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Hola Chicos!
So this is my first "blog", please be kind- my siesta was interrupted by my neighbours, the nuns, with their "call to 15 dongs plus 3 long ones at 6.35", thus I am feeling a tad grumpy..not to mention sweaty from the evening air which gets down to a cool 30 degrees.
I have begun my great adventure solo and, whilst I wait for Will to catch me up I spend my days busily studying at Oaxacas Institute for learning Spanish in beautiful gardens amongst Americans who keep exclaiming "Oh my gawwsh youre from INGERLAND...how dammmn cute!" Naturally I have tracked down the one other European in the entirity of this city. Vera my Bulgarian born friend, now living in San Fransisco on account of her Gypsy ancestory and was therefore allowed to seek asylum and I have buddied up to take on Mexico and all its Salsa lessons. I am being mean, I have met a couple of good Americans who have agreed that the English "Office" is way more funny than the American "Office".
School is intense. We start at 9am, in a group of only 3, which means there is no skiving at the back of class. Classroom activities finish at 1pm when I have 2 hours of "intercameo"...an exchange student from a local Uni studying English. In my case Adriana has about the same level of English as I do in Spanish, thus we are practising the art of Spanglish. If my teachers could only see me now...From 3 until 4 my brain hurts.
4pm until 6pm we have Salsa lessons, in group of only 4...so again, no skiving. Roberto my Salsa teacher is very serious when it comes to Salsa and if I dont keep up he tells me in broken English that "You need more protein...go eat Chapulines" Chapulines are roasted grasshoppers, which are as disgusting as they sound, and if you dont swallow them in one you can feel the legs tickling your throat. My most enjoyable experience at Salsa is watching Sun, a 50 plus new devorcee from Hong Kong who speaks neither a word of English or Spanish shake her thing on the dance floor. Man she likes to dance...or she likes Roberto. Her skirts are getting worryingly short.
The local food is very very different to the "Tex Mex" Mexican food. The flavours are extremely rich and complex, the salty flavours mixed with a lot of salsas make it a bit of a struggle to get through a plate of food without feeling a bit sicky..not because its bad, but because my stomache wasnt ready for cows tongue."Hey, if you want to know if what youre eating is dog try feeding it to a stray dog, dog wont eat dog" Im told.
Mid week evenings I usually spend in a local cafe with Vera whilst we try and learn "only a few more verbs"(Ive been given a total of 250) and trying to avoid Bill. Bill is a student who lives with me and my host family. Bill is 50, has long blonde hair, a handle bar moustache and comes from Kuntucky. Naturally he is normally found in the lounge with a bucket of chicken wings (I have absolutely NO idea where he has sourced these from). Maybe Kentuckians just smell out KFCs. Bill likes to tell me about everything and anything, and most importantly why Im so dumb and rubbish at Spanish...despite his backward accent being too thick for any Spanish word to come out correctly and saying things such as (insert country bum accent) "Now where in the world is Mombai anyway" and, when we were woken up by gun shots and I ran out saying "I thought we were waking up in Basra" he said "Basra? have we got some sorta war or something in that Village then?" Id quickly like to add that the gun shots were all part of Mexican celebrations. Every day there seems to be a new celebration.
This morning in the park was a local beauty pagent where girls from local high schools walk around in a big circle whilst local boys choose the one they think is the prettiest and giver her a rose. Some of these girls had both arms competely filled and were walking around with help from a local boy who was carrying their secong huge armful of flowers. Im pleased to report that the ugliest fattest girl one, despite the efforts of one young lady whos efforts of wearing her sisters biggest high heals, shortest skirt and running up to boys offering them kisses in eschange for flowers wasnt working...At least shell make a good career in gold digging or prostitution I thought.
The day before yesterday was "Good Samaritans Day". Everywhere you went people were handing out free cookies and fruit water. Seems like no matter how corrupt the goverment is they have money for religious activities, I guess this is to passify the starving.
Oaxaca is absolutely beautiful. Situated up in the mountains its very lush and green and flower. Theres music coming from every doorway and people spontaneously burst into dance in the streets. I watched a group´for 2 hours last Saturday practise Flamenco dancing in the park by my house. There are free activities everywhere, opening events, art museums, Shows and live music! I can Salsa day or night should I wish with a man 5 inches shorter than me. In Oaxaca Im tall. The streets are cobbled, there are plazas and old Cathedrals with plently of gold!
My last thing to add is that the theme music from "The Three Amigoes" is played everywhere...and I even had a street entertainer run up to me and play me it once. This has made me very happy. Im Lucky Day, Im Dusty Bottoms and Im Ned Nederlander!
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