Chapter 32: King of the Mountain

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Riddle me this Batman. ¿What are the three largest free standing rock edifices in the world?

1) Ayers Rock
2) Rock of Gibraltar
3) ??????????

The third one, that nobody knows is located in central Mexico. Peña de Bernal. This past saturday 3 intrepid PC trainees (and a forth that showed up late), and one Spanish teacher decided to climb it "treacherous" slopes. And by "treacherous" I mean that there were parts of the path that did not even have steps, and that you needed at the very least, Flip-Flops in order to make it to the top.

Ok, so the Peña has become very touristy in the last few years. There is a path (that´s even paved in some sections) all the way to the top, and there are tiendas (stores/booths) every 100 meters or so. But it was still a bit of a climb. Due to the altitude we had to make frequent pit stops to catch our breath. We also saw them shooting a video of a group of people doing some rock climbing.

The weather was perfect and we spent about an hour at the top enjoying the view and good company. It still strikes me every once in a while that just two months ago I was sitting in a cube staring at a computer screen, but yesterday I standing on about 6000 feet above sea level, looking out at the landscape of another country.


After the climb, and the inevitable decent that followed we were all famished. Thanks to Laura we found a nice little outdoor restaurant to eat at. We gorged ourselves on quesadiallas and gorditas (which have no relation to the gordittas you see in Taco Bell). After lunch, we spent about an hour searching for a legendary "Bread Lady" for Cristina and her host mother, but to no avail.

A good day.

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Chapter 31: Domo Arigato Mr. Kendo

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In my limited experience in Mexico, I have discovered that there is no better way for an American to get aquainted with the Mexican people than to practice a Japanese martial art with them. :) So in that vein, I participated in the first annual Queretaro Kendo Tournament today. They had a good attendance, and drew people from Mexico City and San Louis Potosi.

But there was one small difference in the tournament here. Since there is not enough people to divide people into ranks, they have one large group, a free for all if you will. So during the day I had the pleasure of competing with people a large demographic of people. I fought with a 13 year old girl, and a 60 year old man. I got a chance to fight with a someone with 20 years of experience and 3 months of experience. In the end it was a great time, I got to practice my kendo and my spanish. After a few grueling hours of me gasping for air (after a month, I am still not fully accustomed to the altitude up hear in the mountains), I was lucky enough to walk away with a 3rd place trophy.

Afterwards, we all went out to a banquet at an all you can eat seafood restaurant. It is safe to say that is was the best, and most expensive meal I have eaten in Mexico. But what made it even better was that the whole thing was free for me. The three head instructors spent 15 minutes arguing who was going to pick up the tab, and while they were doing that, another one of the instructors snuck out and payed it without telling them! In kendo terms it was a "Debana Waza" (an attack done before the oponent has a chance to react).

The day was a long one, I and had been out for 14 hours doing kendo and speaking spanish, so needless to say, once I got home, I just relaxed and hung out with my Mexican family. Good times...

NOTE: For the first time today, I said something in Spanish and afterwards (the waiter at the restaurant) they still thought I was Mexican! Fantastico!

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Chapter 30: Ole!

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The crowd cheered. Raymundo! Raymondo! Raymundo! There I stood in the middle of the plaza, hair slicked back, dressed in a full suite, red cape draped over my right arm. Then with a barely audible creek, the door infront of my opens, and in walks my oponent. He is as black as night, weighs close to a ton, and stands about 5 feet tall (if you count the horns). I could feel my heartbeat quicken. My senses slowly blocked out everything else, the sound if the crowd, the smell of the dusty plaza floor, the feeling of the light breeze on my skin. There was now nobody else, just me, and the bull.

This actually did happen... but only in my own mind. What everybody else saw was a stadium with at the most 40 people. It was the company picnic for the local Queretaro radio station. And the main event for thee picnic was the chance for anybody who was brave enough (or dumb enough) to become a bullfighter. Our opponent was a young bull, and this was one of those crazy things that I know I would regret not doing. I started out by watching for the first half hour.

