Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The book has finally arrived














I will now have very little free time. We were supposed to have these books 3 weeks ago to start the course to get our certificates. There are only 2 of us doing this and coincidentally the other girl is from Orem, Utah.

Now I have:


Early work out , followed by a 9-10 Am Spanish session with Amer, followed by 3 hours of TESOL, lunch, school, and then on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have another Spanish Conversation with Darian. I will arrive home between 7 and 8:30 PM depending on the day.




Monday, May 30, 2011

Heaven

We just had crepes with sweetened condensed milk (they call it lechera) for dinner. It is so delicious. I don't know why but I don't seem to be gaining any weight. I am going to try harder!

Teah, you'll be happy to know that I ate Esquite this afternoon.

Esquite is corn that has been cut off the cob and put in a cup and then they put a scoop of Mayonaise, some cheese that looks like parmesan but isn't, lime, and chili. I will definately eat that again.

la lavadora esta descompuesto

Major Bummer!! The washer is broken and may remain that way for the duration of my stay.


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The temperature cools off in the evening but the house stays REALLY hot until about 3 AM. We have escaped to the roof to get out of the heat.


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YUM!! Almuerzo (lunch)


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We live across the street from a school. There are two turns as they call them for classes. The first turn goes to school from 7AM to 1 or 2 PM depending on the day. The second turn goes from 1PM to 8PM. There are 1000 students in each turn. It is a secondary school which is equivalent to our Jr. High. The band practices in the morning and in the evening 7 days a week. Early in the morning (7AM) the loud speaker is on with announcements and music. Every evening before classes get out, this van (below) shows up for 40 minutes with a loud speaker that repeats over and over, pan….pan…pan…pan de dulce…pan…pan…pan…..pan de dulce. There are several different gas trucks (propane) that come down our street throughout the day with a loud speacker, el gas….el gas….el gas….atencion y servicio….el gas….el gas. So…..what I want to say is, I LONG FOR PEACE & QUIET, big time. On Sunday the TV does not get turned on which is soooo nice. Yesterday was peaceful for the most part. I will never take “the quiet” for granted again.


This is the pan de dulce van.


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Guayabas, YUM! Chapulines (grasshoppers)


mexico 001chapulines

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Today at School


















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Today was a great day at school. We made peanut buteer playdough and then we ate it. We all had sticky fingers.


We got caught in a big rainstorm on the way home from school with granizo (hail). They were large and hurt when they hit us in the head. It was great fun. We were soaked when we returned home.


On Sunday I went to breakfast with some friends and I ate Huevos Divorciados. They were just like I am used to only there were two of them. One with green sauce and one with red. This week I have also eaten Guayaba. I had eaten Guayaba IceCream in Costa Rico but never knew what the fruit looked like. I also tried Capulines which look just like cherries only the fruit inside is green. The girls and I at home had popcorn with a ton of hotsauce on it. The sauce is similar to Cholula back home. I am becoming addicted to this sauce and limes which we eat on EVERYTHING.


I finished the book, The Book Thief which was great. Thanks Kelcey for the recommendation. I really enjoyed it. When I lost all the information on my hard drive, I lost my library card number so I am unable to download library books.


Friday, May 20, 2011

Chile anyone?

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Today I helped clean chile’s.  That was easy as I have done it many times before.  I wish I could tell you all the delicious food that I have eaten here so far.  Some days I eat 4 times which is good and bad.  Every morning I have milk  with either a banana or mango in the blender.  Then sometime between 11 and 12 I have breakfast, then at 3:00 I have lunch, then if I can stay awake until 11:00, I have dinner.  Everything is muy rico. Oh yeah and I eat churro’s also since all I have to do to get one is walk downstairs and pay 3.5 peso’s. 

Night before last I went to see Agua para elefantes with a group of 9 girls.  Five of them are from here and friends of another teacher, Angela.  Then there were the 4 of us teachers.  It did not start until 10:30 which is usually about my bedtime.  We were lucky that we got a ride home and arrived here just after 1:00 AM.  It was a great show as was expected since I had read the book.

On Monday I started daily sessions speaking Spanish with Amer, the dad where I live.  I ‘m enjoying that.  We meet in the store from 9-10 in the morning.  There are many customers.   t is easy to understand the customers since they are asking for things that I am familiar with.  Amer sales so many different things in the store that I am amazed each day. This week he purchased a new copy machine which is a big change from what he had to the huge one that he has now.  He is the only person in the neighborhood who has one and it is a big part of his business.  Then between customers we speak in Spanish.  This is giving me the opportunity to learn about things that I normally would not have the opportunity to.  I am really enjoying it.

