Watching the World Cup in Mexico

Fortunately, my time in Mexico has happened to overlap with the World Cup.  It is even more fortunate that the World Cup happens to be occurring during my first month in site.  This gives me an easy topic of conversation to fall back on if I'm ever running out of ideas…plus everyone in Mexico is really excited about the World Cup.  If Mexico plays during office hours, my office sets up a projector, takes a break from work, and watches the games something I happily join in on.  If I'm not at the office during games I have watched them with my host family and everyone gets really excited during the games so it is a fun atmosphere at home as well. 

Today, Mexico had its final game in the Group stage and won against Croatia meaning that they advance to the knockout stages which is very exciting.  I was watching the game with my host family and after they won they asked if I wanted to join them in celebrating the win by driving around with the Mexican flag, and shouting "México" and other cheers. I said of course I would like to do that (all part of that whole integration, do as the locals do process) and off we went.

Mexican flag ready to go

Trying my best to look like a local

Others joining in on the celebration

As we started driving we soon came across other cars with excited Mexicans shouting, honking horns, and waving flags.  I would say 1 out of every 5 cars were participating in this ritual in Guzman.  People on the streets were also cheering and waving their own flags if they were available.  Overall, it was a really fun experience to see the whole city excited about this win and Mexico's success in the World Cup…here's to hoping it continues, next game is on Sunday!  ¡Viva México!

Random Photo of the day- Saw my first rainbow in Cd. Guzman after my run yesterday

First days in my new city

Now that I am officially a resident of Ciudad Guzman I thought I would share a few tidbits about the place and also a little bit about what I've been up to since I arrived…

So this is the view from where I work…not bad, right?  What you are looking at is Nevado de Colima, a volcano which overlooks the city.  The peak is not always visible as clouds tend to block the view on occasion, but they do move quickly so even if you wake up and the peak is not visible in the morning it will likely be visible by the time afternoon rolls around…something I am grateful for as I LOVE this view.  Also fun fact…just behind this volcano there is another one, Volcán de Colima, which is one of the most active volcanoes in Mexico.  Soooo the likelihood I'll experience an earthquake while I live here is probably somewhere around the 100 percent mark.

Nevado de Colima

 There is also a lake (or laguna) a few kilometers away from the city center.  This past weekend I was able to walk out to the laguna, a perfect Saturday activity, and snap this shot. Ciudad Guzman is not the largest city (~100,000 people, but you wouldn't even think it was that large) so it doesn't take long before you get to the surrounding rural areas…this picture is probably only 5 kilometers away from the city and you can see it is a rural landscape.  Also, here is an example of the clouds blocking the view of Nevado de Colima which should be easy to see in this photo as it is located pretty much in the center of this photo…darn clouds.

A view of Ciudad Guzman with the laguna in the foreground…here I am just a few kilometers outside the city center

So here's a view of the buzzing metropolis of Ciudad Guzman (Although I keep kidding about the size of the city, I actually do like the size, it is just big enough!).  This is the large plaza marking the city center where there are always a lot of people gathering, particularly on the weekends when there are events and store vendors that set up their tents looking to cash in on the crowds enjoying their weekend free time.  This is also the area where I have spent most of time when I'm done with work for the day.  There are many cafes and ice cream shops surrounding the square…I'm slowly (or maybe not so slowly) trying out every one of them so I can see who's the best!

City Center of Ciudad Guzman

You may have been wondering where exactly I am living in Cd. Guzman…or if you weren't before I bet at this moment you are.  The Peace Corps really likes having us live with host families and after living 3 months with a host family in Queretaro they have us live (at minimum) one more month with a host family in our new cities.  This gives us time to get acquainted with the city and figure out where we would like to live, as it is our responsibility to find our future housing.  While we have to live a minimum of one month with a host family sometimes volunteers choose to live longer as it may take more time to find housing and occasionally, some volunteers live the duration of their service with a host family.  Adapting to life with a new host family is always full of adventure as you get to know their routines and personalities.  My family here is much larger and louder than my Queretaro host family.  I am living with the two parents, their son and daughter (who I estimate are in their early 30s), the daughter's daughter who is 12, and me. Lots of different ages in the house!  They are a very fun family and the mom is a super woman.  She's always doing household chores, cooking, or attending church events, the longest I've seen her sit down and relax is probably 5 minutes.  She is an AMAZING cook…I'm having her teach me a few things about Mexican cooking as I'll be doing my own cooking soon once I move.  One ingredient I don't think I'll be purchasing anytime soon is this:

Not entirely sure what animal this is…my best guess is pig's head

I came across this plate of deliciousness one Sunday morning, I may have lost my appetite for a little while after seeing these.  I believe these (unknown) animal heads had been used to create the broth for a soup called Pozole which all Mexicans seem to love. Ingredients include a variety of meats, pork/chicken/turkey and then the main ingredient maize.  I don't have the same passion for Pozole as the Mexicans do, but I'll eat it and still be perfectly satisfied with my meal.

