Finally...Pictures!

Okay, I figured out the picture problem, so I thought I should catch you up on some of the adventures I've been writing about.

Teetor-Totters may have been deemed dangerous for American children to play on, but Mexico is a whole different story.

We went and did Zumba one morning. It´s basically dance aerobics. We felt pretty silly, but it was worth the laughs.

After Zumba, we found this area, on the median between two busy roads, that was full of these structures for people to work-out on. It seemed really strange to us, but there were people using them seriosuly.

Cholula, Puebla where we went in an ancient pyramid.

Puebla City...there were clowns wandering around outside of this huge cathedral, making fun of us Americans.

These are two of the cutest girls. They are the daughters of the regional coordinators at ILP and Joce and I got to carry them all the way to the church on day to play soccer! Kind of hurt our necks.

Oaxaca Temple

Arbol del Tule in Oaxaca. Really Big Tree.

Mitla, Oaxaca
Monte Alban, Oaxaca. These are the amazing ruins.

It was a beautiful drive home from Oaxaca to Tehuacan and Jacque took loads of pictures from the bus. Can you really ever capture a sunset, though?

Why Mexico is Awesome

1. Cantaloupe. In America, I never liked cantaloupe. In Mexico, it is so juicy and delicious, I can't believe it's the same fruit!

2. Nopales. Cactus. At taco stands, they grill the nopales and onions and give you a pile with your tacos. Mmmm. Some people hate them. I love them!

3. Cheapness. Yesterday I went to the grocery store with 200 pesos, or about 20 USD, thinking I would have to be careful, you know, not buy everything I wanted. When I got to the check out, I spent 96 pesos--less than 10 USD. Ridiculous.

4. Mangoes. Again. Amazing.

5. Vacations. There are so many awesome places to go! We keep planning our vacations, and I just get so excited.

Oaxaca

This past weekend we took a trip to the city of Oaxaca. We left ridiculously early in the morning, at 4 am, and got to our hostel there at 7:30. We dropped our stuff off and right away went over to the Oaxaca Temple. It was so great to be there--even though it was a new temple, it felt so familiar. We got there just as a youth group was getting ready to head in for baptisms, so we joined their group. I was surprised at how many youth there were, and especially how many boys. We had a very nice time there.

After PB&J sandwiches at the hostel, we went to this really old tree, Tule. I think it said it was 2,000 years old. The bird's flying around in there and singing away made it really peaceful. There were little boys who would give you tours of the tree--use little mirrors to show you cool things, but we didn't get one for ourselves. We wouldn't have really understood much.

Next, we got on an overcrowded bus where we all had to stand in the aisle, holding on for the bumpy ride to Mitla. Mitla is a cute little town on the side of the mountain with ruins scattered throughout it. There were these funny little taxis that were more like 4-wheelers with a canvas roof over the top, driven by kids that looked too young to drive. I really wanted to take one up to the top of the city, but I couldn't get anyone else to join my cause.

Back in Oaxaca, we went to a famous market, called 20 de Noviembre. Lots of the markets in Mexico are named with dates, and I'm not sure why. I shared the famous dish, Tlayuda, with Jacque and drank Horchata and Sidral Apple Soda. Back in the hostel, we took warm showers, relaxed, ate a delicious mango, took pictures with Nacho Libre masks, and tried to post pictures on this blog...but as you can see, it didn't work. Another time, perhaps.

Sunday, the hostel had breakfast for us, and it was delicious. Mexican eggs, but not too Mexican, and pinto beans. The "orange juice", however, tasted more like water and made me crave my grandpa's fresh squeezed deliciousness that I had been spoiled with before coming to Mexico. We all headed to church after breakfast. The ward there was having a special goodbye meeting for 10 missionaries that were going home the next day. There just happened to be 10 of us girls there, too... No, it was a cool meeting to attend as they all shared their testimonies.

The main event of the day however was Monte Alban. We took a caravan of taxis up a windy road through rundown villages, looking out over the crowded valley. At the top of the mountain, there is a museum and this huge ruin site. It was really spectacular. Pyramids, altars, water reservoirs, residential areas everywhere you looked, and all on the very top of this mountain. We only spent 2 hours there, but we could have used a lot more. We climbed lots of huge steps, took lots of pictures, and bought lots of jewelry from the vendors outside the museum. It was probably the coolest thing I´ve seen yet, but it's only been three weeks!

