¡Guelaguetza!

So I made it to Oaxaca with fairly little trouble, and despite concerns, things seem rather stable and safe here.... at least on the visible surface. I awoke early this morning to head to a hilltop auditorioum (think enormous ampitheater) for the annual folkloric festival called Guelaguetza. The show started at ten, but the place was almost full by 7-ish when I arrived (or at least the free, first-come-first-serve sections up in the nosebleeds were). Nonetheless, TONS of people continued to flood in and packed the place fuller than I ever imagined possible. Vendors roamed and put Fenway hawkers to shame with their maneuvering. It got hotter and more and more packed and finally... on the small round stage below, a series of wonderful folk dances unfolded, performed by skilled dancers in exquisite costumes to the sounds of a live, jamming band. Between numbers, freebie hats and fans and t-shirts were chucked into the crowd from behind, creating even more excitement. The dances included paired numbers; a presicely choreographed pineapple dance; a fun number with guys in suits and ties and tassley chaps and horns and whips; and more. I stayed on my little concrete perched, wedged between so many people, until about 12:45, when I decided to bail. The crowds outside the auditorio were as tight and excited as those within, but with the added fun of more vendors. I found a Rubik's cube and hope to figure out how to solve more than one face. I also snacked on all kinds of delicious street food and saw a guy demonstrating a Magic Extractor... as seen on TV! Wiped from the day, I returned to my no-name hostel for a brief rest, but I still feel really tired, as perhaps evidenced from the relative boringness of my description of what was actually a very cool day.

On the road again...

So my stint as hard-working teacher of "talented" kids has come and gone, and I find myself again in the same hostel in Puebla as before going to Cholula. I am back to the life of half-showers with Dr. Bronner's all-in-one soap, saggy mattresses with many bunkmates, meals taken alone, and only occasional conversations with strangers. But I am also re-entering the world of minimal responsibility, of unknown (mis)adventure, of time with my own thoughts, of new places. I miss some of the creature comforts and routine of working at the camp, but what I will feel the lack of more so is the company of some of the good people I met there.

Meanwhile, I am about to head to Oaxaca, but there is a bit of turmoil there and I am overhearing some travellers here deciding against their trip there based on the political troubles. I am going to go anyway, but keeping on a high guard and prepared to curtail my stay at a moment's notice.

As always, please send your notes and comments. They are more welcome than ever.

!Festejamos!

Bueno, the session has finally come to an end. We taught our last classes today, had closing ceremonies, enjoyed a great mariachi band during lunch, danced the night away at the last dance, sipped hot chocolate and "toasted" marshmallows over a (somewhat unimpressive) bonfire, etc. etc... The kids made me a nice poster as a surprise, and one kid said I was the best teacher he ever had, and I think he meant it! I was less encouraged when reading the final assessment of others, but overall I think all of them learned some biotechnology (although the range is enormous).

After the bonfire, several of the TA's and I went to an amazingly hip and down-to-earth and tranquilo and super-padre (very cool) bar called Bar Pulque Para Dos. Pulque is a low-alcohol drink made from a cactus-like plant that sometimes comes in fruity flavors. The bar was decorated in that we've-made-trash-look-artsy-and-way-cool sort of manner, and two guys were amateurly but wonderfully rocking out on a candle-lit stage, reviving classics from my middle-school and early-high school years.... Pearl Jam, Weezer, GNR, Soundgarden, Erasure, Incubus, and more. It was AMAZING. The folks I went with were so great... fun, easygoing, life-grabbing people. I could have stayed there all night, but came back "early" (around 1:30) so as to assure myself a spot in a car. I'm not sad about the kids leaving, or about being done with teaching (is that bad?), but I will miss some of the staff here and do wish I had spent more time with them (if only all that bloody lesson-planning hadn't gotten in the way!).

Ahora voy a dormir, y mañana visitaré la pirámide aquí en Cholula (fue la más grande en el mundo). Por la noche hará una cena de agradaciemiento y creo que sería divertido. Además, es posible que saldré con Sarah y Gabriela y Violeta después.... todavía no sé. A ver... Y el sábado resumo mis viajes de nuevo.

We now (almost) return to our regularly scheduled blogging...

