anika in mexico

After a leisurely morning, I walked a few blocks to Megan’s house. She invited me in, and we had a cup of coffee in the sitting room. She gave me a tour of the house. It’s a very big, very beautiful house, and they have lots on interesting art hung about the place.

I met her son, Cooper, again. He’s really adorable and suuuch a flirt. He kept going into his toy room to bring me different toys.

We left for the orphanage about an hour after I got to her house. Through her husband’s company, she gets a driver if she needs/wants one. So her driver drove us to the orphanage. He parked on the very steep hill in front of the building. It almost gave me vertigo, it was such an angle.

Megan and I carted some supplies with us, and soon we were within the walls of the orphanage. It was actually a fairly nice place, all things considered. It was sunny, the walls were brightly painted. There’s a playground in the courtyard. It’s a very big building, and everything was pretty clean. Except for the kids. Most of them looked like they don’t get regular baths. They weren’t totally filthy, but definitely not spic and span.

Megan and I were there to visit the kids who are 2 years old or younger. Most of them were walking except for one baby who was 10 months old, but not even sitting up on his own yet. There are about 10 kids in all. A lot of them have been mistreated in their homes, and already at such young ages, the issues they’ve developed are evident in their personality and the way they react to certain interactions.

The kids stay in a small room with white tile floors all day. There is one girl taking care of all the young children. There are windows in the room, but it is pretty dark in there. Lots of toys and books were filling the shelves on the back wall, but they weren’t really being played with.

Once they got used to the idea of us, they were all very clingy. They just liked to hang on us, even if we were playing with another kid.

We were there when it was time for them to eat, so we all shuffled across the small empty courtyard to the cafeteria. Megan and I took turns feeding the youngest. We were both surprised at how much of his lunch he ate. There was a whole bowl full of some kind of corn and chicken puree and he ate pretty much all of it. The other time was spent trying to get the other kids to stay out of mischief. But they love mischief. It’s a delightful game to them.

They loved tugging on the television cord that was dangling down behind the refrigerator that was attached to a television that was mounted up in the corner. I told them to stop, but no such luck. Finally I took it from them and stowed the cord on top of the refrigerator out of their reach.

After that they realized that they could hide between the wall and the side of the refrigerator, and if they opened the refrigerator door they could block themselves completely from view. I once went over to tell them to stop. I closed the refrigerator door and told them to get out of there. Of course they didn’t, but then kept trying to play the game I’d started with them, and would every now and then close the door slightly and peer at me and laugh.

At one point one of the older kids figured out how to open the door that leads to the street outside. 5 or 6 of the toddlers waddled outside onto the street, but they were soon caught and corralled safely back into the cafeteria. Someone then was dispatched to secure the door more carefully with a padlock.

After lunch, Megan and I completed the unpleasant task of changing diapers and damp clothes. Nearly all the kids had dirty diapers or wet shorts. The people who work/volunteer there don’t seem to stay on top of keeping the kids dry and clean. At least they are safe, I suppose.

After the kids were dry, a bit cleaner, well fed and played with, Megan and I finally tore ourselves away. Which was pretty difficult. The kids really didn’t want us to go. One little boy kept clinging to me, wanting to be picked up and held. We’d stayed for only 2 hours, but it had seemed like such a worthwhile time spent with those kids. It made me wonder how anyone could mistreat any child. Even the ones I met that day who became frustrated easily or acted out in order to get attention are so small and sweet. It was definitely a new experience for me, and I hope I have the chance to return at some point.

After a short drive, I was soon back home thanks to Megan’s driver.

I was pretty beat after tending to 10 kids for a couple hours. I had something to eat, but took it easy for the rest of the day.

Karin picked me up later in the evening and took me over to her house to get my car. Siggy eventually came back from school, and we all sat around and talked for a while. Teocrito gave me very detailed directions to get to San Miguel de Allende.

I had supper with them, and drove home around 10pm.

I had planned to meet Megan at Starbucks at 11am, so after breakfast I headed over that way. We both arrived at the same time. We talked a bit about my plans for San Miguel, and she gave me some tips. I felt pumped up about my idea to go there. She says it’s a beautiful town with tons of art and I’m sure to love it!

Megan also mentioned that she was planning tomorrow to go to the orphanage that she visits every week, and asked if I might like to come along. I said that I’d love to, so we plan to meet tomorrow at her house at noon.

When she left Starbucks, I decided to spend some time on the internet trying to get a few things in order for my upcoming trip. I was just about to submit my registration form for the art classes I wanted to take at the Instituto Allende, when, right above the submit button, I saw the sentence: “you must submit this form 4 weeks before your intended start date.”

