Week 2 Oct 2 – Oct 7

I had two goals this week. 1. Find the post office, buy stamps, and mail the postcard to Univ. de Houston. The International Studies director insisted that I mail a postcard to her, so I did. My other goal was to negotiate the price of a taxi ride. I haven’t do it yet, mostly because I haven’t had to go anywhere in a taxi and I haven’t gone anywhere alone. Eventually, it is gonna happen!! I have a tough time understanding numbers, so it will be an adventure.

I have been considerably braver this trip using Spanish than I ever did in Guatemala. I just go for it! It seems to all work.

The big event of the week was that I got sick. Montezuma’s revenge, so to speak. Back in Texas I sign up to particpate in a medical blind study to wear a patch for preventing tourist diarrhea in foreign countries. I am being paid, a stipend for my participation. Well, all last week, I was so confident that I had evaded Senor Montezuma, told the dr. this past Monday, all is great. Yeah, I had a growling bellying, but I am not going to get sick. Well, no matter how hard I willed myself not to get sick, Wednesday morning, I was sick. The other perk of this study is I get free medical care. So Rosalia, (lady of the home I am in) took me to the clinic. As I sat there in the clinic, I am thinking to myself; how I am going to communicate all this in Spanish. I was feeling kinda stressed, nervous, scared etc. But once again, I managed to express myself in Spanish, and in the end between my Spanish and English here and there, I explained myself, and got antibiotics. The next day, I felt 100% better. I hope once the antibiotics wear off I don’t get sick again.
I am in this blind study to develop a medicine through this patch that when worn before departure to the foreign country will eventually immunize tourists from such issues. I thought for a while that I got the “good” patch. Now I am not sure, maybe it didn’t work? Or did I get the placebo? Perhaps, a different sort of bacteria than what the patch was meant for? I will never know, only the scientists who are conducting the study are the only ones who will ever know.
Since I got sick and medicated, I am not sure if I will be dismissed from the study or not. I see the dr. on Monday, so I will find out then.

I was just proud of myself for getting through another situation, successfully communicating in Spanish.


School is coming along. Had another end of the week exam today. I have lots of concepts to learn the details of and a lot of verbs to memorize. I am the only student here, currently taking the classes for credit. Everyone else is here for personal education for various reasons. No pressure for them!

There is another new student in my house he arrived last weekend. A very nice young man, named Noé (pronounced N0-way, Noah in english) he is from France. He is 24 yrs, and is set to begin a new job in December for Air France as a flight attendant. He is hoping that learning Spanish will help in his work. He lives upstairs in the house. Where as, my room is basically outside of the house.
So now there is 3 languages bouncing around the dinner table. It pretty funny at times. He and I in our “learning” Spanish, except Noé knows some English, so if he can’t figure out the Spanish, then he will ask me in English. If I can’t figure out the Spanish, I ask him in English. It gets pretty funny at times.

Some of this week’s observations: Teen and young adult couples smooching is a very common sight here in the mall, on corners, restaurants, and on quiet streets. Down the street from me it seems is a popular place to park. I am guessing that since kids here, live with their parents till they marry, if they want to be alone, they have to find someplace other than home!

Motorcycles are not big here; I see them but not a lot. As like in Texas, helmets are optional.

I have come to realize that the garbage issue here is pretty big. Today we drove to some sort of museum (in my opinion, it was a big room w/posters on the wall), but we drove past the hugest mountain of garbage I have ever seen. Someone is still picking trash up from the curbs around the neighborhoods. From what I saw today, they just pick an open area, and start dumping, right here in town. People are driving past the giant mountain of garbage, walking past etc. It was just awful. I know that this garbage issue is a big political issue as well. I am guessing that is probably why there isn’t a solution yet. I ask Rosalia about it, she said that they have no place to take the trash, so they just pile it where the can. She said the officials try to find land out of the city but so far everywhere they look, they are told no. NIMBY I suppose to a certain extent. From what I gather, this is a fairly new problem but I am not sure. I have also read in the local paper there is some sort of strike of the garbage truck drivers. Seems like a very complicated problem. Not easily fixed either.

Saturday myself, Claudia y Noé took a bus to a small town about 1.5 hrs from here. It was really neat. This town called Taxco (tass-co) is a historical town. It is historical for an incredibly ornate church that dates back to the 1750’s. Also, because it is the silver capital of the country. So all the buildings have to retain the historical look. All white, with a certain building style. Also, this town is situated on the side of a mountain. Wow, it is either all up hill or down hill!!! Pretty impressive views!!
There were tons and tons of little stores selling silver. Mostly jewelry. It was just overwhelming for me. I bought other stuff!! I will most likely go back later and get some silver. All silver stamped “925” supposedly means it is 92% silver. If someone fakes the stamp…it is jail. If there is no stamp it is silver plated.

Enough for this week. More next week. I am working on photos but my internet connection via wireless is so incredibly slow. I could cook dinner in the time it take to load a photo!! I will keep trying though!!

Hasta Semana