So, it’s Christmas, Saturday the 25th, and i am again one week behind on my journal. Hmm.. here we go.

Sunday, the 19th, the BIG day. The day i move in with my new family. The plan was to wake up and get ready (be packed…) by 8 and just wait. Our host families were going to be picking up us some time between 8 and 10. Mine ended up picking me up around 10. The wait was pretty intense, but calm at the same time some how.

Every time someone new walked into the hotel building i wondered ‘is that them!”…nope, then a different student would dissappear. One by one they were being knocked off, until, bam! There i went!

My host families last name is Rodriguez Narvaez. It’s a married couple, Luis Jorge and Margarita, who are both probably in their 50’s. They have 4 kids. The first is Jorge Luis, then Roger, Pedro and Eldita. None live them any longer. One lives in Canada now with his wife, another is living in Iowa while he goes to school. Then the other two live very close to us here in Merida.

Then, besides the family (which get’s big very fast once you start counting outside this little circle) there is another foreigner living with me who is here studying spanish. He’s dutch, from the Holland. When i arrive he had been at the house for about 3 weeks. He’s really laid back and a fun guy to hang around with. And he’s about on the same level as i am with spanish, perhaps just a bit better at comprehension because he’s been submersed in the language for a couple weeks longer than i have.

But, even though none live with them, this past week, they have been living here for the past week for the holidays and because one of them (the one living in canada) just got married, and he came here for the wedding. Actually i just missed the wedding by a couple of days, i kinda wish i was here for it. Though it isn’t really a problem because i should be here for at least two more weddings for close family. Fun fun!

The family is fairly well off. Their house is very nice, and they live in a nice neighborhood. I would take a fair guess to say they are in the middle to middle upper class here in Merida.

Margarita is a housewife and Luis Jorge works from the house as a salesman for semi-truck break parts.

Every morning, i wake up for school at 6:30 and margarita makes me breakfast. She makes pretty typical stuff for breakfast like eggs, quesadillas, bread with refried beans, fresh squeezed orange juice, yogurt, chocolate milk, ham and cheese sandwiches, etc.

Then, i go to school. School is one bus ride away from my house, and about 10-15 minutes more worth of walking. It’s not to far at all, and is very easy to get to. The only problem is that it is so freaking early! But what ever, it’s good that we have the entire afternoon free and that we also don’t have school on friday’s! so every weekend is a 3 day weekend.

During the week i didn’t really do much that i would consider worth writing about. In short, i met a lot of new people, and i talked in spanish a lot! Which has been quite an intriguing transformation. It is so cool to be able to sit back and listen to this language that is so different from anything that i have ever been able to recognize before, and had always heards as nothing but noise going from people’s mouth, but now actually hear words and emotion and meaning in the sounds. Slowly…day by day…i am able to decipher more and more of what people are saying. But, man, do i have a long way to go.

One thing that i noticed that is pretty funny, and a bit overwhelming is the difference between when people are talking to me and when they talk to other’s who are fluent in the language. For example, i was sitting in the kitchen chatting with the family one evening and i was able to understand a lot of what was being said to me. Then, one of the son’s began talking with the father about something that he saw in the news, and phew! I don’t think i understood a single solitarly word that they said over a period of 3-5 minutes. Hehe. Not only do they talk faster, they use words that i have never even come across, simply, they speak in a much more complicated/advanced way than i am anywhere near to being at a level high enough to comprehend it.

Nonetheless i am happy with the level i am at right now. I feel that in the first 3 days of my being in the house, i can recognize a major advancement in my spanish speaking/comprehension skills. Pretty amazing feeling.

So other than all the socializing and exploring the area around my house, until the Friday of the week i didn’t do anything else that is really worth discussing.

But Friday, Christmas eve (yesterday! man i got through this week’s journal pretty rapidly!) there was some interesting activity worth noting.

Wait! Thursday i did do something actually pretty cool. I went with my spanish teacher, and a lot of students from COA to a Posada! What’s a Posada!? Well, it’s “kind of” like Caroling, except it has a deeper connection with the practice of religion (i believe it’s stronger anyway…perhaps i just misunderstand the importance of caroling to Christian tradition.)

First thing we did was go over to this one ladies house who went over the plans for the night with us and handed out all the songs we would be singing. Then, we began the Posada.

The group changed from the 20 of us that had started the Posada to probably 40 or more before it ended. We had young kids from the age of 5 to old men and women who were probably 60-70 years old walking with us house to house. We started by just walking and singing a song. Then, we arrived at our first house. The song we began to sing was talking about how we needed shelter and were asking the people in the house to let stay with them. Then after the first couple of verses, the people from the inside of the house replied with the next couple of verses saying no, this is not an Inn, go away. Then we replied again with the next verses telling them that ‘our name’ is Jose and that we have a wife named Mary and that they should open their heart. Then the people in the house opened the door and replied that their name was Jose and that the wifes name was also Mary, and then they asked us to come in. (I guess the this, and all the rest of the Posada is planned out ahead of time…it only makes sense because of how we interact we the people in the houses..) Then when we went in the house we sang a song and they gave us two statues: one of baby Jesus and another of Mary. Two people carried those, then they also gave us about 10 pieces of a ’special’ tree that as the story goes, one day when Jesus was very tired he took a nap under this type of tree…I got one of the branches, and everyone headed off again. We sang for a while more as we walked to the next house, were we sang some more verses of the song that the people on the inside and outside sing to each other, then we just left. Then we sang sang sang sang walked walked walked walked, and picked up more people on the way. Eventually, after stopping by one more house and singing to them in the same way, we ended up at my spanish teacher’s parents house where they were waiting, expecting our arrival.