The first guy to go out was very impressive, but later I found out he was not a radio station employee, but an actual matador-in-training who was out there to help out if anybody got into trouble. So I felt slightly better. I later watched a few of the radio station employee's try thier luck. Lets just say they did not have much (see the photo's). You would think that would knock some sense into the gringo who was suppose to go next, but that didn't happen.

I went out there, mano y mano... err, mano y toro. I started out at about 10 meters, but the wasn't able to catch the bulls attention. So I approached, centimeter by centimeter. Once I got within about 3 meters, the bull noticed me, and the action began. I don't remember how many passes happened, but oddly enough I started to get the hang of things. The first few passes, all I could was direct the bull past me, but after a while I was able to excersize a little bit of control over it. I made it do circles, zigzags, and twists. I have not had this much of a rush since the first time I put on a bogu (kendo armor) and sparred.

I loved it. There is no Kendo in Chiapas where I will be living for the next two years... maybe I can take up bullfighting to fill the void... seriously.

NOTE: I learned today that the theory about Bulls being attracted to the color red is, for lack of a better word bull. Bulls follow the motion of the cape, the color has nothing to do with anything. They are totally colorblind. Secondly, the capes the matadors use are heavy, more than 35 lbs of hard leather.

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Chapter 29: Gringolandia

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Ah. A little bit of america in the heart of Mexico. This Saturday a six intrepid PC volunteers took our first baby steps outside of the city of Queretaro. Since the PC schedualed activity for this Saturday was cancelled, we took it upon ourselves to do something. So, after much thought, and even more cervesa's we came up with the idea of going to the pueblo (village/town) of San Miguel.

The town of San Miguel is known for 3 things. The first is the massive church in its central plaza. What makes this church unique is that it is one of the only churches in all of Mexico that is made to match the Gothic architeture in Europe. The edific can be seen from miles and miles around.

The second thing that makes this town famous it that they have thier own version of running with the bulls (a smaller version of the event held in Pamplona, Spain). Unfortunately, that happened the same day we arrived in Mexico, so I was not able to participate.

The third claim to fame of this town is that there are more American here than Mexican. The streets are lined with cars with U.S. licence plates. The town itself was nice, and worth at least one visit. But I didn't see anything there that would warrent me going back.

Actually, the most interesting thing that happened to us there was, it rained. And when it rains up there, it does not mess around. Within 10 minutes the cobblestone roads were rivers. Apperantly one the major problems in old Mexican towns is that there is no drainage systems. We saw stores and churches (with a weddings going on) flooded. We tried waiting out the rain in a cantina and then a restaurant, but it did not cease. In the end we had to send out two of our group to swim through the streets and find a taxi to "ferry" us over to the bus station.

In the end it was a fun day... and I can just consider the rain practice, since where I am going has much much more rain than this! :)

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Chapter 28: Son + Dad + Mom + Daughter = Engaged

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Last night my host sister got proposed to by her longtime boyfriend. Or more specifically, the boyfriend asked his dad, to ask her mom, to ask her to marry him. This is apperently the traditional way that a marriage proposal is done in the Mexico. Very different from the "guy dropping to his knees" tradition we have in America.

So tonight, it was time to make it official. The grooms family was coming over to our house for dinner. It was a very formal affair. Natalia (my host mom) was very nervous when I got home from class. She and her youngest daughter (Diana) had spent the who day preparing for dinner. I noticed they were dressed up, so I excused myself quickly to go upstairs, shower and put on some formal cloths. I got back downstairs just intime to see the grooms family arrive.

This was the first time both families had ever meet, even though they live relatively close to each other, and thier children had been dating for over 4 years (apperantly that is not normal, it just worked out this way). The grooms father, mother and sister were also dressed up in full formal attire. The night started out very formally, the grooms father sat down and gave a very formal speech saying (and I am paraphrasing) "I am happy to welcome your family to our family", and this speech was recipricated by my host mother.

After about an hour of talk, we moved onto cena (dinner). Of course this was around 11:00 at night. Needless to say that we were all starving by then. I spent most of the night talking to the grooms sister, she was a lawyer and spoke excellent english. Both the grooms father and mother talked to me multiple times, but the both spoke spanish very quickly, so I had a lot of trouble understanding them.

I also talked a little with the groom, who now works as a CPA in Houston. Strangely enough, unlike other Mexican I have meet, he did not want to practice english with me. He spoke exclusively Spanish (which is always a nice change). He and I are about the same age, so he spent some time teaching me some slang ("Que onda, Wei?" --> Whats up dude?).

The night was a great experience for me, as part of the PC's mission is to learn about the local culture, and I had first hand view of one of the most important cultural experiences in any culture.

Felizidades Gaby y Manuel!

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Chapter 27: Salsa Dancing Cowboys

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Not since I watched old chinese ladies dance perfect salsa in Panama have I felt so much like I entered the Twilight Zone. The night started out like many others, with me going with some friends to an Irish Bar and having a glass of Guiness. But that is where the simularity ends. This irish bar served taco's and quesadilla's. And the Guiness cost $6.50 for a small glass. But the company was good, and we knew that this was just a temporary stop before we headed over to the Antros (Night Clubs) of Queretaro.

Our guide, one of our Maestra's named Rosaura (Most of our maestra's are very young. I.E. about my age), then asked how we would like to go the the clubs, taxi or walk. Us, thinking we had managed for two weeks without significant use of cars, decided it would be more Peace Corps-ish, to walk... so an hour and a half later we arrive at the antros named Bailar Columpia utterly exhausted.

The entrance is like many night clubs in the U.S. with a big bouncer checking for ID's and padding down the men for guns (because as I am sure you all know, only men use gun ;) ). We entered what looked like a small bar, but our guide led us through the small area into a large courtyard in the back. There we found a large brassband, playing what can be bested decribed as country western salsa. All around there were hombres and senioritas dancing salsa to this "funky beat". Needless to say, I don't know how to salsa, line dance or the combination of the two. But I spent the night people watching. And it looked like fun.

I need to find myself a country western salsa dance lesson...

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Chapter 26: No Mohawk Please

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"Bzzz... clip clip... Bzzz... esta bien?"

I can think of few things more terrifying than going in for a haircut in a country where you can't actually communicate with the barber. I think people underestimate the power a barber has. They can be the difference in you feeling great, or aweful for the next two to three weeks. With a quick flick of thier wrists, or a snip of the scissors, they can make you an the object of envy, or of ridicule. Why, that makes them close to gods!

But I had put it off for long enough. My hair was getting so long that no amount hair gel could make it stay in place. So I finally managed to mentally convince myself that I would not look to bad with a mohawk, and to a step into the "esthetica". In the end, my fears were largely unwarrented. It was not the best haircut I had ever had, but neither was it the worst.

Three more weeks of reprieve till I go through it again.

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Chapter 25:The Roof, the Roof is on Fire

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The fire marshal in the U.S. would have a heart attack if you saw the Fiesta de San Fransisco held last night in the main plaza in the Centro. Hundreds of people standing under a wooden stucture spewing flames. And add to that the the tower of fire was less than 1 meter from a church... but lets rewind.

The night was spent taking in the sites, sounds and scents of my first Mexican fiesta. The Fiesta of San Fransisco (I am not sure what it is for, but I would put money on the fact that it is not in honor of the city in California), changed the central plaza in Queretaro into a sceen of music, food and dance.

We started the night out by watching indiginous mexican dancers put on a show by the church. The dances were a blur of color as adult and child dancers showed dances that (they claimed) had not chanced in thousands of years. During the intermission in the dance we walked through all the street vendors selling food and sweets. None of us dared to try any yet, since our stomachs were probably not strong enough yet to fend off all Montezuma had to throw at us.
Then at 10:30 was the grand finale of the festival. Right next to the church had been errected a tower of wood, and straped to almost every inch of the structure was fireworks. With the flick of a match a dazzling array of fireworks went off in unison, causing parts of the structure to spin in wheels of flame, and other parts came to life in the form of nativity scenes. The whole show seemed to go off without a hitch, and even though we had fireworks flying past our heads, nobody was hurt.

As I walked home I remembered what my host mother had said as I headed out "There is no need to go to this fiesta, this kind of thing happens every week in every town in Mexico". And I thought to myself... I'm ok with that.

Hasta Luego!

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Chapter 24: Cantina Con Victor

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On Tuesday night we had a "class" slightly later than the regular hours. After finishing our regular lessons a few of us went out to a local cantina with our schools cook Victor. There we went over all the essential cantina lingo, and did extentive research into local "cervesa". I learned important spanish vocabulary words Corona, Indigo, Bohemia, Mochila, and most importantly "no mas".

At this point in my PC career, I still can't speak Spanish. But I am happy to report that now, in addition to being able to ask for a drink (cervesa por favor) and directions to the bathroom (donde esta el banio), I can also now add "can I have the check please" (la quinta por favor) to my repetoire. At this rate I will have the whole cantina lingo down by the end of language training!

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Chapter 23: Family, Matadors, Roosters, and More

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"Gallos, Gallos, Gallos, Gallos!!"

As I sat there, listening to 15000 people yell in unison, I knew I wasn't in Kansas, or in my case Ohio, anymore. It then occurred to me, that at about this time, one month ago, I was sitting in my cube in Cleveland, Ohio, coding, and waiting for the clock to hit 4:15. Now, I was sitting in a stadium with 15000 people watching the Querataro Gallos (Rooster/Chickens... sponsored by Kellogs, thus the name), take on the University of Mexico Puma's.

But let me rewind of a bit. This was the end, not the beginning of my first week in Mexico. Grab a coffee and make yourself comfortable, this is not a short post.

Last Sunday, after a quick tour of the Cento (center) of Queretaro, I got a chance to meet my host family. Needless to say I was stressed out by the prospect of meeting the people I would be living, eating and spending a lot of free time with for the next 3 months of my life. It was accentuated by the fact that I did not speak any Spanish, and I was told that they would speak no English. But now I can safely say my worries were warrentless. My Mexican family is great. Mi Madre is Natalia, and the first night for Cena (dinner), she treated me to a feast, and started out by saying "Mi Casa es Tu Casa" (my home is your home). Her husband died 2 years ago, but my Spanish is not good enough to ask why without risking being rude. I also have three siblings. A host brother Raul, who is 28 and works at Kellogs as an I.T. Manager. My host sister Gaby is 25 and an Accountant, and my other host sister Diana is 24 and a nurse. It took me a few days to figure out, but I am pretty sure all of the speak almost fluent English, but they refuse to speak it to me (which is good). But it also helps that if I am really stuck, I can say something like "Como Se Dice 'Spoon' " and they can help me out. I also was pleasantly surprised to find out that I did in fact speak some Spanish. So while my grammar was awful, I was able to get my point across. And that was just the start of my week.

The first night I was with my host family, Gaby invited me out to one of her friend’s birthday parties. So, my first day in Queretaro, and I was already going to parties. It was a lot of fun, and most of her friends are the same age as me and spoke some English, so I was able to stumble my way around. As a side note for those people who think Mexico is in the stone ages, I can easily counter that by pointing out that for the first hour of the party, all the guys were sitting around an Xbox, playing Fifa Soccer.

