Guanajuato Gems

This is just an amazing town.  I have settled into the Spanish classes, the level has sorted itself out, am with other students who I really like, and only 3 or 4 to a class.  I am SOOOOOOOO sorry I can't stay longer!  It is difficult to squeeze in tourism activities between so many classes!  Oh yes, and medical emergencies (read on toward the end...)

On a more touristic note ... on Tuesday night I hiked up to El Pípila with Claire, the flaky other student staying with the same family. Our hike was delayed by my needing to try to explain to her how to use Skype in order to quiet her constant complaining about how the phone cards cost so much to call the US. Finally we started climbing up the little streets and reached our destination right before sunset.  El Pípila is a statue of a man overlooking the entire city that has something to do with war ... but whenever I heard the word ¨war¨ I just turn off. So I'll have to insert a link to a Wikipedia reference here. The view going up was just spectacular -- as I have mentioned, the houses are all different colors and at different levels.

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Just above El Pípila we went further looking for El Hotel Casa Colorada which was a stunning mansion like hotel with desert plants and views that were perhaps only slightly more stunning than the ones on the way up. We got lost a few times, but kind people helped re-direct us. On the way down, a different but equally spectacular view of the city lights.

After that I met up with Barbara, an Austrian woman from Couchsurfing who is living here for a year and a half and teaching German at the university, and I brought along Silvia, another student at my school from Austria because I thought it would be nice for them to meet each other. We ate at a cool restaurant (which I later found out was Austrian-owned, what are the chances of that??) and then Barbara told us that our lives could not be complete without having tried mezcal, so she took us to a cantina that featured it.   Note on cantinas: they are not the kind of places which ¨nice¨ women go to. Apparently it's more acceptable to go there if you're a prostitute and don't mind being groped by drunk slobbery men. However, there ARE two cantinas in town which are ok for women, and we went to one of them called "El Incendio." It was over 100 years old, covered with murals all along the walls, and full of different types of mezcal, some bottles of which contained worms.

One of the workers proudly showed me some of the murals and told me the history (they moved 44 years ago but are settling into their new location nicely). A few friends of Barbara´s came by so we could all drink together. Also, some men at the next table (who could have been 70, or a well worn 55) introduced themselves to us and told us they were butchers, and if we were in the market for meat they were at our service ... ;) I still don't know if this was designed to be a double-entendre in Spanish! Anyway, I tried mezcal flavored with oranges, mezcal flavored with guava, mezcal that was pure and transparent, and I think the one kind I didn´t try was the kind that was supposed to be "good for your stomach" -- I avoid that kind of thing at all costs! The glasses are not big, but cost barely more than $1 USD each! And they are served along with free snacks such as popcorn and jicama with red pepper sprinkled on it. An important cultural experience :)

Of course the next morning I woke up with a big headache and still had to go to school, but was able to medicate myself appropriately, enough so that during my one hour morning break I was able to grab in the museum that is right next door to where I live -- El Museo Iconográfico -- devoted to paintings, sculptures, drawings, and other depictions of Don Quijote and his trusty sidekick Pancho Sanza. To be honest, I had never read Cervantes' novel, but Guanajuatenses are obsessed with the myths surrounding this character! They even have a "festival Cervantino" in October to celebrate all of Cervantes' works. Weird, given that he was from Spain, not Mexico... Anyway the museum was really more interesting than I was expecting, they even had copies of the novel translated into Braille and into Chinese and some of the paintings were fascinating. The idea for the museum, and apparently the seed money, came from a man named Eulalio Ferrer who was Cervantes-and don Quijote-obsessed, and it was the one fantasy that helped him cope with being in a concentration camp in France in the 1930s. I'm not completely sure how he got put there or how he got out, but I'll have to look that topic up a bit more. In any case, the larger than life horse-riding figure and his buddy dominate the Mexican mythological landscape....

