Arriving
Our flight came in on April 26th, to the Mexico City International Airport!! I am finally in Mexico! :) We had to just wait at the airport for about 4 hours to meet up with another group of teachers. At the airport everyone moved everything they would need for our week long vacation into a backpack, and we were ready to go! Ruben, Beto, Alfredo y Teo all helped us haul our luggage away (we got quite a few looks due to the massive amounts of luggage we were transporting haha). We then put all of our big luggage in one van, and we all piled into another, a 16-passenger white van - our home for the next 7 days.
This is where we waited at the airport for FOUR hours!! I got to know these girls very well.... :)LAS CHIAPAS
Our vacation was amazing! I have never seen so many wonderful places and talked to so many wonderful people in such a short amount of time. The first day we went to La Venta , we went to a neat museum and saw some cool things.
The second day we stopped in Veracruz, which is on the east coast of southern Mexico, bordering the Gulf of Mexico! So pretty. We stopped for lunch at a street taco stand, my first taste of real mexican food! They were really good, a bit on the spicy side, but really good! I'm going to have to get used to this spicy-ness. :) After lunch Ruben (our awesome bus driver/tour guide) took us to this little private beach, it was really just some guy's back yard! He charged us 10 pesos each, and off to the beach we went! The water felt so good, especially after riding in a squished bus with 15 other people in 98 degree weather all day!
That is a REAL coconut!! Straight from the tree, I watched him pick it myself. I had never tasted one before, and it wasn't at all what I expected. Good though! I enjoyed it.
This is the huge bus we are riding in! I had to take a picture so I could remember it. :)The third day we were in Villahermosa, which is south east of Veracruz. Due to the lack of American breakfast food (fruit/cereal/cold milk/ham&eggs are nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find here! At least in the little city we were in.) we decided to go to the nearby Wal*Mart for breakfast. I found a cold dannon yogurt, and a box of Nutri-grain granola bars and I was good! A little taste of home. :) When we were ready to leave Wal*Mart, the bus wouldn't start... uh-oh. Ruben doesn't speak any English, so none of us were quite sure what was wrong with it. While we waited, we walked a couple of blocks to a nearby school/university and found an internet cafe, so we all paid 5 pesos for an hour on the internet, and caught up on emails from home.
The bus finally started! I guess it was just too hot and needed some time to cool off. So we all piled into the bus, and then we went to see the temple in Villahermosa! Such a pretty temple, really small but beautiful.
It was SO SO hot here. Ya gotta stay cool somehow... right? :)
The fourth day our wonderful bus driver Ruben took us to the city of Palenque, about 1 & 1/2 hours south east of Villahermosa. I think this might have been my favorite stop, it was so amazing!! It is the site of ancient Mayan ruins, temples, pyramids, and beautiful buildings. I wish I could put into words what it was like walking through those pyramids, seeing their inscribings on the wall, seeing the wear on the rocks of where they walked and lived.
After Palenque we went to this little place in the middle of the jungle called Agua Dulces. It was so cool, it was this cute little pool in the middle of nowhere! We explored a little bit below where the pool was, and found some beautiful waterfalls! Mexico is so so beautiful.
Haha I love this next picture. These are some younger boys that came to swim at the same time we were there. This is how the drive in Mexico, and it's legal! and the best part, no that is NOT a truck! It's a car, with the back part cut out.
On the fifth day we went to San Christóbal, a little south of Palenque. This city is known for all of it's beautiful cathedrals, which were SO neat! Also, it was a little cooler here, which was a nice change.
The sixth day we went to a city called Tuxtla, where we went on a boat tour of a famous canyon in Mexico, I forget the name of it. I didn't understand much of what the tour guide was saying, because it was all in Spanish. But I did get that when the Spanish invaded Mexico, many Mexican soldiers and men jumped from the high canyon walls to their death - prefereing to die in the name of their country rather than surrender or be taken captive by the Spanish. It was really pretty, and we even saw a crocodile and a couple monkeys!
After the boat tour, we stopped at the Tuxtla Mexico Temple. So pretty!! This one was pretty small too, and it looked a lot like the Villahermosa temple.
Then we began the 10 hour drive from Tuxtla back to where the school is, in Tehuacan. We arrived at the school at about 4am, and 11 of us all crashed on three mattresses that we found and slid together. Not the comfiest sleeping arrangements, but we were all so happy to not have to sleep on that bus! So our vacation is over, now the real fun begins. :)
HOST FAMILY
I met my host family on Sunday afternoon, they came to pick me up at three and when we got back to their house, they had a whole party waiting for me! They had lots of family and friends over, and we just chatted. Correction: THEY chatted, I listened, catching maybe only 10% of what they were saying. :) They made a really good meal, called Pazole. I loved it! Again, a bit on the spicy side, but nothing I couldn't handle. I think my taste buds are getting used to this!
My host parents names are Sandra and Christian, and they are both 26 years old. They have a son Emilio, who is 6, and a daughter Valentina, who is only 2 months!! They are both SO adorable, I love them already. Their house is really really nice, the exact opposite of what I was expecting when I found out that I was going to be moving to Mexico! I don't know why, but for some reason I was expecting dirt floors, two room homes, no running water... etc. But that is not the case, at least with this family! They are a really nice family, and I have so much fun with the kids. She has me help alot with the baby, like feeding her, giving her baths, etc and I LOVE it! She is so cute. These kids sure make me miss my Alizae though.
TEACHING
I started teaching this last Thursday and Friday, so I am just two days into it. I teach in the afternoon from 1:30-3:30 at a school called Discovery, and I have a group of kids ages 8-9. They are a handful!! Out of control at times, but it'll get better. Then I teach again at 4:00-6:00pm, at ILP. I have 3 rotations, the first is pretty varied in age, they range from 7-11. Then my second two rotations are just little kids! Ages 3-5. SO cute. They don't speak English very well..so that makes things a bit hard but they are stinkin' cute. :)
*** More pictures of the kids at school and of my host family coming soon!! ***
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