My First Entry

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Ok,
I realize I have been here in Tepic for four months (wow! still can't believe it). I decided I will stop being lazy and write. I will try to sum up what I have done so far. Pay attention, this could get long!

Family

I figured the first thing I should talk about is my family. Normally I live with my mom and little brother in ummm, Plymouth Mass, but I am originally from Wrentham. Lately we have had a stepfather, but for the longest time it was just the 3 of us. Now I live with my mom, Gabriela, my father, Luis, and my sister, Fabiola. My mom and dad are architects. My mom also owns a café. I like it there! Fabiola is 19. She works at the café and takes a course next door at my aunt's house. She is an ex-exchange student to Germany. She went last year. She has a boyfriend, Toño. He works at the café too. I like him he is pretty cool. But thats not all! I have another sister, Gaby. She´s 21. She lives in Guanajuato. It is about 7 hours away from Tepic. She also has a very nice boyfriend, Christian. He lives in Tepic though. Then there are my two brothers, Luis and Lebrac. They live is Guadalajara, which is about 3 hours from Tepic. Luis is 26. He has a wife, Carol, and a son Luisito. Carol is pregnant with a baby girl, who will be born in February. Lebrac is 24. He has a girlfriend in Guadalajara too. He is also an ex-exchange student to Brazil. Both the boys are also architects. Last but not least is Sophia. She is 15, almost 16. Her birthday is in December. Anyway she is in the New Hampshire right now. I have lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins but to be honest I don't remember them all. I will get 2 more families though. I am changing the first or second week of January.

Exchange Students

There are 70 exchange students in my district. Most of them are from Brazil. I think like 20 or more. Then we have a lot from Germany. I don't know how many. 5 from Japan. 3 from the USA and 2 from Canada. 3 from Belgium. 2 from France. 1 from Turkey, 1 from Thailand, 1 from Switzerland, 1 from the Netherlands and 1 from Finland. We have gone on 2 trips together. 1 to Mazatlan and 1 to Creel, Chihuahua. We are planning on going on 3 more. Baja California in February, La Ruta Maya (which is basically the WHOLE lower half of Mexico) in May, and Puerto Vallerta in May. Mazatlan was awesome. We slept in "host" houses. Friday night we had a party to get to know eachother and then went to a club. Saturday at the beach and in the night another club. Sunday we went to a pool and left early in the afternoon. Creel was a week and UBER fun! It was pretty much a week of hiking during the day and partying in the...i guess you could say "hotel"...at night. We went to Mazatlan and had this food thing. Zeynep, Oliver, Graciella, and I snuck of to a Turkish café because Zeynep is Turkish and Graciella went to Turkey for a year. It was cool. I tried something which was like rice wrapped in a leaf, and for those of you who know me, know I hate trying new food, I am extremely picky...but guess what...I liked it. So then we went to the beach at night to take pictures. Finally we crashed at some Rotarian's house. They fed us and at 11 at night we were off on that 6 hr busride to the train station. We took a 10 hr train ride. It was my first time, but I actually kinda liked it, except for quite possibly breaking my finger in the train door. We stopped and say this cliff. It is what I imagine the Grand Canyon would look like. Note to self: See the Grand Canyon. Anyway we eat and got to the hotel. It was more like a camp resort because we had bunk beds and like 20 girls in one room. 2 girls rooms and 2 boys room. So we ate dinner, had a bonn fire, everyone got drunk and we went to bed. We woke up, ate breakfast and went to this valley. It was cool and the indian people were making things to sell. We took pics and were off to this place that was like a plain. More indians, more pictures, more rock climbing. Then to the final location in the woods. Same thing..pics, rocks, and indians. We went back to the hotel and had lunch. It was good. Then we walked to the little town. It was really cute. Then we had another fire and more drinking. The next day we went to this really pretty waterfall. There was ice...ice in mexico...¡Qué raro! (Wierd!). Returned to have lunch. We went to the town again that night. More fire and drinking. The next day, well lets just say, I will remember it forever. Yes, I, Shayna Ferguson, the world's laziest person, walked an 1 and a 1/2 down a mountain. We went to some hot springs. It was good except I didn't have a bathing suit. But to an exchange student does this matter. No! The Brazilian girls splashed everyone anyway. And did I mention Creel is FREEZING! So then I had the lovely task of walking back up the mountain, which is a gazillion times harder! So Now I am sick 😞 We came back for lunch and a fútbol (soccor) game. We walked to town again. That night was more drinking and fires. On our last day there we went out on some canoes. Well, my canoe orginally had 6 people. One of our oars got stolen and we gained another person. Then 2 people bailed on us when another oar was stolen. We decided to walk back and ditch the boat. Well just as Zeynep and I were getting out of the boat it left! So we were in the boat with one pattle and stuck in rocks. One of the other girls from our boat threw up the pattle and we almost lost it! Fortunately I grapped it and we managed to pattle back. Boy did that hurt my shoulders! It is something I will look back on and laugh hopefully. We spent the last night like the others...town, drinking, and fires. Then we started the fun trip back home!