Everyone took a seat and faced the site were the two dolls and all the branches were placed, and most began to pray as one lady prayed aloud. Then after the prayers were made, everyone scooted into a circle and food was passed to everyone (this is all part of the tradition of a Posada). Then after everyone ate, my Anthropology teach, Gray, began to dance around with a basket of peanuts as everyone sang something about the dancing peanut man…or something…hehe.. and he gave each and every person some peanuts. Then, came the real fun! It was time for the final event…the Pinata!

The kids were up first. There was probably 20 kids lined up ready to give the best swing at the Pinata. Because there were so many of them, they started out by only hitting it with their fists! It was really cute! Then after a while they gave them a stick and they beat the shit out of it until it busted and all the candy rained down on their heads.

Then came the adults turn! Hehe. This was even funnier! I really wanted my chance at hitting it, but…my should was really bothering me for some reason this night and had been for a couple of days so i decided not to participate. But those who did gave everyone a good laugh! Eventually, one of the students in my group broke it and again showered the ground with candy.

Then, it seemed, before the candy finished hitting the floor, nearly everyone left. Apparently, after the pinata is finished, the posada is done and the locals go back home. And that is exactly what happened. It was quite a fun experience. My first posada! Yea Ha! :-)

Then…now to christmas eve. Last night, starting around 9, me, Eddie (the guy from holand..which i just realized i never gave his name), Roger and Margarita all went over to one of Margarita’s sisters house that lives down the street from her. We didn’t stay for too long, but i had a good time. We all had a drink and chatted for a good solid 20 minutes. Then we left to visit another sister that lives close to us. This sister also has one of the students from my school living with her. So, i visited my ‘cousin’ and met all of his family. We hung out there for a good 30-45 minutes then we left off to our final destination; another sister of Margaritas. By now it was 11; we showed up and everyone chatted in took a bunch of photos and we all began to drink (or…continue). There was probably a good 30 people at the house at this time. Then, when the clock struck midnight, as tradition
holds in their family, every gives everyone a hug! I got a lot of hugs that night! Hehe. Then, the food was served! I have to say that this was the first time in my life that i had ever eating DINNER at midnight! Quite different than the tradition i have at home where everyone ’should’ go to bed early so we can wake up early to open presents on the morning of the 25th. Which i forgot to mention, everyone here opened their presents in the 24th, before dinner. Interesting…yup. The little differences.

Actually what’s more interesting is that they celebrate christmas at all! Because it’s not a traditional thing to do for Catholics. The catholics here in mexico though have for many years been making the trasition to holding christmas for nearly 100 years though; i believe being influenced by the United states. Rather than Christmas, they used to celebrate Santos Reyes, or the 3 Kings. Which, in some places is still celebrated, but these days, in Mexico at least, this celebration has been phased out over a few generations in favor of Christmas.

So, we’re now eating, and still drinking. Then, after a couple hours, around 2:30, me and roger, and number of other people left this party for our house, where another party was just beginning! Roger and another brother invited a bunch of friends over and we ended up partying until 7 AM! I met some cool people, and possibly made my first friend here. We’ll see how that works out though…who knows.

So right now i am pretty tired because i drank a lot and stayed up really really late, then woke up around noon and then ate another HUGE meal for lunch at the same sisters house (leftovers!). Which then, after lunch, it was nearly 6 so it was too late for me to take a nap…so i decided to start writing this. Which brings me to a stopping point…and i am done. All caught up. Cool.

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 11:29 PM PST

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Ahh….and i begin again. Today is the 23rd, way past the time that i am writing about. As a matter of fact, it’s practically Christmas and my living conditions today are completely different than they were this time a week ago. But, i am not going to get ahead of myself. I still have the rest of last week to get to first.

On the 14th, after leaving Cancun, we went to a very small port town called Puerto Morelos. It’s a very cute place, and was surprisingly active when we arrived that evening. But nothing very special happened except we hung out at this little bar/restaurant and chatted for a while about what everyone thought about the past few days adventures and we all had a couple rounds of beer.

In the morning, we left Puerto Morelos earlier than what was originally planned because everyone wanted to go see some Mayan ruins more than just hanging out at the beach. Which, we did do, but the weather turned out to be not very good for the beach activity anyway so things worked out very well.

So, the 15th, we went to Talum, where about 1000 years ago the Mayans created a city on the east coast of the Peninsula. There were approximately 5,000 inhabitants at any one time at this place. They worshiped many gods (thy are poly theists) but one ruled them all: Kukum Con, a serpent god. There is a legend that says one day, Cancun (named after Kukum Can) will be demolished and flooded by this god for the ’sins’ that the people there do. Hmm…sounds interesting. Besides these little tad-bits of info, i learned quite a bit about Mayan architecture, religious beliefs and history of Spanish conquests of the Mayan people. Just in case who ever else is reading this doesn’t know who Mayans are, in short, they are the indigenous Indians that lived here in Mexico and on the Yucatan Peninsula specifically for centuries before the Spanish (and others) conquered them and wiped them out with war and disease. They had extremely advanced knowledge of mathmatics, astronomy, art, boat building and commerce, and written language. But today, after hundreds of years of oppression, they are still struggling to be treated fairly in Mexico today; just as the native American Indians are in the US.

