Hi!

Okay, you are getting major points for your emails these days. Really, I super duper appreciate it.

Also (and I don’t know if I should tell you this by email or not): I’ve had a couple of dreams about Diane since I got here. Which was one of the catalysts for me feeling so ridiculously far away from you all. It’s hard being here and not having anyone who knows me, ya know? So I had to email my roommate and tell her, but meanwhile I was in this funk here and no one even really realized that something was wrong, let alone being able to tell whyyy. Anyways, I’m fine obviously. They were a couple weeks ago, and it’s really, really great hearing from you.

On another note entirely: Fucking Hil Koeller! That blog was totally my space before it was hers. I mean, it’s fine, it’s fine…. But really, she can’t just SHOW ME UP like that! God. She may have been born first, but I was making hot pockets in your kitchen for Matt and the other ravenous boys much earlier than she was…. If you put this on the blog and keep this part in I’ll have to kill you.

In other news, things here are really good. I’m getting along well with my family here, but I’m realizing that we don’t really connect on many levels. I LIKE them, but we have very, very little in common. Like, they like religion a lot. When I try to talk to them about politics their only response is that everyone is corrupt. When I try to delve further to discover if they like the leftist parties, they say that a prophet thousands of years ago said that humans aren’t capable of ruling ourselves, that we need divine help. Sooooo that’s a conversation that’s somewhat off limits for me. They don’t like sports, the daughters don’t go out much (one never ever goes out), they don’t drink, they most definitely don’t do drugs. I just don’t know what they DO like. Like, I think my mom, like everyone here, likes gossiping. And preaching/trying to convert people (I kid you not, she told me it’s one of her hobbies. She does it several days a week).

Hahaha so that sounds really bad, but it’s actually fine. It just makes it hard a little. Like, I spend time with them and eat with them, but I don’t sit around the table for hours talking about the economy with them like other students do with their families. Also my father here tends to speak to me but then have another conversation much to fast in front of me. Like, even if he’s “just” talking to my mom about how work was, I’d really love for him to slow down so I can hear too!

My classes are going really well, and they’re still easy. I had a paper and two tests today, and it was fine. I was up later than normal (midnight) last night, but that’s SO EARLY compared to a “late night” at Oberlin. I feel a little bad — some people on the program are really struggling with the workload. Suckers…

This upcoming week we’re going to Oaxaca (look for it on a map!) as a group, which is a state that’s… southeast of us, I believe? It’s about a 6 hour bus ride. We’ll be in the city for a couple days talking to different activist groups, exploring, going to the markets, etc. And then we’re going into the mountains to stay in this pueblo called San Antonio Huitepec. They got electricity in the 70s, along with potable water for the village. Just in the 2000s did they get potable water for individual houses, and now they have internet (since 2006). Anyways, the organizers of the program (from Earlham College, Richmond Indiana) have a connection with this village since there is a very large population of people from Huitepec that live in Richmond, and Patty and Howard work with them there. So that should be really interesting. We have opportunities to talk to students and teachers, asking any sort of question we want, I suppose. It always feels a little funny doing this sort of thing — are we exploiting them in the same way that they’ve been exploited for years? Is it… reverse discrimination in some way, deciding that they’re “different” and we want to “learn” about them? I don’t know, just some questions.

After Oaxaca I’m going on vacation to the state and capital city of Guanajuato, Guanajuato. It’s supposed to be really beautiful. The main reason we (being myself, Isana, Britany, Laura, and Laura’s homestay sister Lilia) chose to make plans to go there is that there’s an international music festival (I think it’s called San Valentina) for these couple of weeks. People from all over Mexico go, and also people from all over the world. I didn’t realize this until yesterday when I was talking to one of our teachers (Norma, who’s around 30 and I absolutely adore) who went when she was younger, but apparently the festival is a drunken drunk-fest. So that should be interesting. (Speaking of which, please don’t forget your mission of getting my mother totally hammered. Okay? Good. I feel like with the help of Jen Koeller, and maybe if you get my dad in on it, you could totally pull it off. Take pictures.) But the surrounding towns are supposed to be really beautiful and historical. I’m excited to be taking advantage of my time here and trying out many different things. Some people are going to Acapulco, which felt a little cliche to me. I’m only here for a couple months, and I’ve seen beaches before. I bet it’s less beautiful than the beach in Nicaragua which Matt and I went to when we were with Bertha and her totally crazy family….

I’ve been watching the presidential debates here, and they’ve been really interesting. It’s funny though — I feel very removed from it all but also incredibly impacted. When the US economy first crashed, the US dollar totally crashed here. One day it was 11 pesos for the $1, and the next it was 9 pesos for the $1. But now, with the economies in all parts of the worlds crashing, it’s skyrocketed. The peso has just lost so much value that sometimes it’s 13 pesos for the $1. God.

One thing that I’ve been finding hard to figure out how to deal with is the constant pressure to talk about how beautiful los Estados Unidos are. I get it all the time, everywhere I go and chat with people. A lot of it happens in my market stall. I love working there, and I’m really getting to know the fellow workers and now the clients (marchantes). So it’s fun to chat and joke around with them all. Also, I must say I’m getting pretty good at memorizing prices of everything (they change from day to day. Only by a couple pesos, but it’s important to relearn them everyday I go) and weighing things out and making change and all that. But anyways, now that I know everyone better often I get the “Wow, you’re from the North! I’d love to visit. Isn’t it great there? Ugh, Mexico is so ugly.” Meanwhile I’m thinking “PLEASE let me stay here for several years, especially if McCain wins. Also I think Mexico is absolutely beautiful.”

