On How I Eat Spicy Food Now and Hug Less Awkwardly

Everytime I leave the country, I come back having shed at least one of my mal-adaptive idiosyncrasies. These are things that I didn’t like to do because of reasons subjective, like personal awkwardness or old habit. When I was in Europe I finally started to eat tomatoes, for instance. Not because I really wanted to shake off my old ways and try new things, experience the country without restrictions and expand my way of being. I simply had no other choice. I spoke no other languages and could not ask for food without tomatoes. There was no way to avoid it, especially considering that the part I hate(ed) about tomatoes is that runny, seedy part that seeps out on the all your food and taints it in a way that you can’t pick out or wipe with a napkin. I also learned how to sleep with no covers on. These days, as long as my ears are covered, I can manage a crowded, sweaty, non-air-conditioned hostel in July. In Costa Rica I started mixing my food and letting different courses touch on my plate. In fact, many of you probably have no idea that my friends in college used to mix their food in front of me just to test my nerve in the face of something that I disliked so much. They also used to ask me if they could hug me. Like, everytime. They would say, “Laura, I am going to hug you now, are you ready?” Really, my hugging problem wasn’t with them so much. It was the hugs acquaintances that would really get me, which I guess plagued me to the extent that all my closest friends knew I had “hugging issues.” Why do these people I barely know want to press their bodies against me? I wondered. And so I would never see the acquaintance hug coming and would inevitably be slow to react and make the other person feel awkward for having tried. Then, to make up for my reticence, I would try to hug a little longer and harder, while they would hug looser and try to pull away first, in response to my apparent lack of desire to hug them. It always ended like a middle school dance.

Fast-forward to Mexico. Mexico, where you are you expected to hug and kiss all of your colleagues, your boss, the cleaning staff, their kids and grandkids, the neighbors, the guy who directs parking on your street and practically anyone you have met more than twice. Also remember that I live in a house where in a single day we can have 100+ staff members, guests, friends and passer-bys stop in. I literally cannot go downstairs in the morning without having to hug and kiss at least half a dozen people. Can you imagine the awkwardness I had to muddle through at the beginning of this thing? I was always lifting the wrong arm, trying to kiss the wrong cheek, kissing too close or too far from the mouth, banging cheek-bones, etc. Everytime a new person would come into the house my eyes would dart back and forth, trying to asses the situation. “Have I met this person yet? Is that their wife? Is Melina going to kiss them? Was that a lean-in, or a calf-stretch? Left or right? Left or right?!”

Needless to say, I have been forced to overcome my fears.  Old,  young, I hug and kiss them all.  I eat the spicy food they give me too.  I eat it with gusto.  Yes, maybe I am just poor and have to eat what is given me.  And yes, maybe I am just trying to culturally adapt and fit into a culture that still continues to elude me.  But you must agree, it’s doing me some good.

Life These Days

This is officially my last apology for not updating my blog.  Not to indicated that I will be writing more frequently, necessarily, but that I’m just writing when I can.  I am up on the roof, where we finally have wireless Internet, enjoying the mild Mexican winter and not having to work anytime immediately.

Well, we are short on volunteers and I am spending extra time in the reception these days.  My vacation home was great; I got to see a lot of my favorite people and was really filled with love and joy for all my old friends.  Simple companionship isn’t too hard to come by here, where I live with between 15 and 45 people, but there is nothing like a road trip with your some of your best friends from college, New Years Eve with someone who knew you when you still wet your pants, and long, static-free late-night telephone conversations from your parents couch.  Overall, I learned that this is a good time for me to be here, that my closest friends will always end up in some right place at some right time with me, and that both community/tradition and independence/innovation are invaluable to me.  Coming back to the Casa felt good, however strange- my room here is more my room than any other, my life here is more mine than any other I visited back home.  But, the universe is busy, busy, busy unfolding before me, and I feel changes coming on.

I was recently in the midst of applying for Teach for America, but decided to withdraw my application.  For various reasons, including not wanting to sell my soul to another non-profit (a la The Fund), wanting to travel this summer and having the funds to do so and realizing that teaching 9th grade English in Weldon County is not a logical next step for my life journey, or whatever you want to call it.  So I am investing my extra money and energy to taking Spanish classes again, trying to dance more on the weekends, learning Mexican cooking and (hopefully) writing.

