Advertisement
3 days in Mexico City was quite enough with no Spanish to literally speak off. So I got my arse to Cuanavaca, to the safety of a Mexican family's home and the confines of the Universidad Internacionales. I really wanted to leave Mexico City a day before but couldn’t, Sunday is not a day to start school. So Monday it was, I got to the central bus depo and fumbled my way to getting a bus ticket for Cuanavaca. The bus was comfortable and the journey was quite short, not much more than an hour as I remember it. I got a taxi, the driver was very friendly and I fumbled my way through was I was to find out would be the usual questions. Is this your first visit to Mexico? Are you here alone? Do you have a husband/boyfriend? Huh? Do you have children? How old are you? How old? As I write this I am getting quite good at answering these questions and even have comedy gestures to go with them.
The taxi dropped me off in front of the university where I was met by the lovely Rodrigo who I had been speaking to earlier that
morning. He is very tall, I think the first tall person I’ve seen since getting to Mexico. He does my induction, taking the test was laughable. He took me to the computer lab and sat me in front of a web page designed to test my knowledge of Spanish. To cut a long story short, he eventually realized that I couldn’t answer a single question without completely guessing and suggested that I leave the whole thing blank, apart from my name, which I could manage. After that a short orientation video (???) and then hang around for a bit to meet me Mexican Mama, who was coming to pick me up and take me home. SWEET!
Elvira arrives and even though we cannot speak a word to each other, I feel that we are getting on like a house on fire straight away. She is lovely, petite and very friendly. When we get to her beautiful house, I met her two sons, Carlos (16) and Julio (13). Carlos can speak English and becomes the interpreter when necessary Julio seems to be a typically shy teenager; in fact they both seem understandably shy of me but friendly none the less.
I nearly forgot I met Lucas, the wonder dog. He is lovely, really lovely, and I rarely say that about dogs. I’ve never met a better behaved dog; I loved the way he would march to his dog house and stick his head out to take a look. Soon it was lunch time and boy can Elvira cook. I don’t think (apart from my mum) have I met someone who cooks so much, and I don’t think Elvira had met a lady who could eat so much. There was nothing she put in front of me that I couldn’t polish of and some. Happy times! As far as I am concerned this is a great start to my learning. Elvira showed me to my apartment of their garden by the swimming pool. She has 6 apartments and the house, and the swimming pool, and the garage area and general fiesta area - you could hold a party for her 21 nieces and nephews out there no problem. This place is big. I can’t believe that for the first few years it was just Elvira on her own rattling around in the house during the week and then with her husband
back from work in Mexico City at the weekend. Plus there being no neighbours around as they too were in Mexico City, it would have sent me mad I think. I love my little casa, it’s perfect for me, I unpack and get settled as the next day I would be a student again.
Well, as of today I am over halfway done at school here! It’s kind of hard to believe. It doesn't feel like I’ve been here that long but then at the same time it does. The first week felt intense and there are verbos flying around my head but unfortunatley none of them are coming out of my mouth.
End of my course and I’m a little fried. I did excellent on the end of week one's test, but not so good today. Ah well what can you do? Nada, hey that’s a spanish word, it wasn’t a complete waste of time and money after all.
I’m heading out to a quiet, old, quaint silver mining town called Taxco tomorrow and it will be nice to relax and take in what I’ve learnt at a slower pace. I’ve enjoyed my time
in Cuanavaca, especially my Mexican family and fellow student roomy’s Susan and Patty, who joined the household in my second week. But now it’s time to hit the road, an old cobbled styled road.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb