Hi there.
I’m so, so, so sorry I haven’t called. I really want to, and keep not getting my shit together. I have to go buy a phone card, so reaaaally I’m going to do that today or tomorrow, and call you tomorrow. OR get SKYPE because I LOVE IT and then you can see my pretty face, even if you don’t have a camera on your computer. Like, all you need to do is buy those dorky headphones with a microphone and we’re set!

But you said you can’t really write, but it seems that you might enjoy hearing about things here in the meantime, before we work out the phone/chatting things. I didn’t realize for, like, a week that you had put up my last email — I didn’t kill you, as you can see. I guess just change names if you put this one up?

So, this past weekend was a disaaaaster weekend, because of the fact that some people (Mexicans) live in Mexico time, and other people (me) have not yet learned how to be quite so flexible…. Firstly, Friday night was really nice. We went to a pre-anthro (anthro = discoteque = dance club) for my friend Hannah’s birthday, which was really cute. All of us who aren’t sick went, so we were just missing 2 people. That was super cute, since there are definitely some people who aren’t that into going out and partying, and don’t drink, and there’s another set of people who go out all the time (including during the week), and then there’s those of us who go out on the weekends. So it was cute for us all to be together for Hannah’s birthday celebration. After the pre-anthro we went to the house of a family member of one of the girls on the program, chilled out, and I got a ride home around 3am.

The disaster begins Saturday… One girl had invited me to go to a wedding with her and her family which was supposed to begin at 6pm. Her family is really chill and nice, a bunch of brothers and cousins in their 20s who are really close, and they’re like “Yeah, going to the wedding in Guerrero (the state over) is easy — it’s about 2 or 3 hours away, and we can go to Acapulco afterwards!” So we’re interested, and meet up at 4pm to go to the wedding. At 5:30pm we FINALLY leave Cuautla after picking up more family, and then it takes us 3.5 or 4 hours to get there, stopping fairly often because two of the girls on the trip are sick.

Fast forward to Saturday night, when one of the girls on my program is puking, not from alcohol but from this stomach infection, one of the girls is exhausted and taking a nap in the car, I am cranky and tired, and the girl who actually lives with this family is also sick. So we finally, finally get to a family friend’s house to sleep at 5:30 am. I sleep in the same house as the girl who is puking, and Sunday I spend that whole day taking care of her, making her drink water, holding her hair while she pukes… Etc. I had made a Skype date with Sara-Alicia (ya know, my roommate from last year/one of my best friends who I love soooo much) for 5pm (because she has to go specially to the Language Lab, since her computer doesn’t have the ability to do it), and I had made that phone date with with you for 6pm (7pm your time)… Finally we leave Guerrero at 4pm, and it takes us 4 hours to get back. Again, those of us from the program are split up so I’m with the sick girl, and the other two girls are with other family members…

Moral of the story: It was a huge fiasco.
In sum, the important parts:
I need some more time here in order to really master “Mexico time”
Everyone on the program is sick/has been sick EXCEPT for me. I’m biding my time.
I like to sleep and Mexico does not allow for that desire during the weekends.
Everyone is crazy.

It’s okay now. At the time, when it was 5pm, and then 5:30pm, and I was missing my Skype date with Sara-Alicia, and then missing chatting with you, I was alllmost in tears in the car. But it’s okay now. I just needed a day or two to sleep and chill out before thinking it was funny. I mean, it was funny at the time, too, in a bittersweet, sort of way.

Other than that, things are going really well. I really like a couple people — Isona, who’s Japanese American and just fascinating to talk to. We chat about politics and cultures and our homework and I really like it. Then there’s Hannah, who I hang out with and chat with, but normally not about the same sorts of things as me and Isona. Everyone else is really nice, but I like Isona and Hannah the best, I suppose.

My classes are going well, and I’m doing well IN them too. They’re mostly super easy, and the ones that I have more reading for are pretty interesting. I’m feeling really good about my Spanish most of the time, although every now and then I realize again that my family and teachers and stuff dumb things down for us, and talk slower, and listen more carefully to what we’re saying. At my vegetable stand, the guy who owns it doesn’t really know how to communicate with me very well. I really like him, and I like the stand a lot, but today I was trying to ask a couple questions about where stuff comes from, and if it’s organic, and I realized that my family knows the KINDS of mistakes I’m likely to make, and thus can sort of decipher my pronunciation and word turn-arounds, whereas Jaime just hasn’t been with people who are learning Spanish as a second language as much. So I’m thankful for my family.

Things are going well in the house, although on Sunday they made me read aloud from their magazine that they read every Sunday night that’s about the Bible. Well, the magazine isn’t about the Bible… They get this magazine from their church which has different topics, and then they read aloud passages from the Bible to see how they relate. So I read aloud from the magazine for probably close to 30 minutes, and I was kind of furious. I was exhaaausted from the trip to Guerrero, and I was sad about missing the Skype date with S-A and with you, and it was just bad. But other than that, things are going really well with them. Hahaha.

I should go and do some homework. This weekend we’re going to D.F. (Ciudad de Mexico) and we’ll be going to the house of Frida Kahlo, the National Museum of Anthropology (which is the 3rd biggest in the world!), Teotihuacan, and the National Palace (which has Diego Rivera murals). So that’s pretty great, but I have a lot of work for tomorrow and next week.

Love you. Miss you tons and tons.
Daughter Dearest