Comexus Garcia Robles Reunion

On Sunday, 27 October all the Fulbright Scholarship recepients in Mexico gathered for our 3 day mid-term reunion. Hadn't seen most of these folks since our send off in Washinton DC end of July.
1. Anna from Virginia in Mexicali 2. Elizabeth from New York in Huehuetla 3. Margaret from Maine in Obregon 4. Jan from Montana in Cuernavaca 5. David from Minnesota in Ensenada 6. Billy from Minnesota in the D.F. 7. Melissa from Minnesota in D.F. 8. Brenda from Maine in D.F. 9. Nancy from New Mexico in Xalapa and myself from Colorado in D.F. What stories we had to share! We each did presentations that lasted a total of 4 hours..and its only been two months. Our experiences have all been very different with some common threads.
Comexus is the organization that works collaboratively here in Mexico with the Fulbright in U.S. They did a great job of organizing all our activities with visits to local restaurants in the area including a great one called La Casa de las Sirenas...gourmet Mexican food on a rooftop!
We also had a reception with ex-Fulbright becarios (scholarship recepients) from Mexico and local directors, such as Benjamin from the Benjamin Frankin Library.
This is a resource in the area that is provided by the U.S. embassy and comes with tight security. They have a wonderful website that anyone can access though:
www.usembassy-mexico.gov/biblioteca
definetly worth your time! All kinds of resources for teaching and just perusing.

It was great spending time with all my fellow becarios and their families.





Am now off to the beautiful white sand beaches of Cancun for my birthday celebration with my husband. When I return I will report on Día de los Muertos and what a wonderful and colorful celebration it is here in Mexico and what it represents.

Festival Cervantino

Friday morning we tried to leave the city bright and early in route to Guanajuato and the Festival Cervantino. I feel I must warn my blog readers if they ever attempt to drive in Mexico that the police here can be bought! It happened last week-end while we in Acapulco (100 pesos) and then again this week-end. We were so frustrated at being singled out probably because of the "Maine" plates, that we took a stand and refused to pay or deal with these 3 motorcycle cops. Advice: always have the American Embassy on your cell phone speed dial and make sure your phone is working in Mexico! After much drama and a call to the embassy these 3 young officers decided against pursing us any further and left with an apology! Consider yourself warned about driving in Mexico....p.s. the embassy is open 24/7 for help.

After the drama and the need for a shot of tequila at 8:00am in the morning, the rest of our week-end was wonderful. The drive up north was quite different from the drive to Acapulco...still very mountainous and scenic. On the road into Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo, we stopped at several talavera ceramic shops (one of the things this area is known for) and I made some early Christmas gift purchases. The prices were fantastic and the pieces are beautiful. We took a short break at a restaurant and encountered the UNAM American football team there! They were in route to their annual rivalry match with our school the Polytecnico on Saturday. College American Football is taking hold here and from the size of these boys I would say they would fair well against some of our schools in the U.S.

Next stop, Miguel de Allende, a small colonial art colony that has been discovered by Americans, in fact there is a huge retirement community there and you see many Americans around on the street. Very different from where I live in the D.F. This town is definitely worth a visit, being rich in history, the place where the Father Dolores Hidalgo, who started the move for freedom from Spain was born. It reminded me very much of small villages in Spain with the cobblestone streets and small alleyways...beautiful. Churches here dates back to the 1500's.

We arrived in Guanajuato around 4pm and after checking in at our hotel, the Camino Real...we were off to check out the Festival Cervantino. It is considered the biggest art, theater, music festival in Mexico. The streets were filled with college aged teenagers and lots of activity. Most of the big venues were sold out of tickets for their productions, we ended up purchasing one for the Auditorio del Estado and a Brazilian dance troupe....very entertaining. Other than that there were random acts of strolling musicians, mimes, Ecuadorian flute music and art and history around every corner. Saturday we visited approximately 5 different musuems and paid only $1.50, teachers are admitted free with an I.D. My favorite was the Iconográfico del Quijote. This is the museum dedicated to the author Miguel de Cervantes character Don Quixote. My second favorite was the museum, or birthplace of Diego Rivera. Each museum is so comprehensive and teachs one so about the culture and history of Mexico. This town has got to be on your list of places to visit.

Finally, on the way home Sunday we stopped in Queretaro, which claims to be the crossroads of Mexican history. They have an incredible antique water aqueduct running down the middle of town, very similiar to Segovia, Spain. Also, some beautiful churches and of course a zocolo area (center of town). Here we tried the barbacoa, and really enjoyed their open air restaurant. The temperature during the day in almost all of the towns we visited was in the 70's...very pleasant for strolling through Mexican pueblos!