Other than extra reception work, I am trying to get re-invested in my program work and find ways to get fulfillment out of sometimes mundane tasks.  I am hopefully spending the rest of my time here researching and creating a standing display on migration issues in Mexico.  I have been deeply touched and inspired by an El Salvadorian family who came to live with us for a month over the Christmas Season.  They fled from El Salvador after their daughter was kidnapped by a police-backed gang, leaving behind not only their house and personal possessions, but also 15-year old Jasmine, who has probably been sold into prostitution, according to her mom Lucy.  Their 7-year old son has down syndrome, which is complicated by behavioral problems due to the lack of training and resources available to families in El Salvador with children with handicaps.  11 year-old Astrid has been out of school for the last 6 months, as her family made their difficult exodus to Mexico City.  Daniel needs various surgeries and medicines because of his developmental problems, but his family can barely make rent.  Lucy has a tumor that she can’t afford to have biopsied.  George, an accountant in El Salvador, spends his days looking for manual labor that will pay enough to buy food.  Lucy is trying to get the kids in school but has to scrape the money together to buy uniforms, text books and school supplies.  I have been spending one day a week at their house, playing with Daniel and trying to offer friendship to Lucy, who feels she has failed her family in so many ways.  They are living in a one bed-room apartment, cook on a hot plate and sleep together on two old mattresses pushed together on the floor.  Actually, me and a visiting ex-volunteer took them the other mattress just last week, crammed into Juano’s truck with me and Eric and Daniel in the back on top of the bed and George and Juano up front trying to navigate through an incredible web of Mexican barrios.  Before that Lucy and George were sleeping on their tiled floor.  Anyway, I have become inexplicably drawn to this family and look forward to their visits more than any other aspect of my Casa work.  They have given me an incredible opportunity to learn about the real forces at work behind the floods of immigrants heading to the US.  “At least there you can go to school for free,” Lucy tells me.  ” At least there you can go to a doctor and find a job and feed you kids.”  And while they know it will be an incredible and difficult journey, and while they dearly miss their home culture and life, they have no other choices, Lucy explains, as she puts a coin in a beggars cup and offers me lunch.  Her generosity and perseverance inspire me everyday.

So, starting with this family, I am beginning to find ways to work directly with people again and not just in conferences and offices.  I am  still casually looking for jobs in the States and trying to plan summer things, but for now I am here and am finding contentment in spite of a frustrating work environment, lack of personal space and a machismo culture that offends my every feminist sensibility.  I am renewing my love for frustrating Casa regulars and looking forward to the return of Giovanni and the new beginnings new volunteers will bring.  I am watching little Nita and hopefully learning banjo and knitting in exchange.  So, friends, remember:  “You are a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.  And whether or not it is clear to you, the Universe is unfolding as it should.”  Be well.

On Mother Nature, and Why She Used to be a Goddess

“Sabes patinar?” has been the question of the hour in the house recently. “Do you know how to skate?” Ice-skate, to be exact. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, ice-skating. In Mexico. And I, in a valiant attempt to organize yet another holiday social event for the Casa, spent the better part of last week organizing agendas, rearranging schedules and researching the World’s Biggest Outdoor Artificial Ice-Skating Rink. Aqui, en el D.F. The pista de hielo has been the talk of the town for months. Apparently, people begin waiting in line to go ice-skating as early as 4 in the morning, in order to get the best time slot. Tickets are easily gone before lunch-hour. Lines snake around the cathedral, hug the Palacio National and weave through a maze of protective metal barriers designed to keep out ill-intentioned line cutters. Children, sweltering under the hot Mexican sun, have cool drinks dribbled into their mouths has they wait for hours for their precious arm-bands. And, after much ado, I too found myself in this line, with Till, Fanny, Fanny’s friend and Astrid, a 10 year-old El Salvadorian girl who’s family is staying with us after their recent migration. We were quite a group, to say the least. But, after 2 hours of waiting, 3 drinks, 2 trips to the porta-potty and 5 second-guesses and false attempts at leaving, we finally made it to the ice.