I immediately became annoyed and frustrated. Things have been falling through lately left and right, and this was yet another example. I thought, if this doesn’t work out to go and take a class there, I might just go home. I seriously considered it too. I even looked up flights for next week, and I found one for just about $120 on October 3rd.

But I tried not to get too carried away, and reasoned that I should call the school first thing when I got back home.

But first thing when I got home, Sigrid suggested that I get something to eat. I was a tad annoyed, but I soon felt much better after getting something in my stomach. My mood was leveled, and I was much better prepared to deal with everything. I called the school, and it was no problem at all. The woman I talked to was so friendly, and put me down for both of the art classes I wanted. She said that she’d keep an eye out for me on Monday.

What a relief. I get to go to San Miguel de Allende after all. Now I just have to figure out a hotel situation. I called the place that looked like the best deal, but didn’t get through, so I’ll try again tomorrow before I calling to another location.

After all the made up drama subsided, I took Sigrid to the grocery store.

Then I drove over to Karin’s because Teocrito is going to take my car and get everything fixed and get the verification done for me tomorrow. It took me almost an hour to get there. I only know one way to get to their house which involves a tricky left turn where 3 lanes turn into one immediately after the turn, so I just had to sit in the traffic at the light.

The way home took 5 minutes with Teocrito navigating.

I had supper with Sigrid, but then headed to bed.

I told my professor that I’d left even earlier than the day before, but that I still arrived late. That wasn’t entirely true. I left later, but it still took a long time, though not as long as Monday. Maybe 40 minutes total. I was only 5-8 minutes late for class depending on the clock I checked, but my professor wasn’t there. So I pulled out my laptop and surfed the web a bit. 20 minutes later I was calculating how much time I’d let pass before I left. I decided I’d wait until 10:30. I had the internet to entertain me after all.

But I didn’t have to wait that long. One of the secretaries, who saw me enter the classroom as I walk right by her desk to get to the room, came in and talked to me in fast Spanish. I got the gist that she didn’t want me in that room, but I was more than a little confused overall. Finally she communicated that I was supposed to leave this room and go to another one. I told her that I didn’t know which one, and she told me she’d show me.

So I followed her across the hallway to another room, a mirror image to the one I’d been in, and saw my professor sitting there calmly. She assumed I was just arriving, and had bad luck with traffic. I said that I’d been a little late, but that I’d been waiting for a good 20 minutes. She was rather dismayed to hear that. We were both perplexed about why they secretaries would have let me go in the room in the first place.

She agreed to tack on an extra 20 minutes to class on Thursday to make up for the time. Great. I get an extra long class. Just what I really wanted.

Class went by slowly. My head’s still stuffy and fuzzy so when it came to the conversation part of the class, I literally couldn’t think of anything to say. Even the simplest terms were buried somewhere deep inside. I struggled to talk about my trip to the supermarket and all the things I bought. Not very enlightening conversation to say the least. Mercifully she agreed to stop the conversation and instead do some more activities in the book.

I’m starting to admit to myself that I don’t really like my professor. She’s too serious, too formal, and she doesn’t speak English which is frustrating when I ask her how to say something in Spanish, telling her the English word. She gets the same panicky look on her face that I must get when I’m confronted without warning with a question in Spanish, especially one that I don’t understand.

Today I didn’t know the word for “habit” in Spanish, so I asked her, “como se dice ‘habit’ en espanol. Blank panic looked back at me. She admitted she didn’t know what I was even saying. So I describe circuitously, “una cosa que se hace muchos veces y no es facil a pararse.” “Ah!” she responded. “Un habito!” (pronounced “ah-bee-toh) “no entendi la pronuncion.” Der. Habit, habito. Doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to remember. And how can you be that thrown off by the pronunciation of something? Anyway, that’s how it goes everytime I ask the translation of any word from English to Spanish. She just kind of flounders around a bit, and sometimes comes up with the answer.

After class I went right to Starbucks to meet Megan for coffee. After the struggle through the desert that is my class, talking with Megan was a much needed oasis. I haven’t had such an interesting, fast-paced conversation with someone in a long time. Now that I think about it, I probably talked most of the time, but I needed to speak freely and fluently for once. I didn’t have to alter my pace or over enunciate, either in Spanish or in English, to make myself understood. I didn’t have to simplify ideas, or circuitously describe a simple term because of my limited Spanish vocabulary. It was really fun. Megan and I get along well, and we both have interesting things to say, plus we can relate to each other in a way that I haven’t been able to with anyone else I’ve met here yet.