Back to class. I have 2 grammar classes, one in "practical Spanish", and a class which is a lecture on cultural issues in Mexico, led by Vicente. He is nothing if not very animated and passionate about the issues! We have discussed the health care system, the economy (I didn't know before now that in actuality more people are currently sending money from Mexico to the US than vice versa), the war in which Texas was stolen by the Americans, and today a fascinating discourse on the tradition of Day of the Dead. More on that to follow. The other classes are great too. Luis especially is the kindest most lovely person when one makes a mistake... I really wish I could spend another few weeks here.

Now -- many of you who are not first-time readers know that calamities tend to both precede and accompany me wherever I go. These can usually be divided into the climatic-disaster, political upheaval, and medical types. My last trip to Indonesia activated a lot of earthquake activity, in Java before I arrived, and in Sumatra while I was there. I just want to say here that I cannot take any responsiblity for the Chilean earthquake -- too damn far away for it to be my fault! On the other hand, there were some weather conditions that involved massive flooding here in Mexico a little bit west of where I am in mid February and those most likely were my fault.  Sorry.  Because of them I am vacillating about whether or not to go on the school field trip to Michoacan to see the butterflies that make their migration from Canada to breed here. The thing is, they're usually done (breeding and living) by March.  So -- not sure if it's worth it. Dear readers who might know, please feel free to weigh in on this subject in the next day.

Anyway, on to the medical excitement.  2 days ago, a woman who is another student at the school (who I hadn't yet met) had a seizure in the street right between the school and the Bagel Cafetín (the surprisingly excellent bagel cafe right near my house). Another woman who had heard I was in the school found me an hour later and told me about it. I went to see this lady, in part to try to determine seizure vs. syncope as she had no real history of either before. She was clearly mentally a bit confused still, though nonfocal on exam, so I decided it had probably been a true seizure. I advised her that with a first time seizure, and being in her 50s, she really needed imaging of her brain. I also told her about neurocysticercosis being a possibility after having lived here in Mexico for 2 months (this is a condition caused by a pork tapeworm called Taenia solium that can form cysts in the brain, with surrounding edema, and cause seizures. I've seen it in immigrants from Mexico to the US). I wrote down all that she needed in Spanish. I was later told by other students at the school that she had been admitted to the hospital not far away. I went to visit her last night. HIPAA be damned! A large sign downstairs announced the names of the patients. She was the only one there. I climbed up the stairs to her room; the whole place looked rather medieval! She had an antechamber and these enormous oxygen tanks which I suspect could not be moved, which she didn't need in any case. They were giving her seemingly unnecessary IV fluids and insisting that she stay for 72 hours of observation despite no repeat seizure activity. She showed me the CT of her head, which looked normal, and her lab tests, which were normal too. They wanted to put her on an antiepileptic drug which they had not told her the name of, till she returned to Texas. And they concluded that the whole problem "was probably altitude related" -- which made no sense whatsoever since she's already been here 2 months and no doubt already acclimatized. Plus, the hospital is at the same altitude so keeping her there made no sense except to jack up the bill. Which, by the way, is going to come to a shockingly crazily expensive $800 for three days including the CT scan. Anyway, it was an interesting little adventure to visit the hospital, learn a little more about the private health system here, and I discussed it with my family who of course were quite familiar with cysticercosis, which the lady doesn´t have.

More adventures to follow -- this email is getting too long!
:) Carol

Gorgeous Guanajuato!!!

Wow, imagine being in a place with absolutely PERFECT weather, daily bright blue sky, a city ordinance that does not allow houses next to each other to be painted the same color, lovely pedestrian-only walking streets, and people that say "Salud!" to a stranger when they hear you sneeze!

That´s Guanajuato.  No wonder it's a UNESCO World Heritage site.  And many of the buildings in the center, including my home for a week, are labeled "Inmueble Catalogado" -- protected landmarks!  My house was built in 1846, and the woman that owns it and hosts foreign guests continues to be completely lovely!  Her name is Guadalupe.  $21 a day for my own room in this grand home, a bathroom shared with one other guest, and 2 meals a day lovingly prepared, including snacks to bring with me to school in case I get hungry before the traditional lunch, typically served here around 3ish pm.  Who could complain? 