 So my host family lives a little bit on the outskirts of town (it's about a 45 minute walk to the downtown from my house) so I thought I'd give you an idea of the scenery of the street I live on.  If I'm being honest, this picture is for my Dad who is always asking about the streets. Maybe I can devote an entire blog later to the street varieties in Guzman to satisfy his inquisitive brain…opinions???  :)

Current street I live on, Serafín Vazquez

 Also since I have been here I celebrated my 23rd birthday.  My birthday fell on the second week I was here, always interesting to have a birthday when you have just moved somewhere. (this seems to happen to me a lot as I have an early summer birthday so often I am just starting a new job or internship somewhere when my birthday comes along, either that, or I'm traveling somewhere so I have a wealth of entertaining birthday stories).  I'm not the one to shout out that it's my birthday to these people I hardly know at the office.  However, by around noon that day I subtly mentioned it was my birthday to one person in the office and then watched as slowly the information was dispersed amongst everyone at the office until most people had dropped by and wished me a Happy Birthday.  Funny how fast news travels sometimes.  Later that day I was able to meet up with the other volunteers in the city who were in town and they took me out to eat at a nice Italian place in town and gifted me this gem of a cookie!

Birthday Cookie!

Between people in the office wishing me happy birthday, going out to dinner, my host family making the meal of me choice (they actually did this for me the day before), and receiving countless messages from family and friends I definitely felt loved on my birthday in this new place I call home.  Thanks to everyone who took their time to send me messages…it made for a special day indeed!

Ok I'm about to wrap it up I promise, one more thing…

The first weekend I was here the volunteers in Cd. Guzman (their site is the Parque Nacional Volcán de Colima) were part of a city wide event promoting the environment.  The event was in the city center and many organizations in the area set up tents/booths with activities for those passing by.  I was able to help out with their booth, which was having kids color coloring books the park had made with items and facts about the park (think animals/scenery/plants) and also playing a lotería game (think Bingo with a twist) one of the volunteers had made with facts and pictures about the plants and animals of the park. This was fun to be a part of as it was my first weekend in the city and gave me an opportunity to get a feel for the city and meet some people along the way.  I'm glad I was able to help out with this great event!

Just seeing if I can still color between the lines...

Concentrating hard to understand the Spanish

With the Peace Corps Volunteers who work at the Park
From left: John, Me, Whitney, a local leader of the scout program, and Mary (yes, another Mary, that's not a typo!)

So there's a taste of Ciudad Guzman and what I've been up to.  I am enjoying myself here and getting to know the city and people better each day and can't wait for what's ahead!

Last Weeks in Queretaro

I'm not even sure where to start this blog as much has happened since I last posted.  The biggest thing would have to be that I am no longer living in Queretaro.  Last week I finished training, officially swore in as a volunteer May 31st, and the next day I packed up all my stuff and headed to my new home for the next two years…Ciudad Guzman.  More on this later, for this post I'm going to try and catch you up on my very busy last month in Queretaro leading up to my big move.  I tried to include some of the highlights and more important parts which were hard to select as much happened (I know, my fault for not updating my blog more…that will change I promise), but here's my attempt:

So all the Environment Education volunteers (there were 11 of the 26 of us are EE volunteers…the other are either natural resource management or technology transfer volunteers) got to go on a weeklong field trip to Huizquilucan, a small town outside of Mexico City the first week of May.  The purpose of this trip was to learn about building ecotecnias (i.e. biointensive gardens, efficient wood burning ovens, compost piles, solar dehydrators…) I could go on and on, but the general idea of ecotecnias is that they are inexpensive, environmentally friendly technologies that families can use to make their lives a little easier while also being eco-friendly.  During our time here we were able to go into people's homes in the community and install these to get an idea of how it's done and how they work as some of us may be able to implement some of these technologies at our sites.

                 

                                Teamwork…assembly line passing bricks for the wood efficient stove up the stairs

The EE group and the family we installed the stove for…the completed stove is in the background

Hard at work watering the bio-intensive garden we made

Besides learning about ecotecnias, the other important thing we were able to do on this trip was to plan an Ecoferia at a local school in Huizquilucan.  Because we are Environmental Education volunteers, they thought it would be good for us to get some experience learning how to teach kids about the environment…Peace Corps is thinking ahead here!  So you may be thinking what is an Ecoferia? The best way I can explain it is think of a field day at a school where kids rotate through a variety of activities, but the difference here is the activities the kids participate in are environment related. 

The Logistics

Numbers: Grades 1-6 with around 15-20 students per grade.

Activities:  Our group split into pairs (with one group of 3) and we each planned an activity related to an environmental topic. The topics were water, outdoor recreation, biodiversity/traditional knowledge, deforestation, and animal adaptations.  My partner, Jesi, and I were tasked with teaching the kids about animal adaptations/what they are/why they're important etc.  We had to prepare a 20 minute activity for the kids as that's how long each of the stations were, but really we ended up planning 3 different activities.  We had to account for the fact that 6th graders may not get the same thrill from singing a song we wrote as much as 1st graders would so we adjusted our lesson plans accordingly.  We had a great time planning these activities for the kids and even more fun putting them into action and seeing the kids have a good time while either singing our song, (while Jesi played her ukulele and I showed them the dance we made up to go with it) putting on costumes, coloring masks, or building clay animals depending what grade they were. 

My Ecoferia partner, Jesi, and I in front of the poster we made with the lyrics to the song we wrote…we're quite proud of this song if you haven't noticed…occasionally the song will still get stuck in my head!

Costume activity…where we highlighted the various adaptations animals have by dressing up the kids in different animal costumes

All of us at the school assembly after our successful ecoferia

That about wraps up our week in Huizquilucan…it was an amazing week and we all had a great time getting away from the office a bit, getting our hands dirty, playing with the kids, and just overall getting to hang out with each other. Oh, and I also learned how to play Euchre and am now obsessed (who knew I'd be getting in touch with my midwestern roots in Mexico!).  Overall, this was one of my favorite weeks in Mexico by far!

At the top of a hike we went on while in Huizquilucan…Mexico City is right behind me

After we got back from this weeklong trip we had less than a month left of training.  This led to a crazy few weeks (hence no blog posts!) where we had final assignments and presentations to complete, meetings with the staff, continued Spanish classes, final events with our host families. My host family took me to a BBQ ribs place as I had mentioned many times during my time in Queretaro that I love BBQ so it was a very nice surprise for them to remember this and take me there for my final family event.  There was even country music playing and deer heads on the wall and the ribs were not so bad either…it felt like I was in the south again!  Oh, and I can't forget that they also had root beer, which was quite exciting!!! 

During our last month, we also spent a lot of time just hanging out together as a group as we knew our time together was coming to a close.  I immensely enjoyed my time in Queretaro and meeting all of the amazing people that make up PCM group 16, it certainly made for a bittersweet goodbye when I left as I was excited to get to my new home and begin my work, but sad to say goodbye (for now) to everyone I had gotten to know over the past 11 weeks…I can't wait until we are all back together again!

To close I will include a few photos from our swearing in ceremony where I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  The ceremony itself was simple, yet nice.  Our host families, counterparts, and Peace Corps Mexico staff were all there to see us swear in.  We listened to a few short speeches…including one given by a member of our group…which happened to be Jesi...who was selected by us to say some words about our group.  All the speeches were really well done and made you feel warm and fuzzy inside and ready to go tackle the challenges and take on the adventures that we are about to face at our sites.  

My host family all dressed up for the ceremony, Cecilia & Ricardo

Some of us after the swearing in ceremony…our final day in Queretaro

Gallos Blancos

View of the Stadium

This past Friday I was able to attend a soccer game in Queretaro!  This happened to be the last home game of the season for the Queretaro Gallos (or Gallos Blancos) and if they won this game they would go to the playoffs.  They were playing the Pachuca Tuzos which is a team based in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. The game was a lot of fun, the atmosphere was lively, and the soccer was entertaining!  The Gallos Blancos (the team I was cheering for) were up 3-0 with maybe 25 minutes left.  Things were looking good, everyone was excited, including us…

Enjoying the game with other Peace Corps friends

However, the tide started to turn when the other team scored a goal, and then another, and then another, and just for good measure they scored one more time….so by the end Pachuca won with a score of 3-4 :(.  In other words, Queretaro choked.  They had a comfortable lead and then the momentum switched so no playoffs for the Gallos.  Despite all this it was still a fun game to go to and see all the goals scored and experience the rapid change of the hometown fans' mood from confident and excited they would win to tasting the sting of a surprising defeat. 

Random Photo: View of the park that is near my home

FSV: Future Site Visit

I can now say I have successfully completed my first trip within Mexico…where did I go???  To visit my future site, Ciudad Guzman!  This is a fun and exciting time for all volunteers during the Pre-Service Training.