It was a sight to behold. Till, a nimble and cold-weather German, took off quickly in a blaze of glory and glinting blades.  Fanny and her freshly-arrived friend skated off together.  Astrid and I suffered less glamours fates.  Astrid, being totally unable to stand, much less skate, was quickly taken under the wing of one of the rink’s many helpful assistants and dragged around forcefully by the wrist.  My own wavering hand was quickly taken up by a skinny 16 year-old assistant with braces and slicked-back hair who was so interested in hearing my life story he nearly caused me to crash into various small children and smooching couples. After I got my footing and freed myself from his adolescent advances I took a look around me. Of the several hundred or so people on the rink, approximately 18 of them could skate with anything that could be called proficiency. The rest of them took one of two approaches: 1. wobble forward, arms out, look nowhere but down and scream with fear at the top of your lungs until you fall, or 2. plunge ahead with tremendous force, also look nowhere but down, and scream with excitement at the top of your lungs until you fall. Needless to say, this system equaled complete disaster. Groups of teenagers pulled each other down in lines stretching across the entire length of the rink. Close to 100 people clutched the outer wall and dragged themselves along in a hunkering line, seeming in total fear of their lives. Young macho boys crashed with tremendous force into anyone in their way. The 100+ assistants, who I had prematurely deemed superfluous, now appeared to have no control of the chaos. I was alone, caught in a mob of well-intentioned people who unfortunately had no business at all being on ice. There were not 5 genes between them that prepared them in any way for moving across anything frozen.  I was probably one of 10 people in the group who had ever seen snow stick to the ground.  I realized I was trying to ice-skate with 500 people who wear down coats and scarves when it drops below 60.  Their babies are so profusely wrapped and bundled they literally pour sweat off their little capped heads for the first 3 years of their lives.  I live in a city where central heating is a sign of excessive luxury.  Mother nature, I realized, was laughing her ass off.

Luckily, we all made it out alive, relatively unscathed.  My only main causality, aside from wet pants, was a sunburn. “How’d you get that sunburn?” everyone asks. “Oh,” I reply, matter-of-factly, “I was ice-skating.”

Excuses, excuses

I have been using the fact that I haven’t written anything in two months as an excuse to continue not writing anything.  One would think that I would have learned in college that this tactic does nothing but leave you living in a filthy house, surrounded by beer bottles and dirty clothes, drinking out of the coffee pot and working on 4 paper drafts on your computer.  But alas…the human mind is more complicated than that.  Anyway, here I am, weighted down by weeks of news, parties, events, pictures, travels, and moments in general.  I guess life has gotten a little predictable in its unpredictability.  I am getting used to watching men with bags of broken glass roll around in said glass on the floor of the metro until their backs bleed and they beg for money.  The sight of transvestite prostitutes in my neighborhood have ceased to surprise me.  We say hello.  Spending the weekend going to a photo exhibit, eating sushi, watching a Mexican rock band, being serenaded on the roof and buying greasy tacos from from my lazy-eyed taco vendor has become everyday.  Just picture me:

Dodging traffic with Jill and Nico’s baby strapped to my chest in a traditional Mexican rebozo.

Salsa dancing with my girlfriends while our partners bust out a choreographed, fancy-footed line dance in front of us.

Us expanding our meal for 7 into a meal for 17 in order to include the refugee family staying with us, long-term guests, new volunteers and friends.

Using traditional Mexican Day of the Dead bread to form sentimental figures for my dearly departed, while dressed as a Gypsy and breading chicken for frying, southern style.  Talk about culture clash.

Josh and I riding into Acapulco on a pimped-out school bus, complete with neon black lights and a day-glo Jesus.

Me attending a 2-day conference with the economic solidarity network we work with, followed by me leading a round-table discussion between Mexican fair-trade producers and community members about responsible consumerism and migration.

And what countless things more…

Anyway, maybe that will catch you up a little bit.  A little bit.  At least maybe I can start again, with more intention.  Christmas Time is here, with all capital letters.  Mexico is crazy about Christmas.  We spent 3 days decorating our 35 room house with garlands, lights, flowers and tinsel.  Last night we had a huge caroling party, the highlight of which being Melina and I’s traditional American rendering of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  It went something like:

Mostly Mexican Crowd:  “Rrrudulf de rrret nused rrrienteer, hat a bery sheny nuse…”

Melina and I, alone:  “LIKE A LIGHT-BULB!!”

And on.  We ended the party by eating a ton of food and all sitting back and complaining of stomach aches.  Almost like an American holiday, apart from the hot sugar-cane punch and and toasted coco-nut sweets.  I can deal with that.

Thank goodness for the editorial process

I was feeling very proud of myself yesterday afternoon, after finishing a whole page of my “to-do” list, including my articles, in English and Spanish, mind you, for the Casa’s quarterly newsletter.  I figured I’d run the fundraising page by Giovanni, just so he could check for any missing accents and gender agreement.  About half way down the page Giovanni’s uncontrollable laughter made me realize I might have been a little over confident about my translating ability.  The punch-line of my fundraising plea read:

“I know we can count on you to give generously in our new anus!!”

