Big Days and Bus Rides

Hi again everyone. It’s been quite a while, and honestly, quite a lot has happened too. I’ve now been in México for about two months. I can't really belive time has gone this fast, or has it? I can't even tell

Let’s start out with the 15^th of September. This day, “El Grito” , is quite special here in México. The mayor of each town stands on his balcony with a huge flag and screams “Viva México” to which the town answers “¡Viva!”.

¡Viva México cabrones!

Also, the “Miss Tonaticos” were introduced to the town. Each year there’s a beauty pageant here in Tonatico, and it’s a pretty big deal. The favorite for this year was Idalia. After the scream we went to Ixtapan to see what the nightlife was like there. It was pretty much the same, except that the town was preparing for Independence Day, which had been cancelled in Tonatico due to possible rain.

The 16^th was quite something. The day started out with a huge parade which seemed to just go on and on and on. Loads of schools, apaches, Costeños, Spanish and Mujeres filled the streets through the entire day. I have never seen anything like it.

It's so... red

The Costeños are black clad men with “Mosquetes”. These are hand cannons that fire super recoiling, ear deafening blasts. What I find the most insane about them is the part of them being hand-held.

My friend Felipe firing off his mosquete

Mujeres are men dressed up as women, representing the females that fought for independence. This is a tradition of Ixtapan, and obviously guys from my town think this is very queerish.

Luckily they don't compare with the real women here

The Jardín of the town was also packed. It was prepared for a big dance that probably went on through the night. I met some of my friends, put on a skirt and danced “baile de los apaches” for an hour or two, until I barely felt my legs. Afterwards we went to eat at Compadres Pescaderia. Or fishery. He has great shrimp. After eating was La Guerra. I guess it’s about time to emphasize that this was all in Ixtapan, the town twice the size of mine, 5-10 minutes by car from Tonatico. La Guerra is a Mexican tradition for the 16^th and 27^th. In Ixtapan, it consists of smashing the most faces of the other team with onions; teams being apaches, Costeños and Mujeres versus the Spanish. My family didn’t let me participate in this Guerra… as it was fought with onions. My eyes stinging I returned to my house in the evening.

A suffucient amount of people

The next day I went to a motorbike race with Cesar and Fernando, pardon my English, Stuart and Pimpón. It was a bit stretched out, so I went home early. It was intensely hot as well; leaving me tomato-red for the next week or so. Pimpón works with his uncle fixing bikes, so he was sort of into the entire thingy. Stuart had to go look for his little brother who ran off the second we got there.

¡Wroooooom!

Next up was the 27^th. I got up at 8 with about 4 hours of sleep, because we had gone to a big dance the night before. I felt pretty dang stupid, probably being the only guy within one kilometer radius that doesn’t “feel” durangense music. The 27^th impressed me a lot. Our town, being half the size of Ixtapan, sure knows how to have an independence day. This time I got to get dressed up.

A close approxamination of my skin color after 10 months of México

In Tona we don’t have the Mujeres; we have Costeños, apaches, a majority of beige clad people (including me and my family) which I of course don’t remember what are called, and the Spanish. The parade was great, again really long but it was fun. When we got to the end of the parade we joined in and walked all over Tonatico. Then we ate, and then was La Guerra. This time Tonatico style, and in Tonatico we fight our wars with huevos. Let me explain that. Huevos means eggs, but is largely used as “balls”. So, huveos! Oh, yeah, La Guerra. It is actually fought in Tonatico with eggs. Eggs filled with ashes. Our family had a cart of about a thousand eggs, which were to be placed in the faces of the blue Spanish who dared oppose us. At first we went from street to street and waited for the charge signal. Then we ran forwards and threw the eggs we had with us at the Spanish occupying the street. And without them resisting which was a little boring. However, the war moved onto the local soccer field, where a fort was built. The Spanish and us beige clad took turns on controlling the fort, by storming it with a flag. We parked the cart by the base of the fort and worked as artillery.

¡Viva la independencia!