My flat mate Kristin from New Zealand has taken a job in Korea to teach English for a year so she will be leaving within a couple of weeks.  I will definitely miss her.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Torter King

Isn’t this funny?  They are using the logo’s from Burger King and McDonalds.

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I have been bummed about not having more exposure speaking Spanish.  Yesterday I started Spanish sessions with Amer, the father here where I live.

I am paying him for an hour per day.  I go downstairs for an hour while he is working in the store and attempt to interpret conversations with customers and then talk with Amer when there are no customers in the store.  Yesterday he had to go to the bank to make a deposit and he asked me if I wanted to come.  It was a perfect opportunity for me as I still had to change my US Dollars for Pesos.

His bank does not change money so we had to walk another mile or better to another bank.  He was a good sport.  It was the worst experience I have had changing money in another country.  Finally he just had them do it in his name which still was quite a process.

An old student of Kristin’s gave her a candied apple today.  It was covered in chile, tamarind, and sugar made into a sticky substance.  It was another new taste.  It is easy to get addicted to the chili flavor on everything.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Comiendo cacahuetes en el Zocolo

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Cuando a el Zocolo hoy, compre cacahuetes con chili, limon y sal.

I won’t make you Gringos translate.

While at the Zocolo today, I bought peanuts with chili, lime and salt.  They were pretty spicy which forced me to buy a beer.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Una Excursion Buenisima

Today Kristin, Angela, and I took the bus to Cholula. While the bus was in motion, although moving at a slow speed, the bus drivers changed seats. That was something to see.


Santuario de Los Remedios Cholula Mexico

We arrived in Cholula and went directly to the Pyramid. It is the largest pyramid ever built in the World. It is said that it was dedicated to the God Quetzalcotl. I did not find out when but at some point a church was built on top of the pyramid. I am not sure if it was known that there was a pyramid there or not. Cortes had vowed that the city would be rebuilt with a Christian Church to replace each of the old Pagan temples. That said, it was probably known that it was there but then nature had done her part of reclaiming the area too. Because the church is there, they are not allowed to excavate the pyramid although part of it can be seen.


On the climb to the top, there were many people selling food, clothing, and hand made items. We ate grasshoppers. Angela had eaten them before and talked me into trying it. It was just crunchy. Now that I've done that I won't have to do it again.



In this city, it is said that there is a church for every day of the year. There are not that many but the information that I have seen differs between 50 and 260.


So knowing that there is a church built on top of the pyramid, it is a bit of a climb to get to the church and that is before we arrived at these steps to the church. This church is still in use so the members make the climb each time they attend the church.


Cholula (7)


The Church is named, Santuario de Los Remedios. This is a nice picture of the church taken from the side.



Lunch in ChipiloIt has been a busy day. We also visited Italy and we only had to take the bus to arrive there.


Ok so we are really in Chipilo which is located 12 k. from Puebla. Chipilo is an Italian town. So we stepped off the bus and were in Italy. This town was founded in 1882 when immigrants came from Italy in search of fertile land and to escape poverty. They came from Segusino and other small towns in the province of Treviso, Italy.


They have retained their venetian dialect. Their dialect has not changed along with Italian due to their isolation from their sister city in Italy.


Angela is studying linguistics and had studied in Chipilo 4 years ago and also traveled and lived in Segusino to study the difference in the 2 languages. Edwardo in the picture in a native of Chipilo.


It was strange to go from Puebla hearing all Spanish to Chipilo to hearing all Italian and seeing all the Italians.


For lunch we had pasta, pizza, and wine.



Cemetary in Chipilo (1)Edwardo took us to the cemetary which was very interesting. It was built on levels to duplicate the cemetaries in Segusino which are on hills. This plot was beautiful with 7 family members having been buried there.



Cemetary in Chipilo (2)The different levels are seen in this picture.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Laundry Day

Mexico 001Laundry Day.  I am fortunate that there is a washer in the house.  The washers are totally different than those in the U.S. so I had to have a lesson.  The clothesline is on the roof of the house.

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Here are two of my three sisters.  Coral is 14 and Melanie is 13.  The other sister is Frida who is 9.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

On Monday, Kristin and I walked to the Zocolo in the morning for exercise. Then before class we met up with Angela to go to the mall. It is a beautiful mall. All in all between the 2 walks, we walked over 4 hours on Monday.

Somewhere around Sunday I got a Microsoft error and was locked out of my login. Fortunately Nick still had a login on my laptop and so I was able to get in using his. Several friends had been helping me try to figure it out but it is something that has to be fixed by a computer person.

It has been quite frustrating since I could not access "my stuff", pictures, movies (although I haven't had time to watch any yet), etc. etc.

Yesterday I translated the error into Spanish and starting searching for the fix on the Microsoft Website in Spanish. Danna found the exact one that I needed.