How much money can you fit into a new anus?  I dunno, but I hope it is enough for more language classes for volunteers….

Learning Curve

Here´s a pretty great list of things my friends and I have recently said in Spanish.  I apologize for the curse words, but they are necessary for the full effect.

Can I have some ham with which to wash my self? (Soup is the close runner-up)

Yes, and we also have a semen newsletter.

Lis, would you please take a shit on me?

Can I shit on the baby?

I´d like some more lawyer on my sandwhich, please.

I really like to urinate. I do it all the time. I´m really good at it, too.

What is the word for my hole? (While pointing downward, nonetheless.)

Don´t worry, Adam can shit you to the taxi.

This is a very serious lake.

The room I am looking for is on the sex floor.

What is this word, fuck? Is it something you do with vegtables?

Nico, while trying to explain to a large group that you should only ask directions from Mexican women:  You should only ask for women’s digits.  The men never respond. 

……probably more to come on this front.

¡¡Pictures…finally!! And no thanks to me.

So, I finally obtained some pictures from Melina, (since I seem to have inherited my mother´s nack for losing cameras), and can finally add some visuals about my life here. This first picture is of Fanny, Melina and I, sitting up on the roof one of many nights, probably having some ridiculous, lingually confused conversation about Mexican food or YouTube.

This is a close-up face series, the first two taken in the back of a cab and the last one on Mexican Independence Day. (No, I wasn´t painted like an idiot when I had the run-in with the cops.)

The baby is here!!! She was born on the 19th of September, which partly explains why I have been so slack lately with the writing. I had two dreams about her in the two days before she was born, and nobody believed that she was going to come early. I tried to make Jill and Nico let me name her, since I predicted not only her due date, but also her gender (they thought boy the whole time). Alas, they setteled on Agnita Clay. It would be confusing to have two Lauras in the house anyway…

Here is a nice mix of random pictures in no particular order. If I was´t so technically inept, I would find a way to put them with their cooresponding posts, but I can´t, so here they are anyway. The first is just a shot of me and Giovanni, hard at work taking ridiculous pictures of ourselves with Melina´s camera. I am not really about to vomit, though it appears to be the case here. The second is a picture of all of us at the Independant Sex Worker´s Rally, where I gave my impromptu speech. There are some sequential pictures of the speech itself as well, which I will try to put up some day when our internet doesn´t suck and we have more fuctioning computers. Following is a nice shot of the fireworks from Independence Day. The angle doesn´t do justice to the complete disregard the Mexican government seems to have for fire-safety. Luckily, we all managed to regain normal vision and neck position after the show was over. Finally is a picture of me and some friends out on Giovanni´s birthday.

This is where I live. The door to my room is directly to the left of the green table. One day I might get together a picture of my room, but I have discovered that others don´t have the same love for my florescent-yellow walls as I do. It´s like the sun, I tell them. It gives off a nice light, but you can´t look directly at it or you risk burning your retinas….

Well, hope you enjoyed the show. More to come later, one would hope. In other news, I am getting back to serious work after slacking off during our friend Ben´s last few days in town, which included a soccer game, a bag pipe concert, mad salsa and cumbia dancing and a drag show. This city is pretty incredible. It is in fact a true megalopolis, I just learned. Which explains why watching a bunch of Mexicans in kilts playing traditional Scottish music, followed by a bunch of Mexicans in drag singing Spanish versions of Grease songs makes total sense to me these days.

My project on economic justice and migration is going well. I still have a ways to go on the event I´m planning for November and judging by the speedy way these days are going I can tell I am, even this early, moving into the procrastiation stage. It´s just like school, except instead of bad grades you just suffer feelings of inner failure and embarrasment. No, seriously, I think it is going to turn out well. I am still looking for a refugee who would be willing to give a short speech about the effect of economic injustice on his/her situation as a migrant. There´s still a lot of research to be done, some organizing with the panel members, and getting used to waiting forever in Mexican time for responses about meetings and proposals, but it is moving along. More updates later.

Dance classes are moving along a little more quickly. I have apparantly mastered the cumbia and have the necessary skills to start learning slasa and merengue. It´s a little disconcerting to finally stop feeling like a totaly clumsy white girl, only to be thrust back into something freshly challenging to my pathetic coordination skills. But, it is an incredibly fun part of the culture and was pretty rewarding the last time we went out dancing with the locals. It also doesn´t hold a candle to the yoga class Fanny and I just started, in terms of difficulty. I remember the days when I thought ¨turn left¨ was a difficult direction to follow in Spainsh. Now I am trying to get in touch with my inner light, while translating ¨pull your bellybutton upwards and back towards your sternum and curl your back into the form of a streching cat.¨ I actually totally fell over during our first class and almost toppeled my neighbor, after once again confusing left and right. But, this actually happen to me quite frequently in English too, so it´ll just take some getting used to, I think.