So what is a Future Site Visit (FSV)?

I visited the city and office where I will be working for the next 2 years!  As I write this I am realizing how bizarre it is that I accepted a ‘job’ without being able to meet with whom I would be working with or where I would be working…I didn’t even know what country I was going to be sent to.  I guess this is part of the allure of Peace Corps for me, not really knowing what to expect when you first sign up…

This was my first visit to Ciudad Guzman which is in the state of Jalisco…you know, the only place in the world where authentic tequila is made. I think a blog post about tequila is in my future considering this fact…  Anyways, Guzman is 2 hours southwest of Guadalajara, the closest big city. The city itself is in a valley with two volcanoes (one active and one inactive) overlooking the city.  Guzman is a mid-size city with around 100,000 people.  There is nothing flashy about the city, just your average place where people live.  I think this will make for a good home for 2 years as it seems like a very normal, comfortable place to be.  The weather is also quite nice…it doesn't get too hot and it doesn't get too cold!

View of the surrounding landscape, including one of the volcanoes, Nevado de Colima…the light post right in the middle really adds some character to this photo (sorry about that)

View of an average street in Ciudad Guzman

The site I will be working at is called CEFOFOR which is a part of CONAFOR (I'm learning a lot of acronyms in Mexico).  CONAFOR is Mexico's equivalent of the U.S. Forest Service and CEFOFOR is a training center they have for their employees.  They provide classes on a variety of topics such as ecotecnias (think solar ovens, water purification systems, composting toilets), they have buildings made using straw as insulation which  if made correctly will withstand the elements for 100 years, and they have a medicinal garden they use to inform people about the medicinal uses of plants.  I am unsure as of now exactly how I will fit into the puzzle that is CEFOFOR, I will just have to show up and figure out my place!  It's likely that I will be educating kids and people in the surrounding area about environmental issues, but we will see in the coming months.

View of some of the offices on the property of CEFOFOR

The 'Living Garden', This garden is used to show people what types of plants can be used for medicinal purposes

Pizza dinner at a volunteer's house in Ciudad Guzman.  In total, there will be 6 volunteers in Guzman in June when we arrive.

 On the final day of my visit the four current volunteers stationed in Guzman hosted a dinner for the two new incoming volunteers.  There is one other person in my group who will also be going to Guzman.  While we will be in the same city, we are going to be working at different sites.  There are quite a few volunteers stationed in Guzman considering its smaller size, but it will be nice to know some familiar faces come moving day!

So there's a (very) quick recap of my visit…it was a whirlwind 3 days as I got to know a little about what I will be up to for the next 2 years.

Translation Stories

When you are trying to learn a language it is inevitable you are going to experience a few mixups in terms of translation so I thought I would take this time to share 2 quick 'lost in translation' stories…

Incident 1:
It was last Sunday and I was out to lunch (as is the Sunday tradition) with my host parents and my host mom's mom.  So in a lull in conversation, because there are a few of those when you are learning a new language, I commented on the boxing match that was happening on the televisions in the restaurant.  What I wanted to say is that the boxers were skinny, (they must have been one of the lightest weight classes in boxing as they really were skinny).  I was convinced I knew the word for skinny, delgado, so I said that the boxers were skinny in Spanish.  They looked at me all confused and I wasn't sure why, my statement was easy enough there wasn't much room for error on my part as I only said a few words.  So I repeated my statement again, this time louder as I was convinced I was right, and they continued to give me funny/confused looks like what on earth is she trying to say.  Well it turns out somehow what I was saying was that the boxers were drug addicts…whoops.  Of course when I got home I went to look up the word for skinny and delgado is indeed one of the words you can use to say this so I'm not sure if they just didn't hear me correctly or what, but whatever I did it made them all think I was saying the boxers were drug addicts, they were all very amused by this mistake…Moral of the story: I'm not going to call anyone skinny/thin for a long time now just in case it gets misinterpreted as me saying they are a drug addict.