Then we went to Felipe Carrillo Puerto and stayed for two nights. The first night was very…well….LLOOUUDD! Just like the night in Rio Lagartos, there was a dance party that kept everyone up all night! This time though, it was even closer. In Rio Largartos the music was in the center of town, maybe 8 blocks from where we slept. This night, the party was at the hotel we stayed in! Luckily for me though, i decided to go to bed earily! Muah HA HA! I think i was the only person in the entire hotel to have gotten any sleep that night. :-) Whew. I am very glad i did too, because the next day was exhausting. (i will actually be explaining the next two days without break, i can’t quite remember which days we did what and in what order…we did so much!)

After searching out breakfast and taking a shower and suh, we hit the road at 7ish. We had a guide with us for the entire day, so the van was even more crammed this time around. There was 2 more people in the van that it fit, put it that way. But we managed and made it to a little Mayan town called Senor.

The idea of this trip was to take part in Culture tourism. Rather than the typical tourist activities, we were going to learn about the Mayan people here, see what type of activities take place in the town and learn more about their culture and ways of living.

Honestly, like many other people in the group, i felt a little strange while we were touring the town and meeting people because our group was so large. 15 people is a lot to have walking around a small town, especially when we are nearly all white. We definately stood out, and it was a little uncomfortable. But, everything was fine and the people of the town that we meet were very welcoming and everyone had a good time and learned a lot about the people here.

Actually, there is a good chance that i will go back to this little town and work a bit there for part of my final project. The reason for this is that it is a very small rural town, yet i could see that it was evolving to embrace technology. What i observed was the the youth was much different than the adults, which for this trip, all we meet with was the adults. The biggest indication of this externally was that children and young people in the streets wore modern styles of clothing. Then, more over, in this tiny little rural town, there was at least one internet cafe and a gaming arcade where many young people were hanging out when we passed by. To me, these subtle things have great importance, especially when considering the rusticness of the living in this town.

For example, the first person we met in Senor was a drum maker. He used only a hammer and a chisel, and his house was very simple. He said that it takes days to make one drum. But he was very content with his work and seemed very happy in his simplistic life. (i do realize though that i was only there talking to him as well as all the others that we spoke with for maybe an hour each. So, it is hard to generalize about the living conditions and whether the people are happy. But, that is what i am interested in figuring out. Especially concerning the youth and how they are moving further from traditional lifestyles to more technological oriented ones. We’ll see what happens.

Then, after the drum maker, we visited a house where the inhabitants make hammocks. After that, we went to a mans house who harvested honey from two different types of naturally non-stinging bees. I didn’t know bees like this existed. But here, they do. The information i learned about these bees was pretty fascinating, and being able to get right up next to them and watch them was cool too.

Next we went to a house where a number of women that live there make traditional mayan clothing. The embroidery these women do is amazing and the cloths are very beautiful. The house that they live in was pretty cool too. It had been one of the first houses in Senor, and it still stood strong. It was traditionally built, and was built in a way that nearly every house in the town still builds their houses. Constructed from primative materials like unprocessed tree limbs for the structure of the building and the walls and pactically everything; and palm leaves (i think) for the roof. Supposedly the building has survived through many huricanes and the only thing that it has really had repaired is the roof, which after a certain number of years begins to rot and leak. I believe the house had been there for just over one hundred years. Pretty cool stuff. Completely different than anything i could ever imagine myself being happy to live in…but then again, i have never tried and grew up with different expectations and experiences.

Then, we went to a mans house who told us a war story about his great grand father who faught in the Caste war of the Peninsula. Hmm…was it cool, honestly, i can’t say. After about 15 minutes of sitting down, i feel asleep. Hehe. Then when there was only about 5 minutes left of the story to go, i woke up…i had a big head ache all morning, and I was very tired. Oh well, it was still a cool experience whether i heard the story or not. The old many who told the story had so much character, and his house also was very fascinating to be inside of.

After the story, we visted a henecane harvester. Henecane is a plant that looks simliar to aloe vera. When harvested, you can retrieve very strong, durable fibers from it that can be used to make rope and other things of the sort. He showed us the process one goes through (by hand!) to extract the fibers and roll them into rope which can then be used to weave into hammocks for example. He was quite a joker too, and got a big kick out of the fact that one of my classmates is from England. He was asking her whether or not there was still a Queen there and told her that he couldn’t believe how far she had traveled to get to Mexico. Cool old man.

The last person we met up with was a traditional medicine man. He showed us around his garden and taught us about the different medicines that he makes for different illnesses. He also told us about the difficulties that come with being poor and how people still rely on this type of traditional healing methods because they can’t afford the ‘western’ medicines. Plus he said, this shit really works!

Okay, so, then we left Senor and went to a Milpa. Milpa’s are plots of land that Mayans have used for many many many many generations to grow food and be self-sustainable. Their lively-hood has depended on them for as long as they know, but today are in great danger of dying out. One of the reasons is that it is SOOO much work, and the other is the evolution of todays societies. But if the Milpas dissappear, a huge part of the Mayan culture will disappear with them. The Milpa is a very important part of the mayan’s religious practice and it offers them security of their independence and livelihood like modern jobs in Mexico can’t and could probably never do.