My classes at Escuela Mexicana are going well.  A few of us had some questions about how people were placed into certain classes and a few being somewhat overcrowded with 7 or 8 students.  It all sorted itself out by today.  I have 3 teachers: Vicente, Luis, and Alejandro.  They're all really good!   2 grammar classes, one culture and conversation class, and a "practical Spanish" class daily held on the sun-soaked roof of the building with spectactular vistas in every direction.  I have found a few fellow students who are roughly at the same level.  The students are from everywhere, but a majority are Americans -- some from New Mexico, some from Portland, one other woman from SF (but she's not in the same classes) and a few from NYC.  There are also a few students from other places such as Canada, Austria, Germany, and Japan!   The power of the internet is amazing in attracting people from near and far.  My host has also hooked me up with someone with whom I can do some private classes.  With all the classes, I'm not sure when I will get to do all the touristy stuff!  But I'll try to squeeze it in of course.  I can't wait to put the photos into the blog.  Lots of ooohing and aaaahing like when I firstgot to San Francisco.

More later!!

Mundo Pequeño...

So when I last left you, I had just moved to Robin's place. Spending time with him was like meeting up with a long-lost friend. We did a lot of nothing in particular ... The first day I was over there I got to meet a few of his students as he works as an English teacher.  Some of the students come to take classes at his house, and he also leads an English conversation class/group thingie at a café run by a Canadian woman named Sunny.

She was fun to meet (and I found out from her IF I had cable which channel I could watch for a brief recap of the Olympics, but alas no cable), and I also met her business partner, Maria, who it turned out had attended the same school in Guanajuato that I am starting tomorrow and loved it. That was reassuring to hear!  Both of these women moved from Canada and the US, found a new life here, and ended up marrying locals and living happily ever after.  Robin also introduced me to Ray, who runs the Queretaro Language School I was thinking of attending, and he was a fascinating delight as well. A Filipino guy who grew up in Turkey and then moved to the US before enlisting in the Peace Corps at which point he was placed in Chiapas and then met his (Mexican) wife. He speaks Turkish, Cebuano, English, and Spanish fluently and accentlessly. Someone to admire! I felt guilty for not having enrolled in his school, as they really include some medical experiences for doctors. If this current gig goes well, I might go to San Cristobal next year where he is starting up a similar school in Chiapas.


Other things I got to do with Robin including tagging along to his acupuncture appointment, during which a crazy woman came in complaining of diarrhea and then tried to panhandle me when the acupuncturist told her to come back later, and a Scrabble night that he organized that no one actually attended at Sunny's cafe -- but it was a fun, close game, and we met some other English teachers, including one from Orinda of all places, small world that it is. And walking past a cafe which was having a very extensive butterfly and scarab-beetle exhibit which the proprietor? waiter? explained to us in extreme detail in Spanish. Luckily I did understand most of it so it was actually interesting. The collection was not just from this area but from all over the world. However, the Canadian monarch butterflies do apparently migrate to Michoacan state, about 2-3 hrs away from here, around this time of year, and that would be very cool to see.

Robin and I also rented one of those audioguide walking tours offered by the tourism office and managed to get to about 6 of the sites before returning it and then succumbing to liters of Micheladas for 40 pesos each (this is for you, Koren!). The audio tours were horribly dry and boring. Basic deal is that the city has been around since 1531 as part of Nueva España ("new Spain") and there is lots of history regarding the old rich Spaniards who lived there and then the revolution that rose up to get rid of them, part of it plotted by a woman called La Corregidora. We also got to see the pretty amazing acqueduct system (photos to come) that has 70+ Roman arches and was supposedly built by someone who was in love with a nun, to impress her.  It didn't work.

Anyway the biggest charm to this town is walking around the downtown on the cobblestony streets and looking at all the cool architecture, painted interesting colors ...