The next night, I again went out with Gaby and her friends to eat dinner. Keep in mind dinner in Mexico is like lunch in America. Here, lunch - comida - is the big meal of the day. Also the hours of eating are very different that in the U.S. so it is taking some getting used to. Breakfast (desayuno), is usually eaten between 8-10 a.m. Lunch (comida) is usually between 2-5 p.m. and dinner (cena) is usually between 8-10 p.m.

On Tuesday one of the teachers (maestras) from our language school OLE invited me and another volunteer (Scott) out to the opening of, what we thought was an small art gallery. So after class that night dressed in casual cloths (jeans and t-shirts), we head towards the building she has marked on our maps. But once we arrive, we immedeatily realize there has been a slight miscommunication. This wasn't an opening of a small art gallery, it was the opening of a new wing of the Museo de Regional (the biggest museum in the City). Everybody there is dressed in suites, and all the T.V. stations in Mexico have reporters walking around. 15 minutes after we arrived the Governor of Queretaro walks in and gives a speech. But even though we were underdressed, our "gringo" caught the attention of one of the museum curators, and she rushed to get us to the front of the line to enter the new exhibit (the only people to go in before us were the Governor and his entourage). So Scott and I were the first foreigners to ever see the art on display here.

But the week was not even half done. Wednesday night I get home after going to the gym, expecting a quite night with the family, but it was not to be. The night started of as I had expected. We just sat around talking. I had the longest conversation yet with my host family. But then there was a knock on the door. Raul had come home, but he was not alone. He had an entourage of a dozen men, all dressed up in full suites with him. I was then informed that we were having a world famous Matador join us for dinner (Raul apparently has a side job of being a radio host for a sport radio talk show specializing in bull fights). So I spent the night listening to this matador recount stories of his fights. An amazing night.

Thursday night we were invited by the Peace Corps offices to a welcome party at our Country Directors house. His name is Byron Battle, and he is an extremely friendly guy. So at around 7:30 our group started to arrive at Casa de Byron, and I am not exaggerating when I say it was gorgeous. An old Spanish haseinda with a large courtyard, beautiful architecture and a rooftop patio that looked out over the historic downtown of Queretaro. The night itself was a blast, we all enjoyed good food, drink, music and dance. We also got a chance to meet some of the current volunteers. It was very encouraging talking to some people that were in the same position as us a year ago. Many had no Spanish when they arrived, but were able to communicate without any trouble now.

Friday night after class we had another welcome party. This time it was held by OLE, our language school. Our host families all came by and brought food for us to eat. And then we had troupe of traditional Mexican dancers come by and put on a show. The show ended by the dancers pulling us all out of the crowd and making us dance with them. After 2 dances I was completely out of breath…. I really need to get my act together one of these days and get in shape. :P

The final day of the week was the fullest. I woke up early at 6:30 a.m. to meet one of the Sensei from the Queretaro kendo club to get a ride to practice. While it is always exhausting to do kendo, it is much more so at an altitude of 6000 feet. 30 minutes into class, I was gasping for air, but I somehow made it through the two hours. It was a blast, and I hope to practice with them as often as possible over the next few months. As soon as I got home from practice I barely had enough time to grab a quick bite to eat before I headed out to OLE for a cooking lesson. The class had two purposes, to teach us how to cook using Mexican ingredients, and also to help us learn the Spanish names for many kitchen utensils, and commonly used ingredients.
After the class finished and we all gorged ourselves on an assortment of delicious Mexican dishes. I barely had time to catch a small nap on one of the couches at the school before we had to head out to the football (soccer for all you gringos) game. A soccer game in Mexico is like a baseball game in America, except with the energy turned up 100%. Even though we did not know much about either team, we all found ourselves cheering for our hometown (the Gallos). The game ended in a tie, and only one fight broke out (about 10 feet from us). It was a great experience. The day ended by all of us going to a local cantina and grabbing a snack and a few drinks (cervesa).

It has been a long and exhausting first week, but full of experiences I will never forget. I know it will get harder from here on out, but I have no doubt in my mind that I have made the right decision by joining the Peace Corps.

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