Incident 2:

So this next story was on Sunday as well…I guess my Spanish was not at its best on Sunday…

We (my host parents and I) were sitting at the kitchen table just chatting, I was trying to describe to them a place I had visited in the city Saturday night and they were trying to figure out where it was.  My host dad thinks he knows where it is and starts describing something about an airplane.  I became confused as I was not sure where in the conversation we made the jump to airplanes, but I tried to pretend I understood as he kept talking.  Eventually, I came to the conclusion he was talking about a plane crash that had happened in the city and I asked when this plane crash occurred, expressing concern because it sounded like it happened in the heart of the city and that this was a tragedy.  Apparently, he was trying to describe a restaurant that had a fake airplane sculpture on its roof that is made to look like an airplane crashed into the restaurant.  He was describing this because he thought it was nearby the place that I was trying to describe the location of and he thought I would have remembered this airplane restaurant.  I think I would have, but it turns out it was not nearby the place I was trying to describe as I saw this restaurant later that day and everything suddenly clicked in my head.  I'm not sure this one is entirely my fault as I was not prepared for a conversation involving a fake airplane crash that turned out to be the description for a restaurant…I mean that would be weird to describe in English, let alone Spanish.  Moral of the story….be prepared for very weird topics to come up in conversations.

My confused face on Sunday(or most days really).  This was taken when I got in the car with my family and had no idea where they said we were going.  I was a little concerned when they asked if I needed my water bottle and I declined, thankfully I did not need it….that would have been a tragedy if we were going on a hike in the 92 degree weather.

A typical day as a Peace Corps Trainee

I have now been in Mexico for a few weeks and if you were wondering what exactly has been taking up my time here this is the blog post for you…

For each Peace Corps assignment there is a training period, which is what I am currently undergoing.  So if we are being technical here I am not a full-blown volunteer right now, I am a Peace Corps Trainee, or PCT.  The amount of time one spends as a trainee depends on the country of service and how long each office feels is necessary to prepare their groups.  For me, the trainee period is 10 ½ weeks.  In this time they try to cram in as much information as possible so you feel prepared when you actually get to your place of service.  In order to cram in all this knowledge this is the typical day-to-day schedule for me:

The street I live on with my host family (these purple trees are everywhere a beautiful!)

7:30- Wake up and get ready

8:00- Eat Breakfast with the family. If you ever want to challenge yourself in the morning try waking up and immediately speaking a foreign language…I don’t care how many Sodokus you do in the mornings, nothing wakes your brain up quite like this.  This is also when my Spanish is at its worst so by the end of breakfast you figure your day can only go up from there…

8:30- Begin the walk to the office.  I meet up with 2 other PCTs who live nearby and we walk the 20 minutes to the office together.

9:00-5:30 Training.  A day's sessions/lectures will vary but here is a list of the variety of topics we may go over in a given day:

              -Peace Corps’ international development approach

              -Peace Corps’ guidelines/rules/stories/general information

              -Lectures on how to stay healthy/be able to self diagnose yourself…cue the gross                     pictures now

              -Sessions on Safety and Security

              -Sessions on Mexico’s history/culture/politics…the Political Science major in me really enjoys these lessons

              -Sessions on Mexico’s Environment/Natural Resources…because I am an Envionmental Education volunteer this important stuff for me to know

              -Sessions on Environmental Education…ie what is environmental ed, how do you design and implement projects at your site, this is the practical knowledge I will need for my assignment

              -Spanish Class

              -Spanish Class

              -Spanish Class

              -Spanish Class

We do get breaks between sessions.  Each session/lecture can last anywhere from 1 hour-2.5 hours, it just depends. We eat lunch every day from 1:00-2:15.  3 days a week Peace Corps provides lunch and the other 2 days we get to walk around and find our own places to eat nearby which is usually successful, but sometimes we come back with some interesting stories about what we ate.

You can see here that we have a lot of Spanish class.  We are divided into small groups according to our Spanish level.  My class has 4 people in it which is a great size for a language class as it guarantees a lot of talking.  Spanish class is actually one of the more fun times of the day…despite it often taking up half the day.  Classes are fun and interactive and fly by, something I can't say this is true for all of the sessions though...

5:30-7:30: After a long day of training it is nice to finally be done and walk home.  Some days we will go out for a beer after training, other times we will explore the city some, but most often people just head home after a long day at the office.

7:30: Usually I am back by 7:30.  I am greeted by my host mom’s daughter and 17 month old granddaughter as they come over every afternoon and stay until around 9pm.  This makes for a rowdy household to come home to as we all play with the granddaughter and I chat about my day….in Spanish.  I will eat a light dinner around 8 or 8:30 as the lunch meal (aka comida) is the big meal of the day

9:30: Finally the day comes to a close and the house is a little more quiet as all the family has gone home.  This is when I usually retreat to my room and do my homework and just decompress from the day, but sometimes I will sit and chat with my host parents for longer or watch whatever soccer game is on TV as my host dad always seems to be watching.

...and this ends my typical day as a PCT

On an adventure day…they served great cold drinks here, think milkshakes and frappes

View of Queretaro…you can see the old aqueducts in the background

A narrow street in the Central Historical District in Queretaro