W ell, there´s a long one for ya´ll. Hope you enjoy. Come visit. It´s Japanese oragami and sychronized swimming demonstartions next week.

Reasons Number One and Two to Keep Practicing Spanish

Reason number one to keep practicing Spanish is to better understand
what, exactly, is being asked of you when you are in new and
interesting situations. For example, last weekend I accidentally
agreed to make a speech, in Spanish, in front of a modest crowd of 50.
It was a sunny Saturday, Independence Day for Mexico, and we were on
a Casa outing to support our neighborhood´s yearly rally of
Independent Sex Workers. Sex work in Mexico is not forthrightly
legal, but it is generally tolerated. However, sex workers here, like
in the States, still face a lot of legal and social discrimination.
The idea of the yearly rally is to raise awareness about the issue, to
humanize the sex workers who live and work in our neighborhood, and to garner community support to protect the rights of these women. The
Casa crew rolled up with a rickety cart full of coffee for the event,
and we hung around for most of the day. I was fighting off a pretty
mean tequila hangover from the ´Mexican Night´ party we had been to
the night before, and after sitting in the sun for a few hours
drinking coffee on an empty stomach I was starting to loose my ability
to speak coherently in English, much less Spanish. So when the event
coordinator asked me for some help, her question translated itself in
my head like this: ´Can you help me blah blah blah you all are really
nice blah blah and we want you to blah blah.´ Well, this all sounded
very good to me, so I agreed to offer my services. The lady seemed
very pleased indeed, and I started to wonder just what I had agreed to
do. To clean up afterwards? To hold someone´s screaming baby? To
become a gringa street worker? Then things started to look a little
scary. The lady asked me how she should present us. Then she started
talking into the microphone and kept looking suggestively in my
direction. ´Oh, you are going to make a speech!´ Fanny exclaimed.
The pieces where starting to add up. I was summoned to the stage.
Luckily I didn´t have too much time to get nervous, because with the
amount of diarrhea I´ve had these past few weeks, it wouldn´t take
much for me to crap my pants. I´m really not too sure what I said,
but it was along the lines of us wanting to support our neighbors and
participate in our community. I got a lot of affirmative nods and
applause, which did little to reduce my overall nausea. But I made it
out relatively unscathed, and I scored a free meal. I think if I had
thrown in a ¡Viva Mexico! or two nobody would have noticed my
faltering grammar or inability to roll my r. Also, compared to reason
number two to keep practicing Spanish, making a little speech was no
big deal.

Reason number two to keep practicing Spanish is to be able to
effectively bribe cops. I learned about this first hand at the huge
Independence Day celebration we attended in the city center. About 14
of us went out, guests and volunteers and friends, looking for a place
to eat and drink and celebrate our lives in Mexico. After spending an
hour dodging confetti eggs and small children wielding aerosol cans of
foam, looking desperately for a cantina with seating for 14, we
finally decided to ask the police if we could drink on the street. We
had seen a few people doing so, and this being the biggest Mexican
party of the year, we thought we might get lucky. And indeed it
seemed so; we asked two policemen and both told us that is was fine.
However, just as we commenced drinking some Indio in front of the
7.11, about 6 cops swarmed in on us, demanding that we hand over our
beer and report immediately to the police station. We explained our
situation to them, told them they could take our beers and we would go
right home to bed. We pleaded gringo ignorance, complimented their
country and put on our saddest, most remorseful faces. We went back
and forth like this for the better part of an hour, me talking with
half the cops and our Mexican friend Eduardo talking to the other. I
was starting to realize that the skills I honed from years of talking
my way out of speeding tickets were going to be of no help to me now.
It was looking pretty clear that we were going to go to the station
and either pay 90 bucks each or spend ´a night or two in jail,´ as my
cops put it. Just when we were starting to give up hope, Eduardo
huddled us together and explained that the cops had agreed to accept
45 dollars, in total from all of us, in cash, right there. We emptied
our pockets, picked up our beers, and went in search of plastic cups.
Now this is a Spanish language skill I need to work on.

