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.