Maestra en México: Breakfast/lunch, mountain climbing, and hanging out.

Chori's face of "Are we really gonna do this?!" I was unaware I was in the shot.

View of where we were going from the path.

The ladder at the last little bit.

View from atop the pyramid.

Me atop the pyramid.

(Another Fulbright teacher, Reed, is blogging as well. Her blog is more historically, culturally and Spanishally informative. If you're interested in more about the town of Tepoztlán, she had a great entry. Click here to read it.)

A sign made completely of beans at the entrance to the market.

The funeral procession from breakfast/lunch.

After Beto and Chori (This is Shania's cousin Ricardo's nickname- it has something to do with talking too much and lying. On a side note, he called me Lauris a few times, which is what Mabel had called me at the beginning. To the best of my knowledge, it has no significance.) got up and got ready, we ventured into "town." The house is sort of on the outskirts, but it's a town much smaller than Glasgow, so that meant a car ride of about five minutes to get to the centro (the majority of the five minutes was due to the bumpy cobblestone streets). We parked in what looked like a bed and breakfast and walked around until we found the restaurant of choice for the morning (afternoon). Chori had asked me how hungry I was and if I were interested in a traditionally Mexican breakfast. My though, as usual, was I'm in Mexico, why wouldn't I want a traditional Mexican breakfast?

We get to the restaurant and go up to the open air patio on top and receive our menus. Breakfast time has passed, so we must eat lunch. I'm fine with that. It is after one o'clock after all. Chori is starving and orders two horchatas and downs the first one in seconds, guacamole for the table to share, chicken tacos and something else. Beto must've eaten in the early hours of the morning or else he was on a diet because he only ordered soup. I got the chicken tacos as well. They were tacos dorados (the hard crunchy kind that we sometimes call taquitos) which are not always my favorite, but they were good.

While at lunch, I heard a "banda" and saw some people carrying flowers. It turned out to be a funeral ceremony. They all walk from the church to cemetery. The bill came and I didn't have to pay; I did try.

From there, we moseyed through the town streets and saw some vendors (though I didn't buy anything then). Chori bought a necklace with his astrological sign on it. They laughed at me because I don't buy into all that stuff. We were in another "magical town" like Cosalá (the waterfall town I went to in my first month or so) and apparently there are many UFOs, extraterrestrials and spiritual things looming around Tepoztlán.

From the vendors, we just started climbing the path to the top of the mountain. Chori the genius had forgotten his tennis shoes, so he was in flip flops. It was a rocky path and I did not envy him! They had also prepared me for slow and (not so) steady since they're both avid smokers. I was worried I would need slow and steady for myself after a pyramid the day before, not to mention a month of inactivity.

We climbed in about 45 minutes to an hour I think, which was really fast. I was overdressed in my 3/4 Polo and jeans, but at least I had tennis shoes. My shower was a complete waste because I was sweaty and huffing and puffing within fifteen minutes!

The path was windy, rocky, and tricky, but beautiful. I'm not one to marvel at nature, but this almost demanded it. After getting to the top of the mountain, Beto took a break (maybe to buy something to eat since all he'd eaten was soup!) and Chori paid for us to enter the pyramid (35 pesos a piece). We sat on the top of the pyramid for awhile and enjoyed the breeze and view. We had a nice conversation about Shania and Culiacán, but mostly we sat in silence. He brought up the extraterrestrials again, and I rolled my eyes.

The descent was obviously much easier. It was funny, though to see people climbing up and being out of breath. Coming back down it was easy to forget just how hard it was going the other way. It was also funny hearing the climbers asking how much longer. After about halfway up, anytime we (or anyone near us) would ask that question, the response was "ya llegaron" (you're already there!). Clearly that was an untruth! But hearing others tell the climbers the lie we had bought was funny.

From the bottom of the mountain, I took a picture of where we had been. I could not believe how far away the pyramid was! You can't even see it in the picture!

We walked through the town to the market to pick up meat, tortillas, sides, and kindling for the cookout that would be on Sunday.

As we got to the car, Chori was calling the house to make sure none of his friends had shown up yet. At lunch, they had talked about some of their friends, but since I hadn't met them yet, I'm not sure if these were the same friends that would be coming and which were which. But they had a German friend who's been in Mexico long enough that he sounds Mexican (someday, Laura, someday), slang, trash talk and all. There was another friend I think from Argentina that they talked about, but I'm not sure what they said.

We got back to the house around 6ish I suppose and Chori's mom, dad and little brother were there. I met the mom, who is Shania's aunt and I can see the resemblance. We scrounged around and found some rice, meat, tortillas, etc and ate up. Around 8:30 or 9 I guess, a carful of friends showed up. Paloma (which means dove and is a girl's name but he is a boy), la Bruja (the witch, Hilde, or the like), Ariana, and Juan (possibly brother and sister?). They came in, did the kiss/shake&hug greeting (this still baffles me- I love it, but it's so different from US culture), and sat down to get started on the beverages and smokes. Since it was nighttime, it was growing very cold. I was not mentally (or clothingally) prepared for that, so I spent the majority of the weekend shivering and wrapped up in a blanket.

The next few hours were fun; I mostly listened. Once the conversation turned to me, I could participate in Q&A format. Jumping into the middle of a group conversations with a bunch of strangers in a second language is rather difficult and I don't think my fluency is quite there yet. Closer to 2am, another carload of folks showed up. I know there was a Paulina, her boyfriend, his brother and his wife, but that's about as specific I get with them (come on, it was 2am!). Chori got a phone call saying Nacho was on his way. Nacho had taken a bus from DF because he had to go back early Sunday morning to work (not sure what his job is) and everyone else was staying until Monday.

After he hung up with Nacho, Paloma (I think) told me to tell Nacho I was from Chihuahua (another state in Mexico) when he asked. I assured them he wouldn't believe me. They said not to say I was from the US. I got a bit nervous when they said that. But then they asked me if the term "Gringo" offended me. I said no, so they said I should be okay. I was fully prepared to be made fun of all night (and possibly to get offended at something at some point!).

Nacho got there and I continued my listen-without-speaking format. When I began speaking, it was obvious (duh) that I was a foreigner. There were some repetitions of the things I would say, which annoyed me a bit, but Chori told them that that bothered me and to stop. Then they started with their English. Paloma and his car had come late Saturday instead of Friday or early Saturday morning because he has English classes on Saturday mornings. He wanted to know how to ask a girl out in English. I can't remember his initial suggestion, but it was hilarious: broken English meets terrible pick up line. Nacho gave him suggestions ("You're pretty") which I cut down pretty fast. Then he wanted to compliment a girl, so I taught them "You have beautiful eyes." Unfortunately, with his pronunciation, this came out more like, "You habe beauteeful ass." I suggested changing eyes to smile. But then I explained how that wouldn't really work. At least not in Nashville. Chori tried to explain how different the culture is, in all aspects, but especially in the guy/gal arena. Nacho (who knew quite a bit of English and I think must've lived in several places in the US) said that those lines would work fine. So I revised my statement and said I was doubtful that it would work in the south and I was certain it wouldn't work with me.

We got into some football talk (fútbol americano, not soccer) and I got to participate! By about 4:30, I was as done as could be. I had tried and tried to keep my eyes open, but it wasn't working. I was wanting to improve my listening and speaking (which is exponentially harder when I'm tired), but I was also wanting to be a human being when I got up on Sunday...

I was the first to bed. And not ashamed!