So, I wrote a note in Spanish to Amer, the dad here, along with the website and asked if his computer repair person could take a look at it. When I arrived home, not only had he received my note but the repair person was working on some of the computers in the internet cafe. Yippee!! After about 40 minutes it was fixed. When I asked what I owed him, he said nothing. I said no, I have to pay for this, I am very happy to have this fixed as it is my link to communicating with my family. The answer was still no. Can you believe it. I asked if I could hug him and he accepted that as payment. Amazing!

I was too tired last night to do anything on my laptop but this morning I have found that I am missing all those files I so much wanted. Especially all my photos of home. I tunes is gone. I can back these up when I get home but I am bummed about that part.

Oh well, there is nothing I can do about that now.

Well I'm back to prepping for class.

Hi, It has been a busy couple of days. These two pictures are the kids in my class. Yesterday we spent 3 hours preparing for class today and we still have a couple more hours to go to be ready for today. We have been coloring paper dolls, cutting them out along with their accessories and then we need to laminate them. It is not the same type of laminating that we are used to. It is more like the paper that you line your cupboards with but it is clear. It works!
i



Monday, May 9, 2011

Z'ocolo

Yesterday Kristin and I walked to the Zocolo which is in the center of town. It took us 55 minutes to walk there. This first picture is walking through the downtown area towards the Zocolo. There was a race of cyclists and runners in town and so all the streets were bocked off from traffic. This is a view looking down the street towards the Zocolo.

This is the Zocolo which is a large park type area with alot of greenery.


We are still in the Zocolo. The church in the background is approximately 500 years old. There are alot of shops and restaurants on the streets surrounding the Zocolo. We went in the pasteleria and purchased a treat. I had a croissant. It wasn't the same as the ones I am used to. This one was much heavier and more bread like. Total time to get there, wander around and return was 3.5 hours.

Later in the afternoon I made my first journey to the supermarket to pickup some things that I needed. It was my first experience navigating and making purchases at the store. Total cost was less than $12 US. I also purchased two 1.5 liter bottles of water to use as weights. I think they were about .30 each.

Last night for dinner we had crepes and they were so delicious. They do not have syrup here but use sweetened condensed milk in it's place. They were so decadent. We ate dinner at 9:30 which is common. I can already feel that my belly is growing.




Saturday, May 7, 2011

Where I live

Hi Firends,
This is where I live. My host parents have the stationary and internet store and then the house is upstairs from the store.

This morning (Saturday) I went for a walk to become familiar with the area, although on a small scale as this seems to be a pretty big city.
I also walked to the school with Kristen from New Zealand. The walk is a half hour from the house. Today I was able to navigate it both going and returning. I am hoping to go to the Zócalo which is the town square tomorrow with Kristen. I would never be able to navigate it alone.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Buenos Dias Amigos

Well I am here! My biggest concern yesterday was the transition from the plane through the airport to the bus.
After having my luggage searched at customs, I made it into the main airport and began my search for transporte terrestre, the busses. After locating the bus area, I was in search of changing US dollars for pesos. I did not find any place to do so but did find a cajero automatico, the ATM. The first one was out of order. I had success at the second one I found. Then I purchased a phone card.
I returned to the bus area and purchased a ticket for the 3:30 PM bus. It was currently 3:40. The girl told me I had 10 minutes before the bus would leave.
I found a phone, called the school and let them know that I was on the 3:30 bus. Edwin informed me that my family would meet me at the station.
When I arrived at the station, I was met by the host family father, Amer, as well as a few others. Kristin is my room mate at the home for the next week. I am glad to have her so she can show me a few things, like how to get to school. You all know how dirrectionally challenged I am.
Kristen is from New Zealand and is darling.
I did not have great information before arriving, so;
The family has a stationary story which is located below their house. It is a small store. The parents work in the store from 6 AM to 6 PM. There are 3 daughters, Frida 9, Melanie 13, and Coral 14. The mother, Antonia speak English and the father, Amer has asked that I speak to them in English.
Currently there are also 3 other family memebers living here. Antonia's parents and her neice are here. Her parents are here for 2 weeks but her neice will stay here as she is working in Puebla. They are also from Mexico but near the border of Texas.
Last night we had tortillas, beans, and chilies cooked with onions for dinner. it was yummy.
Kristen and I will walk to the school this morning. She says it is about a 20 minute walk.
More later,
Lori

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Overweight??

I am either .4 lb. under or .6 lb over 50 lbs. I thought that was my limit but Lu told me it is 75 lbs. for international travel. I couldn't fit much more in this bag if I tried. Well I am off in the morning.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Hi Friends

I will begin posting to this site after my May 5th arrival in Puebla.

Comenzaré poner información en este sitio de web después del 5 de Mayo.

See you soon!