After a couple of hours Megan headed out, but I stayed behind to catch up with internet things and to learn some more PHP.

I headed home at 4pm. I told Sigrid that I’d not be around for lunch, so I had all the time in the afternoon that I wanted. Still by 4 I was hungry and tired of computing, so I went home to get something to eat and to do something different.

I made myself a sandwich with salami, cheese, tomato, and mustard. It was really good. Afterwards I ate one piece of orange chocolate that Sigrid had bought me.

I spent the afternoon/evening finishing up the pattern I’d started yesterday and doing my homework. My professor only gave me a few pages to do. I think she had sympathy for my stuffiness.

I ate dinner with Sigrid. When I went to join her in her little sitting room she was listening to Heino. I walked in and exclaimed, “Heino!” A look of utter bewilderment struck her face. “How could you possibly know Heino?” she asked. I told her that my mom was a fan because they used to listen to Heino a lot in Germany (go figure). She was then equally surprised that my mom would like Heino. She kept remarking how amazed she was by the fact all throughout dinner.

We ate hotdogs. She bought the hotdogs specifically because she was sure that I would love to eat hotdogs. At times I really do enjoy a good hotdog, and these were pretty good ones. Reina put good toppings on them too–onion, tomato, pickles and mustard. I’m amused by the things Sigrid is sure I will like, and the stuff that she thinks I don’t like. If she could only truly understand that I’ll pretty much eat any food made for me, and be very happy with it! If only life were always that easy!

But yes, the hot dog was good. I liked it a lot.

Listened to a bit more German folk music after dinner. This time it was some other guy I’d never heard of (probably the reaction she would have expected for Heino). She had fun playing her favorite songs for me on the CD, singing along with gusto to each one, and saying “listen, listen, this is really so great” before the start of the chorus.

After a few songs we were both ready for bed. German folk music will do that to you.

Class went by quickly today, and we mostly just had conversations. The time really flew by and Angelica was surprised that class was almost over when she looked, so we quickly checked about half of our homework before ending.

I met Megan before class. We both seem to arrive about a half hour early each day. She mentioned that the night before she had had dinner with a Graphic Desinger from Israel and she asked if she could pass on my info to her, anticipating that we’d really get along, or at least that it might lead to some work here for me. I said sure, of course. I think it’s always great to meet other designers.

After class, Megan offered me a lift home since we live so close by one another. I had her drop me at the Starbuck’s so I could get some work done. Before we left, Take caught up with us and invited us to a party at his house. I would have loved to go if we weren’t going to the rancho tomorrow night.

At Starbucks I got a cappuccino and a table by an outlet again. I got my Mexican blog up and running, though I didn’t get all my entries edited so I only posted 3 of them. I’ll probably get them all up to date by tomorrow.

I kind of lost track of time because before I knew it, I saw Megan again, who’d stopped by for an afternoon coffee. She had her 1.5 year old son, Cooper, with her. He’s really adorable. He was a little shy, but bright-eyed and a total flirt even at that young age.

After Megan left again, I wrapped things up and headed home. I stopped by the Office Depot nearby and got some other essentials, then across the street to the supermarket for some other essentials: pancake mix for Sigrid, Special K and Bagels for me. All breakfast foods oddly enough, but I get up so early I needed some quick things to prepare since Reyna isn’t up to make some breakfast for me.

I followed my nose around some smaller streets to get home this time, and it worked out much better. It didn’t take nearly as long, and it was much safer, avoiding the major traffic circles and roads. On the way to Starbucks, Megan had pointed out her house to me, so on the walk home, I noted that we are really only about 3 big blocks away from one another.

When I got home I was sweating. It was really sunny and warm for the first time in days. I hear I skipped out of Maryland just in time since everyone is boiling in near 100 degree, super humid days. I really appreciate the fact that it’s usually around 75-80 degrees and dry here. It rains almost everyday here, but only fun thunderstorms with lots of wind that move in quickly, and leave with just as much haste.

Reyna was nice enough to fix a nice meal for me. Afterwards I did a bit of laundry. The laundry person was supposed to come yesterday, but didn’t show up, and since I’m out of socks, I went ahead and did it myself. They don’t have a dryer which should be interesting. I don’t usually like line-dried clothes, but I guess I’ll have to aquire an appreciation. At least it’s clean!

I think I was supposed to meet up with Sigrid today, but I haven’t heard from her, so I suppose it’s fallen through. That’s fine with me, I kind of like the fact that everyone is busier and don’t have to be so concerned with making sure that every minute I spend here is exciting and full of experience.