On Giving Hugs to Machines

my computer is finally working!! to me, this is a miracle. to adam, the new volunteer who fixed my computer, my amazement is like the amazement of a person who fixes a salad and can’t really imagine or explain how it happened. anyhow, i’m very happy to be reunited with this machine and the 14 very special c.d.s it holds in its bowels.  this sudden turn of events has also given me the urge to start making hollow promises like, “i’m going to write more now,” but as i sit here at the end of a 12 hour day, balancing precariously on a huge exercise ball in an overcrowded, junk-filled office, i know this to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

i am, however, writing now, which has proven to be quite a feat recently. last week we had orientation all week–meetings, brainstormings, tours, discussions, etc. we were assigned projects in collaboration with the casa’s peace and international understanding program, which is pretty exciting, and are also becoming fully functional in the hospitality program. we are currently being giving the opportunity to use these new skills “trial by fire,” as melina put it, as nick, jill and bridget, our director, are all out of town. it seems there has been quite a gap between volunteers and nick told me monday that he hasn’t had even one day off since june. jill is about to pop with a baby, so it’s great that they could get away for a few days, “before it’s all over,” as nick likes to say. joking aside, we are all joyfully expecting the amazing changes a baby will bring to the house. jill is planning to give birth here at the casa with a midwife, and melina, fanny and i are moved to tears almost bi-weekly at the thought of this. amazing times here at the casa.

i’ve also started working this week on my external projects, one with our economic solidarity program and one with refugees.  the casa is constantly trying to find a balance between its hospitality program and its mission to promote peace and international understanding.  these two overlap in so many ways–when we have a tri-lingual conversation over breakfast, when we host volunteers from all over the world, when researchers spend months here studying mexican history or film, when human rights watch and witness for peace use our space for conferences and meetings. but then there is the guest who doesn’t wash his dishes, or the community member who tries to spend the night on the couch in the lounge, the crazy cleaning ladies who moved all the towels where nobody can find them.  these logistical things, for some, confuse the space between “hotel” and “quaker center for peace and international understanding.” but for me, they are daily reminders of the real-world stuff that happens between people and i think they keep us grounded in the everyday.  because after attending an hour-long meeting about a client’s refugee status, or researching fair trade development in mexico, sometimes i just want to build a fort with someone’s kid, or talk about music or go try to find the towels.  and it’s wonderful that that is part of my job too.

En El D.F.

most days when i walk to my language class i pass this dad and his daughter going to school. she is dressed in classic catholic school attire–knee-high socks, plaid skirt, pigtails. she has a pink and white bookbag with unicorns and stars on it and a matching lunchbox. her dad usually carries her bookbag and holds her hand as they walk together. from behind they look like a little picutre from a public service announcement about how to be a good parent. watching them walk through my neighborhood in the morning, amongst the stray dogs and litter, in the din of traffic and city noise, really epitomizes mexico city for me. it is a city of contrast, the biggest city in the world with thousands of tiny, tight-knit neighborhoods, the most polluted city in the world surrounded by beautiful mountains. the streets are constantly crowded with people and shops, wild, drooling dogs, trash and cars. the tiendas that take up the sidewalk sell everything from deep-fried chili relenos, to baby clothes, to hard-core porn, to liberal media books. on a normal trip to the market i usually hear at least one classic song from the 80s, shakira, something from american top 40 and mexican polka. and in all this is the casa, a little haven of food and dancing and crazy american hippies and ridiculous multi-lingual conversations. i feel pretty at home here allready, i think because there is always so much crazy stuff going on, in and out of the house, that it is hard to feel out of place. also, i guess in part, when you are learning a language it is harder to pick up on cultural clues that would in other situations make you feel uncomfortable, because you are constantly just trying to hold onto the edge of all the conversations going on around you and respond in the right tense. riding in the metrobus the other day my friend fanny and i had a conversation in spanish that sounded something like this:

me: i was wanting that i went.

fanny: went

me: go

fanny: to went where

me: to the thing. to go.

fanny: to go to the coast?

me: no, to go to the thing. i don´t know how to say.

fanny: ok. 

and on and on. we were on the bus with giovanni, going to meet one of his friends in another part of town. fanny is french, about the same height as me, with fair skin and black hair. giovanni is about half a foot shorter than us and is a native mexican. we are quite a threesome when we go out together, giovanni constantly getting looks from the locals as fanny and i struggle through conversations in spanish and try not to clothesline people on the metro with our long arms and height advantage. and while now i can think objectively about how ridiculous we look, at the time its all i can do to keep from falling over and having my feet impaled by someone´s stilleto.