Oh the Mysteries of Mexico!

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¿¡Como estan, amigos?!*


I feel like today was a grand success. (Yesterday I took a two hour nap and stayed in my room all day, so it didn't take much to feel productive.) I went to my classes in the morning as usual. We had one of our weekly evaluations. Basically, just a one-sided quiz about what we're learning. No pressure. ¡It's wonderful! It's so much easier to learn when you can relax and only worry about your personal improvement. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere with my Spanish.

Last night our ¨Senor¨or host father, Demetrio, started asking all of us gringas about what we learned in school. I think this is the father's role in Mexico, to quiz the children about their lessons. Or at least that's how it works in our house. He's a very kind man, and sometimes very funny. I was trying to explain the poem we read in literature class. He told me that when he was young he had a book of poems the he loved to read, but now he prefers histories and shows like Monk. (Just like you, Mom!) Anyways, the poem was called ¨La Misa Negra¨which translates to ¨The Black Mass¨or ¨The Midnight Mass¨. It was about a woman and it compared her chest to an altar and her room to a chapel. I told him it was un poquito erotico. He understood. Then he asked Heather what kind of poems she liked and he jokingly said ¨poemas eroticos?¨ I guess you had to be there.

So I will tell you the highlights of my trip to Guanajuato, so as not to bore you. The first class bus we took had TVs, bathrooms and A.C. The six of us decided to go without the school group. I would have been just as happy to have gone with the group, but I didn't want to miss spending time with Kelly and Kale, Megan and Arthur, and my housemate Heather. We do a lot of things together. Heather and I joked that we are a lesbian couple because that's what it looks like when the six of us are together. (Oddly enough, there is an American lesbian community in San Miguel. Well, maybe it's not that odd after all...hippies, free spirits, artists, musicians...it all fits together.)

In Guanajuato we visited the house where Diego Rivera was born. We saw some of his artwork and I learned that Albert Einstein admired him greatly. I don't know what I think of Diego Rivera. He was married to Frida Kahlo and treated her very badly. However, I'm not the biggest fan of Frida. And her face is everywhere in Mexico! Every artisan shop has an image of her on some obscure craft. Next we wandered around until we found the Teatro Juarez in the center of town. It's a beautiful playhouse, and that's all I know about it. We took a sky trolley ( I don´t know what to call it) up the side of the mountain to an overlook. It was gorgeous. However, it was very much like a glass elevator and Kelly's husband Kale kept talking about how the cable was going to break. (He admits to having the maturity of a 13 year old.) We also took pictures of the magnificent Universidad de Guanajuato. It was built by the Jesuits and still operates today. It´s made out of pastel stone and has an impressive staircase leading up to it. The only thing I didn't get to see was the Don Quijote museum. Maybe I'll get a chance next month to go.

I was going to talk about the mysteries of Mexico, but I don't want to go over my alloted hour in the internet place. Basically I'm cheap. I don't like having to pay for internet by the hour. Esp, if I'm not at the library where it's only 50 cents for members (and I am a member). So that will have to wait until later.


Yours truly,

Margaret Elizabeth Meeker

* ¡Don't you just love the upside down punctuation marks at the beginning of sentences! It's my favorite thing about Spanish. It makes so much sense. For more on this fascinating form of punctuation refer to the book: Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

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