FIESTAS AHOY!

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Last week was the week of the Fiesta. It all began on Sunday in Ixcatapec with Barbacoa at Adrian´s house (oh my Spanish addled brain had a problem with writing that, it wants to say the casa of Adrian) which is meat, in this case lamb, or possibly horse we were told (joke) is cooked in a pit Ray Mears style and it is yummy! Ali, his young nephew and one of the becarios was so pleased we were there and told everyone all week that we went to his house for the fiestas and that I had 2 beers and Becky had 2 as well!

Then Tuesday was the Mother´s Day Festivals in camp with mucho dancing and merriment all round...that wasn´t really so much fun what with me not being a mother and all! Although in fact one of the kids DID ask me the other day if I had children, I gave a quite firm NO as response.

Thursday was Dia de los Maestros and what with me being a teacher and all we felt the need to celebrate, slightly illegally. Jorge invited us (me, Becky, Carly the Canadian and Adrian) to his house to drink beers, illegally, therefore it was more fun! The teacher´s day celebrations continued with a party the kids threw for us, Luis, Luisa, Joege, Adrian, Lupe and Amparo where they made us play party games like eating a doughnut off a string without using your hands, musical chairs and one where everyone ties a balloon to their sock and you have to stamp on the balloons of other people whilst protecting your own...interesting! They also bought us 3 fat cakes, it´s Mexican tradition to take a bite out of the side of a cake, and then the other people around you can push your face into it! I´m proud to say I´ve now been part of that tradicion! Becky got thoroughly facepushed into the cake and they gave her about a quater of it to eat for herself, so we put more on our faces and tried to kiss the boys! Jorge ran away and hid for about 20 mins before we found him.

I have had several strange conversations lately, all related to love, or marriage...the first being at the party when Dan, one of the older becarios asked me if I was going to get married in Mexico...umm well I wasn´t planning on it! So he asked me where I am going to get married, so I said well England I imagiene but I´m not planning on it for quite a while and have noone in mind! So he kindly offered himself up for the job. I suggested the next day but he said it was too soon! Haha!

The second conversation was at the weekend with one of the consajeros, Arion, who started chatting to us, "So...let´s talk about *think think think*......love" Um ok Arion, don´t go there...so after a few questions from him he said "How would you define love?" So I thought right I´m going to have to go for something silly here so I thought for a bit and declared love was when a guy lets you drive his car. Apparantly I was incorrect. Love isn´t a feeling, it´s not an emotion, it´s a decision you make when you decide to be with someone for your life etc etc. Deep Arion. We weren´t expecting that!

Thirdly, I was skulking around the camp yesterday afternoon, I think I was supposed to be doing something but not, and encountered Alfredo, the man who looks after the farm animals. I would say farmer but it´s not appropriate! He asked me if my parents were still here (onto that in a sec) and I said no they´ve gone! He said didn´t they visit the camp?! Of course twice, Sunday afternoon and Monday lunchtime. He said "Oh dam, I didn´t get to meet my parents-in-law!" Then checked in with me to see if I knew what that word meant and laughed and ran away (as did I!) when I said yes indeed I do!

Last night we had a bonfire for the leaving party of Carly, a Canadian girl who´s been at the camp for the last month. For it we had a bonfire and Becky and I sang 3, yes THREE songs! Carly had bought biscuits, chocolate and marshmallows to make smores, we translated it into sandwiches in Spanish, and gave them out to all the children after explaining that they need to find a stick to toast their marshmallow and then put it between the biscuits with the chocolate. Well it can´t have been explained very well because the majority of them speared first biscuit, then chocolate, marshmallow and then another biscuit on the stick and tried to toast it! It didn´t go very well! One of the girls gave me her second biscuits and chocolate to hold whilst she toasted the first one and then came back and deposited half a hot biscuit in my hand! Maybe hot biscuits´ll be the next diet craze...I won´t lie, we had a couple of smores toasted on a candle before we left for town this morning. It´s our new hobby!

Last weekend my parents came to visit which was really nice! I met them from the airport, which is about a million times bigger than I remember it when we arrived delarious having been awake for 24 hours. We had a bit of a wander around Mexico City on Saturday morning and then came to Tepoztlan on Saturday. Important here is my first sighting of both a CARPET and a BATH in the hotel in Mexico city. I had to take my shoes off to enjoy the carpet properly and didn´t even entertain the thought of having a bath, that alien is the concept, until I was half way through a shower! We went to the camp on Monday to see the kids and then they went, back to la ciudad.

I have to admit I was quite sad so to cheer myself up I went and put the shirts they´d brought courtesy of my brothers and aimed to find Luisa to ask how I should go about giving them out. Unfortunately on the way to the Salon where homework was going on I was set upon by a pack of wild wolves, or they could have been boys, who spotted the bags, offered to carry them for me and set about ransacking them and rehousing the clothes within. They were really pleased and so greatful with the stuff it was quite sad to see! All the stuff with any kind of a name went first, and Miguel was really pleased with the Retford United shirt (I had no idea any of my brothers had ANY connection with the team but hey!) I told him they were really famous but he didn´t believe me! Gracias eh, Gracias! They all wanted me to say hi and thankyou to my brothers now! Brothers, take note.

In other news, we went to teach the school of the devil in Amatlan yesterday (actually it´s only about 5 of the boys in Sexto who are nightmares but still!) and on the way back the combi was invaded by a kindergarten which I have NEVER seen before, the building, the children, the mums, the uniform, I´m sure it just appeared or something. I counted the people and there were 30 people in a VW van. And only one woman breastfeeding! That is a hell of a lot. To be fair a lot of them were children but it was still jammed. Before this the most busy I´ve seen a combi is with 18 people in it. On the subject of buses, last week when we came home from the same place a man got on the bus with a 3 foot long axe!! I´m not sure which is worse! I tried to imagiene getting on a bus in England with a 3 foot long axe in my hand and I just couldn´t. I think they´d send armed police after me.

Also in other news, we went to feed the animals in the farm this morning but there were no keys so we sat and waited for Alfredo (the same one who claimed my parents as his in-laws) with buckets of rabbit and duck food. Royo, one of the older becarios who also works in the kitchen came and said hi and then HE ATE RABBIT FOOD!!! It was so funny! He was only pretending at first but then I think he felt he had to, to keep his masculine image and all that. I saw it in his mouth! On his tongue! Ugh! Then he went and spat it out...which I think is a very good thing. Yummy yummy!

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