School

My school is incredibly small! I think there are maybe 80 people in all 3 grades. I am in the 2nd grade. There is only me and Paula (Brazil) for exchange students. There was Juliann (Brazil) but he changed cuz the school was too small and the boys...well...they like to grab things. My class..ugh...where do I begin. They are like 3 or 4 girls that I actually consider my "friends" even though we don't hang out or anything. The rest are like the most immature group of people I have every met! The teachers are nice though. I have math class, physics, history, geography, health, english, literature, and a ton of computer classes. This school is like special for computers I guess. It is a private school so I have to wear a uniform...as in skirts..as in EWW!!! I am getting good grades (the 2nd highest in my class) and even participated in a play for Día de Los Muertos. I will tell you more about that later though. In general, I would say I like school though.

Holidays

September 16th- Día de Independencia (Independence Day)
I went to school. It was pretty much a normal day except at night I went to a party hosted by the Rotary Club and the next day I didn't have school.
Halloween-
Went to a party my sister threw.
Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead)-
This is a day to celebrate the dead. We remember them, build alters for them with things they liked in like, and according to many people they come back to spend the day with us.
Thanksgiving (which is not celebrated here)-
I was walking down a mountain in Creel.
and I think thats all of them. I am not sure what we do for Christmas or New Year´s but I will let you know.

Other random things

I couldn't really find a spot for these things so the will just go here.

* Fiesta Athletica:
I went with my sister, Fabiola, to her old school. Basically we watched a couple play-musical type things. We also ate.
* Wedding:
Not very different from the USA. Except they did this cool thing with some chains.
* Zoo:
I went to this little park-zoo thing across the street from my café and near my school with a couple of my classmates.
* Concert:
Sophia and I went to a concert before she left to the USA. It was classical music. It was nice because no words, and I can understand! hahaha Thats the nice thing about music. It is universal.
* Parties:
I been to a few of them. Music, drinking, nothing special.
* Resturants:
Same as USA, but with VERY good food.
* Movies:
I have seen a few movies. The theater here is really nice.
* Pool:
Very pretty! Been there a couple of times with Fabiola. Apparently Tepic has beaches, but I haven't seen them.
and last but not least...
* My first trip to Guadalajara:
Well technically I have been twice but the 1st time I was just landing in the airport and nearly died of a heartattack. The second time was fun though. It is the second biggest city in Mexico. We went to send my host sister to the USA. We went on Thursday night, so I missed school on Friday. We stayed at the house of my host grandmother. My host sisters, their cousins, and friends and I went to a restaurant to eat and talk. I was good because I got a real hamburger. We went to a bra and finally returned at 2 a .m. On Friday, we went shopping in the morning. Later in the afternoon, we had a family good-bye party for Sophie. I met all the aunts, uncles, and cousins on my host father’s side of the family. Sophie, her cousin, her cousin’s boyfriend, and I went to watch a movie, but because Sophie tagged along, we couldn’t because she had an early plane to catch. I was going to go to a party with Sophie’s cousin and her boyfriend, but again I couldn’t because of Sophie. So I stayed home and was bored. Then on Saturday, I slept late, and was alone. When my “parents” returned, we went to the house of my “sister-in-law’s” parents. I got to play with my “nephew.” His name is Luis, and he is eight months old. I stayed home that night, because my sister went to a club for eighteen-year-olds only. There is no cable at my “grandma’s” house, which means no english tv, which was majorly not fun! Finally, on Sunday, the family came over for breakfast, which emerged into lunch. Then we went home.


I apologize for my horrible english. As you can imagine, I am forgetting a great deal of it while I learn A LOT of spanish. So please forgive me if you see something wrong
Love,
Shayna

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Photos

México
¡Viva México Cabrones!

The Family
This is my family. My mom, Lebrac, Luis and his wife, Carol, Gaby, Fabiola, Sophia, and my dad

Exchange Students
This is all the exchange students in Mazatlan

Me
I am trying out the Sepia Color Filter while sitting on a rock in Creel...Go Me!

Chihuahua
This is all the exchange students in Creel.

School
This is my school, Johnny F. Kennedy.

Día de Los Muertos
This alter was made by my classmates. One of my classmate's friends died and this is for him.

Wedding
A picture from my first Mexican wedding

And to sum up...
This is a perfect way to end! It really sums up México!

Comments

[Kelsey]

¡Por fin!
Ay, que bueno! Por fin puedo leer todo sobre tu vida en Mexico! ¡Que emocionada! jaja no sé si ese es correcto....jaja ahh filo Parece como teni una vida muy buena allá....teni que escribir más, chica! Nos hablamos despues! chao pescado! kelsey