Today was kind of the first day I really felt like I was on vacation. We are here to work/volunteer, but that doesn't officially start until next week. Today the four of us did a few things together, and then I spent some time walking around on my own. I had my first jugo verde (green juice), which is a kind of smoothie made of orange juice blended with nopal (cactus), pineapple, and parsley. There might have been something else in there, but those were the only words I could decipher. It was super yummy and healthy.
We met a couple of our students today and set up a tentative schedule for next week. Both young women are interested in taking the TOEFL exam as well as just practicing their conversation skills. There is tourism here, but it seems to be predominantly other Mexicans, so opportunities to speak English are rare. From a traveler's perspective this is kind of nice because it feels a lot more authentic. There are American brands and things here, but it doesn't feel completely Americanized like a lot of other places in the world. And from a linguistic perspective it's awesome because people don't just automatically switch into English. I'm learning a lot by floundering my way through (and by interrogating Carrie, who is fluent, as we wander around), but I'm hoping to take some Spanish classes here as well. Some of the interesting/funny/fascinating things I have learned so far are:
enchilarse - there is actually a verb in Spanish that refers to overdoing it with chile
The words for married and tired are really close. I'm not sure if that is intentional, I just think it's funny. I thought someone was asking me if I was tired the other day, but they wanted to know if I was married.
Direct and indirect object pronouns run rampant. I feel like the word "se" appears all over the place and sometimes I can't figure out what purpose it's serving.
I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of at the moment. Tomorrow we head north to Tlalpujahua (yes, good luck pronouncing that... the native words here are like tongue-twisters) where we will meet some more of Candace's friends from years past. Apparently they make blown glass ornaments there so we will see some of that in action.
Tonight there was a fire twirler outside a cafe where we met one of our students. The first time I ever saw this done was in Montreal. Now whenever I see them, though, I can't help but think of the guy I saw in Tommy's Park in Portland who was trying to do some crazy move with a rope around his neck and started to catch on fire. Fortunately he had a friend there to put him out. Crazy.
We met a couple of our students today and set up a tentative schedule for next week. Both young women are interested in taking the TOEFL exam as well as just practicing their conversation skills. There is tourism here, but it seems to be predominantly other Mexicans, so opportunities to speak English are rare. From a traveler's perspective this is kind of nice because it feels a lot more authentic. There are American brands and things here, but it doesn't feel completely Americanized like a lot of other places in the world. And from a linguistic perspective it's awesome because people don't just automatically switch into English. I'm learning a lot by floundering my way through (and by interrogating Carrie, who is fluent, as we wander around), but I'm hoping to take some Spanish classes here as well. Some of the interesting/funny/fascinating things I have learned so far are:
enchilarse - there is actually a verb in Spanish that refers to overdoing it with chile
The words for married and tired are really close. I'm not sure if that is intentional, I just think it's funny. I thought someone was asking me if I was tired the other day, but they wanted to know if I was married.
Direct and indirect object pronouns run rampant. I feel like the word "se" appears all over the place and sometimes I can't figure out what purpose it's serving.
I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of at the moment. Tomorrow we head north to Tlalpujahua (yes, good luck pronouncing that... the native words here are like tongue-twisters) where we will meet some more of Candace's friends from years past. Apparently they make blown glass ornaments there so we will see some of that in action.
They are serious about locking their doors here in Morelia.
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