast, this is very much a solo adventure. I am a planner at heart and like to have control over the future. Accepting that I don't in this situation is killing me. I vaguely know that my host mom is named Mercedes and that I'll be working with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, a public health organization with a focus on nutrition education. Aaaaand that's about it.

I might end up handwashing my laundry. I don't know.
I might end up learning some indigenous languages. I don't know.
I might end up with more free time that I've had since I was in kindergarten. I don't know.
I might end up searching out internet in strange places, like McDonalds. I don't know.

Despite my scattered worrying, I'm terribly excited. I'm excited for street markets, elotes, buses, ridiculously painted buildings, and Mexican Spanish. I'm excited to move at ahorita pace, to have freetime, to get my Spanish fluency on, and maybe to learn something about myself.

As Capt. Jack Sparrow would say, “But WHY is the year gone?!?!?”

Today is officially the end of my junior year. I have spent all my Flex Points, turned in all my finals, and re-hung the drab Lewis curtains in my room. All that's left to do is decide what goes home for the summer and what gets to stay in South Bend. This biannual process of condensing my life never seems to prevent me from accumulating a whole lot of silly things that "might just come in handy". I am such a Wassmuth… Today also begins the awkward process of saying good bye to people "in case I don't see you again before you leave." I will inevitably see most of these people at least three more times before either of us actually rolls out of campus, but we say good bye just in case. I'm trying to push the reality of the upcoming senior year and inevitable graduation to the back of my mind, while gradually accepting that next year is going to fly by. I guess the key is to appreciate every day as it comes and not miss the present by looking too much to the future.

And in complete contradiction to what I just claimed, the next few weeks are going to be all about the future. I not only am supposed to be "personally stating" in a medical school application essay, but also completing a convoluted application and taking the dreaded MCAT. I'm trying not to complain because it's all just part of the process, but I can't actually say that it's fun either.

As I walked out of my final final about half an hour ago, my professor shook my hand and handed a copy of this prayer attributed to Pedro Arrupe, SJ. I'm usually skeptical about professors' attempts at a final message to wrap up their class, but this one got me. (In retrospect, I don't know that it's so much a prayer as a statement about life, but I guess God likes those too.) Enjoy.

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, whill affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings.
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Yesterday was Thursday, Today is Friday

(to be fair, I started this when it was still Thursday, but seeing as how it's now after midnight, I can quote these very thoughtful lyrics)

I have nothing to show for today. I fumbled through some organic chemistry MCAT review, woke Katie up from a nap instead of doing my homework, and stared at my physics lab for half an hour before calling it quits. Today, I don't want to be a student. So I figured, if I'm not going to get anything done, I might as well have some fun and revive my blog. I've really missed blogging since my life became significantly less foreign and exciting- I don't feel like there's anything blog-able going on. I've recently had a change of heart, however, and decided that there are plenty of blogs out there about things besides wandering around a foreign country. So I'm back.

A habit that I've happily fallen back into is reading before bed. The Hesburgh Library is a bit of a labyrinth if you don't know what you're doing, but once the card catalog has been mastered, it is quite the treasure trove. My latest and greatest find is The Lacuna, by my all-time favorite, Barbara Kingsolver. I had read the first bit of this book when it first came out. Is it against the rules to camp out in Borders to read with no intention of buying? I feel like it might be, but then why do they have such comfy chairs? Anyways, miracle of miracles, The Lacuna was on the shelves at good old Club Hes and I snagged it. Written in journal form, the book tells the story of an American boy, Harrison Shepherd, as he dragged about North America by his Mexican mother, eventually ending up in DF working for none other than Diego Rivera. While it's a bit of a Mexican Forrest Gump in that the main character encounters several key historical events and figures of the 1930's through the 1950's, the author peaces it together so gracefully that it seems perfectly reasonable for H. Shepherd to work with not only Diego Rivera, but Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky. Not only was this a Kingsolver novel of the expected quality, but it involved all sorts of fun Spanish phrases and references to places that I have actually seen!! Crazy.

On a related note, I have recently started a collection of quotes and lyrics that I like, inspiration credited to Miss Rachel Hamilton. I especially liked this one:

Traces of paint clung to the surfaces too: red, green, violet. In their time, all these buildings were brightly painted…Today Chichén Itzá declared the truth of what it was: garish. Loud and bright, full of piss and jasmine, and why not? It was Mexico. Or rather, Mexico is still what this once was.

So remember how I had the chance in December to see Chichén Itzá, one of the Wonders of the World, and didn't go? Well, here I am, regretting that already. I guess my real point here is that I enjoyed the book so much because it expressed what I haven't quite been able to- the essence of Mexico. This was one of those books that I was in denial about having finished and so went on to read every page of the afterword, interview with the author and discussion questions for book clubs. Yes, I am exactly that pathetic.

Luckily, I found a new exciting book, disguised as a required read for my "Preparing for the Health Professions" class. My original plan was to skim sufficiently to write a one-paged review and reflection paper, but after the first few pages of The Spriit Catches You and You Fall Down, I was hooked. It's about a family from Laos, of the Hwong tribe, that moved to the US as refugees and their navigation through the American health system. It's a personal account of the clash between Eastern and Western medicine, and the unavoidable ties with economics, politics, social norms and religion that make medicine such a messy topic. I am not explaining this well but let it suffice to say that I'm doing more than skimming.