Most Milpas are part of a Hacienda, which is a large portion of land that is commonly owned by a group of Milperos. Many mayan towns and societies are developed around the hacienda and the milpas. Because, again, milpas provide the source of sustainance and their religion (connection to the earth and their past). The more you understand about the Hacienda and Milpas, the more you can understand about the Mayan people and socities themselves. Very very interesting stuff.

The Milpa that we visited was about a hectare
in size (i forget how many acres it is…i believe 4 x 4…but i am not too sure). He alone does practically all the work on the entire milpa. He said, with the exception of paying a few people each year to help harvest, he does everything else by himself, by hand. By looking at his rough, beaten hands, you can only imagine the amount of work this really means. In one normal week, this man has probably worked harder than i have in my entire life! I mean seriously.

The milpero has not tractors or other fancy tools. He only has a lot of patience, strong will, generations and generations of knowledge that has been passed down to him from the ancient mayans and faith in the gods that he worships. He showed us how he harvests his corn; he uses only a little horn from a goat to pluck the cob from each husk, and little by little he harvests hundreds, if not thousdands of corn plants that he has on his milpa. And this is done in the dead heat of the tropics! Honestly, i can’t even begin to imagine what this type of work is like for someone, but i know it means a lot to him.

Although, interestingly he told us that he would not want this life for his children and is very happy that they were fortunate enough to get an education and be able to make a different life for themselve than he has been able to for himself. He wouldn’t want anything different for himself, but he is very happy that his kids don’t have have to work as hard as he has in this life.

As an example of how important religion and faith is to the Milpero and the Mayan communities that are dependent on them, i will explain very briefly the processing of beginning to harvest the milpa.

The start of the harvest in December begins with offering things to the god. The offer a very special traditional corn drink, different types of food and many prayers. They sacrifice chickens and they cook all the food in traditional underground ovens called Pibs. Then the eat and drink in honor of the different gods.

During the growing season, when there is no rain, they begin to make lots of food and pray to the rain god a lot! Every day they make offerings to the gods during the growing season because they are completely dependent on the natural forces of the earth to provide them with successful crops. Specifically they have no irrigation, they rely solely on the rain. Sometimes now-a-days, milperos will use fertilizers to help enhance the extremely shity soil (because they can afford the subsidized prices of it), but in general they don’t use anything.

One last interesting thing about the Milpas is that because the soil in the Yucatan is so poor (more rock than soil…), the land that the Milpas are on become exhuasted after only 3 years of annual crop growing. So after the 3 years is up they are forced to move to a different location, slash and burn any vegetation on the land and start from scratch. An extremely intense process that can be very hard on the Milperos and also on the land itself.

So, then, after the milpa trip, we went back to the city and visited a museum of the Caste War. In short, I learned a lot about the history of the Yucatan, and the oppression of the Mayans. Pretty sad stuff, but if i started writing about it i could be here for ever!

Then, we visited a local community owned and operated Mayan radio station. More than half of the students in my class got on the radio! But because they talked in spanish (which the host then translanted into Mayan), me and all of the beginning spanish students choose not to say anything. It was still cool to watch, and i was really proud to see the other people talking.

The last 2 things we did was visit the botanical garden that is on the back side of the museum. There we spoke with another traditional medicine person (a women this time) and we also had a traditional yucatecan meal. Then, finally we visisted another museum. This time it was on traditional yucatecan music. By this time everyone was so exhuasted that we couldn’t even really concentrate. It was a good thing that we were at a place where pretty much all we had to do was play around with musical intruments. Hehe, bonk bonk, whistle whistle. Let’s go!

We hit the road and headed back to Merida. And later that evening, Friday the 17th we arrived back at the same hotel we had been staying at previously, Santa Lucia.

So, can you guess what we did? Probably not….it wasn’t sleep because we had all slept for quite a few hours on the way back home from Fellipe Carrillo Puerto and we did not have to wake up any time to early the next day. Rather, we went out and bought a bottle of ta ta ta ta tequilla! :-) hehe.

Then, 4-5 shots down, limes and salt to go with it, we hit the streets for a while. Nothing else special happened that evening, we just went out and had a good time…

Saturday, the 18th was just ‘preparing for a new life’ day. Sunday was the big day, we would meet our new parents! How exciting and nerve racking at the same time.

Interestingly, i felt very calm for this. Much more than i figured i would have anyway.

And…da da da da…now we are closer to we am am at right now, today, as i sit in my new room typing on my laptop–rather than taking a ciesta like i probably should be.

So, until next time….let me just say, my family is really cool and my spanish is coming along very well too! I can feel the difference in my speaking and comprehension level, and it has only been a few days! It’s amazing actually. I am able to coversate pretty darn well now. Though, i still have a long long long long long long long long long long long long long….did i say long long long way to go!

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 11:28 PM PST

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Okay, here we go. I am going to write up journal entries for a week or more of doing a whole lot of different shit. It’s been non-stop since Sunday, when we started our trip around the Peninsula.

I noticed that i actually only did my first two days of journal entries and i missed Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th, but because i can’t really remember what i did right off the top of my head, i am not going to write those days up right now, and might not ever. I think in short what i did was simply finish up my scavenger hunt and also take my first bus ride from the inner city in Merida to the outskirts where the Faculty house is and where my classes will be held for the most part. Nothing special really. Wait! That’s not true, as i am writing this i am remember more.

On Saturday, the 11th, i celebrated the eve of the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This is the virgin that is honored across the Yucatan Peninsula, for the Catholic religion.

