Hilary wrote me from Mexico and I didn’t answer her right away, so when I saw her parents they indicated she wasn’t going to write back until I wrote. I jumped on my computer and fired off a quick reply, she replied with pages of text, I didn’t reply and then she wrote back: “We are SO fighting right now….” Gave me a very good laugh.

Here’s some of her long email. Nicely catches us all up on what she’s up to.

Good job! I very much appreciate the email back!!!

Things are going really well. I’m feeling a lot more settled — that first week just felt really weird, not knowing how to get places and feeling weird because of the altitude, and having all the students know each other a little bit from Earlham (it’s an Earlham program, so I’m all alone as the non-Earlhamite!). But I feel a lot better. The classes are unbelievably easy — I have class around 4 hours a day 3 days a week, and 2 hours a day twice a week. The days with less classes are days when I volunteer at this veruraria (vegetable stand) in the mercado (market). The family is really nice, and they’ll be teaching me the names of the veggies and how to weigh them in kilos and all that good stuff. I haven’t taken any pictures yet, really, but I want to start — my house, my veggie stand, my “school”, my family, etc.

I’m getting to know the other students a lot better. I obviously like some a lot and… well, some are less than wonderful. I’m the only one here interested in agriculture and the environment, which is too bad. Remember that book I was reading (which was not uplifting) about indigenous cultures of Mexico (the one with the Wal Mart statistic)? Well, the whole thing was about indigenous cultures from this area taking back their heritage and caring for the earth. And the day that we talked about the book, people only had negative things to say about it. One girl was like “Gosh, I can’t believe this guy took his kids to such a dangerous place in Honduras to visit his other daughter! That’s so irresponsible!” (The author was living in Mexico, but his daughter was in Honduras doing volunteer work and he happened to go to visit her with his kids when it was dangerous.) Finally Howard, who runs the program, saw that I hadn’t said anything, and he was like “Hilary, you look like you’re DYING to say something!” And I was like “Well, yes. I mean, I was really enjoying watching the Earlham dynamic, but I just have a lot of different thoughts. I mean, first of all, I think we need to recognize that this man did something that none of us could ever dream of doing, which is giving back to a community and being pretty selfless about it. And secondly, I really enjoyed the descriptions of the care of the earth, etc, etc.” Up til that point no one had talked about the agriculture or environmental concerns of these communities. Anyways, oh well.

(This same girl who said the thing about Honduras also asked yesterday what free trade is. I mean, I know not everyone has the same interests as me, but you can’t fucking come to Mexico without understanding free trade, US pressure on Mexico to have free trade, and NAFTA, since it’s ruining the country. I’m trying to take deep breaths but I really just want to be like “WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?!” She also mentioned that she thinks history is stupid since people aren’t actually going to repeat the same mistakes and I wanted to say but didn’t “Well, did you hear there was a genocide in Turkey in 1918, and then surprise surprise another one in Germany in the ’40s, and then Kosovo, and Rwanda, and Darfur, just to mention a few?!”)

But really, I mostly like the people on my program. And I really like my family. I’m still unclear on some things, like how much I should be helping in the home, and how to do that. Last night I asked if someone from the program could come over, and my mom said yes. We got back literally maybe 5 minutes later, around 3:05, for the comida (which is at 3) and she seemed kind of put out and pissy. Then when I was pouring someone juice she made a joke about how I felt bad about being late. I mean, I don’t think she was actually pissed off, but maybe she was just expecting me home earlier than I had said. It’s totally fine, but just learning about what expectations there are will take some time.

Meanwhile, it’s hard since I don’t actually have a good way to make friends with people from Cuautla (my town in Morelos, the state). Like, some people have families that are really social and go out a lot, but my sisters who are 19 and 20 don’t really do that. Gabby, who lives at home and goes to Uni here, is really religious and doesn’t drink or go to bars really. Her sister Idania goes to school in D.F. (the capital 2 hours away) and comes home on the weekends. I think she might be more interested in going out with me, but I don’t know yet really. Tonight I’m going over to the house of one of the girls on the program, since it’s her bday and her family is throwing a party for us all. Tomorrow during the day the whole group is going on an excursion to Huayapan, which is a traditionally indigenous town, and also going to a couple other interesting places. At night I think a bunch of us will go out, for the birthday of ANOTHER girl on the program. So hopefully we’ll find someplace fun to go. I think we’re looking into good discoteques.

Anyways, I miss you and Matt like crazy, of course. I read the blog and the journal, both of which make me feel extremely connected and yet completely foreign and far at the same time. I keep wishing I could be home for October 25th, but I obviously can’t. I still don’t know when I’m going to be home, but I really do want to be here for more time. I want to explore this country some more, which I can’t really do during the program since we’re pretty booked. I would honestly love for you to come. I know you can’t come during Christmas, but my program ends on the 13th — you could come before Christmas for a week, or after Christmas for a week! I’ll go anywhere with you — take out a travel guide for Mexico from the library! Chiapas is supposed to be totally beautiful. I want to check out the cloud forests and the selva (rainforest) and the campo (fields). And remember, I found a place that gives SCOOTER TOURS?! I LOVE SCOOTERS. (My mom Gabby here has a moto, which is a scooter/motorcycle thing, which she sometimes takes me to school on. I loooove it.) So really, think about it. I’m going to wait until probably October or maybe November until I make definite plans about what to do. I miss you all a ton, but at the same time this feels like a good opportunity to explore, although I’d much prefer to do it with people who I know and like. I’m feeling my way around the Earlham students — there are one or two I could imagine traveling with at this point, but we’ll see. I think most of them have tickets for home, which I totally understand.

Anyways, you need to get Skype. It’s so easy. And that way you can just have it on when you’re sitting at your computer, and sometime we’ll catch one another! And when people come over you can leave voicemail messages for me with Adam or Dan or someone if I’m not on! So much fun!

Love you so much . Hugs and kisses. Come visit me.
Mwah,

Hilary, your surrogate daughter

Blogmeister’s note: I didn’t ask for permission to post this, I hope she doesn’t mind.