Well, this was only a semi-successful attempt to drift away from the Mexico blog. A for effort?

Finally, a combo pun + pickup line that I heard today (no, it wasn't directed at anyone, unfortunately).

Are you from Tennessee? Because you're the only 10 I see.

Bahahahaha.

Waking Up the Echoes

 Although I've only been back on the Notre Dame campus for a single week, it feels like I never left. Simultaneously, it's possible that I was gone for years and years. I've either been here forever or was gone forever, I can't quite decide. It is terribly comforting to be back in the land of FlexPoints, brown metal-framed bunkbeds from the 1980's, and, of course, my beloved roommate. I have finally readjusted to the idea of modern sewage treatment, potable tap water, sweaters, and streets without a bus or taxi in sight, but Mexico is still lingering in the back of my mind (not to mention in my digestive tract- Montezuma is one stubborn dude). I am looking forward to applying myself academically again and turning my vague ideas about applying to medical school into a reality.
This return to the old daily drudgery (ok drudgery is maybe a bit melodramatic, work with me.) is lightened by my summer prospects. I applied on a whim for a grant through the Kellogg Institute to participate in a service-based medical internship in Latin America and was selected for the Mexico program. If all goes well, I will be spending 8 weeks of my summer break in Oaxaca, Mexico, working in a medical clinic and living with a local host family. I am indescribably excited to return to the country that taught me so much this past semester and that will always have a special place in my heart.
So that's where I am. Settling into a newly rediscovered, familiar routine and taking things one day at a time.
And in case you haven't yet had the opportunity to ask an un-subtle question about run-ins with gun-slinging narcos, the answer is "No, güey."

Home Again Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I arrived at the Mexico City Benito Juarez International Airport at least 5 hours before my flight, well-prepared with a supply of pirated DVDs, a fully-charged iPod, and firm napping intentions. After the nice Delta employee checked my UNDERWEIGHT bags, he smiled, wished me a good trip and asked, "¿No tienes frío?" Typical Mexican. If I had a pesito for every time I heard that question this semester, I would have a chingo of pesos. Contrary to Mr. Delta's beliefs, it was a beautiful, sunny morning with the promise of at least 25°C (75°F for you silly non-metric thinkers) and I was appropriately dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. This poor man looked at my bare arms with legitimate concern and shivered. His muffler and 3 layers of sweaters were barely warding off hypothermia. I smiled, shook my head and set out in search of Security and a power outlet. Security was less than tight and I was soon settled in with my movies and cacahuates japonesas. After several hours and a last-minute unannounced gate change, I settled into seat 16A as reality simultaneously settled in. I was leaving Mexico.
My trip was about as uneventful as a 10 hour cross-continental journey could be expected to be. It mainly featured restless naps, the first of which started before we ever left the Mexico City tarmac. So much for my plans to wish DF farewell from the air.
Now, after 149 days of si por favor's, corn tortillas, pyramids and street markets, I am back in Idaho. I could probably make a good argument for the re-immersion at home being a bigger culture shock than my arrival in Mexico. Time and faded memories may have some impact on the accuracy of this statement however. There are a few main aspects to which it's been the strangest to readjust: plumbing, language, and noise.

• Plumbing: Despite spending the first 20 years of my life in this country and being home for 3 days, I still have an internal struggle each time I go to dispose of toilet paper. My reflex is to throw it in the trash and I keep catching myself looking around for the trash can that isn't there. Toilet paper just doesn't look right in the toilet. Additionally, I am still readjusting to the idea of clean tap water. As my friend filled the coffee pot with tap water this morning, I wanted to yell DON'T USE THAT WATER. I've been purposely filling my glass in the sink instead of from the fridge filter just to override that mental reflex. MMMM aquifer.
• Language: Although I haven't actually said anything in Spanish, I have this weird double translation thing going on. In the airport, for example, I wanted to say "thank you" to the flight attendant, translated that to "gracias", then caught myself at the last minute and said "thank you" as originally planned. I never really noticed my habit of using Spanglish until spending the last 2 weeks with my monolingual family. ¡Ay ay ay!
• Noise: Compared to the bustling, 24/7 dance party & traffic jam of Mexico, Idaho is completely deserted. The roads are nearly empty, life is no longer soundtracked by Enrique and Papa Americano, and I haven't heard a car alarm in days. The silence is nice but also a little eerie. Where are all the people?!?!

And now that I think about it, the temperature is also getting to me. Maybe that Delta employee was just psychic because it has been arctically (yes, I made up this word) frigid here in good ol'North Idaho, to the tune of single digit degrees (Fahrenheit, not Celsius). My semester's worth of "no" answers to the previously posed question have caught up with me and my current answer is a resounding "CLARO QUE SÍ." Sparkling Winter Wonderlands come with their price I guess.
Besides these general readjustments, I've been going through Mexico Withdrawals, which I've been remedying with countless stories starting with "In Mexico…" I'm sure everyone is sick of my blabbering, references to obscure towns, and non sequitur stories. Deal with it.
I have all intentions of returning to El País del Maíz. It was too great to leave as simply a memory of That One Time I Spent Five Months in Mexico. I will hopefully be going back as soon as this summer; more news on that in about a week.
¡Nos vemos!