In short, her story goes like this. There was a poor indian, Juan Diego that was walking one day and came across a very beautiful light in the sky and a very sweet voice began to talk to him. She told him her name and that she wanted him to go to the local Bishop and tell him to build a church in her name in ‘this’ spot. Juan was like, well, no one will believe me. She said, don’t worry, go tell him and meet me here tomorrow at this same spot. So he did, and he didn’t believe him. He was discouraged but had not given up. But he ran into a problem when he went home for the day. He found that his uncle was very very sick. So the next day instead of going to meet the Virgin, he went to go search our a priest to help heal his uncle. But the virgin appeared and she told him not to worry, she would heal him because he believed in her and was devoted to her. Wham bam, his uncle was healed. So, Juan was still worried that the Bishop would not believe him and so the Virgin told him to look down. Juan looked down and found a bunch of beautiful roses growing at his feet. This was impossible without a miracle because he was in the middle of a desert area, a place where roses could never grow. The Virgin told him to pick them up in a blanket and bring them to the Bishop, then he would have no choice but to believe him. So he did and when he arrived he dropped open the blanket full of roses and the Bishop was in awe. Then, one thing greater, which made it all but impossible for the Bishop not to believe was an image of the Virgin appeared on the blanket. Immediately the Bishop built a church in the Virgin’s name and began to worship her as the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Today, she lives in almost everyone that lives here. It’s quite amazing actually. It brings me to realize the power of faith in a way i had never seen before.

On the eve of the day of the Virgin, there was a huge party on the streets in her honor. There was also a huge number of people attending Precession at a local church here in Merida called the Church of San Cristobal. Hundreds of people gathered to give gifts to the church to honor the Virgin and hundreds also trekked from other cities on foot and by bicycle to show their devotion to her as well. These people are called Antorcistas. Pretty much, the idea is this. A bunch of people gather into a group a walk, run or bike from one city to another, carrying a torch the whole way in a relay race style. While one or more people are walking, there is a truck following them. The rest of the Antorchistas are riding in the truck waiting for the current advancers to get tired. They switch off until they arrive at their final destination. They try to plan to arrive at a church such as the San Cristobal on either the eve of celebration or the day of celebration of the Virgin. You can find them trekking all over the place! We saw them all over the city (early arrivers) on the eve of the celebration, and we saw them all over the main roadways and highways as we traveled on Sunday, the day of the celebration.

This sort of devotion to one thing, the faith these people have in the ‘unknown’, and all that they will do to prove their devotion is quite amazing to me honestly. Even though i will never believe in God in the traditional sense, i.e. supernatural being that ‘created’ this universe, nor will i ever lose my scepticism in the church and organized religion, i am coming to realize that there is a piece of me that could use something such as the Virgin, or God, that would give me a solid reason for me being here and my purpose. I am okay with not having either of those, really, but i do think sometimes about how i am missing ‘passion’ in my life for anything in particular. Everything to me is just ‘another thing’. I imagine that is part of growing up and trying to find that ‘thing’ which i am passionate about in my life, but still, sometimes i wish it was as easy for me to find it in something so encompassing as God and faith, of which I believe in neither. I don’t know if i am even making sense right now, but these are feelings that are only beginning to rise up and so i have not had a chance to really analyze them to any extent. I just know that I am missing the ’structure’ in my life like God or religion gives to most of people in this world, and i think I could use some sort of ‘guide’ like it. But, i am going to have to find that structure for myself rather than accepting it from religion, because i do not believe in the fundamental principles that make the religious institutions that i know of what they are. So, i i have a lot of work ahead of me to define the structure for myself from scratch, but that’s probably just how it’s going to have to be. The one good thing is though, although i won’t take the religious structure as a whole and apply it to my life, because i am open to looking at religion objectively, i can observe it from a macro level as well as on a micro level to see how people actually apply it in their own lives and get ideas about what structure i could build for myself; with some form of spirituality, or not.

Okay, it’s the eve of the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and everyone is celebrating all across Merida and all across the Peninsula. The streets are packed, and nearly half of them are closed off to traffic. Music is echoing off the buildings and you can see people dancing, drinking, chatting and just having a good time all over the place! After i went to check out the Cathedral, i went and found my group at a restaurant that had set up tables and chairs in the street and had a live band playing lots of salsa and merangay beats. I had a couple of beers and chatted for a couple of hours, nothing extraordinary, except for the fact that it was being done in MEXICO! :-) Then i went to bed and woke up early to get the road trip underway.

Sunday, the 12th we started off around 7 AM. Our first destination, Rio Lagartos, on the northern most part of the peninsula, touching the Gulf of Mexico. The plan was to learn about the Conservation and management of the Biosphere of Rio Lagartos. This is an amazing location of a very diverse environment with tons of species of plants, birds, and mammals that are unique to that area alone.

We arrived in the afternoon and settled into the house we were staying in for the night. Man, we really had to cram in to this place. There were only 2 beds in each room, and we had 4 rooms for about 15 people. Rather than everyone squeezing into beds though, we had a bunch of hammocks for half or so of us to sleep in. Hammocks are actually more common here than beds. It’s pretty interesting to walk through towns and see nothing but hammocks all over in peoples small houses.

I was one of the ones who got the hammock. It wasn’t to bad, but it would definitely be something i would have to get used to if i was to sleep in on regularly. But i don’t imagine i will have to sleep on one very often, so it’s okay for now. (Well, except when i go to Oaxaca for a couple of weeks and stay in a very small rural village in the mountains…hmm…i feel that sleeping in a hammock might be in my future….)