So my blog has been pretty lame lately (as one Colorado reader pointed out to me--thanks KA!), but basically I have been working crazy hours with little free time and even less interest in writing about what I do, which is work crazy hours with little free time. (In a week I'll be back to the sort of ambulatory and verbal ramblings that I prefer, not to worry.) In the moments that I do take away from work I am trying to spend time with some of the folks here. On Friday I organized another instructor outing (this time to nearby Cholula) for dinner, strolling, and conversation. It was quite nice talking with other adults about everything from mathematical theories to prehispanic civilizations to tv classics like Saved By The Bell (a few of us could sing the entire theme song... I was strangely proud and mortified at once). On Saturday I spent the whole day writing evals--full-page narrative evaluations for each of my 16 students. Not fun. Today, however, was worth all the working ahead. I spent a few more hours on the damn things in the morning but in the afternoon I went into Puebla with another teacher, Sarah, to visit a park called Analco and meet a friend of a friend and check out the political theatre performance there. The parque was absolutely full of life... throngs of strolling, smiling, Sunday-serene people on open green spaces, crowded in market stall walkways, eating, selling, laughing, bursting with color. Sarah enjoyed a tequila-flavored nieve (like Italian ice) in a chili-lined cup. Given my recent excursion to the agave-lined town of the same name, I took only a small taste of the tequila nieve, only to find it tasted more like the sweet, syrupy indian drink "khus" than a gag-inducing alcohol. It has been years since I have thought of khus! On a side note, a TA was weaving a lanyard so of course I had to introduce her to Billy Collins' poem "The Lanyard." It is an amazing little reflection on this timeless camp craft, but also on the idea of parity. Check out the text of the poem here or better yet, listen to Collins read his own work (the only way to do it justice) here (you'll need RealPlayer...I suggest you listen to the whole clip but if you are ansty, scroll ahead to 5:20). Anyway, I tried to explain to those that would listen that the poem included an allusion to Marcel Proust's "petites madeleines" and went on and on about the power of a galleta famosa (famous cookie) to conjure a fuller memory than any mere sense. I was received with blank looks from everyone, and began for a moment to doubt my sanity. Did I invent this literary allusion? Am I not as well-read as I claim to be? Well, the truth is that I have never read any Proust, but I am familiar with this madeleine business and anyway I'm pretty certain my brother (the renassaince man) has read it and that's good enough for me. Anyway, a little internet "research" revealed that the great writer did in fact compose something about a galleta (a cake, really). Naturally, I immediately send the excerpt from "Remembrance of Things Past" to everyone who doubted me. What to make of this digression? Well, the same effect those madeleines had on Proust overcame me as I tasted the khus undertones in Sarah's tequila nieve. Suddenly I was in Naperville, watching my mom mix the thick, green syrup with milk in gold-rimmed glasses to serve on a silver tray to guests sitting in the living room. With another sip I found myself looking out onto the porch swing, where my dad is sitting and laughing at something or other, drinking the sweet liquid through a straw. Of all the things to hit me in the middle of a park in Mexico--khus. Too much!
Anyway, back the the tale at hand... Sarah and I found the site of the play after wandering the through the joys of the park. Under a large tent, a rectangle of chairs framed a central "stage" where numerous couples danced a metered but incredible dance called "danzón." Sarah declined a request to dance from an older friendly gentlemen (we are both self-diagnosed as dance-floor incompetent), and eventually the couples cleared for the play. Entitled "Mujer no se escribe con M de macho," this three-act one-woman show raised issues of women's rights and more in an engaging, entertaining, and effective manner. Gabriela, a friend of a friend (OG), was the actress and the reason we came. Unfortunately, during the second act, it began to drizzle and the crowd inched in under the tent. Then, it began to rain and chairs were moved inward. Presently, it began to pour and the stage became smaller and smaller as people sought shelter in the tent and the circle of spectators pinched in. At last, the skies gave rain and wind that made me reference Noah, and the show had to stop. The large tent began to leak and gave way to cascading floods of water in a few places. Smaller tents billowed and tumbled in the wind. Strangers became neighbors and neighbors became friends and everything became wet. Other than the fact that the torrent caused the show to stop after the second act, the experience was amazing. Everything transpired in a sort of comic, unbelievable way. I half expected Kafka to peek around the corner and grin. The good news is that after practicing the Mexican art of waiting patiently (used for almost any situation here), Sarah and I managed to meet up with Gabriela and her girlfriend, Violeta. We four passed a most wonderful afternoon together, eating cemitas (a sandwich made from a local bread), walking through town, laughing at my liguistic faux pas in Spanish, standing slack-jawed in the gold-encrusted Capilla de Rosario, sipping coffee drinks, and fruitlessly searching for Rubik's cubes. It was an amazing moment in time, and I am thrilled to have grabbed it. It made even the downsides (missing the student talent show; losing the ring I got in Córdoba, Argentina; having to stay up working on evals) seem not so bad at all. Upon our return to UDLA, I found myself locked out of my dorm--mystical forces kept both my cardkey and the master cardkey from working. But a few rounds of musical keys with those of my roommates and a fair bit of good ol' waiting around, I managed to get in (though I am now afraid to leave since my key still doesn't work). Tomorrow morning we are joining the Medical Sciences and Pharmacology class on a field trip to a pharmaceutical plant, and all I can think about it how I cannot wait for it to be Friday. I am antsy pansty to be done with this program and get back to living life, now that I had a taste of it again today.