Puebla

On Saturday, all the teachers took a day trip to Puebla, main city in the state. We rented a bus all to ourselves that took us wherever we wanted to go. It was pretty nice--water bottles, snacks, TV's for watching Johnny Lingo, and basically our own personal guides!

First we went to Cholula, actually, where there is this ancient Aztec pyramid. The pyramid itself was covered up with Cortez came and took over and he built a Catholic church on top of it. But they have opened up the pyramid and we got to walk through some of the tunnels. We could see other stairways and tunnels going to who-knows-where. It's crazy to think that people actually created this intricate maze, and so cool that we have it preserved! Outside at the base of the pyramid, we walked around some excavated ruins: altars, crematoriums, game fields, really big stairs and such. Also very cool. (I would put pictures up if I could, but I still need to figure out how to either get pictures on this computer, or get internet on my laptop). Then we walked up to the cathedral on top of the former-pyramid. It is the highest part of the city, so there was an amazing view of Cholula, possibly Puebla, and this awesome volcano, Popocatépetl. The volcano and mountains around it are supposed to look like a woman laying down, but I haven't seen it yet. I think this volcano is supposed to be her bottom, because that's what "popo" means in Spanish.

After looking at many, many gift shops, we got back on the bus and headed for Puebla. We had pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they were amazingly delicious. In Puebla, we just got dropped off at the city´s center and walked around. The city itself is beautiful, a much different feel from Tehuacan. It's much bigger, cleaner, and more modern, like a bigger city in the United States. There is a huge cathedral right across from the center, which was quite impressive. We went in when there were services going on, so we couldn't walk around or take pictures of the inside, but it was quite ornate. We did go to a museum of Mexican artifacts that was pretty cool. One thing I noticed was that there didn't seem to be much evolution in their human forms, they stayed about the same up until they were conquered and European influence hit.

It was great to get away, be touristy for a day and see some new things. One thing I came to appreciate, though, was free bathrooms, because there aren´t any in Mexico. We had to buy ice cream from Burger King to be able to use their bathroom...though I didn't really have a problem with that. And drinking fountains. It's weird to have a Mormon church building without drinking fountains.

Address

Just in case anyone feels so inspired to send anything to me in Mexico, here´s the address you can use:

2 Norte #1210 Colonia Jacarandas C.P. 75730 Tehuacan, Puebla, Mexico

They did say to make sure you don't get sent anything from China, or else the postal service will hold it for a pricey ransom.

Improvements

1. This morning I cleaned my room...the floors and the walls and moved the furniture around. It felt awesome. It was pretty disgusting to clean. They haven't cleaned it in a year.

2. I cleaned the bathroom! No need to say anything more.

3. The toilet is, in fact, working! Hooray!

4. Teaching today was a ton better than yesterday. It's amazing how kids react when you "erase a star" by their name. Discipline does work!

5. I bought pieces of mango on the street. Holy cow. Doesn't even taste like those mangos in America.

First Day of Teaching

Holy cow...today was the first day of teaching at the schools and I am pooped. We start the day at Discovery Kinder, which is a really nice school where all the rich kids go, and we are their English class. We have 6-8 kids rotate through 4 teachers every 20 minutes. The kids there are crazy. They actually knew English pretty well. There are some that don't talk unless you pull it out of them, and some kids that won't stop talking. They are good at not speaking any English, though. Later in the day we teach at a specific ILP school, where any child can come take a 2-hour class. Here the range of abilities is huge. One, adorable little girl didn't speak any English, and would tell us that in Spanish. Her brother just rambled off the whole time in Spanish, even though we keep telling him "No English!" There are some kids though who are really good at English, too. I feel like it will be difficult to plan lessons that will engage this whole range of students. It's hard to implement much discipline, but I feel like that would be helpful. I'll have to work on that. It was a whirlwind of a day, but everyone keeps saying it gets easier and more enjoyable...so I'm anxiously awaiting that day!