Before going to bed though, a couple hours after our arrival, there was a Corrida-or a bull fight in the center of town. The reason they had this was to celebrate the Virigin of Guadalupe.

The interesting thing about the fight was though, it was not really a fight. I would consider it more like a very mean tease. They never actually injured in the bulls, they only pissed them off by blowing fire crackers up on them and doing the whole ‘torro-torro’ thing where the bull fighters hold up the brightly colored cloths and have the bull charge at them and miss. It was pretty cool to see, and i was very surprised at the number of small children and younger and older women i saw there. It seemed more like a ‘man’ thing to go and watch bull fighting…but i guess not. The event has much deeper meaning than anything like a football game might have i guess. It’s much more cultural, rather than just entertainment. Pretty cool.

Then…after the show and dinner, i tried to sleep. Although i didn’t exactly find any difficulty sleeping in the hammock, i did however find a lot of difficulty sleeping through the night, as did EVERYONE.

BOOM BOOM BOOM. Ba na na nah na….BOOM BOOM BOOM. DAMNIT! All night, from about 11 until 3 AM! music blaaaaaaaaarrrrrreeeeedddddd! There was a fiesta in the middle of town and they wanted everyone to know about it! And we did!

I tried for almost an hour to sleep through the noise, but it was near impossible. So, rather than sit and waste time, i decided…’if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” :-) I got up around 1 AM
and followed the music. I found the source and there were a hundred or so people there dancing! dancing! dancing! (Rio Lagartos is a small fishing village, so a hundred is a lot) I danced for a good 30-45 minutes then i just sat down and observed. The strangest thing i noticed was that nearly everyone was lined up into distinct lines. Even though the music they play is very modern, it’s still has a very distinguishable as being Latin influenced. Nearly all the songs had salsa or merengay (or whatever other latin style) beats, but were done with a very electronic, hip-hop feel. I believe this new generation of music is called Regaeton. So, the lines i noticed coresponded well with the traditional type of dancing. All the boys were on one side, and the girls on the other. Simple as that. Kind of funny though, because the music is so modern and the people didn’t all dance with traditional steps. There is changes being made i can tell, but they are happening slowly.

Then, around 2 i decided to head back to the house and i wrote in my journal for an hour or so because the music was still banging!

What i wrote about was mostly that on this day, i had had an anxiety attack’ish thing and about how i had been struggling with finding my place in the group. Basically, i feel that there are a little bubbles that enclose around many of the people in the group of students on this trip, and i am not in any of them. Perhaps it is only in my imagination, or maybe it is not. Nearly half of the group have a bond that is very strong, and i know this for a fact because they all went to the same United World College together for 2 years before going to COA. (UWC is a international-study abroad highschool program, one that i really wish i knew about when i was going through school). Then, other than that group of people, i just don’t feel the same sort of closeness as nearly everyone else has towards each other.

Who knows though really, maybe i am just not being patient enough. But, whatever, it makes me a little anxious and self-conscience about my personality. I realize that i have a tendency to be anti-social, and so, never really developed my social skills, so i sometimes think that i can’t find myself being pulled into the bubbles because there is something about how i interact with people that doesn’t not make them necessarily care whether i am around or not. I guess i feel as if it wouldn’t make a difference whether i was here or not, no one says, ‘hey let’s go get chris!’, and i feel that sometimes when people are ‘thinking about others’ like when they buy stuff or are deciding what to do for the day, i tend to be the one left out or the last to be asked…kind of like a pity invitation.

Yup, so, that’s on my mind a bit, but since i have been dealing with it, i have come to think…hmm…it doesn’t make a difference. Be patient, and don’t worry. If I don’t ever become a socially functional part of the group, oh well, it doesn’t really matter. The most important thing is to be myself! Good things will happen in time, and people will warm up to me, it all takes time. There is nothing i can do that could make up for the 2-4 years i missed out on developing friendships with all these people. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about.

So…then, when the music stopped, i went to bed.

The next morning, December 13th, early, at 7 AM, we got a tour from a group of eco-tourist guides. These guys were extremely knowledgeable of the conservation area and showed us some extremely cool things.

First, we got into a few boats and rode through the lagoon off the coast of the Yucatan. The water we were riding in was a mix of fresh water and salt water from the gulf. The depth was pretty shallow, sometimes less than a meter. The environment was so beautiful, and we saw and learned about tons of different plant and animal species. The number of birds alone that we saw was incredible. I can’t even describe what it was like, honestly. It was that cool.

Then, after a couple hours in the boats, we came up to some salt flats. The largest area of salt flats in Mexico, i believe. The flats weren’t the site we came to see though, it was the Flamencos! Yeah flamencos! They are an endangered species and so a lot of effort is being afforded to protect their habitats. They are very beautiful, and look so much better alive than they do as lawn statues. We couldn’t get too….close to them because there is a law that makes it illegal to get within 50 meters of them (and 45 years in prison if you kill one), so my photos of them are not very good. Hopefully i can get a hold of a couple of photos from someone who had a camera with a zoom lens, if i do i will post them up on my website.