Mejor... hoy es el viernes, por lo menos

Okay, so problems are getting solved one by one here and things are improving. At the very least, today is Friday, and that is good.
All the poo-poo of job problems aside, some things are quite nice here. As I mentioned earlier, the campus is beautiful and the weather is perfecto. My students are great: a diverse, quirky bunch. I have some who are frighteningly bright and others who are annoying and others who are thoughtful and sweet and others who I can´t figure out. They love playing "Wah!" (a game I taught them) and getting off-topic. Despite many obstacles in the lab component of the course, things are slowly getting underway (though it is hard to do a DNA extraction with one micropipette and 16 students). A real perk is the people who I´ve met, particularly the Mexican staff. As I´ve mentioned, Mexicans in general are very friendly, and I´ve enjoyed chatting with and joking with some of the UDLA students who are working in the program this summer. I went with a bunch of them to the midnight premier of the new Harry Potter movie--which was fun but totally insane considering it was on Wednesday night in a week of 15-hour work days. This weekend I plan to rest, do laundry, do lots of work, and maybe go out and get dinner tomorrow at a place where I don´t have to eat my food off a tray. Thanks to everyone who has emailed me or left a comment. I hope you are well!

Voy a vomitar...

...but not because of my former GI issues (which, by the way, have mostly been resolved). Actually, I´m about to lose my head about my job here. I really am not interested in publically kvetching, but as far as keeping an honest blog about how I am, I would have to say generally.... mal (that´s Spanish for "bad"). I never thought I´d say this, but I actually miss my job at Dana Hall. It is a pretty functional place.

La enfermidad

Well it was bound to happen. I got really sick yesterday (sharp abdominal pains, diarrhea, body aches, fever, etc.) and went to the clinic. The doctor decided the offending food item was mole poblano (an area speciality), prescribed some drugs, and I spent the evening in bed. Luckily, I am on the mend, though not at 100%. But I´ve got all other manners of pains now that the program is underway. However, I´m going to keep my bellyaching to a minimum, or at least not on a public website!

Puebla and la UDLA

Well here I am at la Universidad de las Americas (la ood-la) where I will be spending the next 3.5 weeks completely consumed with the summer program and the biotechnology course I´m teaching. Before I describe the place though, let me backtrack...

After Guanajuato, I made the bus trip to Mexico City (5 hrs) and then made a transfer to a bus to Puebla (2 hrs). The exciting part came when I tried to get from the Puebla bus station to the center of town. I managed to figure out which combi to take but--despite my vigilance--failed to get off anywhere near the centro. When I realized that we were WAY past the centro, I explained my predicament to the bus driver, who dropped me off at the next stop and told me to get the next combi coming the other direction. Well, by this point I had been travelling for about 11 hours and not only had to pee but was also getting hungry (I´d eaten a serving of yogurt and several handfuls of trail mix during the day). So I stopped in to the nearest retail establishment I could find. It was a Wal*mart Supercenter. THAT´s how far out of town I was.

So I checked my pack in at the bag drop (and got some strange looks) and then made a beeline for the restroom. At this point it started raining outside so I decided to pass a few minutes exploring the Puebla Wal*mart and picking up a few things (cheese, bread, yogurt, pear) to eat. The Wal*mart is, predicatably, like almost every other Wal*mart in the world--enormous, bright, and advertising "precios bajos--siempre." But small differences stuck out... At the bakery, you pick up a pizza tray and tongs and pluck out your breads and pastries from big bins and put them on your tray. A lady then bags and prices them for you to take to check out. And instead of 4 or 5 "express--20 items or less" lines, there is just one express line that feeds into 4 or 5 registers. So much more efficient! And the food court had, of course, all manner of mexican fare. The place was huge and I got a good chuckle out of the fact that being lost in Mexico put me straight back into the most American of chain stores.

