aaaaand.... we're back

we all made it home safe and sound, none the worse for wear and with a new perspective of the world south o' the border. (thanks for asking)

this year, our fearless band of travelers will be headed further south, most to costa rica, some to honduras.

la bandera tica

check back often for updates on the planning,

introductions of our protagonists and reports from the field.

radio silence

ok, sportsfans, here's a little of what you have missed and where we're going from here...

*thursday, 7 june- am, we go with a medicine man friend to a remote village to talk with some folks about some kind of service learning project for my students next year
pm, we go on an excursion with the school to xochicalco and an orphanage



*friday, 8 june- 7am pile on a bus to acapulco, wave goodbye to cuernavaca for the last time



*sunday, 10 june- wave goodbye to the bus as it heads back tor cuernavaca and head out on our own

*the medicine man has given me some contact information for a place we can go and stay on the beach in a remote fishing village along the coast, just north of acapulco. "cross the footbridge, walk out onto the beach, go all the way to the end and ask for rosa. tell her i sent you". there we can camp on her land for free in exchange for buying and eating her fresh caught and exquisitely prepared fish for dinner, and swim and build a fire and generally laze about for a couple of days.



*tuesday or wednesday- we will head north along the coast a bit to another place that is a little more populated, but still not on the tourist maps. at the moment i don't remember what it's called. we will spend another day or two or three exploring and talking to people before heading north another jump, where we will do the same. the mexicans call this 'puebleando'.



*am of 16 june- from wherever we are, we will catch the citybus to puerto vallarta which will dump us in the middle of the city, i imagine.




we will be under strict radio slience from the morning of 10 june until sometime after 16 june owing to the fact that we plan to be in the middle of nowhere without electricity.

teachers protest

the mexican government has recently passed a new law, ISSSTE, that has taken away the teacher pension. not just the part that the government has contributed to or 'from now on', but the voluntary salary deductions made by the teachers for years and years. according to what i understand, when the teachers have made demands for their money, the response they got was something similar to, 'what money?, there is no money here.'
they are understandably incensed, and have taken to the streets across the country, closing off major thoroughfares and generally doing their best to be heard.
here are some shots of a small , peaceful protest i happened upon in the center of town today.

farewell melissa

here's a paste of melissa's farewell message that she requested i post:

I decided to leave Mexico early due to some further complications with my oldest, furry child, Jasmine. Another disc is bulging and putting pressure on Jasmine’s spine, so I came home to help Willy care for her. I also had some medical problems myself while I was in Mexico, mainly due to stomach problems. I went to my doctor as soon as I got home, and I found out that I’d lost 10lbs and I have some amoeba friends I brought back from Mexico in my intestines (I named the worm Herman the Wormin…hehe). I greatly enjoyed my time in Mexico and I look forward to going back for more schooling there in the future. I met some wonderful people during my trip and saw some awesome sights. The time I spent there gave me a great jumpstart to speaking more Spanish on a regular basis, and I plan to keep taking classes throughout this summer and fall. Many thanks to everyone for their love and support!!

it was like someone with a mouth full of barbeque sauce...

*warning* this may me too much information for some of you...

so, the school invited all of the directors out to breakfast the other morning at a really nice hotel/spa. they had a buffet that was especially exciting because of all of the amazing fresh fruit, which was like a breath of fresh air compared to the typical mexican fair of late.
after i had eaten my fill of pineapple, mango, guayaba, melon, honeydew and watermelon and all i could handle of the freshly prepared fruit juice cocktails, someone asked me it i had tried the 'lengua' or the 'panza'.
no, i hadn't. but i had considered it seeing as how i would not likely ever buy it for myself, making this a possible once in a lifetime thing.
i let them cajole me into trying them, and this is my reaction. perhaps i am exposing my closed mind, here, but it is what it is.

'lengua' is cow tongue. it is quite tender and served in a red sauce. that doesn't disguise the fact that it is a tongue, complete with taste buds. so when i say 'it was like someone with a mouthful of barbecue sauce stuck their tongue in my mouth', that's exactly what i mean. the trick then, was chewing it up and swallowing it. i may be affected for life.
the next thing on my plate to try was panza- cow stomach. as far as i can tell it didn't have much of a flavor, but that is quite likely due to the fact that i drown it in lemon juice. it was otherwise like trying to chew up a rubber band, to which i offered a weak effort and big swallow.

later, i went to the big market to get these pictures so you can visualize what i ate.

in terms of being open to new experiences, i can say that i am. and i can also say that i am glad that eating panza and lengua are no longer new experiences for me.

taxco

pictures from our excursion to taxco. wayne chose not to go on this one because he had heard that it was really a glorified shopping trip. (wayne, you heard right)

the town was built on steep mountain sides. that white volkswagon van on the road is a cumbi. cumbis are like a mix between taxis and city buses. they take the doors off and the seats out and in place of the seats, they install wooden benches, with the goal of cramming as many people as possible inside. to ride one, you flag it down as it is going by and ask if it is going to x . the driver invariably replies 'of course' so you pay your $.40, hop on, and hold on for your life. there are typically 10-15 people riding on these things.
during holy week, there are many processions of 'penitentes', folks who are doing penance for their sins. this is a statue to recognise them. it shows a penitente, with a bundle of thorny branches strapped to his arms. the idea is to truly suffer.
taxco also has a 'christ on the hill' similar to the one in rio, i think, but it isn't as high.
we happened to be there on a festival day, so the streets were decorated and there were all manner of street performers. unfortunately, my pictures of them didn't turn out.

tepoztlan

here are some pictures of the day that wayne and i went back up to tepoztlan to climb to the top of the mountain, where the pyramid is. unlike the pyramids of teotihuacan, this one served the purpose of being a lookout tower, of sorts, for the village below.

here are wayne and blair, who made wayne's music video...
these little animals are called something like tree bears. they're kind of a cross between raccoons and possums. these were incredibly tame. the guy in this picture had a candy wrapper that he was crinkling. the bear climbing on his legs just couldn't resist the sound and kept coming back to see what he had that he might offer as a snicky-snack.
whoever out there who reads this and knows what they're called, let the rest of us know.

*i just found out that they're called tejones.