 

I was able to take the bus downtown from Robin's house and back without difficulty, totally safely, no problems. I did that on Saturday and was supposed to be back by 2 pm when his wife was going to arrive with her friend to pick us up for the party we were going to in Ezequiel Montes (a smaller town about 45 minutes away). Right. I should have gone on that wine and cheese tour that was only going on Saturdays that I was interested in and I STILL would've gotten back in time to have met them given the time we actually left. I also really wanted to see the Mercado de Santa Cruz and cut short my time in order to be on time (which just means I'll have to go back there again! ;-).  I did end up sitting in one of the lovely public parks where several women clad in white offered me a free blood pressure check. Doesn't even happen that much in the US!

So yeah -- apparently Mexico is really truly a "mañana" culture where when someone tells you they will do something or will definitely be somewhere, good luck. Most of the time it doesn't happen. At least, not on time. This is one of the things that I think frustrates both Robin and Juan Carlos about living here -- they don't operate in that sphere and get disappointed when it turns out that everyone else does. So, Gerardo, the friend of Diana (Robin's wife), turned up late to pick her up in Mexico City and go to Ezequiel Montes to set up the party that they were sort of planning together in a family home of his (which was stunning), then realized he didn't have the keys, then considered climbing up and entering through a 2nd story window, then realized they could borrow a ladder from a relative of his, etc., etc., etc. So she didn't come and pick us up till 6:30ish pm for his party which was to have started at 3 pm, which obviously didn't.

Surprisingly, about 15-20 people did turn up for it, all much later than it even started. The party did not include food, and we had to go across the street and eat sincronizadas, and then back at this beautiful house it was really clear that the party was organized by a guy when it turned out there was no toilet paper or soap in the bathroom and the toilet didn't actually flush... ;) Total guy kinda thing.  However, he was really friendly.  And then later there was some sort of charades/20 questions type game organized with male vs. female teams where someone was supposed to describe a famous person and their team had to guess the name. Well, most of the names were not names I had ever heard before, and I could barely follow along with everyone kind of drunk and screaming stuff out all at the same time in Spanish, so let's just say I was not much of an addition to the team...

Robin and Diana and I ended up sharing a huge bedroom in the house and were really tired and went to bed around 1 am. However, the incredibly loud music went on till 6 am. I tried to cower under the blankets and put on my Ipod earphones to drown out the other noise. Actually, somehow I managed to pass out! In the morning we got up and realized how even more beautiful the house was in the sunshine...

Then we took a little walk around town, found some some very dry tamales that made us look for something to drink, and then some fresh squeezed orange juice from a woman who has been squeezing it on the corner for 20 years.   We got a peek at the lovely local church and square, too.

Then we found the bus depot and I got on a local bus back to Queretaro, complete with musicians playing. Once at the Queretaro bus depot I bought a Primera Plus bus ticket leaving in an hour for Guanajuato.

On that bus, I happened to meet two men from New Mexico who were on their way to attend the same language school starting tomorrow as well. Of course! Wouldn't you know. We worked on a Sudoku together and talked about language school plans. One guy was staying in a sort of dorm, the other staying with a family about a 20 minute walk from the school. I felt embarrassed to tell him apparently my host was a 1 minute walk from the school, when I'd booked so recently!

Anyway from the Guanajuato bus terminal I easily got and haggled down a taxi to my host's house. Guanajuato is basically a very wealthy and gorgeous town carved into a valley in the mountains with lots of tunnels and stunning architecture and the whole downtown being primarily cobblestone-clad pedestrian streets. I was fairly blown away by the beauty and then discovered that my host was in the absolute best location she could possibly be, in a beautiful grand old house built in 1846. The whole family had waited for me to come and eat lunch. They were lovely! She has 5 adult kids, one daughter is currently in India with her boyfriend, another son is doing a radiology residency in Guadalajara, and others live more locally. Including her American daughter-in-law! And there is also another woman from Washington state studying at the school who has only been there a week and really does not speak Spanish well at all. She told me she thought I could teach courses rather than take them, which once again means she speaks poorly enough to overestimate the Spanish I speak! Nice compliment though.

Anyway I think I'm going to be happy here. I asked my host if every day here is as stunningly blue-skied and perfect, and she said "pretty much":)