And how do you answer that? Whenever I say “No, I love Mexico” people make this face like “Yeah, right, you’re just saying that because I’m Mexican…” and then I go on to say that the US is often not really a nice place to live and there are a lot of problems with the government. One day I was saying that and the man I was talking to was like “Wait, the US, or Mexico? Yeah, Mexico is corrupt.” And I was like “No, I was talking about the US” since I was talking about lobbyists and how big businesses in reality do have a lot more power than the people do. So that’s just something I have to struggle with since I’m an American. BUT apparently a lot of people think I sound German (I roll my “r”s like a German does, apparently) so I think I should just say I’m German more often. Hahaha.

Speaking of which (governments and the like), there’s this intense teacher’s strike in Morelos (my state). So, demands started in June for all these reforms, and then the strike itself started the first week of classes, which was the second or third week of August. And for the public elementary schools it’s still going on. The propaganda here is incredible. The demands really aren’t that ridiculous, in my mind. But the news makes it out to be this huge teachers vs. parents issues, with teachers doing a hunger strike and some parents doing a hunger strike. OF COURSE we don’t see all the parents who agree with the teachers, and I believe there are a lot of them. The real base reason for all this is that the state wants to start privatizing education. God forbid if that happens. Private schools cost a completely unreachable amount here; I can’t imagine my “sister” here (she’s around 30 and has a 5 year old daughter Andrea in primary school) being able to afford that. She can barely afford her house — she (Paula) and her daughter Andrea eat the main meal, comida, at my house everyday. My mom says it’s because they can’t really afford to eat well in their house. So how is she supposed to be thousands of dollars (DOLLARS, not pesos) a year?!

But at the same time, my family also doesn’t support the strike. I understand — a lot of parents are understandably upset that their children aren’t in school. Plus, parents have to stay home with their children now. Many are sending their kids to classes which are one or two hours a day with teachers which cost $2 or $3 a day. But, if you work in a shop you really only make $11 a day — those parents cannot afford to send their children to these private teachers. My family can, but tons can’t. If the strike keeps going, in 2 weeks or so all the kids who haven’t been taking classes will have to stay back a year.

Anyways, so that’s kind of the background. And it’s interesting because we’ve been learning about social movements in one of my classes, and there was this teachers movement in Oaxaca two years ago. You may have heard about it because an American reporter was killed during the protests. But anyways, now there are all these protests in Morelos. Not so much in Cuautla, my town, but definitely in Cuernavaca which is the biggest city in Morelos and an hour and a half away from me. And so then yesterday and the day before there were protests in a town 15 minutes away called Mayuca, and we saw helicopters flying over. And actually when it happened I thought “Oh, ha ha, maybe this is like the protests in Oaxaca where they’re dropping gas on the protests to arrest people” and then I decided that was impossible.

Nope. Not impossible. Yesterday we talked in class about what was happening and what we aren’t seeing on the television, which is a lot. A whole bunch of people were arrested using the helicopters, of course. The idea being that nobody would know where the people were being taken. They did a lot of similar things in other fights against the people. The people’s movements here are amazing and resilient, and the repression from the government is pretty brutal.

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on getting personally involved. But it’s kind of terrifying to think about how the government is doing this. The governor isn’t having talks with the teachers, nor engaging in negotiations, but has ordered army and police into various towns in Morelos. Coincidentally two of the towns that have been inundated with army and police also are towns that have made a commission to try to combat the large corporations that have been destroying the economic viability of the small farmers here. Uff.

Anyways, it’s taken me two days to write this. It’s kind of a novel. I apologize. I kept getting interrupted. But now I’m going to send this. I won’t really be able to write back to you for a while, but I will for sure be reading. So please write!

Also, tell Matt I love him, please, and he should email me?

Also also, if you put this on the blog just take out the personal stuff, eh?

Mwah. Love you and Matt tons and tons. Also, my mom just came into the room to show me a scorpion that was in the laundry room. She had killed it but it’s tail and stinger were still moving around. I haven’t seen any alive. I think that’s a good thing….

Love love, Daughter Dearest

Dear People Who Read This Blog,

As you may know, my name is Hilary Burgin. I love the Canning-Millers more than most things in the world. I might go even go as far as to say that I love them more than I love chocolate and Kimballs. If you know me at all, you know that this is kind of a huge deal.

Seeing as this is the case, it makes me very upset and angry when Millers do not email me back. Ever. Even, for instance, when I write them nice emails which they then post on the blog, but don’t respond back to. Not even to say hello and that they are GOING to post things on the blog. So I find these things out from my mother.

This is a call to help more than anything else. Please remind Michael and Mathew that I am, in fact, still around, and that all they have to do is use their computers (which I know they love!) in order to get in contact with me. This will ensure that I won’t punch them in their faces when I get home in January. The next time you see Michael or Mathew, please pester them until they get Skype or email me.

I assume that this will get onto the blog and I will not get a response but that’s where your call comes in: you have the power to help.

Thank you, and take care,
Much love to all, except for Michael and Matt,
Hilary Burgin, AKA La Chica, writing from Cuautla, Morelos in Southern Mexico