The flamencos bring up a very interesting question in my mind. Why do we protect the flamencos, and other big furry cute animals but not tons of other species that are also endangered? I don’t have an answer for this, but it’s a discussion worth having because there are many insects, amphibians, fish, etc (read…animals that are not simply adored by humans, rather, animals that have an important functional purpose in the ecosystem and not just an asthetic appeal like white owls or whatever) that are also endangered but go extinct without a blink of an eye or a glance at one’s wallet.

After checking out the flamencos, we went and swam in some very highly concentrated salt water on the salt flats. I mean, Dead Sea concentrations. It was so cool, you literally floated without effort. It would be harder to not float than it was to float. Then we bathed ourselves in mud and took some candid photos, cleaned ourselves up, and got back in the boats and headed back.

After the boat tour, we visited a bull farm, where they raised bulls solely for the purpose of fighting in Bull fights. Nothing too special, except observing the landscape and learning more about the commercial industries that exist on the Peninsula. It is really amazing how much rock is in the soil here. More correctly…how little soil is in the rock here.

The entire peninsula is solid … i forget what it is called actually. What ever you call the rock that is formed after having been under the ocean for many millions of years…limestone perhaps? The entire earth here is just littered with huge amounts of rock, small and large. Making it very difficult to work with the soil, and very difficult to grow any pasture or crops.

Then, after we saw the Rancho de Ganado, as it is called, we walked through a heavily forested part of the biosphere that had a fresh water fountain in it. We walked for about 30 minutes to get to the water hole, and when we got there we just sat around and rested for a bit, while observing the surroundings and learning more about the area from our guide.

Then, we headed back, got some lunch, crammed into our van, and headed for Valladolid.

Valladolid is another very important historical city, like Merida. It is one of the bigger cities in the Yucatan, and has a lot of culture and is very beautiful. We arrived after dark, and immediately went out to grab some dinner. But, other than dinner, which was really good, almost no one did anything this night because we had a lot of reading to do in preparation for the next days excursions. And, unfortunately our stay was very short here because the next day we had plans to get up early and travel to Cancun.

So, we woke up on the 14th in Valladolid and left to Cancun around 7 AM. We got a tour of the city from an ex-COA student who lives there now, working as an English teacher. She told us a lot about the history of Cancun and ways of life there, and showed us a lot of the non-touristy areas too. Then, after a few hours with her, we had lunch and then dropped her off. But, we didn’t leave yet. We drove a couple minutes over to the Hotel District of Cancun and walked around for an hour or so. No one wanted to stay for very long, and this was the plan anyway.

It seemed very strange to me that i was in Cancun, but i wasn’t there as a ‘tourist’ in it’s most commonly used sense. But instead i was there to observe those traditional tourists and learn from the people who work there what life is like for them there.

It’s sort of unfortunate that we only had an hour, and very unfortunate that i can’t speak or understand Spanish because the employees there had a lot to say! I really doubt that they ever receive people who come for the same reasons my class did. Most are there completely ignorant of the real conditions that exist for the people subjected to working in Cancun, or those who are aware don’t give a shit and expect these poor people to serve there every need. Going to Cancun was another thought provoking experience for me because it brought up many interesting questions about tourism, commercialization, destruction of culture, class systems, wealth, social conditions, and many other things.

Things that it has made me thing about, as well by discussions we have been having as a group for my anthropology course are: what is a tourist? Are there alternative ways to be a tourist? What sort of support should be expected of society for the exploited populations, and what sort of support should governments and commercial industries be expected to give for all that they gain from the exploitation of labor from the impoverished and ostracized people of regions.

More to come, much more…when i have a few minutes…

And…there might not be any photos for a while…if at all because i forgot the cable to transfer my pictures. Ooops. That sucks, really. So, either i will find it, or in a couple of weeks i will ask ryan to send it to much when he goes back to our apartment
in Maine if he can find it there….or i will get photos from other students when i can.

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 12:17 AM PST

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I woke up around 8 again this morning so i could get ready to meet with the class to talk about what we would be doing for the day.

After the class meet and everyone figured out what they would be doing for the day, more or less, we headed off in our own directions.

This time i went with a fellow ‘can’t speak worth a damn’ student named Kat. :-) Our plan, hit the market!

Oh man, did i have some Ghana flashbacks! The markets here are very similiar to those there except one thing. Here, most people do not speak english! That was exactly why we went and our mission was quite successful.

Neither of us spoke much the previous day because there were people in both of groups that could speak pretty well and they had done all of the talking, but today was different. We both spoke (tried….) quite a bit. it was a lot of fun actually. But, fun*ny* too. hehe. There was a lot of head nodding and ’si, si’ even when i did not have a clue what a person was saying. But then there was also a lot of times when i really did understand what the person was saying…more or less.

The market was really well organized into different sections that were designated for selling certain products. They had tons of food stuff (including the yummy meat market…man did that smell good!), clothing, hardware, cooked foods and a lot of other stuff. Pretty much like a super super walmart that is outdoors. (funny actually, there is a super walmart here in Merida….man they surely do get around!)

We spent nearly 4 hours in the market today. Well, more like, an hour looking for it, 2 and a half hours in the market and then 30 minutes or so figuring out how to get out and direct ourselves home.

Looking for the market was fun because we forced ourselves to ask people how to get there, in spanish! It was pretty much both of our first experiences with communicating in spanish outside of the classroom. We have a long! and i mean a long way to go but for our first time out, it worked out pretty darn well. We never felt lost because we knew we could ask someone how to get to where ever we needed to go. Plus we got to stop off and talk to some random people about random things; we had real conversations with people.

