What Do You See When You Turn Out The Light?

Dear lord in heaven, I haven't posted but once while I was in Mexico. Internet became a hot commodity. I was always thinking, "what do I have to do? what needs getting done?". The blog, sadly, was at the bottom of the list... especially because the computers at the EEE (escuela para estudiantes extranjeros) blocked this site and myspace. The EEE was kind of a joke. My classes were so easy that I think my brain stopped function and I felt like i was wasting my time. Everyone in my class was a foreigner who probably spoke good english so there wasn't a lot of interaction with real mexican students, especially since the EEE was pretty far from the actual UV campuses. I did learn in my history class though. I know my teacher, Mauricio, didn't think that he was doing a good job with a bunch of foreigners, but I really enjoyed what I learned and thought he was a cool guy. My spanish still sucks though.

life was good in mexico. xalapa is trying to be the little city that could. it's fairly safe, except those zetas (where were they anyway?), but it's like never ending tightly packed suburbia... there really is no true center unless you count that parque juarez is close to the cathedral and a plaza about the size of a basketball court. But it became mundane and in being so, was a sort of home. I had two houses- the one with my family in a neighborhood tucked by the satellite University of Veracruz campus for the humanities and guy's- a little apartment up an off ramp, across railroad tracks, up a flight of stairs and through a white metal gate. Guy slept in a little shack attached to the living room. Melen and Simon (the frenchies) slept in an actual bedroom that had hairy white mold on the wall and led to the shower. I cooked a lot at Guy's house. He had to convince me twice, but I did fall in love with him. I told jake that I finally feel like I'm in a reciprocal relationship and it's amazing. We both were looking for somone that was sane and would make us feel sane. He's my funny love. I don't know what I'm going to do when he's in Cuba and I won't be able to talk to him let alone see him for months and months... maybe years. Where it will go, nobody knows.

My house family was amazing. I feel like they could have been my real family/were my family. Lidia, my host mom, would dance and cook. We'd talk about politics, buddhism and family. My host sisters, Marce, 19, and Tani, 16, were great. I gave them english classes sometimes on pronunciation and told them about the history of ska. My host dad wasn't around a lot because he had to work. I don't know how great our relationship was because I would be gone a lot with Guy and I don't think he approved/I didn't always express myself correctly therefore I think he got some twisted ideas about my ideas, especially about politics and society. overall, I loved them to pieces and was so glad to be able to live with them and get to know them. I want to stay in contact and see them again.

I'm having trouble sometimes remembering easy english words that were natural to spit out in spanish. I was addressing people at the airport in spanish.

But dear god, it's good to be home.