La Playa!

Being the small town, wide open space type, I was feeling the need to explore what Mexico has to offer outside this largest city in the world. My coordinator, Edith offered us a night at her family's ocean home. On the way out of town you have to climb into the mountains because for those of you who aren't familiar with this area, it is approx. 7250 ft. starting here in the city. So we climbed and climbed and truly enjoyed seeing the wide open spaces of the mountains outside of town. We made a stop to eat in "Tres Marias" outside of Cuernavaca. These small places offer a variety of home style cooking and barbacoa, which is lamb cooked in an underground oven.

The down point was paying all the "cuota" or toll fees on the interstate...they add up to approx. $45.00 before you arrive into Acapulco...and then there's the return! We enjoyed the sunset from the beautiful house on the beach and just relaxing. My companions were, Edith, and colleagues/friends Brenda and Bill. We recharged and returned, with one more downside, traffic making its way back into Mexico City....apparently lots of folks exit the city for the week-end. Fortunately, the memory of a great and relaxing week-end outweighed this problem. Back to work on Monday and our second set of tests starting on Thursday.

What A Great City!

So many events this week ... it is hard to include all the details .... I'm going to try to summarize the week with comments and of course my favorite photos!

My students are working on oral presentations, and I was so impressed with their concentration that I had to take some shots. They will present in English, which is very stressful, but they have worked diligently and I am looking forward to hearing them on Monday.

Friday night we were invited to attend a "chareada" or mexican rodeo. It was a private event, and very beautiful with female riders showing their riding skills in full white dress, and men who rode the "Paso de Muerte". This is where they jump from a tame horse to a wild horse, while riding very fast! Two out of three made it...felt sorry for the one rider....he got up and gracefully walked out of the arena, but ouch! Not too many photos of this because of night, distance, etc.

Last week-end my friends Brenda and Bill from Winterport, Maine and I bought bikes! We were advised against it because of all the traffic, but after spending our week-end riding around a couple of different areas, this proved to be the wrong advice for us. In fact, on Sunday, the city actually closes two of the main streets in the center of town for all the folks to walk, run, bike, or whatever you choose! The streets take you to the Zocolo and all the way to Chapultepec Park. It was so great to be able to build up some speed and not be bothered with too many obstacles. Brenda says "this is their way of giving the city back to the people". ..for a few hours anyway(9am-2pm, Sunday). In my opinion, if they did it more often, it could be an answer to their pollution problem. We rode both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we rode in the park for many hours....touring this way gives one access to so much more. One of my favorite areas in the park is "the poet's row". They have bronze sculptures of the best Latin poets and some quotes from their work.....Sor Juana de la Cruz, Najera and José Othon to name a few...his poem is called "La Casita". We also came across a group of Indian performers that had the most beautiful instruments, a mandolin and a concha shell horn. At this place a couple of students approached us because they needed to interview someone in English for their class! We were of course delighted to tell them on film how we loved their country and hopefully our tape will be shown in their classroom!

Chapultepec Park is celebrating 100 years and with this comes lots of celebration. We happened on a stage with a mariachi band dressed in white, ballet folkórico dancers dressed in lots of colors, and a female cantante (singer). They were wonderful!
Right next to them of all things was an antique car show! Model T Fords and lots of others! They have auto clubs here too. On the way back on the Paseo de Reforma(a main street) I took photos of several unique park benches, what creativity in this city! In a city of 20 million people there certainly seems to be something for everyone...never a dull moment.

Festejar y Festejar

This is the word for "party". We were included in two separate celebrations this week...a retirement party and a baby shower. The teacher, Amparo had 30 years teaching and with the new policy from the government she decided to leave now...so that she wouldn't lose any benefits. The celebration was similar to many of ours and as always tears flowed when she was asked to make a speech. She will be dearly missed.

Next, we went to a baby shower for Lulu. Another teacher who will be leaving in a couple of weeks. She brought her other son Emilio, a real sweetie, who laughed when I showed him his picture on my camera! Christina was a beautiful and gracious hostess, a teacher who had left the Poly and is teaching at a school near her home in Bosque de Aragon. We ate pozole, broke a piñata and played lotería (bingo) in Spanish.

Lesson I experienced this week-end....the Mexican people love love love to celebrate life at any occasion and love being together and just chatting. ..i.e. the baby shower went on for 8 hours!