An egg exploded on the shoulder of a guy in front of me, spraying the ashes directly into my eyes. It hurt like hell for a good ten minutes but I got them washed out. And I think I got back by hitting someone else in the face. It sure was fun. There were also mosquetes everywhere; sending shockwaves through my body and random intervals, but the canon on top of the fort was something else, being so powerful that the ground shook and pieces of the fortification fell off when it fired. It was just about as healthy for my ears as Roskilde. Eventually a guy playing Miguel Hidalgo rode up to the fort, said something like “¡Viva México!”, and tore the fort down the best he could with his companions.

After La Guerra we went off to the Jardín. The Jardín is the center of each town. It usually consists of a larger area of stone tiles and a pavilion, as well as trees and benches; sort of park-ish but with less nature. In Ixtapan there’s a large fountain with a good water show in the evening. The 27^th there was a big dance at the Jardín in Tonatico. I stayed there for an hour or two, but was exhausted, and apparently so was my mom (although she might just have said she was to be nice), so we returned to our house. On the way I met AFS-volunteer Tito, who wondered why I wasn’t drunk like everyone was supposed to be on the 27^th. Do you remember that Tito, or did you have a bit too much tequila as well, he-heh!

Fin del 27.-

Let’s see, oh yeah. From the 4^th to 8^th of October I went on a trip with AFS to Zacatecas. It was nice because I got to see more of México and because I got to see familiar faces. Speaking Norwegian the first day was probably one of my weirdest experiences ever. The words were there but they wouldn’t leave my lips. It did actually take a day to get used to my language again. And how much we were swearing! Also this was just after one month; in 9 more it will be insane!

The diversity

The trip started Wednesday the 4^th, after staying for the night at Elke’s house (a girl from Belgium) in Toluca. Toluca is a pretty big city, and it is incredibly cold! It reminded me why I was in México in the first place. Never again will I go to Toluca without a jacket. We got up at 5, and were off to Mexico City, There I met up with Runar. Sure, talking Norwegian felt weird, but also incredibly good. The first day we were to go to the factory of “Cemento Cruz Azul”.

¡Bienvenidos!

I thought this was a pretty weird location to visit. Sure, apparently they were big producers of cement in México, like the 3^rd biggest, but, of cement. Couldn’t we go to the Corona factory or something instead? Yet, the soccer team which is most popular in my family was started by workers at this factory, which is cool. ¡Viva Cruz Azul! Afterwards we went to some Aztecan ruins, which was more interesting. There was also a temple/pyramid there with a huge set of stairs.

What exactly is that they're touching?

After some hours in the bus we arrived in San Luis Potosí. We stayed in a hotel, 4 in each room. The AFS volunteers, one in particular named Gorge, wanted to take us to a disco, so we ended up at a pub. I remember getting a wee-bit tipsy, maybe a wee-bit too much. But it wasn’t a problem with AFS, as volunteer Gorge sat the standard. Even Runar got away, and he really went all the way out. Gorge had to leave us the next day due to reasons I’m not supposed to mention, but they most definitely involved a good 5-6 tall shots of tequila. The next day we went to a tiny town that used to be somewhat wealthy due to the silver. Now it was extremely poor, as the silver was gone and most of the people had ran off.

Quite a different side of México

What remained was a long tunnel we rode through by horse and carriage and a bigger settlement in the other side, though equally poor. It was a sad sight, and made me feel much too rich. It was also incredibly cold, like Norway at this time of the year. I missed my warm town. That was all we did that day, not including arriving at the ranch we would be staying at for the rest of the trip.

The next day I was on TV. Yeah! One person from each country (the one knowing the most Spanish obviously, wink wink) had to wake up at six and go to, I don’t remember the name really, town, to be interviewed.

Sure, it was just local TV, but local for 600 000 people

It wasn’t so bad, but of the 3-4 that were asked I was of course one of them. I said that Mexicans are warm people, and that I like the climate here, to which I was asked if chilies are spicy. It was quite interesting, summing up just about everything I’ve learned about México so far. Afterwards we went into this town, or city, to see the church and to take some pictures, and then we went to a museum. I was so exhausted that I nearly fell asleep. Also I was getting a little sick.