I eventually made it to the centro (thanks to a variety of friendly combi-riders) and checked into a pleasant hostel where I passed the evening with some very relaxed Danish guys, a rather serious French fellow, and an American living in Oaxaca who I couldn´t really figure out.

The next day was relatively low-key: some sight-seeing and walking around punctuated by midday naps. Puebla is a city of nearly 2 million people, but remains relatively sedate due to the lack of towering buildings (several stories at the most) and strong remnants of Spanish influence in the plaza, pedestrian streets, and tile-facade buildings. It has over 70 churches and the main cathedral is stunning inside (which is saying something in a Catholic country with lots of impressive cathedrals). Most interesting to me, though, was the market. Vendors selling all manner of fruits, vegetables, seasonings, or seeds displayed and orally advertised their products in an extensive maze of stalls in the semi-indoor market. The variety of produce was overwhelming--so many colors and shapes and flavors. I definitely could not name everything I saw there in either English or Spanish! The most fascinating parts of the market, though, were the carnicerías (butcher stands). On giant slabs of marble you could get up close and personal with nearly any part of any animal. Whole chickens, some still getting plucked, were piled high like so many rubber prank toys. Giant bins of chicken feet or livers or breasts could be found. Need a hairy goat head? A dozen of them await you in aisle 6 on a shelf of ice. Blue light special. Have a gander at the woman carving into pig hooves with a cleaver or look over your shoulder to the racks of cow halves dangling from hooks. Pig heads, sheep entrails, things I could not even identify! Fresh for the buying! I was spun around with a mix of awe and fascination as well as disgust while trying to keep my breakfast down. Not exactly the shrink-wrapped Tyson packages you find at your local Stop & Shop. I ended up buying some grapes and the cutest avocado ever.

That evening I spent with two Americans each on very extensive travel trips (think on the order of 9 months to more) and a rather overwhelming Australian woman who wore thin on me pretty fast.

Here at UDLA I´ve meet some of the staff (all are very nice) and settled into my room. I will be staying in a 4-room suite but the others haven´t arrived yet. The lodging is nicer than any suite I had in college, and the campus (what I´ve seen so far) is quite pleasant. There is a rose garden (some bushes 300 years old!) and peacocks and ducks roam the grounds rather contentedly. Check out some pictures of UDLA here. I´m having a fair bit of mixed emotions about the program, but most of the unsettled feelings are due to the fact that I find myself once again in the waiting-for-things-to-happen-so-I-know-what-to-expect mode. Orientation starts tomorrow night and I am going to try and do some course work tomorrow. The big coup for today is doing laundry. What a treat!

I have a phone in my suite that can receive calls, so if you are dying to say hello, let me know and I´ll give you the number. You can call Mexico (and a lot of other countries) for 2 cents a minute using PennyTalk. I´ll put up some more pictures soon, but for now I hope everyone is well. Thanks again to those of you that read and post comments. Even when I can´t respond individually, I am thinking about you!

Callejoneadas

While there is more to write about my time in Guanajuato (such as my visit to the mines and a chance re-encounter with Nick from Morelia), I wish to spend the next few minutes describing a fantastic (though perhaps a wee bit touristy) tradition in Guanajuato. First, you should know that the Spanish word for street is "calle" and that Guanajuato is filled with many winding "callejones," or alleys. It is along these callejones that we enjoy callejoneadas...

It begins sometime around 8 or 9 in the evening in the lively and beautiful Jardín de la Union, where musicians clad in impressive traditional costumes start to play music before a growing crowd the the stepped entry to the church in the square. Playing all manner of stringed instruments and a lively tamborine, the tenor- and bass-voiced troubadors sing such classics as "Cielito Lindo" and "De Colores" (and other songs that are actually well-known to Mexicans but not to this gringa). They crack jokes in Spanish and will sell you a ceramic vase as a souvenier. Then the whole band starts to walk through the callejones, singing and walking and being followed by the mob in a sort of delightful procession. Along the way, they will fill your vase with juice to be enjoyed during the evening (I think it used to be wine or tequila that was distrubuted back in the day, but some enterprising fellows brought some spirits to add to their vases!). And so it goes, walking and singing and winding through the streets. I tagged along yesterday and today, but bailed early due to rain and the lack of purchase of the ceramic vase. I´m not sure if I can get such a tradition to start in Wellesley, but you are all invited... let´s go playing music and singing down Cottage Street in the middle of the night! You can see why some things are just better in Mexico.