Guadalajara, Mexico: Primera Semana (first week)

Yes it really is a week since my trip began...depending on how exactly you want to use the word "began." If by "began" you mean when I left my home in Austin, well then, I have been rather more than a week because of the days I spent in El Paso with my good friend. But if you mean when I actually got here to Guadalajara, it is slightly less than a week--despite my efforts to the contrary.

I really did have a flight to Guadalajara on Sat. I bought the ticket and had an email with a confirmation number and everything. But upon arriving in Juarez airport, the man at the service counter informed me that they had changed their flight schedules and that there was no plane for me to board. Or technically, there was a plane for me--but it had left three hours earlier. He said that they had sent an email to me to inform me of this schedule change, but it wasn't this office, it was the US office in California--a story I was not terribly inclined to believe because i never received such an email. I was even less inclined to believe it when he offered me a free round trip ticket coupon in recompense for the mix-up (why pay me off if they hadn't done something wrong?).

So, he rearranged my ticket for the first flight in the morning--a task which only took him about an hour and a half--and I returned to El Paso for one more night. My original flight plan was a non-stop flight; the new plan made a stop in Mexico City and meant that I was in traveling for about 12 hours that day starting a 5am. For those who have traveled with me before, you know my typical system for traveling on planes: 1) love the take off and watching the city fade away, 2) remember how tight and constricting the plane is. 3) spend the majority of flight distracting myself from an increasing sense of claustrophobia. 4) fight bouts of nausea on the descent while I try to figure out why I put myself through this. 5) get off the plane and try to blot out the previous few hours from my conscious memory. 6) successfully blot out said memories and begin planning my next flight. There is probably a name for that sort of neurosis.

But I did successfully make it here to the city. Since then, I have been trying to adjust to life here in old mexico. Of course the biggest difference is the language. Right now I have the communication skills of a 5 year old child--and not one of those homeschooled kids who is reading Tolkien by the time they are 8. No, a normal 5 year old. I can figure things out if I have enough time to read or listen, but not nearly enough skills to really participate in a conversation for more than a few sentences. Needless to say, for a man like me who loves words, and loves to talk, and loves the English language, it is mildly degrading and not a little frustrating. I've been making progress, and I am hoping that in a few weeks I will have the capacities of a 12 yr old: basic language skills complete, but still mostly ignorant of complicated topics or highly inflected language (i.e. sarcasm or irony).

I do like my classes very well. I have two tutors: one in the morning and the other in the afternoon for a total of 6hrs per day. I do some "workbook" stuff--fill in the blanks, grammar drills, etc--but the vast majority is simply practicing talking and listening. So, in short, I sit around and talk for 6 hrs everyday. So far, our topics have ranged from 'small talk' to more substantial themes like sociology, travel, theology, immigration, and jokes. Next week I'm going to ask my afternoon professor to tell me about Mexican history--a topic of which I am woefully ignorant. There are about a dozen other students at the school, all of whom are seminarians or priests from the states.

I stay with a host family down here. Their house, which is very standard architecture around here, is very different than American houses and it would be difficult for me to explain. I should post up some pictures soon, which will do that job for me. But it is enough to know that I have my own habitacion slightly apart from the main house, with my own bedroom and bathroom. My family consists of an older couple, who are very kind and very Mexican--in fact those two go together very often. They have two nieces who go to school in town here and use a room during the weekdays--I think. I have hardly seen them around. I have three meals a day at the house, following the Mexican custom of having the main meal midday, around 2:30pm.

I think I shall enjoy myself more as the time goes on and I become more familiar with surroundings, customs, language, etc. In the meantime, well...Mark Twain once suggested that the greatest for of punishment he could think to inflict on one of his fellow citizens would be to make them the American consulate in Tunisia, mostly because he believed that the culture was so incompatibly different the person would go insane of boredom. Mr. Twain is a rather insightful man.

Umm, I will post some more later, but the power just went out here in starbucks and I have a very limited battery supply on my computer. I better post before I go black! My thoughts and love goes north. Adios.