Big happy smiles

The last day we went to Zacatecas. I forgot my camera. Zacatecas is a great city, incredibly pretty. It was one of the biggest silver towns in the world in its prime years, giving the Spanish empire about 8 tons of shiny a day. The workers of the mines were treated terribly, many dying every day. We visited a big mine called “La mina el éden”. This mine had been turned into a museum because the digging was getting too close to population. Recently they built a disco in the mine too, which we went too in the evening. The disco was quite something, although my throught hurt like hell and I swear my drinks were watered out. Zacatecas also big churches, but they aren’t that special on the insides, I still think the prettiest one is the one here in Tonatico.

La Mina Disco

Now nothing much is happening, I’ve had a girlfriend though, but we broke up because I didn’t feel like I was quite ripe for a girlfriend. She wasn’t too happy with me, or she isn’t, but I think we are still friends. And of course I feel bad for her, as she thinks I was just playing with her.

Let me tell you about my sister. Erika, as she is called, works harder than anyone I know, maybe even more than my father. She gets up at six like me and goes to school, then comes home at something past 3 and goes to work at 4. Work is part of school, and she doesn’t get paid for it. She works from 4 to 8 and then comes home to her delicious homework. On top of that she is the class president so she has to deal with all conflicts between students and between the class and teachers, as well as organizing all events her class has to arrange. Since she is in the last year there are quite a few, like the last two weeks there have been two discos, including a “chica prep” competition. It’s like a miss high-school for the towns Ixtapan and Tonatico. I respect her muchisimo. She wants to go to Germany or England next year; I hope she goes to England so she learns English. Many Mexicans go to Germany because of the soccer. Speaking of the disco, I’m going to be the one to coronate the chica prep this Friday, which is likely to be a girl from my class, or it has to be or I lose 100 pesos to her.

In school things are going better. I got a 5 in physics which is like a D in the American grading system and about a 2-3 in the Norwegian. It’s a good grade to have here in Méxcio, because it’s a good medium for making people laugh.

-Yo tengo 5 en física

-Jajajajaja

Works every dang time.

What annoys me is that I got a freaking 8 in English. It sort of says something about the grading system here. Our teacher taught us this dialogue on of my first days in school:

-Good day, how are you?

-Fine, thank you

-Just moment

-That’s right

I wouldn’t mind a 10 in English, that’s all. Oh, I guess I haven’t told you how the grading system here works. The scale of evaluation goes from 0 to 10. You get a higher grade by doing well on exams and collecting teachers’ signatures. Each signature, or firma has a value, and adds too your grade. We get an evaluation each bisemestre; there are three for each semester. I’ve gotten most of my grades for my first bisemestre, guessing I have an average or 6-7. That’s not a very good average here in México. My semester evaluation will probably be an average of the three bisemestre. My grades don’t really count, but I don’t want to seem like a lazy-bum.

Also, last weekend, the 13th or 14th, I had to make food from Norway for 60 people! Although what would truly represent the Norwegian cousine would be 60 "Grandiosa" frozen pizzas, I decided to make pancakes. But then, I am a really sad cook. Norwegian pancakes are similar to crepes, thin with lots of surface. I don't know how to make them like that, so I just make them big and fat. People ate them! Without anything on! AFS probably starved the guests before unleashing them on our food. After the little event I went with Arnold, a volunteer from my town and her cousin to Toluca to ice-skate. It was some serious fun, I definatley want to go again. Afterwards we went to a disco. It was also fun, which surprised me. I'm not a disco person, I'm more of a concert kind of a guy. Jumping a screaming lyrics is my thing, but this time the disco was a good substitute,

That pretty much covers my month of absence. I’ll try too keep my blog more updated from now on, I just haven’t felt very inspired the last 30 days, because so much has happened it has felt like I’ll never get done writing everything. Well, this is pretty much the short version. See you soon, and looking forwards to reading your comments.