Now, i am back in my hotel room writing in this. And next, i am going to go do a bit of homework! Necesito estudiar mas espanol! Si! Then, i have a meeting at 5 that will last until 7 and around 8 i believe i will go to watch a movie. And either before 8 or after the movie i will go and get a bit to eat. After that, i have no clue what i will do, but it will either be one of two things. Go party….or study. It’s really a coin toss at this particular moment. We’ll see!

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 12:14 AM PST

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Holy shit I am in Mexico! I arrived last night after a very short 2 hour flight from Houston Texas. The flight was super easy, and so was getting off the plan and going through immagration and all those fun things. On the plan i started feeling really anxious and my chest started hurting, so i was going to buy a beer to calm down a bit, but i decided not to because it cost 5 bucks a pop. I just couldn’t bring myself to paying 5 dollars for one beer. Everything turned out just fine though, my anxieties curbed when i got to the ground and saw my Spanish teacher, Karla waiting for me at the gate! It so strange to see her again, but not be in Maine. Quite the opposite position actually, all the way down down!

My first night was a blast! After Karla dropped me and Henry off at our hotel (Henry is one of the other students attending the program that took the same flight from Houston that I did), we put our stuff into the hotel room that we are temporarily staying in and then hit the streets.

By the time me and Henry showed up to the hotel, everyone except one had already arrived. Most of them were out eating dinner and those who were still at the hotel when i showed up went out with me too look for a place to sit down and have a drink (una cervesa!). As we walked around the city for a little while, we ended up running into the rest of our group. Everyone hugged and chatted for a bit and then someone pointed out that it was one of the other students birthdays! That meant…da da da da….party! So, my first night in Merida shot off with bang (Una Bomba!). We found this little discotec that had just about no one in it and started off by ordering ourselves a bottle of Tequila! Hehe. Yeah. Everyone in the group (12 students total) had a couple shots, except the birthday boy, Marcin, who had 3…or 4. Then we just took it easy and drank the night threw. I had quite a few drinks myself but somehow i managed not to ever get drunk. That was a good thing because we had our first day of work to do the next day. Orientation started at 8:30 sharp the next day.

So, we drank, chatted, and danced for a while and then went home and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up to a very bright sun and a beautiful, but humid, winter day (or what i normally know as being winter) in the Yucatan, Mexico!

Our first assignment is (present tense because the assignment is still going on as i write this) a scavenger hunt around the city of Merida. There are about 60 different pieces of information, places, things to do, understand, learn, and what not about the city and getting our bearings on orientation, culture and the language here.

I ended up going out with a group of 4, including myself. The other three guys who went with me were Henry, Ian and Alex. We walked for hours and hours! We saw a lot of the city of Merida, but not all of by far.

The central plaza was were we made it to first. The plaza is pretty big and it is very beautiful and many people are there at all times of the day. We walked to the plaza and found acouple of benches in the shade and sat to discuss the plans for the day. We had none, so we just opened our guide book and checked the questions for the scavenger hunt figuring we could just start doing the things that interested us the most. Then, within the first 5 minutes a guy said something to us about checking out this or that place that was being advertised in the guidebook. I was, hmmm…which one? And he came over to us and we started talking to him. Well, Ian and Alex started talking to him, Henry and I just sat there and listened. He was very helpfull and seemed like a very nice guy. Many people here seem to have those traits in common. It’s very nice and it makes me feel very comfortable.

He drew on my map a couple of interesting places he thought we should visit and then lead us to a very neat store that sells a bunch of touristy things. Then he left our side after he told us where we could find him if we ever needed any more questions answered. He worked at a very nice Italian restaurant very near to the central plaza. One that is too expensive for my blood even (hehe…really the prices are very cheap..but for me…being in mexico on a limited budget….and trying to spend money sparingly, the price was too much. The prices averaged around 6-10 US dollars per meal, which here that is expensive.)

Then, our group walked around a lot more and went to the main drag of the city. The street is called Paseo Montejo. It’s really nice, but so is the whole city. I love the streets here; they are all stone. The buildings are beautiful and old too. After which, about 3 hours on this street, we headed home.

Wait, i missed our lunch and all the things we saw on the street. We ate lunch at a mid-upper scale restaurant. There was a really interesting lunch special going on. If i am not mistaken atcually, it’s a permanent special that lot of restaurants do. Basically, the more beer you buy, the more free food you get. For example, the four of us each bought a round of beers. Then, the waiter brought us about 8 sample sized plates of different sauces and a plate of chips. Then, after a second round of beers, the waiter brought us about 8 sample sized plates of other things like tacos, enchaladas, and other things that i can not even name. Then, if we wanted another round of beers we could have gotten another round of food for free that came in bigger amounts than both of the last two. And so on. Pretty much, the special is that if you buy beer, you don’t have to buy food and it worked out like that exactly. It was really cool.

Then, on the streets of Paseo Montejo, there were lots of neat sculptures. There were a lot of beautiful trees and of course big buildings. This part of the city as well as most of the rest of what i have seem so far is very up to date and designed with great style.

After we got back home a few of us went swimming in the pool at the hotel then the rest of the night was pretty laid back and not much happened. It was a great ‘1st day’ in Mexico for me.

The only bad thing about the day was that i did not get to try to speak spanish very much because i was with 2 guys who could speak very well and they did all the talking. But it was still really good because i got to see a lot of the city and that was good enough for me for my first day.

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 12:13 AM PST

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