Today is mi cumpleanos! I think they like birthdays here a lot more than in the states. I like it. All the teachers and students sang me happy birthday in Spanish and in English. None of our other-language-speakers were in attendance today, or Jose was going to make them sing in those languages, too! (the student de Hong Kong is gone for the week and the one de Holanda had the day off because his teacher had to run an errand. The rest of us are from the states or Canada.) Also, pretty much every teacher gave me a hug and a kiss for my birthday. They wish you happy birthday, and similar to the states, say that they hope you have many more birthdays. (Except it's in the verb form. Like, I hope you 'turn older' many more times, basically.) So, I am enjoying my day.
This morning, my family gave me hugs and wished me happy birthday, too. So sweet! I got a new teacher today, Jose. I think it's going to be good for my Spanish to talk with someone else and learn different words because I'm with a teacher. Actually, today I learned about punching and breaking bones b/c my teacher punched someone on a soccer field this past summer and broke his wrist. Oh, boys. Jose let me skip homework since it's my birthday. Yay.
Tonight, we're meeting up to celebrate my birthday. I'm excited. It's a Monday, but that doesn't mean a ton to the students. (It's harder for the teachers, most of whom are also students in the afternoon.)
We actually partially celebrated my birthday on Saturday night. Saturday day, we went to Las Cumbres, which is a hotel with “natural saunas” (i.e., fed from steam from a volcano). Sarah and I also got massages.
Getting there was sort of interesting. Friday night, we asked a couple of the teachers to explain how to get there, and they said we needed to catch a bus near the gas station. I said, “the Esso station?” and they said, “no, the Shell station.” Sarah, who was with me, said, “oh, I know where that is.” So, I say, great. Saturday morning, Sarah, two other students, and I meet at the school and Sarah leads us to the Esso station. I was like, “I thought you said you knew where the Shell station is!?!” It turned out it was just a few blocks further. Chris was nice enough to wander around and ask everyone 'Zunil? Zunil? Donde?' until we found the correct corner on which to wait for the correct chicken bus, which actually came pretty quickly.
Chicken buses are interesting for many reasons. One thing that I like is that you don't pay when you get on. There's a conductor of sorts. The conductor spends most of the trip riding in the door, halfway out of the bus, yelling the bus's destination. But, at some point (or a few points), he'll come through and collect money from the passengers. He asks w here you're going and tells you the appropriate cost. Much like a conductor on a train. I was pretty impressed with his ability to keep stuff straight closer to Zunil, when the bus was jam-packed full of indigenous women with baskets on their heads.
Anyway, we made it to Zunil, where we had been told to hire a pickup to take us to Las Cumbres. We started to get worried when we didn't see any pickups, so we talked to this guy who told us to wait 5 minutes or so. Sure enough, a pickup came by and we hopped on.
Las Cumbres was an interesting place. When we arrived, there was no one around. We stood there for 5 or more minutes, until one of us finally walked around to investigate. He managed to rouse someone who took us to the sauna and gave us robes for massages. The sauna is really, really hot, but pretty neat. There's basically just a hole in the ground from which the steam comes. I meant to take a picture of the sign providing the rules of the sauna because it was such hilarious Spanglish, but I forgot. They told us they'd come get us in 30 minutes for our massage, but I think it must've been closer to an hour. Then we had a conversation about the appropriate thing to do with our stuff (in Spanish) that must've lasted for 15 minutes, even though the point was incredibly simple. The massage was good, although it ended up costing 100Q more than I had thought. (Still like $25 for an hour, though).
We went out to the road to try to catch a pickup back to Zunil to catch a bus back. It's a lot like hailing a cab, except that it's okay if there's other people in it already. We waited for awhile before a truck came by with 5 kids in the back. We hopped into the back without either (a) telling them where we were going or (b) asking them where we were going. I think the appropriate thing to do would have been to tell them before hopping in where we'd like to get off. So, once we were in the truck, sitting under a canopy (as it was raining), we asked the kids if they were going to Zunil and they said no. Nope, going to Xela, to the hospital. We asked the what zone the hospital was in, but they didn't know. But, since they were going to Xela, we figured we might as well just stay in the truck. The kids were really cute and cool. For half the trip, they were playing with play money (like monopoly money). At some point we realized that we were in Zona 1 in Xela and we told the kids we wanted to stop. They yelled, 'Papa, papa!' and got him to stop. So, that worked, and even saved us Q1 each, I guess (because I care a lot about 12 cents). Although I ended up getting my jeans really muddy and gross from the truck because of the rain, etc. There is something really funny about the juxtaposition of the pampering of a massage, and getting home by crouching inside the bed of a pickup truck while getting really dirty.
Anyway, when I got home, I ended up just passing hour around 4 or so for hours. I had intended to just sleep for an hour, run to the store, and go out that night. (It was the last night for one of the Canadians and sort of my birthday). Instead, I just never woke up. Or, at least, never got up when I did wake up. But, a couple of my friends kept calling me until I finally picked up at like 11:15. And then Sarah insisted they I come out, RIGHT THEN. “You have 5 minutes to be at the cantina,” she said. “But I need to shower!” “No you don't. It's dark. Put on some perfume and get your ass here in 5 minutes.” “I need at least 10.” “You have 7.”
So, I got dressed and ran out to meet everyone as they were leaving the cantina. They then decided that we needed tequila shots. Or, more specifically, that I needed tequila shots. I tried to explain that I don't DO tequila, and that tequila and I aren't friends, but to no avail. Zach and Sarah bought me 6 shots. I said, “I'll do 2.” They said I had to do at least 3. I was thinking that that would shut them up, so I did 3. At which point they're like, 'great' and hand me another one. I kept trying to say 'no, no,' but Sarah was having none of it. After shot 5, I was like, 'I'm going to die.' So Zach said he'd drink half of it. He took like the tiniest sip ever and gave the rest to me. So that's how I did 5 and 2/3 tequila shots in a span of about 5 minutes.
Thankfully, I was actually pretty much okay. We danced and danced, and then went to the after party and danced some more. I had a really good time, and my hangover (goma) was actually not too bad. Plus, I woke up at like 9 am and couldn't get back to sleep. Go figure.
Sunday (yesterday) was the market day in Xela. Most of the pueblos have a market day once or twice a week, but Xela only has one once a month, on the first Sunday of the month. It's kind of cool. The whole park is taken over by these vendors and they even prop up all these temporary restaurants. Saturday was also some kind of holiday, so there was some extra crazy stuff, like these defunct kids rides that looked like they'd been built in about 1950 and stopped working 20 years ago. Some of them were literally being run by manpower, not electricity. Two of my friends actually rode the boat ride. You know the one that swings up and down and goes to an almost 90 degree angle from the ground. They said they were pretty sure there was no electricity involved, and the guy running it kept jumping in and out of the ride.
We also got these tostada things and churros (yummy). Some of my friends got this hot milk drink that seems to basically be hot milk plus liquor (and maybe cinnamon or something). There's also a hot fruit drink. Lots of interesting things, but I didn't want to either get sick or completely ruin my dinner. My family actually came to the market while I was there, and they saw me and they all waved. They're so cute. I picked up toys for the two kids in my house, too, although I haven't give them to them. I'm worried they won't like them. They're just really cheap and small, but whatever. Making kids happy is usually easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment